This Article is From Jun 23, 2009

The burqa debate

The burqa debate

AFP image

Paris:

There is anger in the Arab world after France's President Nicolas Sarkozy said that the burqa had no place on the soil of France.

Arab leaders called Sarkozy rigid and intolerant and in a moment not without irony US President Barack Obama's comments in support of the right of women to wear the burqa.

Barack Obama is quoted in a website:

"Freedom in America is indivisible from the freedom to practice one's religion. That's why the US government has gone to court to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab, and to punish those who would deny it."

A blogger writes:

"America, you won't often hear me say this but in this particular case it's true. Where Islam is concerned, you have a lot to learn from the French."

On the Internet it's Barack Obama versus Nicolas Sarkozy.

Another blog says:

"Who could ever have predicted that the French president would stand up for women's universal rights and for freedom as a universal right, while the American President would hang back, wait, temporise?"

As two of the world's most powerful nations decide to go separate ways on the veil, the conservative Muslim world ironically finds itself on the American President's side.

An article in Gulf based Khaleej Times says:

"The country's long-held principle of ethnic assimilation -- which insists that newcomers shed their traditions and adapt to French culture -- is failing because it doesn't give immigrants and their French-born children a fair chance.''

In France liberal opinion has backed the President but they are also against any law interfering with religion.

"I don't think a law will resolve the problems women face with their religion," said a French woman.

In France Sarkozy should be more open towards Islam," said another French woman.

It's a debate with a troublesome history.

Five years ago protests broke out against a law banning all religious symbols in public schools.

As France considers the ban on the burqa, leading French Muslim organistions feel this debate is stigmatising the Muslim community.

Whereas other voices from within the Muslim community specially French Muslim women also say that if it takes a law to help women break away from the burqa they would welcome it.

The question is now whether President Sarkozy's statement could be seen as a provocation that could eventually lead to a backlash from the French Muslim community, the biggest in Western Europe.

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