You cannot wear the burqa and become a French citizen

Burqa-Clad Woman Denied French Citizenship

The  case is the talk of France. The highest administrative court has denied a woman citizenship because she wears a burqa, the head-to-toe covering that shows only the eyes, sometimes not even them.

Faiza Silmi, a 32-year-old Moroccan who lives on a housing estate south of Paris, said she applied for citizenship because she wanted to be like her husband, Karim, a Frenchman of Moroccan background, and their four children.

But on June 27 the State Council denied her request on the grounds of “insufficient assimilation”. In the name of religious radicalism, the court said, she had adopted a practice “incompatible with the essential values of the French community — notably the principle of equality of the sexes”.

In effect the court has said that because she shuts herself off from society by wearing the burqa, she will be symbolically shut off from France. It is a tough decision. Is it fair?

It is certainly significant. A country has denied citizenship to someone who has not committed a crime, rejected the nation’s law or failed to learn the language (Mrs Silmi is fluent in French), but because of her private beliefs.

The case opens questions that are vexing many countries: what are a society’s values and can it impose them as a condition of belonging? Across the West, including Australia, governments are asking migrants to take citizenship and often language tests to show loyalty to their new country. In the face of unease about immigration, globalisation and terrorism, there is a contest to define national identity and common values. In Europe, the challenge of absorbing 15 to 20 million Muslims is the flashpoint.

In France the burqa decision is not so controversial: politicians of right and left have praised it. Many Muslims are also troubled by the burqa. Fadela Amara, a government minister, a prominent feminist and a Muslim, said the burqa was not a religious sign but “the insignia of a totalitarian political project that promotes inequality between the sexes and is totally lacking in democracy”. Another Muslim, anthropologist Dounia Bouzar, said that “to refuse the burqa is to respect Islam”.

Yet the case comes as clashes between France’s aggressive secularism — the confining of religion to the private sphere — and the claims of a small minority of Muslims are growing ever more common.

Last month, to widespread anger, a court annulled a marriage after the groom discovered his new wife was not a virgin. A leading medical association has protested against men who refuse to allow their wives to be examined by male doctors.

Brisbane Times

FrontPage Magazine

great Turkish headscarf war

Turkey’s increasingly Islamic Government wants to relax a ban on the Muslim headscarf as traditional secularists fight to maintain it – and Turkish women are caught in the crossfire

Zeynep tugs the knitted cotton hat down over her headscarf. “Secular!” she says. Then she pulls off the hat, leaving just the orange fabric around her pale, earnest face. “Now, not secular!” I’m relieved that she is laughing, sees the funny side of having to look like a Smurf to complete her MA in history. The headscarf war in Turkey is so grave and bitterly entrenched that it has brought angry millions onto the streets. It is why the country’s constitutional court this month decides whether the democratically elected AKP Government should be removed from office. A square of coloured silk may yet cause a military coup.

Even so, the code that dictates what Turkish women may or may not stick on their heads when they study at universities or take government jobs has a comic absurdity. In the wig shops that have sprung up across Istanbul, the Christina Aguilera-ish blonde dos are worn by the clubbers and transvestites who party in bars around polyglot Taksim Square, but the bestselling model is a mouse-brown, fringed bob of synthetic hair, bought in the thousands every September by devout Muslim girls, to be pulled from bags and on to heads to replace the scarves that must be removed before they can pass through college doors. Turkey, always a gateway between Europe and Asia, is the nexus of our most fervent global dialogues: East v West, secularism v religion, state v the individual. Turkey poses the question: can an Islamic nation be truly democratic? And how the West longs for an affirmative answer. In the middle, strafed by ideological crossfire, dragged between camps and paraded by each in triumph like Helen of Troy, is the Turkish woman. Who has control over her body? The imams, the State or the woman?

It is best to be honest and say that, as a Western, secular feminist, I abhor the headscarf. In London, I feel anger and dismay at eight-year-old British Muslim girls in hijab. If this is an act of sexual propriety, why is it now so often extended to prepubescent children, other than to render women hamstrung and invisible, almost from birth? Loose clothing, the covering of legs and arms, I can better understand. The invocation to Western women to look perpetually “hot” and up-for-it is depressing, too.

