The implementation of the French ban on the niqab, or full-face covering, on Monday has stirred controversy and sparked anger among young Arab Muslims. Popular social networks like Facebook and Twitter witnessed contrasting angry responses and heated debates on the ban. Some sided with the ban as a sign of fighting extreme Islam while others saw it as adding to the wave of Islamophobia hitting Europe now. The Islamic Human Right Commission said the ban is “charting the spiral of France into a fascist state.” The ban is expected to only affect some 2,000 Muslim women who currently wearing the niqab in the country. Activists and experts point to the symbolism of the French ban, accusing France of trying to prove a “liberal” point over the banning of the garb. Across Europe, hundreds of people protested the French move, saying it was yet another sign of curtailing a woman's choice to wear whatever she wants. But not everyone was convinced that the niqab should be allowed as a woman's right. Arab women activists on Twitter even went as far as saying the protesters were hired by Saudi Arabia and were “prostitutes.” Leading international “feminist” writers including Mona Eltahawy, a leading Egyptian feminist writer and activist, say the niqab is not a symbol of a woman's right, but instead an oppressive institution that must not be allowed to continue. “I support banning the burqa because I believe it equates piety with the disappearance of women. The closer you are to God, the less I see of you — and I find that idea extremely dangerous. It comes from an ideology that basically wants to hide women away,” said Eltahawy in an interview last year with Salon.com. “What really strikes me is that a lot of people say that they support a woman's right to choose to wear a burqa because it's her natural right. But I often tell them that what they're doing is supporting an ideology that does not believe in a woman's right to do anything,” she added. Arzu Merali, a spokesperson for the IHRC, says commentators are wrong and seem to miss the point. “Arguments that this law is set to empower these women is offensive and ludicrous,” she said. “Such arguments simply promote racist stereotypes about Muslim women needing to be liberated and being incapable of making rational decisions about their own emancipation.” As the ban was being implemented this week in France, in Britain, anger aimed at an Iranian Muslim girl highlights the struggle many Muslim women must go through in Europe. According to reports, the young girl was attacked after she refused to remove her hijab, or headscarf, in the most recent Islamophobic attack. Earlier this month, a 12-year-old American Muslim girl who also wears the hijab was attacked at her Staten Island, New York, school by a fellow student. The young boy is now being charged with a hate crime. Sami Kishawi, writing in KABOBfest, says commentators who claim to be feminists and support the ban, are misleading the world on these issues. “While Eltahawy carries a big heart and focuses on relevant social issues that need to be addressed and corrected, I can't find it within me to look favorably upon the work that she does and the way she goes about doing it,” Kishawi wrote. BM ** Have your say. Send us a commentary: [email protected] **
