In this debate on the desirability of a law banning the niqab, it seems necessary at times to hear the voices of women that the issue is not purely theoretical.
My feeling is that such legislation would have a range that exceeds, by far, the only Franco-French quarrel.
Here the intervention Djemila Benhabib before the senators, as part of the parliamentary commission on the full veil.
Leon
Luxembourg Palace in Paris November 13, 2009
PARLIAMENTARY MISSION TO THE FULL SAIL
Djemila For Benhabib, author of a critical book "My Life at cons-Quran"
ladies women senators, ladies and presidents, dignitaries Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends,
Thanks a thousand times for this great honor you do me now devote myself standing among women and to allow my voice, that of a woman of Muslim secular feminist and resonate in this prestigious institution of the Republic. Thank you, my friends Women's Solidarity and the League of Women international law for your hard work, permanent and essential that it be in the neighborhood, with women victims of violence and discrimination, undocumented or ; still within the political and UN authorities. This means that here, locally rooted that work for women's rights to reverberate internationally. It also means that the Women's March for Freedom and Equality is one and indivisible. When a woman suffers in any place on earth is our business to you all. Thank you for making us feel a thousand ways that we are links in a chain. That's still a few years, I never imagined my life as a woman, my life would be so intimately linked militant feminism and secularism. I may surprise you by admitting that I did not become feminist turning the pages of the "Second Sex", either by immersing myself in this magnificent novel of Aragon "The Bells of Basel," which dealt among other Clara Zetkin and Rosa Luxembourg, two leading figures of feminism and world peace.
I'm not nourish myself become secular Spinoza, Ibn al-Arabi, Descartes, Ibn Khaldun, or Voltaire, my master. Absolutely not.
I could turn my attention elsewhere to lose myself in this child so happy I had a family generous, cultured, open to the world and on others, deeply committed to democracy and social justice. I could wander in the beauty of what this city Oran where he was so good to live in the seaside town that has propelled this literary career of Albert Camus, with his famous novel "The Plague" to Nobel literature. I could see nothing, hear nothing of bullying, contempt, humiliation and violence that flowed on women. I chose to see and hear at first with my eyes and ears child. Later, I chose to say the aspirations of all women who have influenced my life more than ever, no woman in the world, fear to be a woman.
To tell you the truth, especially in childhood and adolescence, I never dreamed of marriage, prince charming, long dress, large house, children and family. The few weddings I attended, in Algeria, made me feel that the woman was an object much more than a topic. Needless to say, my perspective was ultraminoritaire, because women are formatted to be wives and mothers in childhood. I must have, what, five, six, maybe seven years at most, when I was summoned to join my grandmother in the kitchen, because my natural position was midway between stoves and laundry, so you can burst my talents as a cook and housekeeper at the appropriate time.
In 1984, Algeria adopted a code of family inspired by the Islamic Sharia. I am 12 years old at the time.
Briefly, this code requires the wife to obey her husband and her in-laws, permits the repudiation, polygamy, dismissed the wife of his parental authority, allows the husband to correct and his wife inheritance as a witness, inequality is built into a system because the voices of two women equals that of a man as inheritance shares.
In terms of secularism, I understood its necessity when, in the early 1990s, the Islamic Front hello's (FIS) has knelt my country Algeria by fire and blood by murdering thousands of Algerians. Today, we are forced to see that things have not changed much. Too many women worldwide are still being humiliated, beat, assaulted, divorce, murder, burn, beat and stoned. On what? Of religion, Islam in this case and its instrumentalization.
To refuse an arranged marriage, wearing the Islamic veil or for seeking divorce, wearing pants, driving a car and even have crossed the threshold of the door without permission of the male, female, many women suffer cruelty in their flesh ... I am thinking in particular Iranian sisters who marched through the streets of Tehran to shake one of the worst dictators in the world: Ahmadinejad. I * think * Neda, this young Iranian assassinated at the age of 26 years. We've all seen this image of Neda lying on the floor, blood dripping from his mouth. I think Nojoud Ali, this little 10 years old Yemeni, who was forcibly married to a man three times her age and who fought for the right to divorce. and got it. I think Lubna Al-Hussein, who has shaken the government in Khartoum last summer because of her dress ..
The worst condition of women in the world, is one faced by women in Muslim countries. It is a fact and we must recognize that. That is our first solidarity with all those who defy the worst tyrannies the world. Who would dare say otherwise? Who is to say the opposite? Islamists and their accomplices?
