source:
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/sculptor-sergio-redegalli/story-e6frf7jx-1225990694187
the anger obviously arises from the issues of racism and intolerance towards other cultures.
I was one to believe that it is extremely intolerant to ban the burqa anywhere in the world, however things have changed slightly...
take for example, the lily foot, a practice in china that survived a whole millennium.
if you don't know what the lily foot is, basically girls had the bones in their feet broken at a very young age and bounded til it was transformed into the shape you see above.
by "today's standards", this practice is extremely cruel and unjustified, i mean men finding deformed feet extremely erotic? urghhh
"Another attribute of a woman with bound feet was the limitations of her mobility and, therefore, her inability to take part in politics, social life, and the world at large. Bound feet rendered women dependent on their families, particularly their men, and, therefore, became an alluring symbol of chastity and male ownership, since a woman was largely restricted to her home and could not venture far without an escort or the help of watchful servants." - Wikipedia
yes, wikipedia isn't the best source, but my great grandmother was in the process of having her foot bound and I have been told the same things many times.
so this practice has disappeared as far as we know. the eventual ban of this practice was definitely due to foreign influence.
If i were to take a different perspective and judged this as a religious practice, would it then be intolerant for us Australians to outlaw this practice? Would it make me a racist if I deemed this practice inhumane?
if you knew anything about the lily foot, you'll know that it was definitely not a choice (your parents made that decision, its either binding your feet or you will be rejected by society). where as many people will argue that muslim women have a choice, but do they really?
if i told you, you had the choice to pay your tax or go to jail, is that really a choice?
if i said you had free-will as long as you do what i say or else you burn for eternity, is that really free will?
so, is it really "racist" and "intolerant" for us to ban something like the burqa in our own country?
you decide
12 comments:
There's a difference between wearing an item of clothing and being forced to break your feet and painfully bind your them until they grow out deformed. If you ask anyone, excluding those who have been brought up in a burqa or lily foot society, most, if not all would rather wear a burqa than have their feet permanently bound as a child and have it deformed for the rest of their life. This is before their judgement is marred by any social or cultural influences.
I'm not saying I agree with the reasons behind wearing a burqa, but just highlighting the fact that they are at different severity and you're comparing two different extremes. As everyone knows, life is not just black and white but all shades and colours. With different shares comes a different judgement from the individual, especially when you consider what is right and what is wrong.
If that's their culture to wear an item of clothing, whatever it might represent to them OR to others, we should respect their 'choice'.
Making analogies is a good persuasive technique but so many people use extreme comparisons to the point where it just becomes a shock tactic and people just respond with a tendancy to agree blindly.
well the comparison is made on the fact that the burqa AND the lilly foot are not a choice for the women, second of all they are both used as an instrument to oppress women.
yes, i would rather wear a burqa than have my foot broken and bound for a few years.
and sure i'd rather get shot in the foot, then in the head. but i'd prob prefer not to get shot at all
whats more important though is that i do not think that religion should be given any exemptions from the norms of our society.
if i started a religion today where i forced women to cover up their faces (amongst other things), it would be deemed a cult and ridiculous, not to mention i will not have a very large following.
well this religion already exists, and just because it was started a bit earlier, its culturally "insensitive" and "intolerant" for me to criticize it. ridiculous.
the oppression of any human beings is nothing to respect and has no place in our society.
Wow, so after writing my reply, blogspot says my response is too long, so I'm going to post my response over two comments.
***
"well the comparison is made on the fact that the burqa AND the lilly foot are not a choice for the women, second of all they are both used as an instrument to oppress women."
My whole point is that you can't just class everything in the world into two categories of 'right' and 'wrong', which you are doing in the above statement. There are different degrees of everything. What if you consider a blatant hurtful lie and compare it with a white lie? Under your 'right' or 'wrong' categorization, both are lies so a white lie must be wrong. What about recreational drugs? From cigarettes and alcohol, to weed and heroin. You can't use the logic of, "Well X is similar to Y, so I'm going to Agrree/Disagree with X because I Agree/Disagree with Y."
"and sure i'd rather get shot in the foot, then in the head. but i'd prob prefer not to get shot at all."
