Veiled women protest secularism

Muslim females take to the streets, say the decision should be reconsidered

Paris - Samer Mazloum

BAGHDAD - Sami Orfali

CAIRO - Dima Gamal

February 2004

A number of reactionary practicing Muslims protested during December and January French President Jacques Chirac’s decision to ban the display of religious emblems in public schools and administrations.

According to Chirac’s decision, French citizens of all faiths will not be allowed to wear signs that reveal their religion. The ban includes veil for Muslim women, yarmulka for Jews and visible crosses for Christians.

“Catholic France has been the pioneer state in secularism as it was among the first countries to fight the domination of the Pope and the Catholic Church centuries ago,” said Abdul-Haqq Dami, a French citizen of Algerian stock.

Dami, of Muslim origin, said that he supported the decision because “we knew France was a secular country when our ancestors first came here, if we wanted to live in an Islamic state, we should have emigrated from Algeria to Iran or Saudi Arabia.”

But practicing Muslims were not willing to accept the decision. In more than one Arab capital, a few veiled women protested in front of French diplomatic missions the French ban of veil.

Demonstrators offered several arguments that, they said, made them take to the streets. First, that France was a country of freedom and should have allowed women to choose their veil if they wanted to. Second, veil was not a sign of religious identification, but was rather a heavenly order that aimed at reducing sexual arousal among men looking at unveiled women and eventually putting women’s physical security at stake.

“People in Cairo protested freedom in France,” said Nadia, an Egyptian student who refused to give her last name.

“As if they have their rights and freedom here. They better protest male dominance in our own societies before going against a country like France,” she added.

Meanwhile, commenting on arousing men’s sexual desire, Dami said that if religion aims at protecting women from potential male sexual abuse, regulations must be put on men to train them how to control their desire, “and not through desexualizing women.”

In a separate development, the Interim Governing Iraqi Council resulted in another blow for the establishment of a secular and democratic Iraq with equal rights for all of its citizens. The council abrogated the Civil Law, which the Baath Party had approved after its accession to power in 1968, and delegated issues of marriage and divorce to the respective sects.

“They are Lebonanizing Iraq,” said Jabbar Haitham, an engineer. “First, they are dividing the authority among sectarian lines, and now they cancelled the Civil Law. Like Lebanon, Iraq will become the home of its coexisting sects instead reinforcing the laws of equality among all citizens irrespective of faith, ethnicity or similar factors.”

The Iraq ban, which was not at all considered an infringement on the rights of non-religious citizens, prompted several women embracing progressive and secular beliefs to take to the streets to protest the decision that took away from them marriage rights.

“Are they planning of making out of Iraq another Saudi Arabia, a country where only Muslims can live and express their beliefs while all other non-Muslims are banned or imprisoned?” said Haitham.