the veil, flag of the muslim far right

8/11/2019 The Veil, Flag of the Muslim Far Right

1/27

Maryam Namazie: Limitations on the veil inschools and an all-out ban on the burqa or niqab areoften seen to be authoritarian. Your views?

Marieme Helie Lucas: First of all, it is useful notto conflate the two issues: that of veiling girls inschools and banning the face covering. I will thusanswer them as two separate questions.

When talking of veils in schools, one automatically

refers to the veiling of under-aged girls, i.e. not theveiling of women. The question thus becomes: who isto decide on girls veiling - themselves or the adults

who are in charge of them? And which adults?

I know of only one book that looks at this issue; it is a

pamphlet entitledBas les Voiles(by ChahdorttDjavann, Gallimard 2003) that was published by anIranian woman exiled in Paris at the time when theStasi Commission in France was collecting the viewsof concerned women (and men) before the adoptionof the new law on religious symbols in secular stateschools. The author states that the psychological

damage done to girls by veiling them is immense as itmakes them responsible for men's arousal from avery early age. This point requires specialconsideration given the new trend to veil girls as

young as five as shown in the numerous campaignsthroughout North Africa.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2871164-bas-les-voileshttp://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2871164-bas-les-voileshttp://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2871164-bas-les-voileshttp://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2871164-bas-les-voiles


2/27

The author goes on to explain that the girl's body isthus turned into the site of "fitnah"(seduction orsource of disorder), meaning that she cannot look at

it or think of it in positive terms. This attitude buildsgirls that fear, distrust, and feel disgust and anguishat their own bodies. At such an early age, little girlshave no way of countering this shaping of their self;they are entirely under the thumb of anti-womenmen. The women growing up from thesepsychologically damaged girls are likely to need a lotof help to be able to reconsider themselves and their

bodies in more positive terms, to reconstruct theirself image, to conquer their bodily autonomy, toabandon guilt and fear - and to give back to men theresponsibility of their sexual acts. I think it would be

very useful for more women researchers to delve intothe psychological damage done to girls who are veiledfrom an early age.

Also, who is the "adult" in charge of protecting thegirl-child's rights? The state already plays this role onnumerous occasions, such as in preventing familiesfrom perform FGM [female genital mutilation] ongirls, or in preventing forced marriages for instance.

Why should it not also take responsibility inpreventing the deep psychological damage induced

by wearing a veil before adulthood?

Maryam Namazie: Why should the state be seen asauthoritarian when it prevents the veiling of girls but

not when it protects them from FGM?


3/27

Marieme Helie Lucas: It is interesting toremember that groups of lefties and feminists (alas!)

in Europe and North America defended "the right toFGM" in the seventies as a "cultural right" anddenounced "western imperialism's" attempts ateradicating the practice in Europe. At no point wasany reference made to the struggles of women on theground to eradicate it in the limited parts of Africa

where FGM was practiced both by animists,

Christians and Muslims. We see the same patternreplicated regarding "the right to veil," which is nowseen as a "religious right" despite the fact thatnumerous progressive interpreters of the Qu'ranhave stated that it is not an Islamic injunction.

What strikes me is the imbalance in treatment of"authoritarianism" by those on the left and in thehuman rights community in Europe and North

America. Millions of women in predominantlyMuslim set-ups have been assassinated for standingfor their right not to be veiled (so far, veiled womenare not assassinated for wearing a veil in Europe, norin North America, even if it is true that they may be

verbally attacked by far-right racist individuals, who,may I emphasize, are then taken to court andgenerally convictedas should be the case).

I wish the magnitude of the vociferous defense ofveiled women's "choice" and "right to veil" by

"progressive people" would be matched with their


4/27

defense of women slaughtered for notveiling. Butwhat we see, instead, hidden behind the left andhuman rights community's unilateral defense of the

human rights of veiled women, is in fact a clearlypolitical position. "Progressives" have chosen todefend fundamentalists who they depict exclusivelyas victims of US imperialism, rather than the victimsof fundamentalists, i.e., amongst others, the millionsof unveiled women who have resisted their diktats as

well as the millions of secularists, agnostics, atheists,and so on who have been abandoned as"westernized" or even "allies of imperialism"! History

will judge this short-sighted political choice just as itdid the cowardice of European countries at the onsetof Nazism's rise in Germany.

