France's Minister Fadela Amara Calls Burqas the "Gangarene of Radical Islam"

Fadela Amara, France’s Muslim woman minister for urban regeneration, has outlined clearly the reasons for her endorsement of a total ban on burqas in France.

In an interview with The Financial Times, Amara says that besides sexual oppression and poverty, Muslim women suffer a “third form of oppression — extreme religiosity, the presence of fundamentalist groups who continue to propagate their discourse.”

Amara describes France as a beacon for an enlightened Islam, thriving in a modern world. It’s now necessary to fight the “gangrene, the cancer of radical Islam which completely distorts the message of Islam”, she said.

“The vast majority of Muslims are against the burka. It is obvious why. Those who have struggled for women’s rights back home in their own countries – I’m thinking particularly of Algeria – we know what it represents and what the obscurantist political project is that lies behind it, to confiscate the most fundamental liberties.”

Speaking candidly, Ms Amara said she does not regard the burka as a religious symbol or a piece of clothing.

Applying her reasoning on a global basis, Fadela Amara says that the burqa is sn instrument of subordination used by Islamic fundamentalists.

Ms Amara added: “The burka represents not a piece of fabric but the political manipulation of a religion that enslaves women and disputes the principle of equality between men and women – one of the founding principles of our republic.”

Comments

[shamsun quddus]

As a muslim women brought up and educated in the west, I find the illeducated comments of Ms. Fadela Amara also a muslim very disturbing. I would advise her to read the Qur'an and the Hadith in its entirety before drawing conclusions. The burqa, abaya or Hijab is a dress of modesty, which I believe the majority of women in the west and in muslim countries wear out of free will and the love of their god who has ordered them to be modest and cover their beauty. There are women in some countries who wear the burqa in oppressed situations, narrow minded religious politics of self righteous mullas,male dominated society, poor governance, poverty and a lack of education. These women mostly illiterate complain of being oppressed by men because they do not have the freedom to be a person under the rule of a dominating male society. Naturally, they blame the burka, but ask this Q: If they were allowed to wear what they liked would this set them free?, Is removing the Burka the key to a stable economy and politial govenance, the need for investment in education, the need for better infrastructure and the desperate need to educate Men about the proper rights and responsibilities, mutual respect and tolerance ordained upon both men and women in Islam. Arrogance and disrespect has no place in Islam and the Qur'an specifically forbids this but sadly muslim men are of the impression that they are free to order women as they wish. If they treated women fairly in accordance to the qur'anic teachings, women would not be oppressed. The burqa has nothing to do with oppression, it is the distasteful and ignorant attitudes of men, unfortunately some women and society that need to change. Afterall a cloth is a cloth.