Burka in Germany: Interior minister calls for curbs

[Gerald]

The German Interior Minister, Thomas de Maiziere, has called for a partial ban on the burka, a day after saying a full ban might not be constitutional.
He said the burka did not fit in with Germany's open society and showing the face was essential to social cohesion.
"We call on everyone to show their face," he said.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37130050


Well,this full veil is one thing, more country will intend.



Note: 19-08-16

[STEED]

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Vendor

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37130050


Well,this full veil is one thing, more country will intend.



Note: 19-08-16

Considering the 20th century with Nacht und Nebel" Teutonic Night and Fog; ironic how this 'thinly veiled' argument amounts to a refreshing 180 turn of 'open society' perspective. https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007465 Of course even Germany might make an exception for a beau Sabreur likely to bring home the bronze bacon with a saber: <A moment she’ll never forget. Ibtihaj Muhammad, first to wear a hajib at the Olympics, won her first Olympic medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Saturday, August 13...Women can wear what they want! Anything else is an ISIS dress-code thing...what were against supposedly https://www.rt.com/news/355794-burqas-beards-celebration-manbij/

[Skybird]

This is the by far most competent and well-thought out comment on the problem that I have read in German since many years. The author, Birgit Kelle, is a controversial figure here in Germany - especially feminists and political correctness Nazis hate her like the plague, but I have learned to carefully listen when she takes the word or writes about an issue. This women is really smart, and fearless, and minds no numerical superiority of her enemies. I have learned to have quite some respect for her. Her thinking is logical and her reason is straight.

To my surprise I learned she is against a Burkha ban, a ban that before I had supported and demanded, but since it is Birgit Kelle, I read it nevertheless - and she convinced me in the first run. Her arguments are correct, and strong. Shame on me that it did not come to my mind all by myself - I was a lazy, uncaring thinker there.

Basically she argues that this debate is just about the tip of the iceberg of problems only, allowing easy distraction from the huge ocean of suppression of and violence against women in Muslim households that nobody cares to mention, to address, and to tackle.

http://www.focus.de/politik/experten...d_5834191.html

As I told you, it is in German.

P.S. Personally I dislike the view of burkhas in public, and the sight makes me aggressive. I ignore them and treat them as empty air, and reject any social interaction even if they would address me directly, which has happened once. In official and state institutions, burkhas however must be banned, they are a sign for refusing integration and of religious discrimination of women, and a state labelling itself as "secular" cannot tolerate being represented by such - hm, persons? Neuters? Whatever it is under a burkha. But politicians act quite cowardly here, even the law now has been dramatically watered down. The debate gets also abused by Islamophobe lobbies using it as a weapon to test Western socieity once again ion how far they can be opushed back to bow to Muslims special demands.

The books to read on this matter, the role of women in Islam, are both by Hans-Peter Raddatz: Allahs Schleier. Die Frau im Kampf der Kulturen, and Allahs Frauen. Djihad zwischen Schariah und Demokratie. - Islamophiles will not like it one bit. I know them both, of course. They drowned in the flood we had two year ago, however...

[Gerald]

But I am happy to take the advice of the rapporteur on this point.

[Oberon]

I can see the temptation but it's a step down a slippery slope, but I think out of all the traditional Islamic garb, the Burqa is the most problematic one because of its all covering appearance. In short it's a bit of a security risk, much in the same way that you can't wear a motorcycle helmet into a petrol station kiosk or shopping store.
Something like a Hijab or Khimar is a much better alternative, and if you are going to ban the Burqa then women should be encouraged to use them as an alternative if at all possible. However, it's a problematic situation as it stands on civil liberties, is this another situation where a society is giving up liberty for security?

[mapuc]

Here is a real life story

This was told by a former security person who had been working at some Airport as some kind of security

A person entered the gate and the authorities asked this person to show that she was the person in the picture. She refuse and said according to the law of Islam she couldn't

Then she was taken to some room where there was two female police officer and again she refused. They called an Iman who said, she had to, as long there are not male person in the room.

I can't remember all of it, only that it was a man.

Markus

[Skybird]

@Oberon,
And there you already have gone into the trap. The Burkha is not the issue - the mindset behind it making women wearing it, the sexual repression at home pushing them into that role - that is the problem. Where are your mentioned civil liberties there? Equality of men and women, in your societies at least? Equality before the law? No child marriages? Do you think this sexual discrimination comes to an end just because Burkhas get banned - or replaced with a Hijab or an al-Amira?

Like I say so often, the mindset, the content, the attitude of Islam is the problem. And that does not get tackled by banning certain clothing, or replacing clothing, or issuing a paper with an official stamp on it. The mindset stays to be there, in this case based on both patriarchalic cultural tradition as well as religious demands of Islamic ideology.

[Betonov]

It's fair.
I'm guessing laws in Germany are similar to ours and a biker has to remove a helmet when entering a public place like a store or gas station, I have to remove sunglasses, people are not allowed wearing masks inside stores during Karneval....

This is just the German minister telling there will be no special privilige on account of religion.

