Text 1

Ban the Burka?

Annotations:

* to ruffle sb's feathers - jmd. verärgern
* salwar kameez - ein Kamiz ist ein längeres Hemd, das locker über einer Hose (Salwar) getragen wird
* clothes-horse - slg. Modetussi
* regressive - rückständig

Assignments:
1. Summarize the two views on wearing the burka, naming the main argunments put forward by the two Muslim women.
2. Which of the two views - in your opinion - has the more convincing arguments? Substantiate your opinion.
3. Do you think that wearing the burka or the headscarf should be banned worldwide?
4. Would you tolerate Muslim women or girls wearing the burka, the niqab (Gesichtsschleier) or the headscarf?

Text 2

Banning the burqa unveils some nasty traits in us

By India Knight

France is considering passing a law that would mean women who wear the burqa or niqab* in public would face a £700 fine. French MPs will vote on the proposal later this month; the fine would apply to anyone “whose face is fully covered in public”. Jean-François Copé, parliamentary leader of Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP group, told Le Figaro that the proposed law was based on sexual equality and public safety considerations, not on religious ones.

“We spoke to religious and secular figures, who all confirmed [the burqa] was not a religious prescription. Wearing the full body veil is about extremists who want to test the republic,” he said.

It is already illegal to wear a headscarf in French state schools (the law came into effect in 2004 — you’ll remember the furore); the French constitution specifically requires the separation of church and state. So even in a country that is nominally Catholic, there are no prayers at school, no crucifixes on state-school walls, no religious assemblies and so on.

This last bit seems perfectly sensible but the headscarf issue raised all sorts of questions — the law is opaquely* worded and refers only to “ostentatious”* religious symbols: would a Sikh boy in a French state school be required to remove his topknot and cut his hair, for instance? Would a Jewish child not be allowed his yarmulke*? Would somebody who was vegetarian on religious grounds be offered no alternative to meaty school lunches? Or was the law just against Muslims, adherents to the second largest religion in France?

I find this whole subject uncomfortable because I don’t really know what I think; I change my mind constantly. I start off, as most people would, from the point of view that everyone should be allowed to wear what they like, regardless of how peculiar it might strike others as being, without being dictated to.

The fact that I dislike being unable to see someone’s face is neither here nor there, really: it’s their face, to expose or conceal (or pierce, or tattoo, or smear in chocolate) as they wish. But the “without being dictated to” part cuts both ways*: there is always the suspicion that women in burqas or niqabs may not be wearing them out of personal choice. And how do you tell? It’s hardly as if their appearance invites you to saunter up* and say, “Excuse me, did you put that on of your own free will?”

Then I am made uncomfortable by the incredibly patronising* assumptions that white western women make about brown women who are fully veiled, which is basically that they are all tragically mute victims of an especially monstrous patriarchy and are probably beaten or set fire to if they don’t cook supper nicely.

That may be true, and it may be true for vast numbers of women, but it simply isn’t true of every single one; besides, as we know, vast numbers of women are brutalised and abused by people known to them in all cultures and regardless of their clothing. So that whole “we must rescue the veiled women; they must be more like us; they must be free to weigh 20 stone and wear a miniskirt and get smashed on Alcopops and then post about it on Facebook” thing makes me uneasy. Spin “they must be more like us” round by only a few degrees and you have totalitarian regimes founded on intolerance.

Then of course there’s the idea that if a woman does wear a burqa of her own choice, that may be because she has been indoctrinated — or treated as a chattel* — since birth. I get this and it’s not good. But surely a functioning society should be compassionate enough not to force her to do what must be a traumatic thing — stripping off the veil overnight and showing her face to strangers for perhaps the first time in decades — rather than call what might be an elderly grandmother “an extremist who wants to test the republic”.

My other concern is that burqas turn women into objects — creatures, if you like. You don’t think: “Oh, there’s Mrs So-and-so”; you think: “There goes one of those women peering out of a grille.” It’s as if there’s a bird in a cage and someone has thrown a sheet over it. With the best will in the world, it’s hard to see (literally) how the concepts of citizenship, freedom and democracy are working for the bird person. As for the question of sexual equality that Copé* refers to: sexual equality is marvellous and we’re all for it, but you can’t will it into being by banning an item of clothing. Riots in the banlieues* and the burning of the tricolore, yes. Instant sexual equality, not so much.

The bottom line, I guess, is that you have to fall into line with the country you’re living in. I was in Marrakesh a couple of months ago and, as ever, was treated to the sight of idiot tourists wandering around the souks half-naked, complaining loudly about unwelcome attention and taking photographs of the picturesque natives without asking first. So you could argue that banning the burqa is a variant on the same thing: stopping people offending the social mores of the country they find themselves in. On paper that sounds reasonable. In reality and when the legislation appears to be aimed firmly at one — huge — section of society, based on one skin colour and one religious affiliation, it can’t help but leave a bad taste in the mouth.

............. Still, the law will probably be passed and the world will watch with interest — France has become a useful testing ground when it comes to these issues. I still go back and forth. If someone held a gun to my head and forced me to make a choice, I suppose I’d come down in favour of the ban on the basis that my instinct says — shouts — that no little girl comes into the world longing to be covered in a black tent when she grows up. Instincts don’t make laws, though. But there’s no gun and no one’s forcing me to do — or put on, or remove — anything, for which I am very grateful.
1070 words

From The Sunday Times, January 10, 2010



Annotations:
* niqab - Gesichtsschleier
* opaquely - unklar
* ostentatious - demonstrative, protzend
* yarmulke - Kopfbedeckung eines jüdischen Mannes (bei Ausübung seiner Religion)
* to cut both ways - ein zweiseitiges Schwert sein
* to saunter up - auf jdn. zugehen
* patronising - bevormundend, herablassend
* chattel - bewegliches Gut
* Jean-François Copé - (before mentioned) French politician
* banlieues (frz.) - Vororte einer Großsatdt
* troll - Troll, Kobold


Assignments:
1. The authoress of the article seems to be in a dilemma on her view about the issue of banning the burqa or not. Find remarks which underline her insecure view and finally say how she would eventually decide.
2. Mrs Knight compares wearing teh burqa with other religious symbols that people are allowed to woship. Pick two or threee of them and say if they stand comparison.
3. Find out on the Internet how the US, British, German and French governments treat the issue of Muslim women wearing burqas, niqas or headscarves.
4. Write a letter to the editor of a paper expressing your own opinion on banning the burqa in western countries.