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Canada: Bad Jobs and Biases

Rubaba Hussini, from Afghanistan, found her ‘hijab’ (women’s head and body covering) was posing to be a problem when it came to finding work. “I wore my ‘hijab’ to college and everything was fine,” she says. But when she started looking for a co-op placement as a part of her diploma in Early Childhood Education, she was very disappointed. “I would call up people for an interview and everything seemed to be working out, until I went and met them. Then things would change. After failing in 10 interviews, I went for an interview without the ‘hijab’ and was instantly hired as a child care worker.”

Subuhi Jaffary, Employment Counsellor at South Asian Women’s Centre, a Toronto-based not-for-profit outfit, agrees that Muslim women who wear the ‘hijab’ have problems seeking work. Jaffary’s clients include immigrant women hunting for jobs and support. “I had a client who wore a long ‘hijab’. I had to teach her how to present herself. She shortened her ‘hijab’ to a scarf. That made it more fashionable and acceptable in this society.” Jaffary said her client is now studying nutrition at a community college and has been able to find co-op work. “It took her three years to finally make it to the job market.”

There are some small-time employment avenues available to students, including sales jobs, baby sitting and service jobs like waitressing. However, these are just to make some extra cash as they usually pay around CA$8 to CA$13 per hour (US$1=CA$1.02). Also, these are not a part of the course work.

Many Asian students feel that it is not so much the colour of the skin, but the front cover of the passport that decides the response that they get in the job market after graduation. This is because second generation Canadian-Asian women students do not feel racially discriminated at work.

News Blaze

Breaking down stereotypes

Islamic society president has become the face of American Muslim women

Ingrid Mattson lost her faith as a teenager. Years later she found it again in the pages of the Quran and the teachings of Islam.

Since then, Mattson has been somewhat of a poster girl for Muslim women. Two years ago she made headlines when she became the first woman and first convert elected to head the Islamic Society of North America.

Mattson wears a head scarf, or hijab, and dresses modestly in long sleeves and ankle-length skirts or dresses. She also has strong views on the role of women in Islam, which she backs up with examples from the life of the prophet Muhammad and the Quran.

“The thing to understand is that Islam treats women as spiritual equals to men,” Mattson said. “Muslim women have the same obligation to pay charity, to perform community service, all of those things. What looks different is that women wear more modest dress, not to oppress or demean them but to allow them to be in the public space without being harassed or distracted.”

She acknowledged, however, that problems exist. And she is not shy about discussing them.

“It doesn’t mean there aren’t people who use Islam to justify oppression against women or other actions,” she said. “I think one of the reasons that is more of an issue is that Muslim society still tends to be more religious. So they have religious justifications for everything, both good and bad.”

ISNA was started by Muslim students and now represents an estimated 100,000 individuals and groups. It is the largest Muslim organization in North America.

Though her first term as president ends this summer, Mattson agreed to be nominated for a second term. The position is a volunteer one, which she juggles with her paying job as professor of Islamic studies at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut. She is also director of an Islamic chaplaincy program, part of her goal to raise the quality of community and youth leaders.

Raised as one of seven children in a Catholic family in southern Ontario, Canada, Mattson met her husband in Pakistan and is the mother of two children, 16 and 19. When asked if they are proud of her work and activism, Mattson replied: “I hope so. I’m certainly very proud of them.”

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On the job with a hijab

Scarf sparks controversy and assumptions in modern workplaces

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Sharon Hoosein, a nurse practitioner who works for a hospital in Mississauga, Ont., wears a hijab — or headscarf — as a symbol of her Muslim faith. She says she has experienced few problems at work as a result of wearing the hijab, except for the odd person making a false assumption about Muslim women being cloistered, uneducated and oppressed.

“I’m on my maternity leave now and people ask if I’m coming back. I can’t help but feel people were asking that because they thought [staying home] is what my culture and religion wants me to do,” she says. “I married a man from the Middle East, and when I say that he changes diapers and that I go out and leave the kid with him for hours, they’re so surprised.”

The hijab — and how it is received in the workplace — has had much more than its 15 minutes of fame. In June, the Canadian owner of a hair salon in London, England, was ordered by an employment tribunal to pay $8,000 in damages to a young stylist who was refused a job because she wears a hijab.

