http://www.arabnews.com/?page=5§ion=0&article=79676&d=24&m=3&y=2006
Friday, 24, March, 2006 (23, Safar, 1427)
Dutch Woman's Embrace of Islam Draws Stares
Molly Moore, The Washington Post
BREDA, Netherlands, 24 March 2006 - Rabi'a Frank sees her
Dutch hometown through the narrow slit of the black veil that covers her face.
The looks she receives from the townspeople are seldom kindly.
On a recent winter afternoon, the wind tugged at her ankle -
length taupe skirt, olive head scarf and black, rectangular face veil as she
walked to her car from a prayer meeting in downtown Breda. Two blond teenagers
on bicycles stared, their faces screwed into hostile snarls. Other passersby
gawked. Some stepped off the sidewalk to avoid coming too near.
She tried to act like it didn't offend her. But it did. She
knows what they think of Muslim women like her.
"If you cover yourself, you are oppressed - that's it," said
Frank, a lanky, 29-year-old Dutch woman who converted to Islam 11 years ago,
about the time she married her Moroccan husband. "You are being brainwashed by
your husband or your friends."
Or, you're a potential terrorist.
"Sometimes I make a joke and say, 'Oh, you don't have to be
scared of me."' Other times, she gets so fed up that she yanks up her hand
under her robe like it's a pistol and shouts, "Boom!"
Frank spoke on a recent winter day in her heather-colored
living room in this city of 162,000 people near the Netherlands' southern
border with Belgium. "They don't have the right to treat me different," she
said. "It's like staring at someone in a wheelchair. It's not polite. I'm
human, even if you don't like the way I appear."
This day-to-day struggle for acceptance on the streets of her
hometown is one woman's confrontation with a deepening rift in West European
societies, where the emergence of a 15 million-member Muslim minority is
reshaping concepts of nation and personal identity. Some European governments
have passed laws they say are intended to help preserve national identity.
Critics argue that the measures reflect Islamophobia and fears of terrorism
triggered by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the subsequent transit bombings
in Madrid and London.
The Netherlands, with nearly 1 million Muslims, almost 6
percent of its population, is particularly on edge. The 2002 assassination of
an anti-immigrant politician, Pim Fortuyn, by an animal rights activist was
followed by the execution-style murder in 2004 of the filmmaker Theo van Gogh,
who had just released a controversial film seen as anti-Islamic. A young Muslim
radical admitted to the killing.
A country with a history of tolerance is now adopting or
debating some of the most restrictive anti-immigration and anti-Muslim laws in
Europe. One proposed measure would ban women from wearing face veils, called
niqab, in public. Another would outlaw the speaking of languages other than
Dutch on the street.
Immigrants must learn some Dutch, pass a history and
geography test and, to get a feel for whether they can live in this society,
watch a film on Dutch culture that includes two gay men kissing and a topless
woman walking on a beach.
Geert Wilders, a member of the Dutch Parliament, said he was
drafting a bill that would ban all immigration for the next five years. "Our
culture is based on Christianity, Judaism and humanism," Wilders said in an
interview in his tiny office in the Parliament building in The Hague. "We
should not be ashamed of it. This is who we are and who we should stay."
In Belgium, some cities have banned women from wearing face
veils and burqas, which cover the entire body and face, in public places.
France a year ago barred women and girls from wearing head scarves in public
schools. A London school district has imposed a similar ban.
Like most of her Muslim convert friends, Frank said, she
found that the process of fully embracing Islamic thinking and dress was
gradual. But eventually the clothing became the outward statement of her
identity. "I smiled at all the Muslim women I saw in the streets," she said.
"But to them, I was just a plain Dutch girl with brown hair and blue eyes. I
wanted to be recognized as a Muslim woman."
She changed her name from Rebecca to Rabi'a and began giving
lectures about Islam. After she published an article on Islam in a local
newspaper, a woman wrote her a letter demanding: "Go back to your own country."
"I'm in it now!" she thought angrily.
The more Frank studied her religion, the more convinced she
became that she should take the final step and wear not only a head scarf but a
face veil. "It took me two years to convince my husband I wanted to do it,"
Frank said. "He really didn't want me to wear it because of the reaction when
we go out together."
On the streets of Breda, covered by her veil, Frank stands
out as an anomaly - a curiosity to some, a freak to others.
A few weeks ago, her middle son, 7-year-old Ismail, pleaded
with her, "Why don't you take it off? The children are laughing at you at
school."
"I won't take it off," she insisted. "For me, it's like
driving a car without a seat belt."
She gazed out her living room window at the street that winds
through her suburban enclave of brick townhouses and front gardens browned by
winter frosts.
"I am a Muslim," she said with finality. "That's my identity."
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