{"id":32096,"date":"2014-07-17T19:35:07","date_gmt":"2014-07-17T23:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=32096"},"modified":"2014-07-17T21:45:47","modified_gmt":"2014-07-18T01:45:47","slug":"is-a-burka-in-simplepleasing-colours-a-lesser-symbol-of-fundamentalist-islam-than-its-black-counterpart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=32096","title":{"rendered":"Is a Burka in “Simple, Pleasing Colours” a Lesser Symbol of Fundamentalist Islam than its Black Counterpart?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By<\/p>\n

\"BSL071714\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Ranga Jayasuriya<\/strong><\/p>\n

Would a colourful burka be a lesser symbol of fundamentalist Islam and subjugation of women than its black counterpart? Some members of the Muslim Council of Sri Lanka tend to think so.<\/p>\n

They have launched a campaign to distribute burka in ‘simple pleasing colours’ among local Muslims. <\/p>\n

They assure that the initiative is not aimed at non- burka clad women, and that only the women who are already wearing this all encompassing Muslim garment would be given free new light coloured burkas.<\/p>\n

The programme has been launched with the blessing of Jamiyyathul Ulama, the foremost body of Muslim theologians in the country.<\/p>\n

The Muslim Council, made up of moderates and liberals within the community, has steered clear of puritanical austere brand of Islam that has recently made inroads into some quarters within the Sri Lankan Muslim community.<\/p>\n

(Some Muslims even deny radicalization. However, highlighting these trends are not Islam bashing, rather an objective and dispassionate analysis would spare the country and community from future troubles)
\n
\nThe good Samaritans of the Muslim Council may have good intentions, however, their initiative could have dangerous and often unexpected repercussions. It would grant a degree of legitimacy to the burka and Niqab (the full face veil), both are signature garments of Salafi Jihadi fundamentalism and the emblems of the reincarnation of medieval values that subjugate women and propagate bigotry.<\/p>\n

Positive difference<\/strong><\/p>\n

A better and much more determined initiative on the part of the Muslim Council could have been a campaign to dissuade Muslim women from wearing burka and niqab. That is where the moderate Muslims, even those who want to make a positive difference within their communities are vacillating. The religious ethos that envelopes the dress is dissuading the moderates from decisive action. Whether burka and niqab are genuine representation of Islamic religiosity is open to a long and hard debate. However, what is plain simple is that it is a stark representation of the backwardness, subjugation of women and the bigotry of the medieval age.<\/p>\n

Wearing a burka is not a matter of enjoyment of individual freedom or of greater civil liberties. It is more a matter of renouncing of some of those very inalienable rights. The modern legal and constitutional position is that a man (or a woman) cannot enter into an agreement to enslave himself\/herself even voluntarily. By extension, the burka is a symbol of willing or forced subjugation of women, no less different from slavery.<\/p>\n

In that particular social milieu in the Middle East from where the burka originated, women live in invisible shackles. Clerics in Saudi Arabia, the fountainhead of Wahabbism and much of terrorist financing are yet to allow women to drive. In Iran, Mullahs have banned women from watching football matches- recently, the ban was expanded to volleyball matches as well. Recently, the leader of Boko Haram, a Johnny – come- lately to Islamic fundamentalism, threatened to sell abducted Nigerian girls as ‘slaves’.<\/p>\n

The burka is representative of this hate filled, retrograde ideology as much as Swastika is of Nazism and white supremacy. One’s desire to emulate it has little to do with the enjoyment of fundamental rights. In fact, the advocates of this virulent ideology are plotting, day and night to destroy the very structures of our societies and deny us our very fundamental freedoms. Those fanatics are a microscopic minority, yet they are highly articulate, determined and ruthless. Moderates are shy of taking them head on for those very reasons.<\/p>\n

The burka is a misfit for modern societies not just because of the regressive values it represents. The alienation and loss of identity imposed on the women in the form of full face veil and burka, hinder social integration. That self alienation fosters segregated ethnic enclaves which would later become the breeding grounds of radicalization. That happened in the West where immigrants from Pakistan, Middle East and Sub Saharan Africa lived in their own segregated enclaves and rejected liberal values of their host countries. Those communities proved to be breeding grounds for radicalization and future terrorists.<\/p>\n

Last but not least, there are genuine security concerns associated with the burka and the loss of self identity of the person behind that cloak.<\/p>\n

French ban<\/strong><\/p>\n

Early this month, the European Court of Human Rights upheld the French ban on the burka and the niqab. France earlier banned the burka and full face veil under its Laicite law, which is the corner stone of its strict secularism, which has the support of both the leftists and rightwing in the French political mainstream. The ban was subsequently challenged before the European Human Rights Court, which has now upheld the ban.<\/p>\n

Recently, there was an online petition asking the government of Sri Lanka to ban the burka. I do not see any harm in a principled government decision to ban the burka, given illiberal undertones of the Islamic garment.<\/p>\n

However, the fact of the matter is that the Sri Lankan Government does not have the right ideological basis to embark on such a measure, nor is the burka ban a priority in terms of combating religious extremism.<\/p>\n

Liberal or secular<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sri Lankan Government is not liberal or secular as its counterparts in advanced democracies. Secondly, it has appealed to the primordial impulses of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism. This obvious religious bias towards increasingly militant Buddhist nationalism denies the government a leverage in dealings with religious radicalization of other communities.<\/p>\n

In those circumstances, a ban on the burka by a Sinhala Buddhist nationalist government would do a greater harm than good. It would radicalize Muslims, instead of deradicalizing them. Also, bigoted Buddhist fanatics in the BBS, Sihala Ravaya and other ultra nationalists groups have launched a campaign against many facets of Muslim religiosity. Such a move would embolden the Buddhist hardline.<\/p>\n

Also, the government cannot fix the Muslim community, before it fixes the problems within the majority religion. Many problems that beset Sri Lanka in the nation building process stem from the absence of separation between the Temple and the State. Soon after independence and in the absence of a clear demarcation between the Church and the State, monks, not the most intellectually enlightened group, who were propelled by the religiosity of the public, encroached on the political landscape, diverting the trajectory of the infant nation, away from its intended path.<\/p>\n

Years later, the country would explode in bitter ethnic conflagration and lose most of its economic potential due to the repercussions of those early meddling with the State by the monks.<\/p>\n

The Sri Lankan State still suffers from this particular deformity. Without structural reforms which would draw a clear separation between the Church and the State and enhance civil liberties and individual rights, the State is unlikely to recover. Those reforms are however a long shot.<\/p>\n

Until then, Muslim moderates have a duty to keep a tab on radicalization agents within their community. The best way to do that is confront radicals and deny them space to preach hatred and, equally importantly, shun any symbols of the fundamentalism that they advocate. That would include the burka and the niqab.<\/p>\n

Courtesy: Ceylon Today<\/em><\/p>\n

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By Ranga Jayasuriya Would a colourful burka be a lesser symbol of fundamentalist Islam and subjugation of women than its black counterpart? Some members of the Muslim Council of Sri Lanka tend to think so. They have launched a campaign to distribute burka in ‘simple pleasing colours’ among local Muslims. They assure that the initiative …<\/p>\n

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