And in May, the Bouchard-Taylor report found that Muslim women in Quebec face discrimination in the job market for wearing the hijab, and cited the case of a young woman who “saw her job applications rejected by 50 pharmacies before she was finally able to land a job with an Arab pharmacist.”

By wearing the hijab in the workplace, some Muslim women believe they are not only keeping the faith — they are also helping tear down cultural barriers.

Saher Zuberi, an accountant, recalls one such barrier-breaking moment. “My coworker turned to me and said, ‘You know, I always thought that women who covered their heads were submissive and dominated by their husbands, that they were meek and mild. And then I met you. And you’re one of the most independent, outspoken women I’ve ever met.’ “

Some Muslim women consider wearing the hijab an obligatory religious commandment set out in the teachings of the Koran. Other women consider it a physical expression of their faith, to communicate to the world that they are practising Muslims.

Alia Hogben, executive director of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, does not cover her head. She says that the issue of veiling is extremely controversial within the Muslim communities, and that the Koran’s dictates imploring female modesty can be interpreted in myriad ways.

The perception that veiled Muslim women are dominated by male family members can be pervasive among Western non-Muslims. When Katherine Bullock came to Canada from Australia to go to Queen’s University, she saw women wearing the hijab on campus and felt pity. She believed the hijab to be a “symbol of women’s oppression.”

Bullock was raised Anglican and became an atheist during undergraduate studies. She later married a Muslim man and immersed herself in the study of Islam and other religions. When she decided to convert to Islam in 1994 at the age of 25, she adopted the hijab as a symbol of piety.

Working on a PhD at the University of Toronto, Bullock chose her thesis topic — now a book entitled Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil: Challenging History and Modern Stereotypes — based on the negative reactions she received once she put on the hijab.

The Vancouver Sun

Wearing Hijab at School

Another Day in Muslim Women’s Life

Wearing the hijab has been a controversial topic for many years. However, after 9/11, it has come under international spotlight. Since then, a lot of people around the world have been afflicted with Islamophobia. Women wearing the hijab became the center of attention wherever they went, and they have become the target of many insults, prejudice, and racist remarks. This has also been the case among many Muslim females attending public schools.

Many public schools and other educational institutions banned Muslims from wearing the hijab. They try to justify their decision by saying that it is unacceptable, as it does not promote the integration of students. Another reason cited is that hijab is a sign of discrimination against women. Other major criticisms of the head cover are that it denotes women’s subordination and signals political extremism.

Previous Incidents

There have been numerous incidents in various parts of the world in which young women and girls were expelled from schools because of wearing hijab. In one incident that occurred in February 2002 in Singapore, four 7-year-olds were thrown out of school for wearing hijab. These young, innocent girls were then forced to travel abroad to continue their education.

There are other similar incidents that have taken place in the UK, Spain, Turkey, France, and various other countries. In France, two sisters Lila and Alma, aged 18 and 16 respectively, turned up at school one day wearing hijab. The school suspected that their parents must have “encouraged” the girls to wear the hijab, but after some investigation, they were “shocked” to discover that their father was a non-practicing Jew. The father explained that his daughters had come under no pressure from radical Muslims. “They have simply ‘got God’ – like so many teenagers always do, and their religion of reference happens to be Islam.” Unfortunately, they were also expelled from school. Now, they are continuing their studies from home.

Light Amid Darkness

However, despite the negativity there is a glimpse of hope. There are several young Muslim women who are successfully wearing hijab in public schools. These young Muslim women feel modest when they are covered up. Hijab brings about self-respect and makes them feel more confident about themselves.

Sumayya Syed, a 16-year-old from Canada, maintains that when a woman is covered, men cannot judge her by her appearance, yet are forced to evaluate her by her character and morals. “I tell them that hijab isn’t a responsibility, it’s a right given to me by Almighty Allah who knows us best. It’s a benefit to me, so why not? It’s something every woman should strive to reach and should want.”

Syed emphasized that a major plus is that people actually evaluate her on who she is and not on her beauty or clothing. “It protects me from the fashion industry. Wearing hijab liberates you from the media that brainwashes you into buying this and that,” she added. “Hijab allows me to be who I am. I don’t have to worry about being popular by buying things that are considered ‘cool’.”