Again, you are making a ridiculous comparison of something to a different extreme. Refer to my previous point. In addition, you're naive to believe that the world can be some perfect wonderland where nothing goes wrong. It's really comes down to where you draw the line between what negativity you can tolerate and what negativity you can't.
"whats more important though is that i do not think that religion should be given any exemptions from the norms of our society."
'Religion' is such a loaded word that statement. I see you’re trying to pre-position people’s attitudes based on their opinion to religion as a concept. In addition, I never knew 'the norms of our society' was to be intolerable of other peoples cultures and religion. After-work drinks is a 'norm of our society', but what if someone's religion says they can't drink. I also have a friend who does not eat or even drink water during the daytime during Ramadan. The 'norms of our society' would call that torture wouldn’t it? So why don’t we ban all fasting and make it illegal?
"well this religion already exists, and just because it was started a bit earlier, its culturally "insensitive" and "intolerant" for me to criticize it. ridiculous."
There's a difference between criticizing and completely ostracizing a different culture by oppressing their freedom to practice their own belief, whatever it may be. There is HUGE difference between the two. No one is stopping you from disagree with someone else's believe and lifestyle, and no one is stopping you from having your own opinion, but what really is ridiculous is the fact that you think it's okay to ban someone else's belief just because it doesn't co-incide with yours. There are people who disagree with homosexuality and many of those are people who follow religion. I might tolerate these people having opinions which I think are incorrect, but what I can't tolerate is for them to believe it's okay to ban homosexuality. This is one of MANY examples where religion goes against what you call 'social norms'.
Now I'm sure you're going to come up with some extreme religious belief that deems some sort of horrendous punishment and you'll retort, 'So should we be tolerant of their belief of punishment?' My response to that would be the same point I started off with. There's different degrees of 'wrong'. You must be a very, very, very righteous person then if all it takes is an item of clothing for you to make a high and mighty judgment that it's wrong.
"the oppression of any human beings is nothing to respect and has no place in our society."
Your statement is so sadly ironic. You're the one who agrees with banning the burqa which is essentially an act of oppression in itself. Oppressing someone's belief and free will to wear and item of clothing that is in no way offensive to the norms of being clothed. Again, I want to highlight the difference between having your own opinion and oppressing someone else's belief.
It's attitudes like yours that create conflict, oppression and wars. The 'us and them' attitude, the 'I'm right and you're wrong' attitude and the whole concept that people must conform to social norms.
My post was largely to provide a different perspective to people who largely assume that the banning of any cultural or religious practices is without a doubt an act of tolerance (myself once included) and that there is actually a huge case for banning a lot of practices not exclusive to Islam.
“Under your 'right' or 'wrong' categorization, both are lies so a white lie must be wrong. What about recreational drugs? From cigarettes and alcohol, to weed and heroin. You can't use the logic of, "Well X is similar to Y, so I'm going to Agree/Disagree with X because I Agree/Disagree with Y."
I don’t believe I stated the words right or wrong anywhere in the post; however I did inject some opinions that have negative connotations eg. “The burqa is a tool used to oppress women.” Sure, some societies and individuals consider that unjust or “wrong” if you’d like, some societies and individuals don’t. But the question is, does our society/do you as an individual consider this a just and acceptable practice? Is this practice more harmful than it is productive?
"If I started a religion today where I forced women to cover up their faces (amongst other things), it would be deemed a cult and ridiculous, not to mention i will not have a very large following.”
You failed to address this, belief systems that are deemed "religions" take priority over other belief systems both socially and legally. If I were to adopt these practices under a different brand name (with no scientific backing what so ever), it would be extremely difficult for me to gain momentum legally as a religion and even if I were to succeed in achieving legal status, my organisation would be deemed as a ridiculous cult.
I did not say at any point that the burqa specifically should be banned, but it should not be given any legal exemptions based on its “religious/cultural" affiliations.
Burqa wearers should not for example, be given an exemption at a bank where everyone else has to take off helmets/hats/sunglasses.
Burqa wearers should not be given an exemption in court where juries have a right to assess facial expressions and body language of witnesses ...etc
“I also have a friend who does not eat or even drink water during the daytime during Ramadan. The 'norms of our society' would call that torture wouldn’t it? So why don’t we ban all fasting and make it illegal?”