Sure. But not only.
There is this thinking relativist who claims the name of the cultures and traditions we must accept the regression, which borders the other in a perpetual victim status and we feel guilty for our choice of society calling us racist and Islamophobic when we defend gender equality and secularism. It is this same left arm that opens Tarik Ramadan strutting from town to town, TV Tray TV Tray and spit on the values of the Republic.
Know that there is nothing in my culture that I am predestined to be overshadowed by a shroud, an emblem of conspicuous difference. Nothing that predetermines me to accept the triumph of the idiot, the stupid and cowardly, especially if it erects the poor judge. Nothing prepares my sex to be butchered without suffocating in my flesh. Nothing predestined me to tame the whip or spur. Nothing that I dedicated to repudiate the beauty and pleasure. Nothing that predisposes me to receive the coldness of the rusty blade on my throat. And if so, I would deny it without remorse or regret on my mother's womb, the caress of my father and the sun that saw me grow.
Political Islamism is not an expression of cultural specificity, as is alleged here and there. It is a political issue, a collective threat that attacks the very foundation of democracy by promoting an ideology of violent, sexist, misogynist, racist and homophobic.
We have seen how the Islamist movements, with the complicity, cowardice and the support of some left currents condone the profound regression which was installed at the very heart of our cities. In Canada, we still have nearly the Islamic courts. Britain is already the norm in many communities. From across the world, wearing the Islamic veil spreads and becomes common, it even becomes an acceptable alternative to some because it's still better than the burqa!
What about the resignation of Western democracies on issues crucial to the basis of community life and citizenship such as defense of public schools, public services and the neutrality of the state?
What about setbacks in terms of accessibility to abortion here in France?
All that to say that it is always possible to move companies through our courage, our determination and our audacity. I am not saying these are easy choices. Far from it. Paths to freedom are still steep paths. These are the only paths of emancipation man, I know no other.
This wonderful page of history, our history teaches us that suffering is not to submit. For beyond the injustice and humiliation, there is also resistance. To resist is to give the right to choose his destiny. That to me is feminism. Destiny, not individually, but collectively for the dignity of ALL women. Thus I gave my life meaning by linking my destiny as a woman to all those who dream of equality and secularism as the foundation of democracy.
History is replete with examples of religions that go beyond the private sphere to invade the public sphere and become law. In this context, women are the first losers. Not only. Life in its many dimensions, suddenly becomes ossified when the law of God mingles with the law of men to organize every move of all. There is more room for scientific advances, literature, theater, music, dance, painting, film, short life simply. Only regression and multiply prohibited. This is also why I a deep aversion against fundamentalism of any kind, because I am a lover of life.
Remember one thing: when religion governs the life of the city, we are no longer possible in space, we are no longer in the repository doubts, we are no longer in the frame of reason and rationality so dear to the Enlightenment. Separate public space from private space reiterating the neutrality of the state seems to me essential, because only the Secularism can build a common space, call it a repository citizen, far from all faiths and all unbelief, to take in hand the destiny of the city. Before concluding, let me share with you a letter to one of your elected officials.
I hesitated before you write. Perhaps for fear of being perceived as one that is coming from elsewhere indelicately burst into the "French Affairs". To hell with propriety, I've never been good at propriety especially when serving the strongest of the strongest and most arrogant. Then, if I had had to live according to the gaze of others, I would not have made my life so little. When it comes to women's rights, no suit should prevail over the essential.
The key is: freedom, equality and empowerment of women. I still hear French friends tell me emphatically talking about him, tell him, write him. Strangely, their words remind me of the title of this magnificent film Almodovar "Talk to Her" from the first moments where the curtain rises stealthily for a few seconds on a dance show, featuring the body of a woman that of Pina Bausch. She expressed so bluntly in his choreography violence against women.
Mr. Gerin, that I address you, I want to talk, tell you the fear I experienced 25 March 1994 while living in Oran , Algeria and the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) had ordered the women of my country wearing the Islamic veil. That day, I walked bareheaded and millions of other Algerian. We have defied death. We played hide and seek with the GIA and the bloody memory of Bengana Katia, a young schoolgirl aged 17 was murdered February 28, 1994 out of his high school hanging over our heads bare . There are key events in life that give a particular direction to the destiny of everyone. One, is one for me. Since that day, I have a deep aversion to anything that is hijab, veil, burqa, niqab, chador, jilbab, khimar and company. But today you're the head of a parliamentary commission to examine the full face veil in France.
