Emily
MikeHere we go again. Echoing, in part, what Prime Minister Sarkozy said months ago, French Immigration Minister Eric Besson said on Sunday that burqas are “inacceptable” in France and are not compatible with France’s “national image.” (See for instance this report from Radio France Internationale.) He departed from Sarkozy somewhat by saying that banning it in public is “probably not necessary.”
Besson is quite an Immigration Minister. Last week, the French government deported three Afghans. Besson said that he doesn’t intend to stop this practice and will meet his objective of 27,000 deportations this year. France has already deported 21,000 undocumented immigrants this year.
But Besson wants to go farther. He wants to “launch a major debate over national values and identity,” explaining that immigrants should be required to have a better mastery of the French language, of French history and culture. The reason for this is “to reaffirm the values of identity and the pride of being French.” And “‘I think, for example, that it would be good for all young French people to have the chance to sing The Marseillaise at least once a year.’”
As Sarkozy’s statements had previously done, Besson gave the clear implication that the French government wants to eliminate the burqa not as a women’s rights issue, but because it wants “fundamentalist” Muslims out of the country: “In France, the nation and the republic remain the strongest ramparts against … fundamentalist tendencies. France is diversity, and France is unity.’
(BTW, Besson was born in the former French protectorate of Morocco.)
It sounds like Besson and CNN bigot Lou Dobbs would get along great. (See my comment about recent events concerning Lou Dobbs.)
Filed under: Burqa and Other Veils, International, Religion Tagged: | Besson, Burqa and Other Veils, France, Politics, Sarkozy
Isn’t the problem of niqabs and burqas one of “choice?” We in the West deplore what we see as the “patriarchal oppression” symbolised by these items, but what if the woman wearing one doesn’t see it as an instrument of oppression? Is not the oppression in the fact that many women were given no choice as to whether to wear them or not? In our “free” society we can pretty much wear (or not wear) what we like– the point is that no-one tells us to do so. The French government seems to be going a little too far; it’s a bit like political correctness, in that people may change their vocabulary but their attitudes remain the same. A niqab or burqa doesn’t in itself “oppress” anyone; the attitude of those who would force women to wear them is what is oppressive, and if the ban works, other ways of oppression will probably materialise.
Thanks for the comment. The wearing of niqabs and burqas is certainly a subject that has thoughtful arguments on both sides. What I would like to bring up here is your statement that, “A niqab or burqa doesn’t in itself “oppress” anyone; the attitude of those who would force women to wear them is what is oppressive, and if the ban works, other ways of oppression will probably materialise.”
If I understand you correctly, you are saying that a person, when deciding whether to take a step to combat oppression, should factor in the possibility that a new form of oppression might take its place. In my opinion, any step to combat a violation of human rights is welcome, even if there is a possibility that it might lead to some other violation. Of course, if it is absolutely certain that a new worse violation will result, that is a different matter and should be factored in. I just don’t see that here. If the ban takes effect, the women will treat it as another “exception” to the rules they have learned from their religion and from their paternalistic families. (For instance, see my recent post about the French woman who received a fine for driving while wearing a niqab but did not mind lowering the niqab to show her “identity.”)
The men are another story and, although I don’t know what other forms of oppression you think might result from a ban, it seems to me that the only other form that could result is that the men will not allow the women to go out of the house at all. In my opinion, that’s only a matter of degree different than being forced to wear a burqa or niqab or not being allowed to leave the house without a male escort. In other words, I think banning burqas and niqabs should be considered without factoring in the possibility (not “probability” as you wrote) that the men will not allow the women to leave the house at all.
[...] times on the French move to ban the wearing of the burqa. (For instance, see this and this and this.) The final decision has not yet been made. The Guardian has yes-no opinions by Mona Eltahawy, [...]
[...] ban the wearing of a burqa in all public places. (For instance, see these posts in December and October.) Emily and I have disagreed about the proposed ban. I wrote that enacting such a ban was a [...]
Wait a minute. You seem to be implying that the best way to empower women who may have their choices constrained by a coercive religious tradition may not be to further take away their agency and force them all the way out of the public sphere. And that racism may play more of a role in people’s attitudes than the feminism that often cloaks it?
So common-sensical it’s almost radical. Couldn’t agree more.