[Oberon]

It would certainly help if some kind of religious authority could put down a hard rule about when a woman with a Burqa could be checked for ID purposes. If there were no men present would probably be a good rule of thumb to use, after all, the Burqa is designed to place a shield between a woman and a man of sexual age. So if a heterosexual woman or two were to be present then it should be fine to remove the Burqa for a security check.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Oberon

It would certainly help if some kind of religious authority could put down a hard rule about when a woman with a Burqa could be checked for ID purposes. If there were no men present would probably be a good rule of thumb to use, after all, the Burqa is designed to place a shield between a woman and a man of sexual age.

The law of our Western lands have to be the standard and rule here. The only one.

No special deals, no parallel laws, no relgiously motivated parallel justice.

If they want it like you described, they have to leave and go back to any of those many countries where their ways are not only not controversial, but are in conformity with local cultural habits and laws. I care little for what they do in Saudi Arabia or Iran. But Saudi or Iranian rules used for legislation in Western nations - that is something I do not tolerate. "My house, my rules. You comply, or you leave. Period."

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Oberon

I can see the temptation but it's a step down a slippery slope, but I think out of all the traditional Islamic garb, the Burqa is the most problematic one because of its all covering appearance. In short it's a bit of a security risk, much in the same way that you can't wear a motorcycle helmet into a petrol station kiosk or shopping store.
Something like a Hijab or Khimar is a much better alternative, and if you are going to ban the Burqa then women should be encouraged to use them as an alternative if at all possible. However, it's a problematic situation as it stands on civil liberties, is this another situation where a society is giving up liberty for security?

Are you sure one cannot wear their MC helmet in a petrol station? Maybe it's different in the Uk but here we do it all the time. Of course, not for crazy religious reasons, but just to save time taking it off and on.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Skybird

@Oberon,
And there you already have gone into the trap. The Burkha is not the issue - the mindset behind it making women wearing it, the sexual repression at home pushing them into that role - that is the problem. Where are your mentioned civil liberties there? Equality of men and women, in your societies at least? Equality before the law? No child marriages? Do you think this sexual discrimination comes to an end just because Burkhas get banned - or replaced with a Hijab or an al-Amira?

Like I say so often, the mindset, the content, the attitude of Islam is the problem. And that does not get tackled by banning certain clothing, or replacing clothing, or issuing a paper with an official stamp on it. The mindset stays to be there, in this case based on both patriarchalic cultural tradition as well as religious demands of Islamic ideology.

But is that what is being debated here? Or is it for security reasons?
If it is not for security reasons then is it the matter of the state to decide what takes place in someones household? Start with the Burqa because its a symbol of oppression, but then what about subversive attitudes on the internet? People who call for the downfall of governments on internet forums perhaps?
Oh, you may say strawman and say I'm shifting the arguement, that's fair enough, I see where you're coming from and yes I agree there is a definite problem in Islam with how women are treated. However, this is something that is changing over time, just as how women have been treated in other religions has changed over time. If this were not the case then we would not be seeing women allowed the vote in Saudi Arabia, or women councillors elected, Germany wouldn't have Fatmire Alushi either. So progress is being made, and these things take time. Islam has only just really reached the modern world in the late 20th century, since our industrial need for oil has dragged them into our industrial world, and so there's a lot of culture shock there and trying to enforce western values on a non-western society is going to be problematic.
However, within western nations, certainly if a Muslim man breaks western law by mistreating a Muslim woman then he should be tried and convicted for it. The law is the law and trying to wiggle around it by bringing in religion shouldn't be permitted.
That being said, there are plenty of Muslim women who were the Burqa not out of oppression but because they want to, now you can argue that this is some form of Stockholm syndrome within the religion, but these are not the only religious group who enforce certain rules on their women, and in many cases the women are only too happy to abide by those rules. So if a woman wants to wear the Burqa....what do you do?

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Onkel Neal

Are you sure one cannot wear their MC helmet in a petrol station? Maybe it's different in the Uk but here we do it all the time. Of course, not for crazy religious reasons, but just to save time taking it off and on.

Oh, must be different in the UK then, they banned that a couple of decades ago because people were using them to block CCTV cameras while robbing petrol stations.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Skybird

The law of our Western lands have to be the standard and rule here. The only one.

No special deals, no parallel laws, no relgiously motivated parallel justice.

If they want it like you described, they have to leave and go back to any of those many countries where their ways are not only not controversial, but are in conformity with local cultural habits and laws. I care little for what they do in Saudi Arabia or Iran. But Saudi or Iranian rules used for legislation in Western nations - that is something I do not tolerate. "My house, my rules. You comply, or you leave. Period."

It's not a case of bending a European rule to follow an Islamic one, it's a case of making it smoother for those enforcing European rules by proving that both can be used at the same time.
For example, if a woman is arrested, she has the right to be strip-searched by a female police officer. Now this has got nothing to do with religion but common decency. I see no reason why a similar case cannot be made for Burqa wearers and female security officers. If a prominant religious figure says that this is so, then it becomes easier for security officers who don't need to keep calling in the local Imam every time a woman refuses to take her Burqa off. That's the carrot approach.
Of course, you can do the stick approach and just arrest them for obstruction, but I think you'd have a lot of full womens prisons which are hotbeds for extremist recruitment by the end of it. Another time where rash reactionary methods end up creating a bigger problem than the one they were trying to solve.