ReligionDispatches.org

I bet people get tired of hearing about veils and clothing from me. but what am I to do? Yet again, the issue has arisen.

A swimming pool in the Paris suburb of Emerainville has refused entry to a young Muslim woman wearing a burqini. The woman came swimming in July, but when she returned in August, they were ready with a ban and an argument to buttress the ban. They claimed it was because her burqini was everyday clothing rather than swim attire.

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This post has been updated —ed.

Events of recent years in Europe drive home the reality that right-wing xenophobes are, well gaining ascendancy. From the almost amusing Sarkozy comments on the burqa, to the shocking murder of Marwa Sherbini in a Dresden courtroom and the proceeding silence in Germany point to a disturbing trend in Europe.

It is okay to hate Muslims.

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This post has been revised and updated —ed.

Marwa Sherbini was assaulted and murdered—not just assaulted and murdered but murdered in plain daylight—not just daylight but in a courtroom in the democratic, egalitarian Western nation of Germany. This was not a remote village in Somalia, or a Taliban-controlled village in Pakistan, or any random militia-ruled town without paved roads, police, emergency hotlines, elevators and cell-phones. It was a courtroom in Dresden. It was within the very space where justice is delivered.

Alex W. saw her as a walking veil which reduced her to a terrorist in his eyes. She was not a walking veil, nor should her supporters reduce her to one. She was a human being. Alex insulted her for her headscarf and her religion. She and her husband, trusting in the justice system, sought state protection from such attacks.

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For far too long—well, for at least a decade or so—we in the West have been biting our lip to let you Muslim women take care of yourselves. Well, at least some of us have. Or we feel like we have. At this historical moment, it seems that we have no choice but to enter the fray on your behalf.

We’ve been getting increasingly anxious about you allowing your men to control, dominate and subjugate you. As your allies, though we do not understand why you choose to remain in this state, we intend to assist you in getting out of this unfortunate situation, and to enable, empower, and emancipate you.

Since you have not been out in the world long enough to know what is best for you, we are going to spell out for you what is in your own best interest.

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A Lebanese woman was fined $500+ by Dubai’s traffic court for driving while pregnant.

The woman got rear-ended, and lost her child as a result of the accident – she claimed it wasn’t her fault but Dubai’s daily paper The National says it happened because she didn’t keep far enough from the car in front.

Salah Bu Farousha, head of traffic prosecution in Duabi, said women in the third trimester of pregnancy should avoid driving altogether to protect lives of mother and child.

I’m reminded of the multiple trips I made on the insanely crowded Beltway to my unpleasant bully of an OB-GYN in Rockville, MD. I sure as hell didn’t want to drive there, but as a 35+ pregnant woman, supposedly at risk due to my advanced (!) age, I had more medical visits than most pregnant women. So there I was, driving in what Salah Bu Farousha would call suicidal fashion, back and forth, my unborn Raihana wedged between me and the steering wheel.

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What is it about ‘going back home’ that has a hold over Muslims, one prominent group among the new immigrant religious groups? Young men who have seen little other than Brooklyn and small town Illinois take long, cramped flights to dusty Lahore and crowded Cairo. Young women raised in the comfort of suburban Virginia and the freedom of college campuses take long, hot summer vacations with curious, opinionated relatives in Jeddah and Teheran.

It is from first generation immigrants that the American-born Muslims learn this yearning for the homeland. First generation immigrant Muslims are a whole other story. Here is where I fall into the same category as most of my friends’ elderly parents. Many of them retain a desire to relax and let religious impulses loose again. As if their lives of prosperity and comfort were a form of secular boot camp.

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