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The Forum > Article Comments > Going burq-o > Comments

Going burq-o : Comments

By Katy Barnett, published 21/5/2010

Should our own discomfort be a reason for banning the burqa in Australia?

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I am partially deaf and use 2 hearing aids. Even so I am highly dependent on being able to see a persons mouth because that is really the only way that I can 'get' the consonants being used. Vowels I can get Ok by ear so long as there is not a very big accent.
I had not revisited UK for nearly 30 years until I went back about 3 years ago. Whilst at Heathrow looking for our luggage on the carousel a lady in full burkha asked me a question. I think she was English to judge from the intonation. However I could not understand what she was saying at all. Eventually she got angry for some reason or another. Her husband, with mandatory beard, stood about two meters away and was as useless as proverbil appendages. It is a reflection of the fatuity of the situation that the woman wearing a mobil tent got into a (presumably paranoid) paddy with me when the whole thing was 100% her fault. The burkha should be banned.
Posted by eyejaw, Friday, 21 May 2010 5:36:12 PM
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CJ I agree that if someone wants to wear a Burqa, they should be allowed to (with the possible exception of in banks for security reasons), but the converse is also true, that if they don't want to they should not be compelled to do so.

The few surveys that have been done have indicated that a significant portion of those wearing these garments are doing so because they feel compelled to do so.

The question is whether you are giving more women free choice than you are removing it.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Friday, 21 May 2010 8:22:44 PM
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Legal Eagle - DON'T confuse religious 'obligation' with cultural practice. The Koran directs both sexes to dress modestly and women to cover their heads - hair, not faces. This is almost identical to Orthodox Jewish custom.

The hideous oppressive garb that some CULTURAL groups demand female members wear from puberty onwards is about tribalism and concepts of ownership of and control over women.

I don't have problems with Muslim women wearing headscarfs or even traditional dress. The scarf fulfils religious obligation and the garb merely attracts curiousity. Not so the burqa.

Don't go spruiking 'freedom' as defense of this odious garment. If, for example, a New Guineau tribesman migrated and expected to go naked bar traditional penis gourd and a few feathers because that's his cultural attire, there would be protest. He would be severely censored at best, arrested at worst. If I wore a t-shirt with really offensive wording or print, I might attract the attention of the law and certainly refused entrance to shops, cafes etc. If I went naked I would be arrested.

In essence we don't have freedom to wear or not wear what we like. No-one can claim to be able to drive safely from behind a screen of gauze or netting. It is impossible to communicate effectively with a sack of cloth. It isolates the wearer from wider society and restricts association even within her own ethnic group.

We can accept this grossly un-Australian custom under the dubious banner of political correctness and anti-discrimination OR we can say (like the French, Dutch and Belgiums)"NO" not acceptable here.

Those who still think it OK - why not allow female genital mutilation (circumcision) and child marriage? How about the odd stoning death for adultery? There is as much fake justification on "religious grounds" as for the burqa.

We wouldn't want our new Australians traumatised by having to adapt and adjust to Australian law and custom, would we? No, that would be an unrealistic expectation going by some of the idiots in our midst
Posted by divine_msn, Friday, 21 May 2010 9:06:12 PM
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I'm definitley no oil painting myself but those dimwits who force women et al to cover up like that should be castrated the moment they express this mindless stupidity & then forced to wear a rag covering their silly countenance.
Posted by individual, Friday, 21 May 2010 9:23:06 PM
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Please, somebody help me but for once I have to agree with CJ Morgan.
Posted by individual, Friday, 21 May 2010 9:26:05 PM
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Good article; I agree with most of it. I admit that I still have to think about some things.
Basically, people should wear what they want to wear.

I have a problem with the argument that it is justified to ban the burqua because women's husbands or brothers force them to wear it.
But we don't know who wears it voluntarily and who is forced to wear it because the ones who are forced to wear it most probably won't speak out.

But, why would it be not OK for brothers and husbands to interfere with a woman's free choice of attire but perfectly OK for a government to do so?

Not that I can imagine that anybody would want to go around covered from top to toe in the heat of the Australian summer, increase the risk of getting rickets, never participate in sports but hey, if someone wants to be so nutty as to imagine it's required by some god, then we just have to let them be, since they do not impose on other people's freedom.

And yes I'd agree that there would be some occupations that cannot be open to someone who is not willing to show her face.
Posted by Celivia, Friday, 21 May 2010 10:58:17 PM
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