Why are the French scared of burkinis? - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14711391
The undignified and ridiculous debate about women's swim wear is a sign of the depth of France's identity crisis.

France’s ‘Burkini’ Bans Are About More Than Religion or Clothing

By AMANDA TAUB AUG. 18, 2016

WASHINGTON — There is something inherently head-spinning about the so-called burkini bans that are popping up in coastal France. The obviousness of the contradiction — imposing rules on what women can wear on the grounds that it’s wrong for women to have to obey rules about what women can wear — makes it clear that there must be something deeper going on.

“Burkinis” are, essentially, full-body swimsuits that comply with Islamic modesty standards, and on Wednesday, Prime Minister Manuel Valls of France waded into the raging debate over the bans in some of the country’s beach towns, denouncing the rarely seen garb as part of the “enslavement of women.”

This, of course, is not really about swimwear. Social scientists say it is also not primarily about protecting Muslim women from patriarchy, but about protecting France’s non-Muslim majority from having to confront a changing world: one that requires them to widen their sense of identity when many would prefer to keep it as it was.

These sorts of statements are a way to police what is French and what is not French,” said Terrence G. Peterson, a professor at Florida International University who studies France’s relationship with Muslim immigrants and the Muslim world.

While this battle over identity is rising now in the wake of terrorist attacks, it has been raging in one form or another in French society for decades, Professor Peterson said. What seems to be a struggle over the narrow issue of Islamic dress is really about what it means to be French.

During France’s colonial era, when it controlled vast Muslim regions, the veil became a “hypercharged symbol,” Professor Peterson said. Veiling was treated as a symbol of Muslims’ backwardness, and Frenchwomen’s more flexible standards of dress were seen as a sign of French cultural superiority, views that helped to justify colonialism.

Colonialism set France up for the identity crisis it is experiencing today by ingraining a sense of French national identity as distinct from and superior to Muslim identities — and, at the same time, holding out the promise of opportunity to colonized Muslims, who began migrating in large numbers to France. The resulting clash has often played out in debates over clothing.

The veil remained a potent symbol of difference as colonialism collapsed after World War II and Muslims from colonized countries flocked to France. But now, that difference was within a country trying to sort out its own postcolonial identity.

Over generations, the veil became more common among France’s Muslims, as a religious practice and, perhaps, as a symbol of their distinct cultural heritage. It was a visible sign of the way that France itself, as well as its role in the world, was changing.

As a result, the veil became a symbol not just of religious difference, but of the fact that people of French descent no longer enjoyed exclusive dominance over French identity. France had become a multicultural and multiethnic nation, where traditions meant very different things to different people.

The colonial-era symbolism of the veil as a sign of Muslim inferiority made it a convenient focus for arguments that the “traditional” French identity should remain not only the dominant but also the sole cultural identity in France.

Burkinis may seem frightening because they are seen as threatening that particular type of French identity by expressing an alternative form of identity — in this case, as Muslims. Many French, rather than believing that those two identities can coexist, perceive them as necessarily competitive.

There is even a pejorative French word for the introduction of these alternate identities, “communitarianism,” the growth of which is seen as a national crisis.

Muslim clothing items such as the veil or burkini have become symbols of the fact that French national identity is no longer the sole domain of the demographic groups that lived there for centuries. Rules like this summer’s burkini bans are meant to prevent the widening of French identity by forcing French Muslims not only to assimilate, but also to adopt the narrower, rigid identity.

This is a method that France has been using for decades, to repeated failure.

John Bowen, an anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis, said France tended to experiment with such restrictions at times when it was struggling with both domestic and international tensions relating to Muslims and the Muslim world.

This began in 1989 with the so-called affaire du foulard (“affair of the scarf”), in which three French schoolgirls were suspended for refusing to remove their head coverings. Ostensibly, this was because the scarves were visible religious symbols and thus ran afoul of the French rule of laïcité, or secularism. But laïcité had been on the books since 1905, with head scarves nonetheless by and large permitted.

What changed, Professor Bowen wrote in a book on the subject, were events elsewhere in the world that made Islam seem like a particularly pernicious force. In 1989, Iran’s leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa against the novelist Salman Rushdie. Around the same time, some Algerians formed the Islamic Salvation Front, a hard-line Islamist party and later insurgency.

Banning head scarves from French schools became a way to deal with the anxiety arising from those domestic and foreign events, and to stake a claim to protecting French values.

Head scarves in schools returned to the national spotlight in 1993 and 1994, as the French authorities worried that young men from Algerian immigrant families would join the Islamist insurgency in Algeria. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, veils were once again a focal point for fears of Muslim communities that were isolated from mainstream French society and culture.

