Greek slant on Euroarabia and Islamophobia
October 28, 2009
Source: Enet.gr
by Pericles Korovesis, PM SYRIZA to the Greek Parliament.
Is Europe in danger of becoming Islamized? How can Turkey, a non-Christian country that never has had Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment, integrate into Europe without distorting its characteristics? Should all Muslims be expelled from Europe in order to find the lost identity?
These are some questions and more similar others that the Right and extreme Right Wing of Europe and the USA are asked to answer. Several books have been written and the Yellow Press officiates of racist campaigns of any kind incriminate immigrants that have Islamic religion.
Racism and nationalism, in order to make its arguments seem truthful, must distort reality. So the fact is concealed that in Europe, out of 493 million residents, only 3-4% are Muslims. And still they do not bring the question of who brought them. After World War II, Europe needed cheap workers. Where could they find them? The old empires sufficiently destroyed their colonies. France made mass import of workers from North Africa. Britons brought workers from India and Pakistan. Holland brought Moroccans. Germany preferred to bring Turkish, but also took Greeks, Yugoslavians and Italians. Even the Spanish that did not want Muslims at all for historical reasons brought Muslims massively in 1970 for the needs of their economy.
Mainly, this working force was occupied for the hardest and heaviest jobs, was living in the urban ghettos and never attained the same rights with the natives. Even the second or third generation that had no Islamic education and the vast majority of them went to public schools (in France only 5% of the Muslims go to the mosques), they have not become first class citizens. Surely there are extremists as they exist in every religion. But they are an insignificant minority cut from the Muslim community. If we can talk about something like that, their problem is not the Islamization of Europe, but the unemployment that hits always the weak.
The extreme right parties as the National Front of France, Liberty party of Austria or the British National Party etc., have invented a neologism: “Euroarabia”. And that means new pogroms. Islamophobia takes the place of the old anti-Semitism that carries basic characteristics to Islam. For example, that behind any world conspiracy Islam and Arabs are hiding. After 9/11, terrorism and Islam were coincided, and was formed the axis of good Bush and of bad Muslim. In Greece, these theories have not found a ground yet, because what prevails is the native xenophobia and the specialized Turkophobia. But besides this, we have made neither a mosque nor cemetery for the Muslims. And maybe this is our own Islamophobia. At the point where there is no tolerance for the others, the different, there is no democracy and we enter in dangerous paths. And the other becomes the enemy.
Burqa furor scrambles French politics
September 15, 2009
Source: New York Times
Note: This article was published in the Greek newspaper, Kathimerini.
PARIS – It is a measure of France’s confusion about Islam and its own Muslim citizens that in the political furor here over “banning the burqa,” as the argument goes, the garment at issue is not really the burqa at all, but the niqab.
A burqa is the all-enveloping cloak, often blue, with a woven grill over the eyes, that many Afghan women wear, and it is almost never seen in France. The niqab, often black, leaves the eyes uncovered.
Still, a movement against it that started with a Communist mayor near Lyon has gotten traction within France’s ruling center-right party, which claims to be defending French values, and among many on the left, who say they are defending women’s rights. A parliamentary commission will soon meet to investigate whether to ban the burqa – in other words, any cloak that covers most of the face.
The debate is indicative of the deep ambivalence about social customs among even a small minority of France’s Muslim citizens, and of the signal fear that France’s principles of citizens’ rights, equality and secularism are being undermined.
French discomfort with organized religion, dating from the 1789 revolution and the disestablishment of the Roman Catholic Church, is aggravated by these foreign customs, which are associated in the Western mind with repression of women.
André Gerin, a Communist Party legislator and mayor of Vénissieux, a Lyon suburb with many Muslims from North Africa, began the affair in late June by initiating a motion, signed by 57 other legislators, calling for the parliamentary commission.
“The burqa is the tip of the iceberg,” Mr. Gerin said. “Islamism really threatens us.” In a letter to the government, he wrote: “It is time to take a stand on this issue that concerns thousands of citizens who are worried to see imprisoned, totally veiled women.”
