Source: ET
Any ban on wearing the niqab in public is one that defends secular society. In Germany today, secularism and the perceived integrity of the nation are strained with the influx of 1.2 million Syrian refugees, the rise in Islamist terrorism, and the looming threat from the so-called Islamic State. Germany is a fragile state within a fragile post-Brexit Europe. In this climate, niqabs become a direct challenge to national cohesion, connote a neo-orthodox expression of Islam, and are often associated with Islamist ideologies: IS, al Qaeda, the Taliban, and others.
Predictably, liberals, others, and The Council on American Islamic Relations, a prominent American Muslim advocacy group, have already launched a backlash claiming this burka ban violates the rights of Muslim women like me—a uniquely Islamist, and not Islamic, claim. Being de facto political totalitarianism, Islamism, also known as “radical Islam” or “political Islam,” centers on absolute domination of the individual, forcibly imposing a perversion of Islam through the concept of Islamic statehood. While some Muslim women may not be in a position to choose within the confines of their family, in secular societies where women are free to choose their dress, rote ritualism and de novo rituals including the wearing of the niqab indicate neo-orthodoxy. Women who choose to adopt the niqab in secular society may do so in solidarity with today’s militancy du jour: Islamism. Wherever neo-orthodoxy flourishes, Islamism, not Islam, thrives near by.
Categories: Europe, Europe and Australia, European Union, Germany