It's been bugging me recently. Holocausts don’t begin with concentration camps they begin with the concentration of ideas . Brainwashing finds a majority of people in darkened alleyways with loaded guns looking for reasons to pull the trigger. Go ahead Muslim, make my day. In law in France Muslim women are instructed to wear certain clothes. Women who defy this law are being physically assaulted by members of the public who now feel emboldened. Belgium recently passed a similar law. As the far right rises across Europe the concentration of pressure on the Muslim community intensifies. We have been here before.
We are part of a process. The switch where community turns to genocide (as a solution) is psychological. Go Ahead Jew make my day. The assassination of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan, was used by Hitler’s administation as a trigger. Ninety-one Jews were killed, 30,000 Jewish men—a quarter of all Jewish men in Germany—were taken to concentration camps. Around 1,668 synagogues were ransacked, and 267 set on fire. This raiding was known as The Nights of Breaking Glass – Kristallnacht. It is viewed by historians as part of Nazi Germany's broader racial policy and the beginning of the final solution and the holocaust. If genocide begins in the manipulated mind of the majority then how close are we to transferring from that into its next step – the physical act. Imprisonment and strange demands like those that dictate how a person should dress are just the beginning. Whichever way you dress where do you stand?
It's not about fear. I'm not afraid of children who suffer abuse but I don't like it. I see all of us as equal no one should have to hide and i wouldn't be so crass as to 'have a go' a woman wearing a burka as this would further victimise a victim of oppression. I accept anyones right to wear what ever or as little as they want with out harassment and though people living in Europe can wear it thru choice the burka has been a tool of male control over women. I actually feel it is a garment that serves to fetichise women”s sexuality further by hiding what nature creates as if their bodies are sinful per se and treats men as if they weak minded fools who have no responsibility for their actions. When burkas are worn by shy cross dressers I'll feel a lot better about them.
Yes. And where do you stand on high heeled shoes? Might there be similar outrage?
Yes. And where do you stand on high heeled shoes? Might there be similar outrage?
The “radicalisation” of Islam and that of Judaism have created reactionary forces in a very polarised world, fascits fighting fascits. The burka is clearly a tool used for the social control of women, it symbolizes fear of women (the world psyche is badly out of kilter this is epitomized by the fact that all the monotheistic religions have male figure heads. Mother nature once revered becomes colonized and repackaged as the “virgin” Mary, her potent power neutered). In Suadi Arabia and Iran where temperatures are searingingly hot it is an abomination that women are obliged to walk around garbed from head to foot in a large swathe of black cloth, it is a form of apartheid, they have no choice and are harrassed by the police if their head covering is not properly in place or they are otherwise “inappropriately” dressed. That is indefensible.
As for adopting Western modes of Female dress such as high heels that is a polarisation of the issue of who decides what a woman wears and how she projects herself. The difference is that in say London, while there are overbearing advertising pressures to aspire to certain looks there are no police or laws to oblige women or men for that matter to adhere to these forms of dress or body image.
As for genocide, it has and continues to take place in the form of barbaric foreign policy (such as ten years of sanctions against Iraq leading to the deaths of over 1 million children) also ongoing wars, invasions and the violence of free market economics killing thousands around the globe everyday.
This reply goes to show total lack of understanding about why the niqaab is worn. I do not wear it, but I do wear the hijaab, but I will defend the right of any one to… wear it.
At the the time of the PROPHET, the order was sent down for his wives to wear the niqaab, because of several reasons, including political, protection and practicality. At that time they were being marked as targets for attack and it was difficult for them to go out as they were in the minority, and to prevent the enemies from getting the upper hand with further attacks the divine order was sent . No other women in the muslim religion were ordered to do so.
However there is a tradition in Islam to follow as closely as possible the actions of Prophet and his companions, out of love for them and because he and his companions are deemed to have set the best examples and deeds of following Islam.
Many women that wear the niqaab therefore do so to emulate what was done at that time to get as close as possible to the way Islam was practised then, as well a for extra modesty in what many people believe to be a highly sexualised society.
Why people feel threatened by a handerkerchief sized piece of material really is beyond me and really this whole thing is about demonsing a set of people to create divide and fear in our communities.
Interestingly I have never heard of anyone complain about Mary the mother of Jesus's ( peace be upon them) head covering , she is always portrayed with that head covering even today, and nuns who choose to cover their heads.
As for removal of the niqaab being necessary for work, well, does that mean we ask surgeons and nurses to take their masks off because it affects their communication in the theatre? It doesn't by the way, which really makes that argument of detractors of the niqaab rather spurious.
Genocide is a specific targetting of individuals pertaining to a specific ethnic or cultural group. Deaths caused by the gross inequalities of free market economics do not target in this way therefore cannot be bracketted under genocide. Having said that genocide has been and is used as a tool to clear the land of people and their cultural practices in order to aquire it's resources and crucially to deny cultural and political autonomy. This was seen in Central and South America in the 1980s.
With regard to the demonising of Muslim peoples it is something that has gone on for hundreds of years, and was a conscious political decision in order to maintian a sense of superiority and global power. It led to the denial of the cultural/intellectual links between Europe and the Arab countries of the East. Therefore Greece was cited as the root of all Western civilization. Such denial and subversion of global history impoverishes us all and perpetuates the divide and rule mentality that is consistently proves to be our undoing.