A few days later, President Nicolas Sarkozy said that “the burqa is not welcome on the territory of the French Republic.” He did not say how it would be made unwelcome, however, or whether he intended to extend existing laws that already ban head scarves or any other religious symbol from public schools.
For Mr. Sarkozy, who defends participation in the Afghan war as a matter of women’s rights, “the problem of the burqa is not a religious problem,” he said. “It is a problem of liberty and the dignity of women. It is a sign of servitude and degradation.”
There is a strong suspicion that Mr. Sarkozy, who has supported religious freedom, is playing politics in a time of economic unhappiness and social anxiety. But he also seems to want to restrict more radical and puritanical forms of Islam from gaining further hold here.
The French press has been full of heated opinion pieces, charts about different Islamic veils, stories about public swimming pools and the burqini, an Islamic swimsuit that covers the body and the hair (but not the face). Women wearing the niqab, many of them French converts to Islam, have said that they have freely chosen to cover themselves after marriage. Others say solemnly that to stigmatize or ban the veil would only cause more women to wear it, out of protest.
Last year, Faiza Silmi, now 33, was denied French citizenship in part for wearing the niqab, bringing a legal judgment about personal dress into the home. In an interview with Le Monde, Ms. Silmi said that she chose to wear the niqab after her marriage, even if her own mother thought it was “a little too much.”
“Don’t believe for a moment that I am submissive to my husband!” she said. “I’m the one who takes care of the documents and the money.”
Passions have been so high that when domestic intelligence issued a report saying that only 367 women in France wore a full veil, it seemed to make no difference.
For many French Muslims, the entire discussion is an embarrassment and an incitement to racial and religious hatred.
M’hammed Henniche is the secretary for the private Union of Muslim Associations of Seine-Saint-Denis. He is French first of all, he said, and he is appalled.
“There’s nothing but confusion,” he said. “What they’re talking about is the niqab, but I think choosing to use burqa instead is not an accident. They chose a word that is associated with Afghanistan, and that spreads a negative, scary image.
“There are laws in France that force women to show their face, in certain situations, at the town hall, at the bank,” Mr. Henniche added. “Women who wear niqab take it off when they must. But in the streets, everyone is free. They’re spinning this story in order to stigmatize a community.”
Even existing laws are misunderstood, he said, with a woman refused entry to a bank because employees thought a head scarf was illegal. “It’s a dangerous slip, going from a ban in school to a ban in the streets,” he said.
John R. Bowen, who wrote “Why the French Don’t Like Headscarves: Islam, the State and Public Space,” has been asked to testify by the parliamentary commission.
“French political discourse is internally conflicted,” said Mr. Bowen, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis. There is confusion about different kinds of public space, he said – the street, and places that belong to the state but are not freely open to the public, like schools.
France took from Rousseau the principle that no intermediate group or affiliation should stand between the citizen and the state, which represents the general interest, Mr. Bowen said. But Rousseau also championed the right to form private associations, or clubs. It was not until 1901, however, that the state allowed some unions or associations, Mr. Bowen said, and not until 1981 that foreigners could form them.
Muslim groups then started religious tutoring, seen as promoting Islam, and clubs based on ethnicity or religion are viewed with great suspicion, Mr. Bowen said. “There is a sense that people who are publicly displaying their religious or ethnic characteristics are a slap in the face of French applied political theory.”
Mr. Bowen does not think there will be a law banning the niqab. Nor does Yazid Sabeg, Mr. Sarkozy’s commissioner for diversity and equal opportunity, who said it would be unenforceable.
“Even if they ban the burqa, it will not stop there,” Mr. Henniche, of the Muslim group, said. “There is a permanent demand for legislating against Muslims. This could go really bad, and I’m scared of it. I feel like they’re turning the screws on us.”
Nadim Audi contributed reporting from Paris.
–
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: September 4, 2009
A picture caption on Tuesday with an article about a debate in France over whether the government should ban the burqa, the term commonly used to describe the head-covering cloak worn by many devout Muslim women, misstated the date of the photograph showing veiled Muslim women marching in Paris. It was taken in 1994, during a protest against a French ban on Muslim head scarves in public schools – not this year.
