(January 24, 2020 at 4:46 am)Belacqua Wrote:(January 24, 2020 at 3:01 am)Fake Messiah Wrote: As do men, but not if they go to some other places like a nudist beach, while women in Muslim countries don't have that kind of freedom and must be covered all the time everywhere.
I have said a couple of times now that rules for modesty differ from place to place. Nude beaches are not the same as supermarkets.
What you say about Muslim countries is oversimple. It's normal in some Muslim countries, but not in others, that women must be "covered all the time everywhere," when they are not at home. You perceive this to be a lack of freedom. They perceive it to be a normal sense of modesty.
Hijabs are banned in Tajikistan, a Muslim country, and in government offices in Tunisia, also Muslim. They were banned at Turkish universities until very recently. Standards vary widely among Muslim countries. Saudi Arabia is strict and may require a full burqa. Other countries think a simple headscarf is enough. Peter Hitchens has written about his travels in various Muslim countries, and how he saw many women who had the headscarf pushed so far back as to make it meaningless, and did so with impunity. When the US can refrain from overthrowing a Muslim country's secular leadership, standards seem to loosen.
Ilhan Omar continues to wear a scarf, while her teenage daughter doesn't. Do you think that Omar lacks freedom? Or is this a choice she makes?
But there is also this: Proponents of the head scarf in Turkey are constantly seeking to promote their behavior as the true rule imposed by the Religion and as a necessity for truly Turkish families.
The issue has been politicized to its core since many decades and in my country, it’s almost the same as wearing a MAGA hat or a black shirt (like the Italian fascist used to do) and a symbol of belonging to / an unity with the “muslim wolrd) That is Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran Etc…
- Of course I am not saying that all women with a headscarf are the same. But I think you are looking at a good 50%. Without any exaggeration. Because you would be surprised how some of them can be even more fanatical than their husbands, fathers, brothers etc…
- Tajikistan is not a true country. It’s only the backyard of Russia like all Turkic states of Central Asia.
Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco etc. are very underdeveloped countries where religious traditions are very strong everywhere because religion is basically the only thing the people of an economically underdeveloped country can turn to.
/What we have to look is the religion itself. The religion itself does not have such a mandate. Yet dictatorial rulers always seem to be more than willing to promote such things that are visible and sold to the general public as “a necessity dictated by our values and traditions”.
As I said. There needs to be a distinction between the religious, the political and the cultural.
I am of the view that there is nothing religious left in the practice of wearing the headscarf or the Hijab