With regards your question, I can only speak from

my perspective as an Algerian living in France at thetime of the debate on the two French laws that areincriminated the world over as being "anti-Islam":the law on veiling in schools and the ban on facecovering. These are two different issues and inFrance they have been treated separately.

The ban on religious symbols in state secular schoolsis done in the name of secularism, whilst the ban onthe face covering is done in the name of security. The

burqa has been added to other forms of face coveringsuch as masks (outside a carnival setting) or fullmotorbike helmets (when not riding) as all of these

are routinely used to protect the identity of rioters or"terrorists." (As an Algerian old enough to have lived


5/27

through the Battle of Algiers during the liberationstruggle from French colonialism, I know for certainthat veils were used to carry arms and bombs from

place to placehence I cannot be surprised that fullface coverings are added to the list of forbiddenoutfits.)

Let me deal with veiling in schools.

The situations of France and Britain are verydifferent.

France is a secular country that, since the Frenchrevolution, separated the new secular state from thepolitical influence of the Church. The secular lawsthat established this separation date from 1905 and

1906, way before any immigration frompredominantly Muslim-majority countries. Article 1of the 1906 law guarantees freedom of belief andpractice. Article 2 of the same law states that beyondthis guarantee of fundamental individual rights thesecular state will have nothing to do with religion andits representatives. The state will not recognize

churches, nor fund them, and so on. In the words of amodern analyst of secularism, Henri Pena Ruiz, thestate declares itself "incompetent in religiousmatters." Beliefs become a private matter, andestablished religions (at that time mostly the CatholicChurch) lose all political power over the state. Thesecular state will simply ignore them as politicalentities. Citizens are the only partner the staterecognises, through democratic election processes.


6/27

It is a consequence of the definition of secularism asa separation of state and religion that, since 1906,

displaying "any symbol" of religious or politicalaffiliation is forbidden in exclusively two specificsituations: for both personnel and pupils in primaryand secondary secular state schools (i.e. for under-aged children, and not including universities wherestudents are of adult age), and for civil servants incontact with the public.

The rationale for this is that children come to theschools of the Secular Republic (where education isfree) to be educated as equal French citizens, not asrepresentatives of any specific community. Educationas equal citizens is a powerful tool against

communalism and the divisive specificities that leadto unequal legal rights within a given country, as isalready the case in Britain, with the so-called "shariacourts" becoming parallel legal systems in familymatters.

Similarly, civil servants when in contact with thepublic have to perform their duties as representativesof all citizens of every ethnic or religious background,and that is why they are requested not to displaytheir affiliation within the time frame when theyrepresent the Secular Republic.


7/27

This is a far cry from, for instance, British policestations, where one can request to be heard by apoliceman of his or her own cult or ethnic group as if

a civil servant cannot be educated not to be biased,and is necessarily first and foremost faithful to his orher 'community' rather than to fellow citizens.

Maryam Namazie: It is thus in the name ofsecularism that veiling has been outlawed in secularstate schools and for civil servants in France, just ascrosses or kippas have. Interestingly, the emphasis ison the veil, not on crosses or kippas. Why? And whois behind this hierarchy?

Marieme Helie Lucas: What blurred the issue wasthat the rightwing president Sarkozy passed the new

law in 2004 whilst trying to rally the xenophobic far-right in favor of his candidacy. There was no need forsuch a new law; the 1906 law merely had to beapplied.

