Religious Expression and Burqa Ban
A Hindu spiritual teacher Swami Sivananda once said: “Maintaining moral values, a culture and a religion values are far better than laws and regulations.” In this article, we will be affixing our quote with the quote by focusing on the religious expression and the controversies over the popularization on the ban of Islamic veil such as burqa and niqab in France. As of today, few European countries along with France have banned any religious clothing that isolates a person by covering their face and body from the public. With such ban, so many questions arise over the infringement on religious freedom and is wearing such clothing a cultural puritanism or a real threat to the public?
To this date, many people still question the reason behind women covering their full body from head to the toe. Some of these clothing plays a significant role in some religion, such as Judaism, Catholicism and most importantly Islam. Muslim religious writings are not entirely clear on the question of women veiling. Various statements in the Quran argue that women should dress modestly, but it doesn’t specify that all the women should be covering their body. Muslim critics blame the religion by claiming women are forced to wear the veil and not by their choice. Not all the women who wear the veil have same the purpose or same reasons. Muslim women choose to wear veil such as burqa, niqab, and hijab for a variety of different reasons. Most of them wear for a religious purpose, where they believe God (Allah) have instructed them to dress modestly. Wearing the veils empowers the women by enhancing their faith and also to be judged by who they are and not by how they look. For some, it’s for their cultural identity. Just like any other culture, they were born and raised in an environment, where they were introduced to a culture of covering body parts from the public eyes and respecting your value. Some also argue, covering your body part is also a sign of respecting your husband, where it is believed only the husband is allowed to see their beauty. For rest of the population, they wear it because of their freedom to wear whatever they feel comfortable in by respecting their culture and religion.
In France, as discussed in class, the population has a sense of pride in their unique national identity. Anything that lies on the outside of that idea is seen as not conformative, and in turn, not French. France is a country who is very active both socially and legally when it comes to trying to retain their image as a nation. Most French people see fundamentalist Islam as something that is incompatible with westernized French society, especially very visual public aspects of the religion such as face coverings like the niqab and burka. France was the first European country to impose a legal ban on specifically Islamic face coverings in public areas and on public transportation. Several other countries like Belgium and Germany have versions of that style of legislations on a smaller scale, but France remains one of the few modern free nations with such a restriction on open religious expression.
From an American viewpoint with absolute freedom of religion being one of the founding principles of our country, any restriction, especially in the French case one with so many issues is ironically heretical. Since the US and France differ in fundamental political attitudes regarding religion, it’s easy to point from one side and not see the reasoning for the actions of the other. France and many European countries tend to have an emphasis placed on the rights of the society as opposed to the rights of the individual. The nation as a whole comes first, and they are willing to deal with small personal headaches for the good of everyone. The United States is the opposite, with any encroachment on the individual right to practice religion and one’s life seen as an attack on the individual person and then on the country as a whole.
France has another difference in that French people have two different lives, one public and one private. In public, you’re expected to represent the image of the citizenry of France. Similar to their view on religious expression and the conservation of their culture, deviation from what is expected in public is seen as a deviation from Frenchness and is frowned upon. The French don’t want to see the individual on the street; they want to see the faces of their country. Only in private do you do things such as dressing down, and expressing yourself in more abstract and vocal ways, such as practicing a religion that is so different than the country’s traditional and overwhelmingly Catholic tendency.
The rights to ultimate and overall freedom of expression and identity lies in the morals and the values of its people. Cultural identity and religious expression have been constantly at odds, as seen in the French Burqa ban or even in the United States, where freedom of religious expression is a constitutional amendment, but there are still underlying tensions between different religious beliefs, and possible threats of security. France upholds and maintains a strong distinction between person and public space always drawing a line when it comes to different religions, but that is because they are one nation, one France. On the other hand, the United States is innately different because the are a nation that was founded on religious freedom; running away from the religious persecution that they were facing. Therefor, the United States tends to move more towards an attitude of accepting everyone for who they are and all the facets that come along with their forms of religious expression; may it be Burqa or a cross necklace, we allow for everyone to express their religious convictions. Everyone holds pride in how they choose to express their religions, may it be clothing or just pure devotion; regardless, all forms of religious expression need to be respected.