Two sensitive, heated debates are running in France at the moment that I notice have even made it into the English news. One is regarding French national identity – what does it mean to be French? (please don’t bring out any handlebar mustache, string of onion and beret imagery because that’s long gone). I think the goal was to get disparate groups of people to rally around a common definition of French-ness (a common language, know who Zinedine Zidane is etc – actually wait a minute, now I’m being equally stereotypic), but I’m not sure, and in general it was decried (quite rightly in my opinion) as a potentially racist, anti-immigrant policy. Finally, it looks like we will end up with French flags flying outside all schools and a bill-of-rights being displayed in classrooms.
The second is regarding the wearing of the Burqa, the full-length clothing with a full-face veil worn by a small proportion of Muslim women – the wearing of these is proposed to be banned in public buildings. It seems to me that the two debates got mixed together. For example, one of the proposals was that Muslim men who are seeking French nationality will have their application denied if they force their wives to wear the Burqa.
Anyway, it seems to me that the government has not been entirely just in trying to ban wearing of the Burqa. This garment is indeed (again, in my opinion), demeaning to women, and as far as I understand, nowhere in the Koran does it state that a woman should be covered from head-to-toe in public to (presumably) protect a man’s honour.
However, I have spotted a flaw in the argument; a loophole that needs closing immediately: What about Nuns? Th
ey wear Habits and what are they if not head-to-toe garments worn in public, serving no other purpose than to avert the gaze of amorous males! Does it state in the Bible that they should wear them? Does it not make it difficult to identify them on video surveillance cameras?
I say, SARKOZY: BE CONSISTENT – BAN NUNS FROM WEARING HABITS TODAY! Only then can you defrock (sic) the Muslim’s argument.
