BURQUINI AND BIKINI CAN LIVE TOGETHER
If you make a research on internet, you will find under “burquini” an endless number of pictures of models and women dressed in brightly colored clothing or sad black tuniques, half leg or covered, with or without a veil, in fact the same variety with bikinis or swimsuits. Other photos show girls and women in burquini smiling or chatting with women in bikinis on beaches in France but also in Tunisia.
Personally, I am opposed to the kind of crusade that is now emerging in France or Italy around the prohibition for women to go to the beach with burquini.
It is a fact that those who jumped on this issue mostly do not care at all about how free women are, but want to strengthen the argument that it is impossible to live together with Muslims and argue that it is against our values to go to the beach dressed, whilst a lot of the very same people support an extremely conservative view of society and were against its most important advances. It is not by accident, that most freedom and human rights NGOs are opposed to this measure; and one can wonder if Manuel Valls, French Prime minister who came out in support of the ban of burquini, is more interested in pleasing potential FN supporters than to defend the Republique.
Just to be clear, I don’t like burquinis. And if I look inside myself, a woman who is keenly aware of the value of the fights those before me had to endure to make me who I am today, I do struggle to consider even a veil a free choice for anyone and not a sign of a mistaken duty for a women to hide and disappear. But I do think that we have to deal with differences and accept diversity, if it is within the rules of a civilized coexistence and does not end up in compressing freedoms and rights. It is a difficult balance between imposing laws and favor a positive development of the mentality by listening and being open to dialogue.
I am convinced that it is not in this way that we will enhance freedom for those women and pacific coexistence and respect in our societies. Indeed, the effect is already to focus attention and public disapproval and even fear in what could simply be the willingness to comply with one’s canons of decency and sit quietly in a beach or swim. Such prohibitions do not encourage dialogue and evolution of the mentality within any community; they just increase separations and reciprocal fears, the “we” and “them”. I resent that this discussion is once again around the body of women. And I also resent that the reasons not to allow burquini have mostly to do with public order and security. I fail to understand how these kind of measures can enhance security indeed! How many muslim girls and women will dare to go to the beach now, unless they don’t wear a bikini? And how many will look at those who do go with burquinis in an unfriendly way?
As a feminist, I am absolutely convinced that the rules that prevent anyone from going around completely covered, be it a helmet or a burka, should be more strictly implemented; just as I think they we have to prevent all attempts to organize separate classes for girls and boys in schools or separate hours in swimming pools; and that more resources and assistance should be given to the phenomena of isolation and repression of Muslim girls and women in our cities; but I also believe that banning the burquini in our beaches is a useless act of intolerance.
If you make a research on internet, you will find under “burquini” an endless number of pictures of models and women dressed in brightly colored clothing or sad black tuniques, half leg or covered, with or without a veil, in fact the same variety with bikinis or swimsuits. Other photos show girls and women in burquini smiling or chatting with women in bikinis on beaches in France but also in Tunisia.
Personally, I am opposed to the kind of crusade that is now emerging in France or Italy around the prohibition for women to go to the beach with burquini.
It is a fact that those who jumped on this issue mostly do not care at all about how free women are, but want to strengthen the argument that it is impossible to live together with Muslims and argue that it is against our values to go to the beach dressed, whilst a lot of the very same people support an extremely conservative view of society and were against its most important advances. It is not by accident, that most freedom and human rights NGOs are opposed to this measure; and one can wonder if Manuel Valls, French Prime minister who came out in support of the ban of burquini, is more interested in pleasing potential FN supporters than to defend the Republique.
Just to be clear, I don’t like burquinis. And if I look inside myself, a woman who is keenly aware of the value of the fights those before me had to endure to make me who I am today, I do struggle to consider even a veil a free choice for anyone and not a sign of a mistaken duty for a women to hide and disappear. But I do think that we have to deal with differences and accept diversity, if it is within the rules of a civilized coexistence and does not end up in compressing freedoms and rights. It is a difficult balance between imposing laws and favor a positive development of the mentality by listening and being open to dialogue.
I am convinced that it is not in this way that we will enhance freedom for those women and pacific coexistence and respect in our societies. Indeed, the effect is already to focus attention and public disapproval and even fear in what could simply be the willingness to comply with one’s canons of decency and sit quietly in a beach or swim. Such prohibitions do not encourage dialogue and evolution of the mentality within any community; they just increase separations and reciprocal fears, the “we” and “them”. I resent that this discussion is once again around the body of women. And I also resent that the reasons not to allow burquini have mostly to do with public order and security. I fail to understand how these kind of measures can enhance security indeed! How many muslim girls and women will dare to go to the beach now, unless they don’t wear a bikini? And how many will look at those who do go with burquinis in an unfriendly way?
As a feminist, I am absolutely convinced that the rules that prevent anyone from going around completely covered, be it a helmet or a burka, should be more strictly implemented; just as I think they we have to prevent all attempts to organize separate classes for girls and boys in schools or separate hours in swimming pools; and that more resources and assistance should be given to the phenomena of isolation and repression of Muslim girls and women in our cities; but I also believe that banning the burquini in our beaches is a useless act of intolerance.