|
No to the Burka:
French knee-jerking unveils deep-seated animosity towards
native Muslims.
January 25, 2010
Aref Assaf, PhD
The French government's launce of the so-called "debate on national identity"
has caused feelings among the public to run
high. At the center of the storm lies the controversy of a ban
on the burka and relations with Muslims in general.
At
the end of October last year, Eric Besson, France's Minister for
Immigration, Integration, and National Identity, announced that
the Sarkozy government would be leading the "debate on national
identity." It was to continue through the following weeks and
months, culminating in suggestions by the president himself on
the matter, anticipated in a statement to be issued on 4
February.
Critics have characterized the debate as an "ideological
campaign." From the very start, the debate has focused to a
considerable extent on the question of separation from "the
others." Islam often finds itself at the heart of the debate
and, in the fantasies of some, poses a "threat to the nation and
republic."
While Besson has remained extremely vague concerning the
definition of what constitutes "national identity," he has been
able to state with certainty what, as far as he is concerned, is
not a part French culture, namely, the burka. He regards the
burka as something irreconcilable with "French national
identity."
|
However, the burka, a garment predominantly found in
Afghanistan and Pakistan, is a hardly ever worn in France and is
in no way typical for immigrants from the Magreb.
Nevertheless, after the debate among French politicians on cases
of individuals wearing a full body veil broke out in early
summer 2009, the French Interior Ministry conducted a survey and
identified a total of 367 women in France who wear a burka. Most
of them, it seems, are French converts to Islam.
The behavior of these converts is similar to sect members who
desire to publically display their newly acquired religious
affiliation in a particularly visible manner. This makes one
thing clear – the burka cannot help in deciding who belongs to
the nation and who does not.
In recent months, the debate on the burka has been going on
simultaneously with the debate on the concept of "national
identity," which has been pursued by a special parliamentary
commission set up to invite numerous politicians and public
personalities to share their views on the issue.
The result is that some members of the governing conservative
UMP party have since called out for a law banning the burka in
France. Jean-François Copé, the chairman of the UMP faction in
the National Assembly, would already like to present such a bill
to parliament in the coming weeks.
The law would make it an offence to wear the burka, subject to a
fine of 759 euros. Critics have spoken of a "special law," which
can hardly be justified considering how few women wear the burka
in this country.
After a great deal of political flip-flopping, a majority of the
UMP decided early this year against such a law. The legal risk
that it would be overturned by the constitutional court is just
too great. Instead, the majority of the governing party is
calling for a "solemn resolution" by parliament condemning total
head and body covering.
A number of controversial statements have been made by some of
the protagonists on the government side in the burka debate. For
instance, Nadine Morano, State Secretary for Family Policy at
the Ministry of Social Affairs. On 14 December, she took part in
a discussion on national identity before an audience of 300
people in Charmes, a small city in the Vosges.
In the course of the debate, Morano said, among other things,
that she didn't have anything against foreigners in principle,
but she called upon "young Muslims" in France – who she of
course respects – to please "not wear their caps on backwards,
not speak in ghetto youth slang, and to look for a job".
With her choice of words, Morano succeeded in linking the
phenomena of youth culture among the socially underprivileged,
which has long applied to all segments of the population, with a
single ethnic-religious group. In addition, her statements can
also be understood as accusing socially underprivileged youth
for being themselves responsible for their lack of employment.
These outbursts, brimming with prejudice, resulted in a fierce
public controversy in France.
On 9 December, the liberal Paris evening paper Le Monde
published a guest article by Sarkozy in which the president
approved of the results of the Swiss referendum and refused to
criticise Swiss voters, even though he admitted that issues such
as the exercise of religion are too complicated to be decided
via referendum. He also expressed his understanding for those
who "did not want the image of their country to be disfigured"
and thereby lose their identity.
In the same article, Nicolas Sarkozy demanded "respect for those
who have been taken in, but also for those who have accepted
others into their country". His choice of words make clear that
those doing the accepting enjoy historical rights in their own
country and should therefore remain the "masters in their own
house." As such, recent immigrants, Muslims in particular,
"should practice some discretion" with respect to their faith.
Just previous to this, Dominique Paillé, spokesman for the UMP,
summed up the matter simply. Although there is not state
religion in secular France, "some religions were already here
before the republic was founded" and they are part of the
historical heritage of the republic. "Those that only came
later" have therefore to respect the existing rules of the game.
At the end of last December, the Member of Parliament and former
Justice Minister Dominique Perben expressed his concern that
"soon there will be just as many mosques as cathedrals" and that
"France will no longer be France."
Apparently, a part of the government has been tempted to latch
on to the success of the Swiss referendum in an attempt to
permanently attract a segment of voters on the extreme right to
the conservative block.
Nicolas Sarkozy has recognized the risk of letting the debate
drift too far to the right. Yet, his announcements of new
"surprises" have sparked more public debate.
In late January or early February, he plans to visit a cemetery
in Notre-Dame-de-Lorette near Arras, in which Muslim soldiers
who fought under the French flag in the First World War are
buried. In 2007 und 2008, the cemetery monument was frequently
damaged and defaced with racist slogans. Critics of the
government are nonetheless convinced that the current debate on
national identity will only further motivate such racist acts.
|
