Europe Rebels Against Muslim Outfits
In April of this year, the lower house of the Parliament of Belgium approved a draft law prohibiting women from appearing in public places wearing clothes covering face. In May the resolution condemning wearing burkas was unanimously accepted by the French Parliament. At the moment it is of a declarative nature, but French officials are preparing to give it a legal status.
Prior to that, in the end of the last year, a referendum was conducted in Switzerland banning construction of minarets. Earlier, in November of last year, European Court of Human Rights banned placing crucifixes in Italian public schools to satisfy the appeal of the country’s citizen Soile Lautsi. Does the European society reject religious symbolics in general or just Muslim symbolics? What can be the consequences of such bans? Pravda.ru asked experts for answers.
Geidar Jemal, chair of the Russian Islamic Committee:
“Today the country we are used to calling the European Union that consists of approximately 40 countries, is falling apart. The reason of the collapse is not the economic crisis alone, but the false basis contemporary Europe is built on. This is because the largest part of it is Western Europe that lives in the shadow of the defeat of 1945. It remains the country that is still occupied, the country rigidly controlled by the US through NATO, through the fifth column of officials, and political parties fed by the United States. Let’s not forget that this is the country where Judophilia was forced on people after the defeat. In most of these countries you can go to jail for doubting the existence of Holocaust.
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"If you pay attention, all Islam-phobic initiatives originate from government circles – from parliaments, courts and political parties, like it happened in Sweden with minarets. Islam-phobia in Western Europe is a lever for managing the territory that acutely feels that it is secondary, that it has lost the status as the center of history because in 1945 Europe turned into mere economic territory controlled by foreign forces, the US from the West and the USSR from the East.
"Today there is such thing as Islam-phobia used as a tool to control frustration of the masses. Muslim Diasporas in the West and frustrated people in the East have to couple because class solidarity pushes the lower classes of former socialist Europe to get support of poor Muslim Diasporas of the West. Of course, it will be of anti-American and anti-Israeli nature. Therefore, the more European Parliaments accelerate tension, the more they discriminate Muslims in the European society, the more social cataclysms we may expect in the near future.
"Burkas are, of course, an innovation and it does not comply with Shariah. But the parliament did not know that. I think the parliament did not try to get into the subtleties of Islamic legislation and so on. Objectively speaking, if the subjective component is taken away, burkas should be banned by Shariah because it does not comply with the laws of Islam, Sunni of the Prophet, Quran. Quran says that only the Prophet’s wives should be fully concealed from people’s eyes, and they are different from any other woman. This is God’s provision. It means that any other woman cannot imitate the Prophet’s wives in this sacredness.
"So any other woman must cover herself leaving her hands and face open. This is Shariah. If she covers her face, it is a violation of Shariah. But this is an objective side. The subjective side is that the parliament did not know about it and tried to hit a blow to the Muslims. The parliament decided to touch the Muslims on a sore spot on the territory that obeys its legislative acts. This is obvioud and this does not add to mutual understanding between the Diaspora and local population.
"Do you remember what happened when people from Diasporas in the outskirts of Paris started riots? Among them, by the way, were not only Muslims, there were many Serbs, Portuguese and Romanians. Then they were joined by students. The second wave of arsons of cars and buses was done by French students exclusively. Therefore, sooner or later, I think sooner, we will face the repetition of 1968, only the Soviets will not be there along with the international department of the Central Committee that could negotiate with NATO like it happened in 1968."
Father Georgy Zavershinsky, head of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate :
“The ban for wearing burkas, as explained in the documents regarding a fine charged to a woman wearing a burka by the Italian police, first of all has to do with protection from terroristic threat. This is precisely why it is not allowed to wear motorcycle helmets covering face and so on in public places. There is a difference between bans on religious symbols and bans on wearing clothes that cover people’s identity. This is number one.
