10 Reasons To wear the Burkha

[poliphilo]

10 Reasons To Wear The Burkha

1.  To honour your parents.
2.  To piss your parents off
3.  To honour men
4.  To piss men off
5.  To make a political point
6.  To make a religious point
7.  Because you are a subjugated housefrau
8.  Because you are a radical feminist
9.  To disappear
10.To stand out.

Comments

[chiller.livejournal.com]

I love this.

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

Love love love.

11. To affirm your loyalty to an alien religion rather than to Britain/Ireland.
12. To rejoice in British/Irish liberties.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, those too.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

Very perceptive! You should have been a journo.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't think- or write- fast enough...alas.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

I used to work for a couple that had lived in Saudi -- "the Magic Kingdom" -- for many years. Politically, both were very progressive, yet their views on life under sharia law, at least in the kingdom itself, were always surprising. They did not see the systemitized oppression that we in the West are told to see.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Interesting.

We are fed so much propaganda....

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

One purpose of the "black bag" was that it suppoesdly prevents women -- and indirectly men -- from competing through ostentacious displays, potentially leading to unnecessary conflicts among both sexes. It fails, because instead the women wear tinkly gold jewelry, so that the sound penetrates the outer garments where the sight of their father's or husband's wealth cannot. I was told that you'd see old women, sometimes, going down the street, supported on both sides by attendants, while wearing so much gold that they could barely shuffle thier feet and actually clanked as they passed.

Another unintended consequence is that many men are prevented from entertaining male friends in their own home, because their wife runs around in a Danskin leotard all day and refuses to put on the black bag, just so he can socialize with his friends. My employer's neighbor had to build a second house in the back yard, because of his wife's refusal. I was told this sort of thing is very common in the Magic Kingdom. Most of the men these folks knew were generally more opppressed than oppressor.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The burkha is an expression of puritanism- which is a noble ideal, but unworkable- because human nature rebels against it- and the only way of enforcing it is through the machinery of the police state.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

Well said. As an American, it's sometimes difficult to see puritanism as a noble ideal, but you are quite correct, nonetheless.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Nice list - only I'm a bit unsure about No.3. I'm all in favour of anyone who wants to being able to wear a burkha, as you know, but I don't see that a garment predicated on the assumption that men can't be expected to exercise a modicum of self-control exactly honours them (though it clearly pisses some of them off).

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You honour them by respecting their weakness

AND/OR

You honour male authority by submitting to your husband (or your imam's) wishes.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Okay - the first of those feels a little paradoxical, but I think I just about get it. Maybe a bit like opening the door for a woman, even though it might imply that she was too weak to do it herself?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, something like that...

It's a back-handed compliment.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

As personal as the person.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Exactly. People wear the burkha for all sorts of different reasons. I'm sure my list isn't exhaustive.

[internet-sampo.livejournal.com]

11. As a form of masochism.



12. You're suicidal

http://www.dubaiforums.com/dubai-politics-talk/burkha-freak-kart-accident-t41150.html

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

How do you get dry afterwards?

Something similar to (12) happened to the dancer Isadora Duncan. Her scarf got caught in the wheel of her boyfriend's bugatti.

[internet-sampo.livejournal.com]

and as I understand it, that's not the only bruka and go cart story.

Several of the Muslim women I know started wearing a hajab only after 9/11 and the backlash against Muslims. There's a great story in this month's Vanity Fair about an American women reporter visiting Saudi Arabia and what she had to go through. Worth a look.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think people who choose to wear the burkha are- in the present climate of opinion- actually quite brave.

[ex-redrain.livejournal.com]

11. Because you choose to.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, as simple as that.

And a democracy should honour that choice.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

You forgot #11:

So you can pull an automatic rifle out from under it and shoot a policeman.

Which happened here in Philly. The guy then disburqa'd himself in the getaway car but they still caught him. And he wasn't even a Muslim.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's a brilliant disguise. Journalists have been known to use it- the BBC's John Simpson for instance.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

Many of us in Philadelphia have become more than a little suspicious of people in full cover since the shooting incident.

EDIT: "suspicious" is the wrong word, I think. "Wary" is more like it.

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

Face-veils are no-nos in the US. Especially in banks.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

There's an intense debate going on in Europe. France is moving to ban the veil, a spokesman for our government has said a ban would be "unBritish".

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

We see them on the street occasionally. There's a pretty strict community on Germantown Avenue around Manheim St (where my father was born) and a shopthat sells those thingies that cover the entire face, with a sort of net-work opening over some pretty small eye slits. Like the one in this picture only in black:

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I feel there has to be a story behind this picture.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

I ganked it from an article that talks about Sarkozy's attitude to the burqa. You could probably find it by doing a Google image search on burqa -- it came up in the first page of search results.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

And an old one. In Kipling's story "Beyond the Pale", a white man uses it to visit his Indian lover, iirc.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'd forgotten that.

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

Burqa or Niquab? Hijab or Chador?

Lots of people get those mixed up. The Burqa is the full over-the-head body cloak worn in Afghanistan with the screen for the face. The niquab is the face-covering veil that only leaves the eye(s) exposed.

The hijab is the headscarf, and the chador is the robe-like overcoat with long sleeves.

(Sorry. I want people to get these things straight. It's one of my picky-nits.)

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

And here's the order of dress, from most to least restrictive or disguising:

Burqa
Hijab + Niqab + Chador
Hijab + Chador
Hijab

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Quite right too.

"Burkha" is used rather loosely in the current debate- to mean any of the above.

The Burkha is very rare on the streets of Britain, the niquab rather less so.

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

Oh, very good!!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

[red-girl-42.livejournal.com]

I like this.

Recently I was thinking about American outrage over the Burkha while looking at dress codes for my son's school. Although I think the Burkha is excessively restrictive and, as a claustrophobe, I'd rather slit my wrists than wear one, I also think we fail to see that we also have legal requirements about what you have to cover up here. I can't walk out in public naked, or bare chested. I will get arrested. Why? Why is it okay to say I'm not allowed to expose my breasts, but it's horrifying to say that a women can't expose her hair? Qualitatively what is the difference?

I do recognize the element of sexism in Sharia law, and I certainly think it's taken way to extremes, but still, we DO have notions about what is "inappropriate" to wear, and we are more restrictive of women than men in that as well.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's a good point.

It's always women's clothing that we get into such a tizzy about. It's always women's self-presentation we want to control- in one way or another.

The female body is a battleground.

[aellia.livejournal.com]

I feel sorry for their children who miss out on their mother's facial expression.
I also feel sorry for other children who see them in the street for the first time.
Pretty scary,I think

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

I don't think they wear these things at home -- so the children won't miss their mother's expressions. It's just when they go out and might drive men mad with their lascivious charms that they have to blacken their teeth and wear shrouds (metaphorically speaking).

[aellia.livejournal.com]

Do they really blacken their teeth?

[aellia.livejournal.com]

Sorry..just seen the brackets

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

As Laura says, I think you'll find the burkha is only worn outdoors. :)