Muslim woman banned from wearing a ‘burkini’ in a French swimming pool
August 12, 2009
Source: The Mail
The Burkini swimsuit – designed to spare the blushes of Muslim women worldwide - was plunged into controversy yesterday.
A French mother was banned from wearing the three-piece outfit at her local swimming pool.
Carole, a 35-year- old Muslim convert, was told it was ‘ inappropriate’ on hygiene grounds, but she insists the ban is racial discrimination.
It follows French President Nicolas Sarkozy recently attacking Muslim burkhas as a ’sign of subservience’ for women and saying they should be banned.
Carole - who did not want her surname published - bought her burkini for £40 during a holiday in Dubai.
She said: ‘I was told that it would allow me the pleasure of bathing without showing off my body, which is what Islam recommends’.
She approached a number of swimming pools before the manager of one in Emerainville, near Paris, said there would be no problem with the burkini.
Carole, who converted from Christianity when she was 17, insisted: ‘For me, it’s discrimination. I understand that the burkini can shock, especially as we’re in France, but what disturbs me is that this is a political issue.
I’m going to fight this problem through anti-racism groups, and if no solution is forthcoming I’ll consider leaving the country.’ She has made a formal complaint to police at nearby Meaux.
Yannick Decompois, swimming pools director for the Marne-la-Vallie area, said: ‘This isn’t anything to do with discrimination, but simply a hygiene problem. We also ban people wearing shorts in pools - it’s the same thing.’
French pools bar any clothes that can also be worn outside, where they can pick up dirt and contamination.
In June Mr Sarkozy risked the wrath of Muslims by backing demands for the full-body burkha to be banned, calling it a sign of the ‘debasement’ of women.
‘In our country, we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity,’ he said.
The president was supporting a call by dozens of French politicians for the ban.
France has Western Europe’s largest Muslim population, an estimated 5million. But in 2004 it passed a law banning the Islamic headscarf and other conspicuous religious symbols from state schools, sparking fierce debate at home and abroad.
Comment:
As the proud owner of a burkini, I can assure you that the excuse of hygiene issues are non existent. The burkini is made out of a light, easy to dry material, very suitable for swimwear and is an absolute must to women who wish to swim but also keep their modesty. The burkini is not something that a woman would choose to wear outdoors. I have used the burkini in my local pool and it has not been a problem. I can see now that another debate is going to arise. My question: “Who is oppressing Muslim women? Islam or the West?”
Special report: Greek Parliament member pushes religious freedom for Muslims
March 30, 2009
Parliament member Mr. Periklis Korovesis from the Syriza party lodged a formal question [about religious freedom] to the Greek Parliament, in particular the Ministers of Internal Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Education and Religions, National Defence. (Please view the seven questions at the end of this report.)
Subject: Muslim Cemetery and Mosque in Attica
In Athens, where 700 000 Muslims of all nationalities live, there is neither a mosque nor a Muslim cemetery, making Greece the only country in Europe that has not taken care of this. This practice opposes Article 13 of the Constitution and Article 9 of the European Convention for the Human Rights that clearly state “the freedom of religious conscience is unhindered”.
Understandably, the Muslims in Athens feel the sense of rejection as they have no ability to pray, get married, and have a funeral service with dignity. As a result, this brought the existence of over 50 unofficial praying places in the region, often located in undergrounds and garages.
Just recently, the Prefecture of Athens fined the owner of an underground building at Nea Ionia 60 000 euro and 30 000 euro because he used it as an unofficial mosque without special permission of a “bethel”, allowing Muslims of the area to pray there.
There were significant local protests from the immigrants who opposed the prefecture as well as Greek inhabitants and authorities, demonstrating on Saturday February 7th at a massive movement in this small area (more than 1000 people) asking for a proper place to conduct religious tasks, which is a right registered by the constitution.
However, the decision of the prefecture and the reactions on behalf of the immigrants is not new. Thirty years have passed since the first claim in 1976 was lodged for building a mosque in Athens from the Arabic embassies, when all Greek governments projected several barriers in order not to proceed to its fulfillment.