And this summer, France is reeling from a series of deadly terrorist attacks, and is increasingly concerned about young French Muslims’ traveling to Syria to join the Islamic State or other jihadist groups. Once again, some in France view the drive for assimilation as a national security issue.

The veil is an especially potent symbol of anxiety over assimilation because wearing it is a choice. Whereas fixed characteristics like race or skin color do not imply any judgment on French culture or values, clothing implies a decision to be different — to prioritize one’s religious or cultural identity over that of one’s adopted country.

Garment bans are meant, in effect, to pressure French Muslims to disregard any sense of communitarian identity and adopt the narrowly French identity that predates their arrival. But trying to force assimilation can have the opposite effect: telling French Muslims that they cannot hold French and Muslim identities simultaneously, forcing them to choose, and thus excluding them from the national identity rather than inviting them to contribute to it.
#14711399
Burkas and burkinis are a declaration of war. Of course some of us don't need Burkas or burkinas to know we are in a war of extermination, of annihilation. The Muslims have been engaged in a 1400 year war to exterminate all non Muslim cultures. It doesn't matter that most Muslims are not conscious of this. The template for there strategy or rather strategies is the life of Mohammad. There were crudely three stages of Jihad.

1 Free speech, free religion, peace and tolerance
2 Legal through the steady application of Sharia law
3 Open, naked terror.

Note , liberal, moderate, "progressive" Muslims, or anchor Muslims as I prefer to call them are particularly useful in first stage Jihad. Burkas and burkinis are a sign of the growing confidence of Muslims to start moving inot second stage Jihad like Mohammad did in Medina. This ban on burkinis is just the beginning of the resistance Atlantis, you ain't seen nothing yet.
#14711410
The French aren't "scared", they are repulsed by the message that a burka, burkini or any other means of hiding a woman's body under meters of textile is sending. You could as well ask why Germans are "scared" of Thor Steinar t-shirts.

Feminism 1919: Burn your corsets!

Feminism 1969: Burn your bras!

Feminism 2019: Wear a burka!

:knife:
#14711412
They are afraid of burkinis because they know that this signifies a failure of French secularism and French multiculturalism. There was a naive belief not that long ago, circa 2005, that one day Muslims in Europe would become Europeanised and there would emerge a "European Islam".

This idea is as naive as it is racist. If Muslims are to live in Europe then they should be allowed to do so in whatever way they please. They should not have been invited in on condition that they must suddenly transform themselves into something they can never become. Someone from Algeria will always have ties to Algeria. To ask an immigrant or descendent of immigrants to forget their ancestral values and identity is racist.

This only proves that the multicultural project cannot work. It is Eurocentric and racist. Mass immigration to Europe must therefore stop.
#14711510
I am still shocked anyone would actually choose to move to France.

Anyway for what it worth I think this does not go far enough. Anyone living in France should have to wear a beret and ride a bicycle and wear a string of garlic around their necks and smoke and not shower. Then French culture will truly be safe for future generations.
#14711598
The French state has chosen this simple tactic in order to placate the fears that is vibrating through French society at the moment. It is beyond belief stupidity and one more counter-productive measure against something that should be freedom of choice.

It feels as if the entire world is living in a constant state of chock now a days, a massive Identity crisis which has been largely brought on by an increasingly globalized world. Old certainties (fabricated, of course, but belief makes them real) are vanishing and in human insecurity lies the seed of fear which spawns hate and rejection.

My one largest critique of the push for a liberal-democratic order globally has long been the lack of foresight into what measures will be needed to alleviate these simple human psychological defense mechanisms. Simply rejecting these instincts as primitive is showing to be insufficient and a new game plan is desperately needed.
#14711602
The Quran doesn't specify any item of clothing; it merely calls on men and women to dress modestly and standards of modesty clearly differ from place to place. Why it is considered offensive to expect people to follow local dress codes I have no idea. I don't wonder around Saudi Arabia in a speedo and Saudis shouldn't wonder around London in a sheet. It's just common courtesy.
#14711604
Well stated, Atlantis. No one should be banning things based on religious grounds. Ban burkas, and all face concealing garb, in certain locations for real reasons: security reasons. eg. At airports, banks, and where identification is an issue. Don't base it on religion, as that IS discrimination.


