----- Original Message ----- From: estananto To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2004 3:55 PM Subject: [kmnu2000] Re: SURAT DARI PARIS:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/women/story/0,3604,1105177,00.html Veiled threat France is set to ban the hijab in schools. But forcing girls not to wear it is as bad as forcing them to, says Iranian exile Marjane Satrapi Friday December 12, 2003 The Guardian I have worn a hijab, and it was a question of survival. When I was 10 the revolution happened in Iran, where I lived, and from that point I was forced to wear the veil. If I hadn't done it, I would have been jailed. That is why I am absolutely opposed to the veil. Forcing women to put a piece of material on their head is an act of violence, and even if you get used to it after a while, the violence of insisting that women must cover their heads in public with a small piece of cloth does not diminish. But I also think that to forbid girls from wearing the veil, as the government of France is considering doing, is to be every bit as repressive. Yesterday a government-commissioned report recommended that all "conspicuous" signs of religious belief - including the hijab - should be outlawed in state schools. I passionately believe that the young women who have been expelled from school for wearing a veil should have the freedom to choose. It is surely a basic human right that someone can choose what she wears without interference from the state. Critics argue that it is not the girls themselves who want to wear the veil, rather they are forced to do so by their parents. But if that is the case, if these are the kind of parents who will force their daughters to wear a veil, they are probably the kind of parents who will be happy to withdraw them from school and then to marry them off to a distant cousin at 15 with whom they will bear five children. If we want to give these girls any chance of emancipation, any chance that one day they will decide for themselves that they don't want to wear the veil, it will come from education. It will certainly not come from being withdrawn by their families. It amazes me that so little of the debate here in France has centred round the ages of the girls in question. The fact is, they are adolescents, and when you are adolescent if you are told you cannot do something, you will surely do it. So it could become a fashion - worse, a symbol of rebellion. If wearing a veil becomes your symbol of rebellion, then you certainly know about irony! Scarily, these women might come to believe that they are asserting their freedom, not their oppression. When I was a student in Iran, I did so many forbidden things just because they were forbidden. Now these schoolgirls are going to wear the viel just because it will be forbidden. I know what it felt like to be pushed into being religious, so I know what it must be like to be pushed into being secular. Let's not make the same mistake that the fanatics made with the Iranian women. It is the same violence. I can be as opposed to the veil as I am, but I am also a defender of human rights. We need to explain to young women that this interpretation of the Koran is a very masculine interpretation. It is time for women to read the holy book themselves, to interpret it themselves and to realise that the holy texts can be interpreted in so many different ways. Why has it been interpreted in this way? This is what these women need to ask. But are we putting our finger on the real problem? Aren't we simply scared of Islam, and of talking about Islam? Instead of having an open debate about the religion, France wants to ban a symbol of Islam. It is important to consider what has happened in this country (France). In the 1970s, women who had come from North Africa didn't wear a veil, but now their daughters want to. Why? The answer is these people may be French, but they have to live in the suburbs where there is cheaper housing, without good jobs, without equal opportunities, and they have no other way to express their identity than through their religious identity. The problem is not the veil, it is their exclusion from society. I have been incredibly surprised by the reaction of French feminists, who have publicly campaigned for the banning of "this visible symbol of the submission of women". The western woman is so entranced by the idea that her emancipation comes from the miniskirt that she is convinced that if you have something on your head you are nothing. The women who are forced to wear the veil, and the women who are portrayed naked to sell everything from car tyres to orange juice, are both facing a form of oppression. But for me, anything that uses the language of banning is wrong. The example of Iran is a good one. When the father of the last Shah of Iran became king in the 1930s, he banned the veil. It was probably a good thing because many women who believed that if they removed it they would be turned to stone, realised that they wouldn't. After one or two generations it became more accepted. But why was the Islamic Revolution able to overturn that, to force everyone to wear a veil, so quickly? It was because in Iran we wanted to force through a whole social revolution overnight. Today in Iran everyone is increasingly in support of secularity and democracy. Women now wear the tiniest peice of material on their heads, and they are ready to remove that, when they are eventually permitted. In Iran, 63% of students are now girls; society has changed completely. It has been another revolution. But it has happened in their own time. Everywhere I go the first thing anyone wants to talk to me about is women's veils in Iran. And I ask them, if tomorrow we take off the veil, will the problems of which it is a symbol be solved? Will these women suddenly become equal and emancipated? The answer is no. � Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi is published by Jonathan Cape, price �12.99 ______________________________________________________________________ http://www.numesir.org untuk informasi tentang Cabang Istimewa NU Mesir dan KMNU2000, atau info-info seputar Cairo dan Timur Tengah. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Kami berharap Anda selalu bersama kami, tapi jika karena suatu hal Anda harus meninggalkan forum ini silakan kirim email ke: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ADVERTISEMENT -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! Groups Links a.. To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kmnu2000/ b.. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] c.. 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