So far, no women wearing burkinis - in fact, no women at all - have committed acts of Islamist terrorism on French soil. However, the burkini - a swimming costume that adheres to the Islamic rule of dress which some believe requires women to cover much of their body and heads - is so threatening that a 34-year-old woman was forced by armed police to strip off her hijab (head covering) on a Nice beach.
Photos emerged of the woman, surrounded by police, taking her veil off. The woman, who only gave her name as Siam to reporters, said: ‘I was sitting on a beach with my family. I was wearing a classic headscarf. I had no intention of swimming.’
She was given a ticket, which said that she was not wearing ‘an outfit respecting good morals and secularism’.
All the while, a witness, Mathilde Cousin, told The Guardian: ‘The saddest thing was that people were shouting “go home”, some were applauding the police. Her daughter was crying.’
The beach is just yards from where a brutal attack on 14th July, a celebration day for the entire country, caused the deaths of 86 people. The attacker had vague links to the so-called Islamic State and the group did claim responsibility for the attack, but then again they’d take responsibility for anything that harms the West. As well as President Francois Hollande declaring a temporary state of emergency, 15 French towns banned the burkini. Nice only banned it last week, with official legislation declaring that the city would bar clothing that ‘overtly manifests adherence to a religion at a time when France and places of worship are the target of terrorist attacks.’
France, a country very proud of its secularism, already banned facial coverings in public spaces in 2011, something which only actually affected 1,900 women reported to wear the facial covering, and was read by some as a simple attack on its population of 5 million Muslims. There have been legal challenges to the burkini ban, but they have failed.
Some say that the veil in all its forms is dehumanising and sexist. The argument goes that why should women, any women, feel like showing respect to their god involves hiding themselves, as if their bodies are beastly and tempting? Islamic dress code does preclude men from exposing particular parts of themselves, but this is from he waist to the knee. Why the double standard?
However, some women choose to wear the veil. And those who don’t face censure and disgust from their own community if they don’t wear it. Stripping women of their choice, literally punishing them - Siam was fined £32 for breaking the new law - for what they wear, is the sort of thing morality police do. In the so-called Islamic State, women are punished for not wearing full face veils. In trying to uphold supposed rules of decency, the French police have simply used women and the concept of female dignity to get at the real bad guys.
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Photo: Vantage News
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.