The right and far-right forces in France have never

stopped attacking the 1905-6 secular laws for thepast 100 years. They have now found active andpowerful partners in Muslim fundamentalist far-right forces which also want to dismantle secularismand to return to the stage when religions had politicalpower and official representation. It is clear that

while different religions will compete at a later

stageif they are to succeed in their attempt toeradicate secularism in Francethey are useful allies


8/27

to each other. Just watch how representatives of theCatholic Church and Jewish high authorities supportpractically every demand by Muslim

fundamentalists! The issue of the veil in primary andsecondary schools in France is but one of the manydemands they constantly devise to fundamentallychallenge the laws of the Secular Republic.

Isn't it ironic that laws passed a century ago, at a timewhen there was virtually no immigration fromMuslim-majority countries, now pass off, the worldover, as laws against Islam? This alludes to theexpertise of Muslim fundamentalists in mediacommunications.

Coming back to the issue of veil and burqa in the UK,

let me state that Britain is not a secular state. TheQueen is the head of the Anglican Church, thus itcannot root its ban of the burqa or niqab or evenhead scarf on secular laws dating back to more than ahundred years nor show its commitment to free andquality non-confessional education for all children asis the case in France.

Britain has devised an alternative definition ofsecularism, not as separation, but as equal tolerance

by the state vis--vis all religions. Thus the state inBritain interacts with religions, and considers"churches" (or the like in other religions) as political

partners and representatives of communities. It isthis which leads to communalism and cultural


9/27

relativism. Isn't it high time for Britain to return tothe original definition of secularism and to a form ofdemocracy in which citizenship is at its center?

What we see happening is the fragmentation ofpeople, of fellow citizens, into smaller and smallercompeting entities that each demand different rulesare applicable to them and their "community" in thename of cultural and religious identities. Laws that

were voted by all citizens are challenged for thebenefit of supposedly divinely ordained lawsadirect attack on the very principle of democracy. Wesee the eradication of the notion of citizenship, andthis will have drastic political consequences in thenear future. All in the name of rights!

Maryam Namazie: What happens to a woman'sright to choose her clothing? Some would say forcing

women to unveil is on par with forcibly veiling them.

Marieme Helie Lucas: I would like to first pointout the fact that the debate is formulated in

"western" terms. To my knowledge, women inMuslim contexts are notprevented from veiling andthat's the vast majority of supposedly Muslims in the

world. In most instances, they are forced to cover, tovarious degrees, often by law, and we have yet to heara worldwide outcry about their situation.


10/27

In sharp contrast, we hear so much about the poorwomen "forced to unveil" in non-Muslim contextsmostly in Europe and North Americabut I have yet

to find wherethis happens; nowhere to myknowledge. The limitations on veiling, in specificcircumstances in France, have been addressed in myresponse to the previous question (under-aged girlsare requested not to veil only within the premises ofsecular state primary and secondary schools and

burqa-clad women are requested to uncover theirface for purpose of identification; the rest of their

body, hair, and head can be covered as they like).Also, as per my knowledge, when veiled women areverbally or physically attacked, there are tribunals todefend them against any form of aggression. Inactual fact, the debate is reduced to the right to veil inEurope and North America with no regard forthe resistanceto veiling everywhere in the world and

the dire circumstances for resisters. This reduction isutterly unacceptable to me.

On the one hand, there are millions of womenworldwide forced to veil who risk their liberty andlives when they transgress veiling orders. They are

abandoned to "cultural" and "religious" rights withno analysis of the far-right political forcesmanipulating and hijacking culture and religion forpolitical gain under the politically correct pretext thatUS imperialism misused the defense of women'shuman rights to conceal its economic reasons forinvading Afghanistan and that "whites" are racists.

On the other hand, there are women of the diasporain Europe and North America whose "right to veil" is


11/27

defended by a politically correct coalition of the leftand human rights defenders who show little interestin the numerous cases of young women trying to

escape forced veiling.

Maryam Namazie: Isn't there some disturbingimbalance in such an utterly discriminatory politicalchoice between those whose rights deserve to bedefended and those who don't qualify? Could thesechampions of our rights publicly clarify their reasonsfor such a hierarchy of rights?