Meanwhile, in other countries like Sweden, there are five mosques, 150 praying places and 10 Muslim cemeteries; in France there are 2000 praying places and 12 mosques when the cemeteries (except for one Muslim cemetery established in 1930) where it is obliged to have place of burying Muslims; in Norway (Oslo) the mosque was established in 1980, in Poland (Gtansk) in 1989, in Russia (Moscow) in 1912, in Scotland (Glascow) in 1983, in Portugal (Lisbon) in 1988, in Malta in 1978, in Ireland (Dublin) in 1978, in the UK there is the biggest Muslim cemetery in Europe and many mosques.
In 1983 the Greek state was committed to construct a mosque in Marousi, but this did not work due to the reactions of the local authorities. In 2000 the law 2833 was including the establishment if an Islamic Cultural Centre and Mosque in Peania with expenses that the Saudi Arabian Government would cover. This project was cancelled and in the very same place they realized that was already been built an orthodox church!
In October 2006 the Ministry of Education presented a draft law for building a mosque at Eleonas, a feasible project in harmony with the protected green of the area. The decision remained inapplicable because at the area that was given for the mosque is located navy base and the transfer of that means that 5 000 000 euro should be found. Although the Muslim Community was willing to offer that amount, this offer was not accepted, for it is the obligation of the Ministry of Defense to provide the funds to the Navy.
The Muslim Association of Greece sent a recent letter (27.01.09) to the Minister of Education and Religions asking to fulfil the governmental commitments and accusing the ministry’s palinodes twice for losing the necessary documents for the realization of this project.
Similar luck seems to have the permanent claim of the Muslims for the establishment of the Muslim cemetery in Athens, for which we have lodged a question (number of lodgment 1334/15.7.2009).
Despite of the bestowal of the field at the area of Schisto for the establishment, and the commitments of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that was authorized as a coordinator of the engaged authorities, no procedure has proceeded. Hence, since the Muslims of Attica have no official mosque, nor a cemetery, nor a religious scholar who will be under a law to practice their religious rituals, they are forced to move their dead to Thrace or abroad with a huge economic cost for the family, that rates even 5000 euro (for Pakistan).
For the construction of the Muslim cemetery in Schisto, the Muslim Association of Greece has sent a letter again to the Minister of Internal Affairs on 27.01.2009, asking for intervention, as far as the bureaucratic procedures of the local authorities are concerned for the following reasons:
- All these are unprecedented for an elemental democratic country and equals to “Islamophobia” and discrimination if the Islamic civilization;
- The pertinacious non-immigration policy of the governments has created a suffocating place of living for Muslim immigrants and refuges that are in Greece, insulting fundamental and obvious human rights of every civilised country;
- The immigration stream of the last decade has definitively changed the face and composition of the Greek society affecting even its deeper structures, transforming it to multicultural and religious differentiation, which in fact compels changes in point of vision, criteria and methods.
The ministers are asked:
- What is the status of the procedures for the construction of the Eleonas mosque and what are the obstacles of moving the navy base, the cost of the moving etc.
- Have the funds been found by the Ministry of National Defense for the move of the navy base from the area of Eleonas?
- In which point are the procedures for the establishment of the Muslim cemetery in Shisto? Is the topographic survey of the area that was expected to be completed within a two months period starting from July 2008, according to the response that was given to us by the Deputy Minister of foreign affairs Theodoros Kassimis?
- Has the transfer of the proprietary title of the area been made by the Church of Greece to the local authority in charge of the Muslim cemetery?
- Are the procedures of the Ministry of Zoning and Public Works finished as concerning the zoning of the cemetery area?
- How do they think to improve the conditions of religious freedom and equity, having in mind the condition that has prevailed in Greece and in Europe, in order to reduce the distance that separates our country from the rest of Europe?
- Which constitutional preconditions they think to create will allow all religious communities to enjoy the internationally acknowledged equity of rights and parity for the religious rights?
Athens, March 26, 2009
Member of Parliament
Periklis Korovesis
