When I Was Young

ISLAM IN FRANCE

Burqa furore hints at internally-conflicted political discourse

Muslims in France wear the niqab (left) while the burqa (centre, right) is seldom seen in the country. AFP

PARIS - It is a measure of France's confusion about Islam and its Muslim citizens that in the political furore here over "banning the burqa", as the argument goes, the garment at issue is not really the burqa, but the niqab.

A burqa is the all-enveloping cloak, often blue, with a woven grill over the eyes, that many Afghan women wear, and it is almost never seen in France. The niqab, often black, leaves the eyes uncovered.

Still, a movement against it has gotten traction within France's ruling centre-right party, which claims to be defending French values, and among many on the left, who say they are defending women's rights. A parliamentary commission will soon meet to investigate whether to ban the burqa.

The debate is indicative of the deep ambivalence about social customs of a small minority of France's Muslims, and of the fear that France's principles of citizens' rights, equality and secularism are being undermined. French discomfort with organised religion is aggravated by these foreign customs, which are associated with repression of women.

Mr Andre Gerin, Mayor of Venissieux, a Lyon suburb with many Muslims from North Africa, began the affair in June by initiating a motion, signed by 57 other legislators, calling for the parliamentary commission.

"The burqa is the tip of the iceberg," Mr Gerin said. "Islamism really threatens us." In a letter to the government, he wrote: "It is time to take a stand on this issue that concerns thousands of citizens who are worried to see imprisoned, totally veiled women."

A few days later, President Nicolas Sarkozy said that "the burqa is not welcome on the territory of the French Republic".

The French press has been full of heated opinion pieces. Women wearing the niqab, many of them French converts to Islam, have said that they have freely chosen to cover themselves after marriage.

Passions have run so high that when domestic intelligence issued a report saying that only 367 women in France wore a full veil, it seemed to make no difference. For many French Muslims, the entire discussion is an incitement to racial and religious hatred.

Mr Mohammed Henniche, secretary for the private Union of Muslim Associations of Seine-Saint-Denis, said: "I think choosing to use burqa instead (of niqab) is not an accident. They chose a word that is associated with Afghanistan, and that spreads a negative, scary image."

Even existing laws are misunderstood, he said, with a woman refused entry to a bank because employees thought a head scarf was illegal.

"French political discourse is internally conflicted," said Mr John R Bowen, professor at Washington University in St Louis. There is confusion about different kinds of public space, he said - the street and places that belong to the state but are not freely open to the public, like schools.

However, Mr Bowen does not think there will be a law banning the niqab. THE NEW YORK TIMES

From TODAY, World – Wednesday, 02-Sep-2009