Date: Thursday, July 22, 2010, 9:47 PM
Giliran Menteri
Lingkungan Hidup Inggris Tolak Pelarangan Burka
Selasa, 20 Juli 2010, 15:21 WIB
REPUBLIKA.CO. ID, LONDON --Berbeda dengan
negara lain di Eropa termasuk Perancis, Inggris merupakan salah satu negara
Eropa yang terbilang tidak mau pusing untuk urusan pemakaian burka. Bahkan
negara itu tidak terlalu berhasrat untuk melarang penggunaan burka. Meski
demikian, perdebatan di kalangan masyarakat Inggris teruslah berlangsung.
Salah seorang anggota kabinet Inggris, Caroline Spelman, menyatakan penggunaan
Burka menjadikan perempuan Muslim lebih bermartabat. Pernyataan Spelman yang
menjabat sebagai menteri lingkungan hidup itu, justru membuat dirinya dianggap
bodoh dan tolol yang kemudian memancing kemarahan partai buruh yang berencana
melarang penggunaan burka di luar rumah.
"Satu hal yang membuat kami bangga terhadap negara ini adalah kebebasan
berekspresi, dan bebas untuk memilih apa yang anda kenakan. Jadi, menghukum
seseorang yang mengenakan burka kontras dengan kebijakan yang selama ini
dijalankan," tegasnya seperti dikutip telegraph, Senin (19/7). Ia
menyebut, persoalan burka di Afganistan merupakan persoalan lain.
Dirinya memahami mengapa perempuan Afganistan harus memakai burka pada masa
Taliban berkuasa. "Bagi mereka, mengenakan burka adalah kewajiban, mereka
pun harus mengenakan burka. Saya memahami bahwa ada perbedaan budaya dari apa
yang kita percaya, dan di negara ini, perempuan bebas untuk memilih, meski
keluar atau tidak dipagi hari dengan mengenakan burka," ujarnya.
Secara terpisah, mantan pemimpin Partai Independen, Nigel Farage, sebelumnya
menilai mengenakan burka secara serius mengurangi kesempatan hidup perempuan
Inggris di abad 21. Menurutnya, mengurangi kesempatan hidup adalah bagian dari
hal yang bodoh. "Komentar itu benar-benar luar biasa bodoh untuk seorang
menteri dipemerintahan, " katanya.
Sementara itu, Damian Green, Menteri Imigrasi Inggris menegaskan tidak akan ada
larangan burka di Britania. Dia mengatakan pengesahan larangan burka cukup
diberlakukan di luar Inggris
Caroline
Spelman: wearing burka can be 'empowering’
Wearing a
burka can be empowering and dignified for Muslim women, one of the Government’s
most senior female ministers said yesterday.
By Rosa Prince, Political
Correspondent
Published: 8:53AM BST 19 Jul 2010
The remarks by Caroline
Spelman, who as Environment Secretary is the second most powerful woman in the
Cabinet, were described as “moronic” and “bizarre”. She is also likely to face
anger from backbench Tory MPs, some of whom have called for the wearing of
burkas to be banned outside the private home.
Mrs Spelman was commenting on
a recent decision by French MPs to introduce a law outlawing the burka in
public.
Critics of the ban have argued
that while they do not like to see women covering their faces, particularly if
forced to do so by male relatives, legislation is heavy-handed and contrary to
the principle of freedom of expression.
But Mrs Spelman suggested that
wearing the burka could be seen as a feminist statement.
She claimed that a visit to Afghanistan had
persuaded her that “the burka confers dignity”.
Before the Taliban was driven
out of large parts of Afghanistan ,
millions of women were forced under threat of violence to wear the burka in
public. British soldiers still gauge the level of threat from the Taliban in an
area by assessing whether local women feel the need to cover themselves. But
Mrs Spelman said: “I don’t, living in this country as a woman, want to be told
what I can and can’t wear.
“One of the things we pride
ourselves on in this country is being free, and being free to choose what you
wear is a part of that, so banning the burka is absolutely contrary I think to
what this country is all about.
“I’ve been out to Afghanistan and
I think I understand much better as a result … why a lot of Muslim women want
to wear the burka.
“For them, the burka confers
dignity, it’s their choice, they choose to go out dressed in a burka. I
understand that it is a different culture from mine but the fact is in this
country women want to be free to choose … whether or not to go out in the
morning wearing a burka.”
But Nigel Farage, the former
leader of the UK Independent Party, said: “Wearing a burka seriously diminishes
a woman’s life chances in 21st century Britain – to describe it as somehow
empowering is simply moronic.
“It was a thoroughly
extraordinary and deeply ignorant comment for Caroline Spelman, a Government
minister, to make.”
Damian Green, the immigration
minister, has said there would be no burka ban in Britain . He told The Sunday
Telegraph yesterday that such a move would be a “rather un-British thing to do”.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
