For the first time in 150 years, the French President was able to address Parliament. Nicolas Sarkozy, French President used the occasion to speak about the veil.
"We must not fight the wrong battle. In the republic, the Muslim faith must be respected as much as other religions.""[The burkah] will not be welcome on French soil."
"We cannot accept, in our country, women imprisoned behind a mesh, cut off from society, deprived of all identity. That is not the French republic's idea of women's dignity."
What's in a piece of cloth? This continues to be an issue because of the on-going Western-centric vilification of Muslims and Islam. This is nothing short of a mammoth culture clash which leads to so many global conflicts. The veil, therefore, is neither here, nor there.
Religion when benign - like cancer when benign - is tolerable. When people take their Invisible Spaghetti Monsters and their various Books Of Contridictions SERIOUSLY - Seriously enough to consider one half of the human specis as being inferior - then it is no longer benign.
ReplyDeleteReligion be gone - and soon!
We live a time when people are once again polarised around the notion of religion. I can understand where you are coming from, but my problem with Sarkozy's comments are that whilst he defends the Muslims right to be, he quickly attacks something - in this case the veil - which is a very visual symbol representing Muslims.
ReplyDeleteThe argument about whether the veil is appropriate becomes lost behind a thinly veiled (how ironic that I should used that word) attack on the Muslims. That, to me, is the greater issue.