Marieme Helie Lucas: Clearly the question hereexclusively refers to the "right to choose" of women

who want to veil in Europe and North America andthat this is a very limited and partial way of

addressing the problem; it means "disappearing" thevast majority of concerned women.

About "choice" in general, much has already beenwritten by feminists about how much freedom onecan expect in situations where women have no sayeither legally, culturally, religiously or otherwise.

Recently, a powerful academic article by Anissa Helieand Mary Ashe, "Multiculturalist Liberalism andHarms to Women: Looking Through the Issue of the

Veil" (published in UC Davis'Journal ofInternational Law and Policy, Vol. 19.1, 2012),concluded that "proponents of veiling often insist onan individual 'women's right to choose (the veil)Crafted by the theoreticians of radical Islam (whousurp the mantra of supporters of abortion rights for
http://www.siawi.org/article5962.htmlhttp://www.siawi.org/article5962.htmlhttp://www.siawi.org/article5962.htmlhttp://jilp.law.ucdavis.edu/http://jilp.law.ucdavis.edu/http://jilp.law.ucdavis.edu/http://jilp.law.ucdavis.edu/http://jilp.law.ucdavis.edu/http://jilp.law.ucdavis.edu/http://www.siawi.org/article5962.htmlhttp://www.siawi.org/article5962.htmlhttp://www.siawi.org/article5962.html


12/27

women), such slogans can confound Western liberalswho, afraid of being labelled racist, fall into the trapof cultural relativism."

I would, however, go back even further to the olddebate sparked by Marx on workers' "freedom to

work" at the time of Britain's industrialization, i.e. atime when in order to not actually starve and die,

workers' only "free choice" was to work 14 hours aday in hellish circumstances that also killed many ofthem, including women and children under the ageof 10.

Maryam Namazie: Women in many countrieswhere Muslim fundamentalists rule and terrifypopulations have the same "choice" that workers had

in a Britain that was industrialising: to die ofstarvation or survive a little bit longer as slaves / todie because they resist fundamentalists or survive asslaves. Great "choice" indeed! Is that the onlyalternative women are offered by cultural relativists?

Marieme Helie Lucas: The number of womenassassinated by family members, as well as byfundamentalist armed groups, or imprisoned byfundamentalist states in our various countries on allcontinents for the simple reason that they do notconform with veiling diktats should at the very leastcount as more important in the eyes of human rights

defenders than the "plea of veiled women" who may


13/27

occasionally have to cope with racists' comments in"the West."

How can one dare compare, for instance, the200,000 victims of the "dark decade' (the 1990s) in

Algeria, a vast majority of whom were womenassassinated by fundamentalist armed groups,mostly ignored and abandoned to their fate byinternational human rights organizations, with ahandful of veiled women yelled at in Paris orLondon? Yes, how dare one compare. This acceptedinequality of treatment only shows that for humanrights organizations and left parties, the West is stillthe center of the world, and what happens therehowever small and marginaltakes precedence overthe many crimes committed elsewhere.

I would like to point out an interesting blind spot inthe analysis of the left and human rights crowd,

which if it were taken into account would prevent thereducing of the issue to "individual choice."

The number of veiled women in the streets ofEuropean capitals has been steadily growing over thepast two decades only. Their number is notproportional to a significant increase of migrantpopulations. These women do not wear their nationalcostumes (including head covering or not) but theSaudi veil instead, which never existed in other

countries. There is a growing number of women


14/27

adopting the most drastic form of not just haircovering but of face covering.

Maryam Namazie: In light of this, how can thisform of veiling be seen as a cultural issue when it infact eradicates all traditional forms of hair coveringand of national and regional dress?

