The Veil Issue, Once Again

Women need the hijab/burqa to avoid being raped!

News item: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20646

[In Australia, Norway, Sweden and other Western nations, there is a distinct race-based crime in motion being ignored by the diversity police: Islamic men are raping Western women for ethnic reasons. We know this because the rapists have openly declared their sectarian motivations.

When a number of teenage Australian girls were subjected to hours of sexual degradation during a spate of gang rapes in Sydney that occurred between 1998 and 2002, the perpetrators of these assaults framed their rationale in ethnic terms. The young victims were informed that they were “sluts” and “Aussie pigs” while they were being hunted down and abused.

In Australia`s New South Wales Supreme Court in December 2005, a visiting Pakistani rapist testified that his victims had no right to say no, because they were not wearing a headscarf.]

Re: # 7

Ana

You raise a very pertinent question:

``Are women really any more protected under the veil than they are without?``

As I know from the experience of various women, the veil does not provide any protection; rather it works sometimes like a red-rag.

I know a middle aged lady using veil who had extraordinarily a body like a young girl. One day she came to our house without veil. My wife asked her why she had discarded her veil. She related her story, ``The other day when I was walking home from the bus-stop some young boys of the neighbourhood began to tease me . I usually did not care but that day they became too mischievous. So I removed my niqab to open my face. They recognised me at once and shamefully said, ``Sorry, Khala ji eh tussi o (Sorry, it is you Aunty)```. There are instances where brothers had happened unknowingly to tease their sisrers in veil. In fact, as Dr. Israr has been quoted to say, the veil is far from being a symbol of slavery of the women, but is worn to make them more seductive ( to create `chus` in his words).

a issue which is not issue ..... and is being used as issue ..... hahahah the way to fire up the muslims

Re: # 20

um, obviously a mistake manto....

saminasha,

How in the name of god did you leave out Fatima Mernissi from that list?

teshah,

The prostitutes are not the most liberated women ... they are sadly the most exploited. They wear a Burqah in day time to hide ... like in the bible.

The truly liberated women....

a- educated women of Pakistan, doctors, fighter pilots, military women, educators, businesswomen... never wear the Burqah and very few wear the Hijab.

b- the rural women who work in the fields... never wear the burqah or the hijab.

Aparna Dear:
Your grandmother might have worn a veil for whatever the reasons might be. But using the words of Rushdie, I would say IT SUCKS! To me it as good as a spook wherein a beautiful human being is imprisoned by fanatical thugs. I wonder dear Allah wanted this crap in the first place.

Kamath

Re: # 1

I entirely agree with you dear Montolives. It is in fact moral, ethnic and gender apartheid. A question arises are all the men evil that women should veil themselves in a way that they see men but cannot be seen and recognised by men. It is not a question of freedom as proses and the actresses, the most liberated women in the Land of the pure, all wear burka when they go out.

Re: # 1 YLH
[...Muslims believe ... that Burqah has nothing to do with Islam...]

Muslims also believe that they get 72 huris and 65 gilmans if they suicide-bomb a bunch of infidels... you can believe what you want - reality is what it is... :)

Young school children in Britain (at least first few days in school) should be exposed to at least four different teachers every day for varying durations :

1. Burqa clad ``Bhoot``.
2. Turban and Sword wielding Sikh ``Shaitan``.
3. Painted Forehead wala naked dhoti clad South Indian ``Nangoo``.
4. Red Bearded topi wala Maulvi ``Osama``.

I wonder what percentage would even cross primary level.



After all there is spice in variety. freedom of religion. Blah. Blah. Blah.

In public, please dress the way the local customs dictate. Do not offend public sensibilities unnecessarily.

Re: # 13

actually, the statement about the veil being involuntary is untrue and you know it. why cant anyone be bothered to explicate a feminist reading of the veil?

Ms. Pande,

As others have pointed out, Hindu women (and those only in the North which was under Muslim rule for 1000 years) cover only their heads, not their faces.

There is a difference between draping the end of the sari on the top of one`s head and using a shuttlecock burqa. You really can`t justify a woman looking like one of those figures in a PacMan game.

There is nothing voluntary about the Islamic veil. If it were, their swimming pools wouldn`t be segregated. Women in bikinis would be appearing in beaches alongside men in Speedos. So long as that doesn`t happen, the veil is a symbol of oppression of women, nothing more, nothing less.

PS. Women in South India do not cover their heads with their saris. So don`t tell us that covering the woman`s head is the cultural norm for Hindus also... it is for only the North Indians who have been terrorized by Islamic thugs.

Aparna,
A very thoughtful and interesting perspective - especially the part about Hindu women covering their heads. The reason that many Muslims, including some supportive men, are against the hijab, niqab, and burka is that we seem to be losing ground that was covered a long long time ago. From the 20s through most of the 70s, Muslims have been constantly modernizing and uplifting the educational, social, and legal positions of our women. All of a sudden, just like the assaults on airplanes, trains, and tall buildings, there is a segment of Soodi-financed misanthropes who want to push us all the way back to the time when Muslims started borrowing these stupid garments from the Christians. If the Crusades gave silk, Damascus steel, medicine, and science to Europeans, they gave the veil, celibacy, and wholesale slaughter to Muslims. The silver lining is that we never learned to uses the Christians` complicated chastity belts. :)

Ms Pande,

Are you characterizing the muslim woman to which you refer displaying ``childlike innocence``, as someone who cannot articulate and deconstruct her own reality?

Could you not have been bothered reading Leila Ahmed`s, Farzaneh Milani, Zineb Sedira, Majida Khattari, Emily Jacir, Shadafarin Ghadirian, Koroush Adim, and Jananne Al-Ani in order a more authentic, nuanced and honest (for you) interrogation of the veil?

I find that lack of these basic conventions offensive.

Veil, Veiling and Contemporary Representation edited by David Bailey and G. Tawadros. You`ll find artists and essays that interrogate issues of gender, ideology, religion and agency.

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