Recently, in an irrationally anti-Islamic move, the French National Assembly approved the controversial bill on banning the wearing of the Islamic veil or burqa in public places. Of the 557 MPs, 335 members voted in favor of the bill.
If approved in the fall by the Senate and then by the Constitutional Council, the law would impose a fine of 150 euros or $190 on any Muslim lady wearing the burqa outside her home in public, when the fact of the matter is that this wonderful piece of clothing is not meant for the privacy of homes but for public places in order to protect the dignity of women and save them from the dirty glances of strangers. According to the irrational French law, a man convicted of forcing a woman to wear the burqa, would be liable to a fine of up to 30,000 euros and a one-year prison sentence. The socialist party described the bill as a propaganda ploy by President Nicolas Sarkozy after failure in the recent local election and a bid to retain power in the 2012 presidential election. Sarkozy's rival in the 2007 presidential election Segolene Royal criticized the French president and said instead of embarking on such trivial matters like banning the burqa in public places, he should solve the major problems facing France.
The approval of the bill banning the wearing of burqa should be assessed beyond the inter-party rivalry in France, since in the West it has become a vogue to try to depict Muslims backward in the social and economic problems. Most of the Muslims in West European countries are immigrants whose positive influence is being felt by the indigenous Christian population, where several have embraced the truth of Islam. This is the main fear of the ruling regimes and in their desperation to stop native Europeans from being attracted towards Islam, the regimes are enacting weird laws such as the recent ban on the freedom of the burqa. At the same time, the Western regimes are trying to erode the cultural identity and values of Muslims through propagation of vices in society and loose morals. In other words, one can say that the western governments have launched a soft war against Muslims under the pretext of defending their decadent system of liberal democracy. In the poisonous propaganda Muslims are portrayed as a threat to the security and the cultural identity of the west. This manner of propaganda against Muslims finally reaches the point that from the viewpoint of the West restriction of civil freedoms for Muslims turns into a necessity.
Prior to this, the French regime had banned scarf-wearing Muslim girls and women from entering government-run schools and universities. After the burqa ban by France, other European states such as Belgium and Spain also did the same. The West's bewilderedness in dealing with the issue of Hejab or Islamic veil betrays its anti-Islam policy. It is a kind of Islamophobia. The West's double standard policy towards this issue is clarified once we see that the civil rights organs in the west defend the rights of homosexuals and those who insult Islam and Muslims under the pretext of freedom of expression. But the same organs have kept silent towards the banning of burqa. This dual policy reaches the peak of hypocrisy when we witness the silence of civil rights groups against the French parliament's ban of the burqa. The French pretext is that the hejab threatens the secular nature and structure of France, whereas real secularism means no one should infringe on the personal freedoms including the clothing and traditions of others. In the words of analysts the French who harp on the slogans of "freedom, equality and brotherhood," should make it clear that such values are only for Christians and not Muslims. This is an indication of the West's confusion in practicing what they preach.
source : irib