Another student, Hana Tariq, a 15-year-old, said that hijab lets you know who your real friends are. “People who are friends with you because of the way you look aren’t real friends, but people who judge you according to your personality, because you can alter your looks, but you can’t really change your personality.” Tariq added that hijab helped her develop a real identity.

A sixth grader in the eastern Oklahoma town of Muskogee was asked to leave school because she refused to remove her hijab. The US government joined her lawsuit against the school and she emerged victorious.

Challenges

Young women from different countries face challenges daily because of wearing hijab. Nowadays, unfortunately, people who do not adhere to their society norms are disrespected. Those who are different are often treated with disdain and are ostracized.

There is almost no difference among reactions toward hijab: Girls are treated with hostility, not only by fellow students, but also by teachers. They are often a minority and become outcasts, which makes them feel insecure. They become alienated from the rest of their classmates, and they are constantly ridiculed.

Most people are under the impression that all women who wear hijab do not know English and are immigrants. One student said that her classmates think she is uneducated, and to prove the opposite, she makes extra effort to answer questions asked in class. This takes many of her classmates by surprise ,as she contradicted their thoughts about young Muslim women wearing hijab.

Students are also treated differently by being looked at in a strange manner; often making those wearing the hijab feel uncomfortable. Their school property is at times vandalized and even stolen.

After 9/11, the ill feelings that have been portrayed by others toward Muslims have heightened. Hijab is one of the symbols of Islam, and therefore when Muslim women are seen wearing it, they are hated, not for personal reasons but for political reasons. However, this has a direct impact on them and on how they are made to feel.

As a student in Johannesburg, South Africa, I was fortunate that for eight years of my schooling days, I attended Islamic schools and there was no pressure imposed on me for wearing hijab. However, in the late 1990s when I attended public schools, I was confronted by many challenges because of wearing hijab. The principal of my school was a Muslim, yet I encountered many problems with him when I requested permission to wear the headscarf. I was fortunate that he eventually agreed. The journey was not without obstacles though, as I used to be subject to racial prejudice by some teachers and fellow students.

Islam Online

Thousands Gather To Celebrate Islam

In Hartford, Thousands Gather To Celebrate Islam

MATT BURGARD |Courant Staff Writer

July 6, 2008

Abduss-Salaam said she converted to Islam 18 years ago when she met her husband, a Muslim. She said the religion has shaped her life as she and her husband have raised two children and held full-time jobs in a society that sometimes views Muslims with distrust.

“It’s not about terrorism or hatred. It’s about love,” she said. “Being a Muslim is just like being a Christian or a Jewish person. We are all called to treat each other with respect.”

The convention, which has taken place in Hartford for the last four years, is expected to draw more than 15,000 people by the time it winds down later today, said Muhammad Rahman, the convention’s co-chairman.

He said most of those who have shown up this weekend are Muslims from the East Coast stretching from New England to the Carolinas, though many have traveled from Canada and Texas and other far-off points.

“It’s become a very popular family event and that’s what we intended,” Rahman said. “We want to educate our young people about the true meaning of Islam, as well as help overcome a lot of misperceptions on the part of non-Muslims.”

In a cavernous hall next to the center’s main lobby, hundreds of followers knelt on the ground at various points in the day to pray. Among them were teenagers Sydul Choudhury and Daiyan Chowdhury, both of New York, who toyed with a digital camera before the prayers began.

“It’s a lot of fun,” said Choudhury, whose family attends the convention every year. “It can be hard when people find out you’re a Muslim. You have to explain that it’s a peaceful religion.”

Muhammad Tahir, a photographer from New York hired to take pictures at the convention, said the terrorist attacks of 9/11 have brought hardships and understanding for Muslim Americans.

“At first, it was hard because everyone suddenly looked at you differently,” he said. “But since then, I think, more people have taken the time to learn about Islam, and now more people are educated.”

Throughout the convention center, signs of Muslim culture mixing with the commercialism of American society were everywhere. In the lobby, a large cartoon camel pronounced the traditional Muslim greeting, “Assalamu Alaikum,” which means, “Peace be upon you.” In another large hall, rows of vendors offered traditional food and clothing of Islamic cultures beside booths selling compact discs and other modern luxuries.

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