Fractelle

Travelling OS I was told by Muslim students that the well-off wear quite lovely dresses under the burqa for when they meet their women friends at home.

I have no reason to doubt that information, but it has not been confirmed. It says nothing about what might be happening here.

I see the emergence of the burqa in Australia as a red flag. How might we integrate Muslim women in Australia to overcome any sense of separateness and isolation? The consequences of alienation could be high and be carried down generations.

Nursel,
I hate to say it, but your article is absolute crap. Why do you feel the need to justify Islamic culture? Since it closed the gates of ijtihad, it has contributed almost zero to human advancement – over close on 800 years.

You say “well-educated, powerful [Muslim] women would never put up with such dominating and stifling men." Oh really? Have you actually READ the Koran? It is FULL OF put-downs of women, stressing their inequality in rights and their role as temptresses of supposedly “pure” males. The Koran is a shocking book, which ought to be sold only in brownpaper wrapping under the counter to bona-fide researchers.

Islam has been less stifling in Turkey and Indonesia only because they imported the WESTERN idea of secularism. Everywhere else, and even with some people in these countries (like the pitiable and contemptible Abu Bakar Bashir in Indonesia), Islam is a vile, mediaeval, repressive and thoroughly offensive religion.

Some practices, like wearing the burqa and niqab, are cultural rather than Koranically-based (they take "modesty" to the extreme, and say a woman is PROPERTY rather than a human being). Many of the charming cultural practices attached to Islamic countries, like female genital mutilation, reflect the benighted backwardness and horribleness of the Islamic mindset.

President Musharraf of Pakistan was right when he told a conference of science and technology ministers from Muslim countries in early 2002:
"Today we [Muslims] are the poorest, the most illiterate, the most backward, the most unhealthy, the most un-enlightened, the most deprived, and the weakest of all the human race."

Islam is a distorted and garbled travesty of Judaism and Christianity, attempting to piggyback on them as an "improvement" and "final revelation". It is a lying, misleading, and evil Satanic impostor full of violence, repression and intolerance. It has generated a culture of sorts, but an inferior, obscurantist and repressive culture, especially since Wahhabiism became mainstream and took over the shopfront. It’s not worth defending, for God’s sake. Why do you bother?

blairbar: << We legislate what people can and cannot wear; such legislation reflects the underlying cultural values of the majority of Australian citizens. >>

Hi Blair,

While I think they're unnecessary, we do indeed have laws that require people to wear clothes that cover their genitalia (and breasts, in the case of women) in most public places. I'm not aware of any laws that specify what kind of clothing that must be, nor indeed of any that specify clothing that is not allowed to be worn (except in very particular circumstances, e.g. police uniforms etc).

If I'm wrong about this, please cite the laws that you think exist that "legislate what people can and cannot wear" in Australia.

Besides your factual error, your logic is also problematic. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Australian laws that require adults to wear clothing of some sort derive directly from Christian notions of modesty. As such, they exist at one end of a spectrum of religious rules about covering the human body, while the burqa and niqab lie at the other extreme - i.e. the burqa is worn for much the same reasons that fundamentalist Christian women wear scarves and long dresses that conceal as much of their physical sexuality as possible, albeit taken to a ridiculous level.

I still don't concede that the State has any legitimate role in dictating what clothing is culturally appropriate in Australia. This is, of course, not to say that certain attire should be allowed where wearing it compromises legitimate security or safety concerns.

Calls to ban women from voluntarily wearing the burqa (or anything else) in public that are based on ideas of cultural 'appropriateness' are actually at variance with the very freedoms that are utilised to justify them. Essentially, people should be free to wear whatever they like as long as it doesn't endanger anybody else or otherwise impinge upon their legal rights.

Personally, I think that the burqa is a ludicrous piece of clothing, but I most definitely wouldn't support an authoritarian act by government to ban wearing them, except in very specific circumstances.

Cornflower

I have been to dinner at homes of a some Muslim women and it is true, under the burqa the very latest fashion - quite the conundrum isn't it?

But also gives me hope that the more Eastern Muslim people become accustomed to Australia the more chance that the burqu will wind up on the trash heap where it belongs - or recycled into one-person tents.

;-)

There seems to be a misconception that everyone is free to dress as they like without being treated with any suspicion or harrassment in Australia. This is not true and I doubt if it is true in any society in the world. If a dirty scruffy looking person turns up looking like a homeless person in most cafes or shops they will no doubt be looked at with suspicion or may be harrassed by being asked in a polite or roundabout way to leave. While the person is free to dress like that he WILL be regarded with suspicion.

If a person turns up at a well dressed conservative work place in short shorts and a skimpy top, they will be free to wear this but they WILL be treated with lack of respect by other workers, clients and managers.

Teachers WILL harrass students who don’t conform to school uniforms even down to wearing their socks turned down or up.

A person wearing a hood and looking unkempt will immediately be treated with a feeling of suspicion and dislike by staff and possibly customers in banks, and corner shops etc especially in non cold areas of the country.

So although technically under the law you are free to wear what you like, there are societal norms of dress in specific situations and you WILL be treated with suspicion and hostility if you don’t adhere to those norms. This is because by being unwilling to fit in, all of the above people are showing a kind of disrespect or contempt for the people around them.

Dear CJ
""please cite the laws that you think exist that "legislate what people can and cannot wear""
Adults, in Australia, with some exceptions eg theatre are not allowed by law to wear NOTHING in public.
"Australian laws that require adults to wear clothing of some sort derive directly from Christian notions of modesty."
No argument with me on this issue. Much of Australian culture and Australian laws certainly derives from a Judaic-Christian background but so what? That is a part of Australian history.
You haven't given me one argument to suggest that such a background should be ignored when framing Australian laws.