My religious headgear is as such... The machete is optional.
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#14711615
Atlantis wrote:The French haven't said if the burkini ban only applied to Muslimahs or if Christian nuns had to change their dress code too. :lol:


You do know the difference between a nun who voluntarily decides to leave secular society to live a life in seclusion, devoted to her god, and a girl who is forced to vanish under a tent because she's the sole property of her husband who doesn't want other men to look at the goods.
#14712928
Vive la liberté, ne touche pas à mon burkini :D

France's highest court suspends burkini ban in test case

Suspension concerns single ban in southern town but is likely to set precedent for other places that prohibited full-body swimwear

France’s highest administrative court has suspended a ban on the burkini in a test case brought by human rights groups, pending a definitive ruling.

The ruling from the state council suspends a single ban in the southern town of Villeneuve-Loubet, near Nice, but is likely to set a precedent for other towns that have prohibited the full-body swimwear on their beaches.

Under the French legal system, temporary decisions can be handed down before the court takes more time to prepare a judgment on the underlying legality of the case.

The bans – made in the form of mayoral decrees – followed the Bastille Day attack in Nice and the murder of a priest in Normandy.

They do not explicitly use the word burkini but instead ban “beachwear which ostentatiously displays religious affiliation”, citing reasons such as the need to protect public order, hygiene or French laws on secularism.

At a hearing before the state council on Thursday, lawyers for the rights groups in the Villeneuve-Loubet case argued that the bans were feeding fear and infringe on basic freedom.

A lower court had ruled on Monday that the Villeneuve-Loubet ban was necessary to prevent public disorder.

The row over burkinis has intensified after a woman in a headscarf was photographed on a beach in Nice removing a long-sleeved top while surrounded by armed police.

The city banned the burkini on its beaches last week, following about 15 seaside areas in south-east France where mayors had done the same.

The bans have divided France’s government and society and drawn anger abroad. The former president, Nicolas Sarkozy, used the first of rally of his campaign for the 2017 election to call for a nationwide ban on the swimsuits, while the Socialist government has become divided, with the prime minister and one of its leading feminist voices at cabinet-level taking opposing positions.

The burkini bans have prompted a row over the French principle of laïcité – secularism – amid accusations that politicians are twisting and distorting this principle for political gain, and using it to target Muslims.

The French republic is built on a strict separation of church and state, intended to foster equality for all private beliefs. In theory, the state is neutral in terms of religion and allows everyone the freedom to practise their faith as long as there is no threat to public order.


Some people do look better in burkini than in bikini. The habit of frying one's skin in full sunshine is also very unhealthy. To cover oneself in the burning sun is pure good sense. Why do they have to mix race and religion in every sauce?
#14712932
Authoritarian Islam is a considerable threat to French society, as authoritarian Catholicism was prior to World War II. The French are banning overt symbols of religiosity in public spaces as pursuant to their tradition of anti-religious authoritarianism. It predates the arrival of Algerians, North Africans and other Islamic immigrants. As the Islamic religion continues to manifest itself as belligerent, domineering and chauvinistic, the French will no longer be able to maintain their delusions of 'multicultural' self-denial. Although it'll be easier for the French authorities to acquiesce, some instincts can not be so easily suppressed as the Eurocrats would like them to be, and civilians will take another route.
#14712943
First, let's look at the factual error in your post: it is not historic. Bolding and underlining it does not make it true. The killing of indigenous poeple is ongoing, as is the destrcution of indigenous cultures. And a disturbingly high number of black men in the US will have to work in unpaid and forced labour during their lives.

Secondly, you are comparing a bathing suit to genocide and slavery? Lol. If that is the best argument that you can bring to the table, then this should be a very relaxing discussion.
#14712954
Look at all progressives parading their support for garment that is symbolic of anti-feminism and oppressive patriarchy. It is truly a bizzare sight.

Yet when a European traditionslist speaks out against feminism like me, they all persecute me. Yet when a brown guy does it, they support it. Cause otherwise its racist.

You people are crazy.

Yet I don't even support such an abomination as burkini. I would probably cry if I ever see frolleinini in one.
#14712959
So if a couple want to go on a midnight stroll along the beach does the woman now have to take her clothes off?

It's like I've said before, stringent immigration laws aren't racist, bringing boat loads of immigrants to live in ghettoised enclaves and work the jobs we don't want to do for minimum wage is racist. It will inevitably lead to the growth of a massive cultural underclass that will endure for generations to come.

This particular underclass happens to have a violent religious fervour sewn throughout a small minority of the population, but it's enough to do damage.

Insane arguments like this burka thing is just one side effect of many that will result from the deliberate malformation of western society.

America the great cultural melting pot has failed abysmally, can we not learn from their mistake? No, instead we take it into overdrive. Unfortunately we'd rather sit at home and get free money than have to clean toilets and wash cars.
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