http://www.easternecho.com The hijab. What is usually the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word? Be honest with yourself. No one can hear your thoughts. Do you know what a hijab is? Do you know why it has to be worn? en-us Gryphon 2.3.1-dsw (pewabic)/Foundry5 Fri, 19 Feb 2010 11:00:17 -0500 webmaster@easternecho.com http://www.easternecho.com/index.php/comment/view/608 France and other liberal/secular nations women may have a choice, true. Agreed. However, in other nations where Sharia law is in place, there is no choice for women. Women are forced to wear it otherwise they could be severely punished. And another fact that expressing religious signs in the US classrooms is not highly smiled upon. Just ask the ACLU! Even working for British Airways you cannot display religious symbols. This is life in the secular/liberal world. Thu, 18 Feb 2010 12:55:30 -0500 http://www.easternecho.com/index.php/comment/view/608 http://www.easternecho.com/index.php/comment/view/610 I have seen western educated Muslim women are in Burqa while their mothers never even covered their heads in Pakistan. I do not know whether it is due to western education or because they find themselves victim of racism. According to Lord Burtend Russell, western education makes a man stupid and selfish. The credit cruch in the world is due to the policies of blue eyed western educated elites. British schooling is also in a mess because of such western educated elites. Burqa is not locking women, it is a buffer line between protecting chasity and exposing. Being naked and drunk is acceptabl but being covered and modest is inhuman. French president wants Muslim women to be topless like his wife who posed topless in fashion shows. He has no right to ban the burqa because it is undemocratic and an unqualified attack on individual freedom. Burqa is not just a piece of cloth but a lot of ideological and cultural connotation to it. Women are just being exploited in the name of rights. Burqa protects women’s rights and treat each women like a princess. No one has the right to ban the freedom of choice in a secular and democratic country. The right to choice is a basic fundamental right the person should have. French president’s interpretation of burqa as a symbol of subservience is false. It is a usual habit of western ideologists to twist history and distort the facts inorder to project their culture as superior one. The president should be criminally tried for spreading such falsehood. To veil or not to veil should be an individual choice. Dress codes are for children, not for adults. Government legislated dress codes for the Taliban religious policy not western democracies. Women should be free to wear burqas. If women can get away with wearing cropped shirts and pants that show their panties, they should be able to waer burqas too. One Muslim woman, Caroline Chaiima, writing in Lepoint.fr, said she wore a veil: “Let those most closely concerned speak. I am a French woman born in France, with French parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and I am a Muslim. I wear the full veil and I feel like saying: So what? I am happy behind the veil, I protect myself from depraved stares. Neither my father, nor my brother, nor my husband forced the full veil upon me; it’s a personal choice.” Iftikhar Ahmad London School of Islamics Trust www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk Fri, 19 Feb 2010 11:00:17 -0500 http://www.easternecho.com/index.php/comment/view/610