Marieme Helie Lucas: How can this form ofveiling be seen as a religious issue when progressivetheologians and scholars of Islam on all continentskeep demonstrating that veiling women is not areligious prescription, that it is a cultural one,circumscribed to the Middle East, both for men and

women, adapted to its climate, and common to allreligious groups as should be largely demonstrated

by Christian iconography that depicts the VirginMary and all the holy women that shared the life ofChrist in his times as well as Jewish women as

veiled? Why not rise in defense of all theseendangered cultures? How can they not make thelink between the propagation of the Saudi veil andSaudi funding of most of the mosques and religious

organizations that have been popping up inEuropean capital cities? How can they not see thisform of veiling as fundamentalism's political flag?How can they not link its propagation with the otherpolitical activities of Saudi (and Qatari) imperialism?How can they not make a political analysis of thissudden explosion of veiled women in the diaspora?

How can they reduce it to "individual choice" of


15/27

individual women in the wake of such a massive andsudden new phenomenon?

If, let's say, there was a sudden spread of nuns'outfits, concomitantly in Italy, France and Spain, andif Catholic women in visible numbers wouldaggressively assert their right to be clad as "trueCatholics" ( a modern invention that would becontested by respected Christian theologians,justas this new rage for veiling is contested by numerousprogressive Muslim theologians and scholars ofIslam that neither the left nor human rightsorganizations ever quote in defense of unveiled

women against the inaccurate claims made byfundamentalists)? Wouldn't the left point at the rightand far-right political movements hidden behind thissupposedly religious revival? Wouldn't the left

analyze it in political terms, rather than in religiousones, and denounce it? If there were rumors, orexamples of "improperly" clad Catholic women beingcoerced into this outfit, or beaten up, or forciblysecluded, or killed, wouldn't human rightsorganizations start looking into it? Wouldn't theydefend the victims? Wouldn't they denounce these as

human rights violations? Or would all thesesupposedly progressive forces continue to turn a

blind eye to human rights abuses and to the cries formercy of victims? Would they focus on the "right to

veil" of Catholic women?

It is clear to me that by reiterating the claims offundamentalists over women, without even checking


16/27

out the most blatant of their lies, the left and humanrights crowd only betray their fear of being labelled"Islamophobic." They unwittingly (I hope) reinforce

fundamentalist views which claim they are the onlylegitimate representatives of Islam, and that theiropponents anti-Islam.

This is what is behind the question of "choice": itplaces the debate away from any political analysisthat would point at the right and far-right nature offundamentalists' manipulation of the veil. The rightand far-right views of the supremacy of theindividual are rooted in economic liberalism.

Maryam Namazie: Whilst we might considersecularism a precondition for women's rights,

Islamists consider Sharia law a precondition forwomen's rights in the way they see them. Who is tosay who is right? They would argue secularism is a

western concept and a form of cultural colonialism.

Marieme Helie Lucas: I object to using the term

"sharia law." It presupposes that there is somewherewritten a body of laws that are used by all Muslims. Asimple overview of laws in Muslim-majoritycountries shows that there is no such thing. The vastdiversity of laws in predominantly Muslim contextsshow that laws have different sources: from givinglegitimacy to local cultural practices (FGM passing

off as Islamic in some regions of Africa), to differentreligious interpretations (for example Algeria


17/27

legalized polygamy whilst Tunisia bans it usingexactly the same verse of the Qu'ran but with adifferent reading of it!), to using laws of former

colonizers (such as the ban on contraception andabortion in Algeria, using the 1920 French law), andso on. It would therefore be a huge mistake to thinkthat all the laws in Muslim-majority countries havetheir source in religion.

"Sharia" is a term coined by fundamentalists in orderto make believe that such a body of laws exist; usingthe term just allows more people to believe in itsexistence. Exactly just as media started using otherterms coined by fundamentalists, such as jihad(which means a spiritual fight within oneself to comecloser to God, rather than a "war" with weapons, asthey interpret it) ; or "the Islamic veil" when they

propagate Saudi veiling; or "Islamophobia" when onechallenges their views on Islam... Do not use thelanguage of the enemy! It gives credibility to theirlies

As I have already pointed out, there are lots of places

in the world where veiling is compulsory and noforced unveiling anywhere. Not even in primary andsecondary schools in France, because ultra-orthodoxfamilies have a choice to enrol their daughters inreligious schools... The only obligation of families isto send their daughters to school, but the choice ofthat school is not within the mandate of the secular

state.


