That’s what a friend of mine said about the recent burqa ban passed in France. As a social liberal, my immediate reaction to this mandate is that it’s not right. But fine, if the French government wants to eliminate religious paraphernalia in public places, then the Star of David and religious crosses should be banned, as well. However, the rationale behind the law is that the French government considers the burqa to be a display of gender inequality as opposed to religious and looks at this as a way of helping to promote gender equality amongst Muslim immigrants. I can agree with the gender inequality aspect, but what religion doesn’t have oppressive practices for females?

The way I see it is that these types of laws are audacious. If government is now intervening to ensure that immigrant women have more of even playing field, it should first make sure that French citizens are leading by example, right? Well, the 2010 Gender Gap study published by the World Economic Forum shows that France has gone from 18th to 46th place, mostly because of the lack of women in high-ranking government positions. So, I think the Sarkozy administration should start promoting gender equality in-house before trying to fix other communities. What’s also tricky about this type of legislation is it can be a slippery slope. Will it stop at the burqa, or will it continue into other aspects of the Muslim religion? Moreover, will the government also look to expand into non-Muslim religions?

What I also find interesting is that while this law has overwhelming support by the French public, a Pew poll found that 2 out of 3 Americans are against it. I think that’s a reflection of Americans’ aversion to letting government dictate too much of their personal lives. Even with all the anti-Muslim rhetoric that’s getting a lot of media time these days, Americans have their limits when it comes to government involvement.

While I can understand where my friend is coming from, until there is more consistency and clarity in France’s decisions regarding religious freedoms, I can’t get behind this. What are your thoughts on the burqa ban?

I have always been fascinated with the way that cultures label things. For instance, when I was studying abroad in France, one of my professors was talking about bidonvilles, the equivalent of slums in English. I started talking to him about some bidonvilles that I knew of in the states and he quickly corrected me by saying that bidonville was only used for poor countries. In the U.S., these areas would be called ghettos (yes, it’s the same in French ?). I then asked him, “Either way, aren’t they places where low-income/poor people are concentrated?”

Same goes for the word immigrant. Anyone who comes to the U.S. from a different country is called an immigrant. However, when Americans emigrate to another country, they get labeled as expats. Good ol’ Webster defines an immigrant as “a person who comes to a country to take up permanent residence”. Now, I may be reading into this definition, but wouldn’t it apply in both instances?

See, what I find interesting in these examples is that it appears people create different words to describe the same thing out of discomfort and in most cases one sounds better than the other. So, while I’m living in Caracas I will be part of the “expat community”, even though my purpose there is no different than the Columbians or Bolivians that are automatically in the “immigrant community”.

By using these different labels, haven’t we just made one group of people feel better about itself by marginalizing another? What do you think about this practice? Are there any other examples of this that you’ve seen?

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