Last March, I published in Quebec, a book titled "My life against the Koran" a woman reflects on the Islamists. From the first sentence, I gave the tone of what become my life in terms of political commitments by writing this: "I had the beginnings of an Islamic dictatorship. It was the early 1990s. I was not 18 yet. I was guilty of being a woman, feminist and secular. I must admit I am not a feminist and secular vocation, I am by necessity, by necessity, by the suffering that permeate my body because I can not resolve to see political Islam gaining ground here and around the world. I became a feminist and secular forces around me to see women suffer in silence behind closed doors to hide their sex and pain, to stifle their desires and silence their dreams.
There was a time where we questioned in France over the wearing of Islamic headscarves in schools. Today, it comes full veil. Instead of expanding the scope of the 2004 Act to Universities, we are discussing the possibility of leaving wander our streets coffins. Is this normal? Tomorrow maybe it's polygamy, which will be on the agenda.
Do not laugh. This happened in Canada and it took that course (of Justice) get involved. After all the culture right back when it comes to oppress women. Ironically, I found several areas that the skirts are getting longer and gradually disappear. The color palette is reduced. It has become commonplace to hide his body behind a veil and wear a skirt, an act of resistance. It's still a French suburb that was the scene of the movie "The Day of the skirt. " While the streets of Tehran and Khartoum, women are discovering more and more, risking their lives in the lost territories of the French Republic, the veil has become the norm.
What's going on? France is she become ill?
The Islamic veil is often presented as part of "the collective Muslim identity." However, it is not. It is the symbol of Islamic fundamentalism throughout the world. If he has a special connotation, rather it is politics, especially with the advent of the Islamic Revolution in Iran 1979.
Make no mistake, the Islamic veil hiding the fear of women, their bodies, their freedom and their sexuality.
Worse, the perversion is pushed to its climax in veiling of children under five years. Some time ago, I tried to remember exactly when, in Algeria, I saw this show veil in the classroom. During my childhood until I started high school, that is to say in 1987, wearing the Islamic veil was Marginal around me. In elementary school, nobody was wearing the hijab, or among teachers, especially not among the students.
That 12 years I live in Quebec with the motto on the license plates of cars is "Je me souviens". About memory, what France should she remember? She is a carrier of the Enlightenment. That millions of women eat the writings of Simone de Beauvoir, whose name is inseparable from that of Djamila Boupacha. Is an understatement. There is no doubt in my mind that France is a great country and this gives you responsibilities and duties towards us all, small. That's why today all eyes are on your board and we expect you to make courage and responsibility by banning the wearing of the burqa .
For us in Quebec, we remember that in 1961, for the first time in history, a woman, a lawyer in addition, was elected to the Legislative Assembly during an election. Her name is Claire and Kirkland became minister. By invoking an old law which required parliamentary women wearing the hat to submit to the Legislature, he is forced to cover their heads during the sessions. She refuses. This is the scandal. A newspaper headline: "A naked woman heading to the Legislature! She resists and is successful.
must understand by this that our rights are fragile achievements to defend hard and they are the result of collective struggles which have pledged millions of women and men who love freedom and justice. Hopefully, Mr. Gerin, that your committee will consider all these sacrifices and aspirations of all those citizens worldwide and centuries.
To you dear friends, if anything, only one, I would like you to remember those few words is the following. Between some left resigned, racism of the extreme right and the laissez-faire and the complicity of governments we have the opportunity to change things, even more we have the historic responsibility to advance women's rights. We are somehow responsible for our future and that of our children. Because it takes over that we give it.
We, the citizens. We the peoples of the world. By our actions, by our actions and our mobilization. All energies are required citizens from one country to another across borders. The future belongs to us. Woman is the Future the man said Aragon. Being human, I want to salute a present today is my father whom I owe everything ..
And I'll end with a quotation from Simone de Beauvoir: "One has the right to scream but it must be listened to cry, it has to stand up, he That has to resonate among others. "
I hope my art will resonate with you.
Djemila Benhabib
letter read at the Palais du Luxembourg, Friday November 13, 2009, during the day "Women standing", organized by Women United and the League of Women International Law
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
0 comments:
Post a Comment