18/27

And nowhere are women forced not to wear a veil inpublic; they are only asked in France to not cover

their face. Hence secularism neither veils nor unveilswomen. Undoubtedly, however, fundamentalists'interpretation of supposedly divine orders aims at

veiling women. Secularism is not an opinion nor is ita belief; it is exclusively a definition and a regulationof the position of the state vis-avis religion. Eitherthe state interferes with religion or it does not.

Secularism is the formal set-up in which the statedoes not interfere with religion. We should notaccept any other definition of secularism.

As for the accusation of secularism being a westernconcept, haven't we heard that of feminism for

decades? But if we are to look into history, especiallythe history of women in Muslim contexts, we find outthat many women, for centuries, fought for what isnow considered feminist ideas and women's rights,that they dedicated themselves to literature, poetry,

women's education, politics, legal rights for women,just as is the case now, and that they were supportedby enlightened men and women, both believers andatheists, just as is the case now. Anyone interested inexploring some of these stories from the past shouldreadGreat Ancestorsby Fareeda Shaheed and AishaShaheed (published byWomen Living Under MuslimLaws).
http://www.oup.com.pk/shopexd.asp?id=2105http://www.oup.com.pk/shopexd.asp?id=2105http://www.wluml.org/resource/great-ancestors-women-claiming-rights-muslim-contextshttp://www.wluml.org/resource/great-ancestors-women-claiming-rights-muslim-contextshttp://www.wluml.org/resource/great-ancestors-women-claiming-rights-muslim-contextshttp://www.wluml.org/resource/great-ancestors-women-claiming-rights-muslim-contextshttp://www.wluml.org/resource/great-ancestors-women-claiming-rights-muslim-contextshttp://www.oup.com.pk/shopexd.asp?id=2105


19/27

Similarly, there have been many supporters ofsecularism in Muslim contexts over the pastcenturies, just as there are many today. That includes

atheists, agnostics and believers who thought andstill think religions benefit from the fact that politicalpower does not interfere with personal beliefs orspirituality. Today, the former Great Mufti ofMarseilles is a strong supporter of secularism inFrance, as are many progressive imams who gopublic every Sunday in a religious TV show on Frenchchannel 2 about their support for French secularism

which guarantees freedom of belief and freedom ofpractice.

So the real question for me is: why don't we hearmore about such Muslim supporters of secularismand why won't the media give less public space to the

expression of fundamentalist hatred for secularism?It is yet another fundamentalist distortion to presentfacts in the light of secular law being against divinelaw

Recent surveys show that about 25% of the

population in France declares itself atheist, and thepercentage is the same among supposedly Christianand supposedly Muslim individuals. But thepercentage of all those who declare themselves infavor of secularism rises to 75%, and is identical forpresumed Muslims and presumed Christians.


20/27

There are strong movements for secularism in all so-called Muslim countries, whether in Pakistan, Algeriaor Mali. Citizens go public in support of secularism,

risking their lives in places where fundamentalistsrun armed groups that attack their opponents. Whyare photos of their public events and streetdemonstrations never seen outside their nationalmedia?

Maryam Namazie: Some will say this raises thequestion of how far we are willing to allow the stateto intervene in private matters such as the way wedress. Your comments?

Marieme Helie Lucas: If we do agree that thissudden rise of specific veils worldwide passing off

as the "Islamic" veil is neither cultural nor religiousbut a political flag that fundamentalists use in orderto increase their political visibility at the expense of

women, then we must also admit that wearing thisform of veilnowin Europe and North America hasa political purpose; the women who wear it, whetherthey are aware of it or not, are wearing the flag of a

far-right political party. Hence I could hardly agreewith the formulation: "a woman choosing how todress." This veil is definitely not to be equated to

wearing high heels versus flat shoes, or miniskirtsversus trousers. It is not a fashion; it is a politicalmarker. If one decides one is going to wear a swastikaas a brooch, one cannot ignore its political meaning;

one cannot pretend one does not care for the fact thatit was the "flag" of Nazi Germany. One cannot


21/27

pretend one just likes its shape. It is a politicalstatement.