On October 26, the “Progress Report” of the Center for American Progress gave this summary of recent events concerning Lou Dobbs:
CNN’s Lou Dobbs Problem
Last week, CNN aired the four-hour documentary, “Latino in America,” which explored “how Latinos are reshaping our communities and culture and forcing a nation of immigrants to rediscover what it means to be an American.” The documentary has become a “rallying cry for activist groups” that are attempting to get CNN to take action against nightly news anchor Lou Dobbs. As one of CNN’s leading TV personalities, Dobbs has used his stature to infuse hate and vitriol into the immigration debate. Latino and immigrants’ rights activists have launched several campaign — including Drop Dobbs, Tell CNN Enough is Enough, and Basta Dobbs (Basta is Spanish and Italian for “stop” or “enough”) — that are aimed at pressuring CNN to hold Dobbs to journalistic standards or drop him altogether and raising awareness about Dobbs to his show’s advertisers. “Lou Dobbs is the gigantic anti-immigration elephant in the room at CNN,” said Roberto Lovato, one of the organizers of Basta Dobbs. “If CNN won’t drop Dobbs, it’s time that his advertisers did. It’s time to do more than simply highlight the damage Dobbs does and the threat he poses,” wrote John Santore of Media Matters for America, one of the organizations behind the Drop Dobbs campaign. Dobbs has responded to the efforts against him by claiming that liberals think Hispanics “are so stupid that they’ll believe that I am some sort of racist.”
DOBBS’ CONSISTENT HYSTERIA: “Over the years, Lou Dobbs has consistently used his CNN platform to spread hatred and fear,” states Drop Dobbs. Indeed, Dobbs has accused immigrants of bringing leprosy to the U.S. and promoted the “Aztlan” conspiracy theory that Mexicans are trying to reconquer part of the country. He has also “repeatedly amplified the falsehood that undocumented immigrants are disproportionately violent” and even discussed whether President Obama has a “document issue,” indulging the fringe “birther” movement. He has called a high-skilled foreign-worker visa program an “assault on middle class working men and women” and refers to those who advocate for sensible levels of legal immigration as “open border lobbyists.” More recently, he has promoted the myth that a “gaping loophole” in the proposed health care legislation will provide health care coverage for “illegals.” With the immigration debate once again beginning in Congress, rhetoric of this sort can be dangerous. In fact, a report by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund revealed a close correlation between the increasingly volatile immigration debate and a growing number of hate crimes against Latinos and “perceived immigrants.”
CNN CIRCLES THE WAGONS: With “Latino in America,” CNN is displaying a level of hypocrisy by trying to “woo Hispanic viewers with a prime-time documentary while still giving Mr. Dobbs a nightly forum.” And not only does CNN provide Dobbs with a platform, but the network did not address his positions in the documentary at all. CNN has defended the choice to leave Dobbs out of the film by saying that “just because Dobbs talks about the issue on his weeknight CNN show, it doesn’t mean that anyone else on the network who reports on immigration has to talk about Dobbs.” If people feel that the topic has been avoided, “they should do that documentary then,” said Mark Nelson, vice president and senior executive producer for CNN’s documentary unit. “This is the documentary we did.” “A lot of things aren’t in,” added the program’s host, Soledad O’Brien. Not only did CNN fail to mention Dobbs in its documentary, but it edited out criticism of him from a taped interview that aired on Anderson Cooper 360 last week. According to the New York Times, civil rights lawyer Isabel Garcia asserted during the interview that CNN was “promoting lies and hate about our community” by airing Dobbs’ program. “They heavily deleted what I did get to say,” Garcia said. “We believe CNN should not cover up Lou Dobbs’ falsehoods, if it wants to maintain its journalistic credibility,” editorialized the Spanish language daily La Opinion. “In serious journalism there is simply no room for liars.”
DOBBS TO FOX?: The New York Times reported earlier this month that News Corp. is “keen” on luring Dobbs over to the Fox Business Channel, and that Dobbs “met for dinner with [Fox News chief Roger] Ailes last month.” As Mediaite’s Rachel Sklar wrote, “Dobbs, for his part, has shown that he has no problem picking fights; it only makes sense for him to find a home at a network where they do, too.” However, not everyone at Fox seems excited by the prospect of Dobbs joining the team. New Fox hire John Stossel, formerly of ABC, said that he doesn’t “subscribe” to “the Lou Dobbs-kind of rants about immigrants wrecking America.” “I think immigrants by and large do good things for America,” he added. (In typical fashion, Dobbs proceeded to rip Stossel as a “self-important ass” with his “own brand of myopic idiocy.”) Fox News host Geraldo Rivera, meanwhile, said, “One of the aspects of our reality in the United States now is the defamatory tone of the immigration debate and how that immigration debate has slandered an entire race of people” — a reality for which Rivera largely blames Dobbs. “He discovered that one of the way to get people to watch was to make of the image of a young Latino trying to get into this country a profoundly negative icon,” Rivera said. “Lou Dobbs is almost single-handedly responsible for creating, for being the architect of the young-Latino-as-scapegoat for everything that ails this country.” Rivera added that one of his bosses assured him that Dobbs “is not coming to Fox News.”