Dialogue with Maymon: When France bans Burqas

Maymon:

“In our country we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity,” Mr Sarkozy said to applause in his historic speech to lawmakers in chateau at Versailles.

French goverment decides to impose ban on Burqa. It was one of the headlines in many online and print media.

"Who doesn't see that our integration model isn't working any more? Instead of producing equality, it produces inequality. Instead of producing cohesion, it creates
resentment." Sarkozy said.

Is France again leading by example? It has produced greatest of thinkers who influenced human race over the years. Philosophers like Voltaire, openly stood against Catholic Church dogma for the freedom of religion. He and Diderot regarded religion intolerant and tried to enlighten the society through their writings as early as seventeenth century.

But this ban of burqa, is sure going to invite debates and controversies. Muslim religious leaders in France and over the world is going to see it as yet another bid to stigmatise their religion.

The progressive section in both muslim and non-muslim community is going to welcome this. Who defines the boundary line between secularism and personal freedom.

A similar law in 2004, banned head scarfs at public schools. It invited criticism from the small Sikh community as well, when Sikh boys disallowed from entering class-rooms with turban. In Holland they tried to ban burqa last year, but stopped amid fears of possible backlashes.

I dont know how comfortable is Burqa compared to other forms of dress. But I feel most of the time women are forced to wear it on the name of religion. Let us not blame it on Islam alone. Recently there was on incident in Chennai where a college student was banned when she refused to wear a saree according to the college dress code. The case is still under high court's consideration. Lets hope our law would respect her choice!

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Sudeep:

Dear Maymon,

The last line in your note makes a strong point. I think we should all learn to respect other's choices. And I see the ban on Burqas primarily as a disrespect to that choice.

I know it is not so simple. All women who wear Burqa may not be wearing it on their personal choice. (That is true for many things that many people do, and almost anything that women do, in almost all cultures, in almost all parts of the world). But for those who have chosen to wear a Burqa, this moves comes as a violation of their fundamental individual rights.

I have also wondered how could it be comfortable at all to wear a Burqa. But then I have heard and read women who find it very comfortable and even empowering, for various reasons. The simplest one is that they don't have to worry much about the male gazes and passing comments on their body. They are also looked upon with respect. (In the Indian context, Ambedkar did not like Gandhi's idea of burning foreign dresses -- he said for Dalits, the 'English' dress was empowering. A Brahmin or Vysya could be respected even in minimal dress, but not a dalit).

At the end, I think banning Burqas is as bad as imposing Burqas.. And that a ban is certainly not the way to go..

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[Image above: a photoshopped image that has been doing rounds on email. The original can be found here.]

Barack Hussein Obama, The Next President

Thank you very, very much. Well, this isn't exactly the party I'd planned, but I sure like the company.

(APPLAUSE)

The way to continue our fight now, to accomplish the goals for which we stand is to take our energy, our passion, our strength, and do all we can to help elect Barack Obama, the next president of the United States.

(APPLAUSE)

* * *

We all want an America defined by deep and meaningful equality, from civil rights to labor rights, from women's rights to gay rights...

(APPLAUSE)

... from ending discrimination to promoting unionization, to providing help for the most important job there is: caring for our families.

And we all want to restore America's standing in the world, to end the war in Iraq, and once again lead by the power of our values...

(APPLAUSE)

... and to join with our allies to confront our shared challenges, from poverty and genocide to terrorism and global warming.

* * *

This election is a turning-point election. And it is critical that we all understand what our choice really is. Will we go forward together, or will we stall and slip backwards?

Now, think how much progress we've already made. When we first started, people everywhere asked the same questions. Could a woman really serve as commander-in-chief? Well, I think we answered that one.

(APPLAUSE)

Could an African-American really be our president? And Senator Obama has answered that one.

(APPLAUSE)

.. from Hillary Clinton's speech on June 7, 2008 suspending her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.

A birthday party

This story happens in the US of A.

It is a kid's birthday party.