Women from all over Asia and Africa who wear a facecovering or burqa today, whether they do so inEurope and North America or whether they wear it intheir own countries, are wearing a form of veilingthat they have never seen before, except if they grewup in a very specific and limited part of the MiddleEast. They cannot pretend they are going back totheir roots and wearing the dress that theirforemothers wore centuries ago, nor can theypretend that they wear it for religious reasons.Muslims were Muslims for centuries without wearingsuch an outfit: in South Asia, they were wearing saris,or in the Sahel they were wearing boubousToday,

burqa-clad women wear an outfit that was unseen

and unheard of until a couple of decades ago whenfundamentalist political groups "invented" the burqaas their political flag.

Hence if the state were to regulate burqas or theniqab, it would not regulate "the way we dress," nor

would it deal with a personal taste in fashion, butwith publicly wearing the political sign of an extremeright movement.

It may be the role of the state to do so. This can bedebated. But what is not debatable is that women

wearing the burqa today are in the grip of atransnational far-right movement. Whether burqa-


22/27

clad women are aware of the present-day politicalsignificance of their veil or whether they arealienated into the fundamentalists' politico-religious

discourse is irrelevant.

Maryam Namazie: In practice, how canrestrictions be put in place (also looking at theFrench example) without further inflaming racismand bigotry against Muslims and immigrants and

what is the connection between the two? I ask thisgiven that some will argue that a criticism of the veiland niqab are racist.

Marieme Helie Lucas: In that case, is resistance toniqab/burqa/head scarf and any other form of veilingto be labelled "racist" in our countries too? Were the

women who chose to die rather than to veil in Algeriain the nineties all racist against their own people andagainst their own faith as many of them were

believers in Islam?

Cant we stop thinking "the West" is the center of the

world? What about the Sudanese woman who at thisvery moment in Khartoum risks flogging andimprisonment for refusing to veil? What about thenumerous Iranian women who have been jailed fordecades for wearing "un-Islamic" dress?

Racism, xenophobia, marginalization of and attackson migrants (or people of migrant descent) have


23/27

always been there. At the beginning of the twentiethcentury in southern France, there were pogromsagainst Italian migrants who "came to steal the bread

of French workers"sounds familiar today, doesn'tit? There were numerous dead and wounded. But ifwe look at French citizens whose family names betrayan Italian origin today, they are fully integrated andno one even thinks of contesting their belonging tothe French nation. It is the same for Spaniards,Portuguese, Greeks or Poles and Russians who allcame to live in France in recent history, becameFrench citizens and have now "melted" into thegeneral population.

There are a growing number of well-known people inFrance with Arabic names (and often erroneouslypresumed Muslim); they are professors, lawyers,

medical doctors, scientists, journalists, film makers,actors, bankers, computer experts, entrepreneursThis signifies their incorporation into the nation justlike the Italians, Spaniards... less than a century ago.

A beautiful play entitledBarbes-Cafewas shown last

year in different cities of France. It was entirely thework of people of Algerian descent, most of whomfled fundamentalists' death threats and attacks onthem in the nineties. This play is a hymn toemigration using popular songs in Arabic from the

beginning to the end of the 20th century and tracesthe history of emigration from North Africa, the pain

and longing of migrants and the terrible conditions ofwork, but it also celebrates the law that allowed


24/27

families to join workers, the free and seculareducation for their children, the solidarity betweenindigenous and migrant workers in unions and left

parties and so on. It ends with images of those ofmigrant North African descent who "made it" andopen the gate for generations to come. It is amanifesto of hope, albeit not trying to conceal thehardship many workers facedfor their children andgrandchildren to become a part of France.

