[lbo-talk] Karen Armstrong on veiling

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 10/27/06, Michael Pugliese <michael.098762001 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/27/06, sharif islam <sharif.islam at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > How is these relevant to the articles I quoted? I was trying to point
> > out the overlooked issue of controlling women's body in the veiling
> > debate.
> >
> > --sharif
>
> The debate on the French Left (as well as the recent contretemps
> over what Jack straw said) around the veil had as one of its focal
> points, the reactionary sexual politics of Islamists, "controlling
> women's bodies."

Evidently, a good part of the French Left, turning themselves into a
mirror image of the statist wing of Islamist thought, decided that
women can't be trusted to control their own bodies, choosing to wear
or not to wear hijab of their own free will.

Hijab doesn't signify Islamism, just as a yarmulke doesn't signify
Zionism and a cross doesn't signify support for Bush's crusade.
Conflating religion with politics doesn't help leftists -- it only
helps rightists and centrists who coopt rightist ideas.
-- 
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
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