He tells his mom he wants to call Elizabeth who's in his class.

Mom asks, "Is she white, or black?"

"Just a minute, I'll check with her."

* * *

This was supposed to be a joke. The innocence part is probably a bit exaggerated. But the conditioning that we go through in our early years, and the effect that is has on us, remains a fact.

I hear about a Jew who grew up in Canada. How the family members injected racism into their bloods when they were kids. How "saving Israel" became their first priority in life. And how she felt ashamed of it when she grew up and got to know more about Israel. And how she became an outsider, an "agent", at home..

An Iraqi girl speaks Malayalam

Sameeha translates her neighbour, a 13-year old Iraqi girl who lived in the next flat, who lost her parents when they were having a lunch together.

In English, it translates roughly as..

"I can't forget the childhood
That smelt blood
Ate bombs
Heard lullabies of gunshots

We will resist
At least with slingshots
Till our last bones are broken
We, children of Baghdad.."

"Who knows what she'll become tomorrow..", Sameeha asks. What will we call the girl, "insurgent", or "terrorist"? When will the rest of us realize War is not a matter of whether Saddam was a martyr or a villain?

How long?

One third of the planet will be desert by the year 2100, say climate experts in the most dire warning yet of the effects of global warming..

The century of drought, The Independent (U.K.), Oct. 4, 2006.

"Drought threatening the lives of millions will spread across half the land surface of the Earth in the coming century because of global warming, according to new predictions from Britain's leading climate scientists.

Extreme drought, in which agriculture is in effect impossible, will affect about a third of the planet, according to the study from the Met Office's Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research.

It is one of the most dire forecasts so far of the potential effects of rising temperatures around the world - yet it may be an underestimation, the scientists involved said yesterday.."



This pic from the film "The Inconvenient truth" showing the global temp rise by 2100 shows that the carbon dioxide emissions come mainly from the "developed" countries whereas the resulting rise in temperature would be more in the poorer regions including Indian subcontinent, Africa and South America.

[Thanks to Deleep for the link and the pic].

Nicaraguayil Ortega!

Malloo film buffs may remember this dialogue from the film Sandesam: "..Nicaragua-yil Ortegaye purathakki avide oru pava government-ine sthapichu.." (In Nicaragua, Ortega was ousted and a dummy government was put in power.. [by the US])

Sreenivasan's character, a hardcore communist, tells this (and some comments on what happened in Polland-- it was a good laugh) in reply to his brother's-- he's a Congressman-- comments criticizing the left parties in Kerala. Their father, played by Thilakan, can't stand these two political rivals fighting in the house.

Today I was reminded of this line by my [needless to say, leftist] friend Dileep. It seems Ortega is coming back to power in the central American country after 16 years. He also sent me a link to Deshabhimani online news (CPI-M paper in Malayalam) that celebrates the comeback.

But another friend Arun tells us it's not the Ortega that he used to be.. It seems there are considerable changes his positions.

"Mr. Ortega, ousted in a 1990 election after his Sandinista government had fought a civil war against U.S.-backed Contra guerrillas, has reinvented himself as a moderate and a reconciler who will bring jobs and growth. His campaign colour is pastel pink, his rallies play John Lennon's Give Peace a Chance, and his running mate is Jaime Morales, an ex-Contra.

Mr. Ortega, 60, is paunchier since his rebel heyday, when he was compared to Che Guevara. Secularism has given way to support for the Catholic Church and its abortion ban campaign. He has declined to debate with rival candidates and focusses on rapturous rallies in the barrios.."

[ Sandinista comeback alarms U.S., also from The Hindu.)

However, if even a moderate, paunchy, Catholic Ortega is sending panic signals to the U.S., we may see more sanctions, more poverty (Nicaragua is apparently the second poorest country in the western half of the globe, after Hayti), another "axis of evil" and probably another war or another coup. It seems the U.S. had warned the people even before the elections of sanctions and other "dire consequences" that a Sandinista comeback would lead to. Business as usual.