October 27 was the anniversary of theMarch ForEquality and Against Racismthat four young menand women, French citizens of North African origin,initiated in October 1983. They started fromMarseilles and walked for two months throughoutFrance, visiting towns and villages, speaking to theirurban and rural fellow citizens, denouncing racist

crimes and discrimination, and advocating theequality of all citizens. They also denounced the label"Muslim" that was imposed on them for reasons ofgeographical origin. Along the way, other citizens ofall origins joined them and started marching withthem. When they arrived in Paris, 100,000 peoplehad gathered to welcome them and support their

goals.

It is not predetermined that oppressed people orvictims of discrimination turn to far-rightmovements. In such circumstances, people have achoice to become revolutionaries or fascists. The

fundamentalist response to racism is a fascistresponse. We should not under any pretext grant
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_for_Equality_and_Against_Racismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_for_Equality_and_Against_Racismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_for_Equality_and_Against_Racismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_for_Equality_and_Against_Racismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_for_Equality_and_Against_Racismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_for_Equality_and_Against_Racism


25/27

them any legitimacy. We should support people'smovements for equality and full citizenship.

Fundamentalists have a keen interest in making surethey get the benefit of racist incidents; just like thetraditional (xenophobic) far-right politicalmovements, they need to radicalize their troops andrecruit more people to their cause. Both theseapparently antagonistic far-right forces share thesame goal: they welcome bloodshed. Hence they areprepared to provoke racist incidents. In the past few

years, fundamentalist inhabitants of a Parisneighbourhood started praying in the streets and

blocking traffic for hours on Fridays. The pretext wasthat their local mosque was not big enough. But forsure the Great Mosque of Paris, only a few tubestations away from them was/is permanently quasi-

empty. Police watched on without doing anythingand this has now been going on for more than seven

years. The only response, of course, came from a far-right group which launched public invitations toshare a "wine and pork" aperitif on the very samestreets on Sundays.

The cowardly left should have taken this into its ownhands, demanding that people vacate the publicspace if they have not received police authorization tooccupy it as is legal. The cowardly left is prepared toignore provocations by Muslim fundamentalists

because they do not want to be seen as

"Islamophobic." In a way, one feels they do not makea difference between believers in Islam and the far-


26/27

right supposedly religious movement that feigns torepresent all Muslims.

It was in the hope of avoiding a confrontation withFranco that European governments, including thethen socialist government of France, refused to helpand to protect the legitimate government of theRepublic of Spain. It was with the hope of avoiding aconfrontation with the well-behaved Hitler thatEuropean governments went to Munich and allowedthe invasion of Poland [actually CzechoslovakiaWW4R] by Nazi troops. History shows thatcowardice in politics leads nowhere and thateveryone has to pay the price for not standing forprinciples and rights in due time.

Victims of racism need to be defended, includinglegally; social and political problems need to beaddressed by social and political means, not withreligious ones.

This interview first appeared in November onFitnah.

Photo viaViolence Is Not Our Culture

Resources:

Neither Veil nor Submission by Maryam Namazie

Fitnah,November, 2013

From our Daily Report:

France: whither the hijab intifada?
http://fitnah.org/fitnah_articles_english/interview_M_H_Lucas.htmlhttp://fitnah.org/fitnah_articles_english/interview_M_H_Lucas.htmlhttp://fitnah.org/fitnah_articles_english/interview_M_H_Lucas.htmlhttp://www.violenceisnotourculture.org/http://www.violenceisnotourculture.org/http://www.violenceisnotourculture.org/http://fitnah.org/fitnah_articles_english/M-namazie-nither-veil.htmlhttp://fitnah.org/fitnah_articles_english/M-namazie-nither-veil.htmlhttp://fitnah.org/fitnah_articles_english/M-namazie-nither-veil.htmlhttp://www.violenceisnotourculture.org/http://fitnah.org/fitnah_articles_english/interview_M_H_Lucas.html


27/27

the veil, flag of the muslim far right

Documents