My multicultural country is having a serious identity crisis. These days, the country's immigrant melting pot is feeling more like a powderkeg. The latest spark in our mini culture war came this week from the social affairs alderman (who is Morrocan himself)for the city of Amsterdam, who says women who wear burqas are having trouble finding jobs. His solution? Take it off or lose your benefits.Ahmed Aboutaleb has proposed introducing legislation that would allow the city to cut welfare payments to women who insist on wearing a burqa if it can prove the full-body covering is the reason she can't find a job.
12 comments:
We have been through that sort of idea over here. It’s neither sensible or practical.
People should be able to wear what they want to, although I think if all the men in your country saw this image, they might want to ban all womens clothing.
Happy Earth Day.
what's so important about the burqa' anyway. years back i remember a reportage on the news about muslim girls who were asked to take off the cover at school in france. it's just amazing to me that this is an issue.
I'm torn about this. I want people to have their freedoms, but in Canada there are Muslim groups that are trying to get Sharia law recognized in Canadian courts. I know women who have moved to Canada to escape exactly that, because they see it as a threat to their freedom. It's hard to find the balance.
My stance on this is: Let woman dress however they wish!
I think some burqa's are actually awesomely beautiful. There should not be any discrimination for any clothing whatsoever.
In a more "evolutionary sense", how can we "westerners" decide when it is the right timing to drop the veil for peoples who have been trained to obscure themselves for generations?
Banning Burqa?
Provide an elegant alternative instead.
As a woman, I have a real issue with the burqa. From what I've read and heard, women don't usually choose to wear it--they are forced to wear it. From what I've read in and about the Koran, nothing in Islam requires a woman to walk around in a tent. If it allowed to be worn in public, would that allow other women who do not wish to wear the burqa into being forced to wear it? Moreover, there is an issue of security. The burqa completely obscures the identity of the wearer.
When you emigrate to another country, you have to be prepared to try to integrate with the local culture. You don't have to try to be just like the natives, but you do have to change and learn to adapt to local customs.
Banning burqa...banning culture....banning a lifestyle....banning... banning... banning...
And our freedom is being blown away...!
When we force them to take it off, how different we will be from those who forced them to wear it?
just a thought.
What is more sad, however, is to do that under the title of "integrating"..."getting along" the rest of the society....
That's so dangerous. In a time when people are getting to know more about each others, the intolerance growing bigger!
How about making trees, houses, cars, all one color?
More harmonious!
How about we all think the same?
eat the same!
and dress the same!!!
a perfect peaceful world...heh?
the only problem, it will be "boring"..."tasteless"....and "retarded" world.
diversity....tolerance...that's what we need.
And the weaver said, "Speak to us of Clothes."
And he answered:
Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful.
And though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy you may find in them a harness and a chain.
Would that you could meet the sun and the wind with more of your skin and less of your raiment,
For the breath of life is in the sunlight and the hand of life is in the wind.
Some of you say, "It is the north wind who has woven the clothes to wear."
But shame was his loom, and the softening of the sinews was his thread.
And when his work was done he laughed in the forest.
Forget not that modesty is for a shield against the eye of the unclean.
And when the unclean shall be no more, what were modesty but a fetter and a fouling of the mind?
And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.
By Khalil Gibran
Mirvat--
You wrote (about my comment)-- 'adapt to western laws or have a huge problem'.
wow! what a surprising thing to say.
Really surprising, since I didn't say it. Please reread it. My belief if that people should try to adapt. You want to run around in a Burqa or a bikini, fine with me as long as it is the woman's choice.
I believe you refer Jon's comment, not mine.
yes i did refer to jon's comment which i didn't have anything to say about it really.
then i started responding to your comment which made more sense.
sorry if it came out confusing
Jon,
The heart of Western Law includes a tolerance of minority rights. The majority doesn't just overrun the minority; protection of individuals is a major part of the American constitution. The reason it's built into the law is because of the natural group tendency toward an insistence on homogeneity and discrimination of perceived others (back in the day that could include Quaker, Shaker, Jew, Protestant, Anglican etc.) I wholeheartedly believe freedom of self-expression is central to any modern society, East or West, North or South.
Radical Islam isn't affecting you or your "security" in the form of the neighbor lady employed at the deli in her shalwar kameez and scarf. In fact, economic mobility is probably the best way to counteract extremist doctrine. Islamist ideology finds fringe appeal in desperate people powered by distorted concepts of shame, pride, rage, justice.
It seems to me that the central problem raised by DA's post was how to respond to the difficulties of people wearing burqas finding employment in Amsterdam. In my humble opinion, until the Dutch government takes a stand encouraging places of employment to be more affirmative in their action (rather than placing the blame on the potential workforce), de facto segregation will rule the day. As countless sociological studies show, immigrant women are best empowered by employment. Telling a woman to take off her burqa is such a radical and backward answer to the problem.
I live in NYC, where Hasidic Jews in full black cloaks and hats, Catholic nuns in habits, and Muslim girls in scarves ride the same mass transit bus lines. Frankly, I find safety in encouraging openness and diversity. If that ain't modern, what is?
My two cents.
Fz
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