Well so do I and yes, I think Ramadan is a ridiculous practice but I don’t think it should be banned. Ramadan is a practice that all followers (arguably of course) of Islam must participate in, not just women (unlike the burqa) on one hand religion is presented a fact and not a choice, where as in the case of a burqa the argument from many camps in our society that it is a choice.
If its my choice to cover up my face with anything, then its also my choice to not be accepted in many places (eg. a bank)
If its not a choice, then someone has imposed something that has limited my ability to operate without disadvantage in my environment. (oppression?)
So which one is it?
“Your statement is so sadly ironic. You're the one who agrees with banning the burqa which is essentially an act of oppression in itself.”
Well if you take example of 1984 by George Orwell (which I’m sure you loved in year 11 lol), would you say it was oppression to liberate the people of Oceania? The people do not feel oppressed even in such an oppressed society. Why? People only feel oppressed when they have something to compare it to, we grew up in an environment and society that has had a chance to make our own choices, many (not all) burqa wearers did not.
Just because you do not feel oppressed, does not mean you are not, of course we can debate about who decides the levels of “oppression”, but it’s ultimately up to individual assessment. Every nation in the world has a level of oppression, but personally I’d rather live here than Saudi Arabia or North Korea.
If I thought a piece of clothing gave me super powers and live my life around this, would you as a friend help me correct this problem? I certainly hope you would.
You might say that you're just proposing different perspectives on the issue, but from the undertones and insinuating questions, in particular your closing proposition, you clearly agree with the banning of Burqas. Nowhere in your post do you refer to banning burqas in banks and on jury and if your post was specifically about those scenarios, then I would totally agree with you. If that artist had written “Say No To Burqas In Banks”, would there be such a big issue? The fact is, that’s not what he wrote, and that’s also not the point you were originally trying to make.
“I don’t believe I stated the words right or wrong anywhere in the post...”
You didn’t explicitly state it, but your support for the banning of Burqas indicates that’s what you think. Why would you ban something that isn’t ‘wrong’?
“But the question is, does our society/do you as an individual consider this a just and acceptable practice? Is this practice more harmful than it is productive?”
I believe that the majority of our society AND myself considers it an acceptable practice. Again, you’re dichotomising categories, harmful and productive. Where is the middle ground? Our society is not perfect and no individual is perfect. We should make assessments on the extent to which things are harmful, and in the Burqa’s case, I do not think it’s harmful enough to be outright banned. Furthermore, if you want to determine what’s acceptable on the basis of what’s more harmful than productive, shouldn’t our society ban alcohol? No way can you say alcohol is more productive than harmful, and things like helping people socialise are ridiculous reasons.
“You failed to address this, belief systems that are deemed "religions" take priority over other belief systems both socially and legally.”
Nowhere in my response did I say religion should take priority over social and legal belief systems. Most of what I’ve previously said is just criticisms on your flawed arguments and ‘ignorant’ way of thinking, but the main point I was trying to make is that life is not black and white. Life integrates different and dynamic degrees of religion, social beliefs and individual beliefs which always changes from scenario to scenario. Relating this back to the topic, blanket banning the Burqa is socially wrong in MY opinion. In the case of in a bank or on jury, it might not be, but this wasn’t what was depicted in the artist’s mural.
“Your statement is so sadly ironic. You're the one who agrees with banning the burqa which is essentially an act of oppression in itself.”
Your George Orwell ‘argument’ to my above statement has no relevance. You talk about ‘liberating’ Burqa wearers, but what is there to be liberated? In George Orwell’s FICTIONAL book, people were oppressed and forced to live a certain life, but are those who wear Burqa’s here in Australia forced to wear them? No. The characters in the book had no alternative life to compare with, but those Muslims in Australia do. They see non-burqa wearers all the time and see other lifestyles. They just still choose to follow their own belief.
And you’d rather live here in Australia than North Korea or Saudi Arabia because we have the social tolerance to accept a certain degree of individual difference and beliefs. We allow other cultures to come and live in our country and wear their cultural clothing, but if we went to the Middle East and wore board shorts and bikinis, we’d most likely be oppressed. Wanting to ban the Burqa in Australia is essentially adopting the North Korea’s oppressed way of living.
“If I thought a piece of clothing gave me super powers and live my life around this, would you as a friend help me correct this problem? I certainly hope you would.”
I laugh at your ridiculous hyperboles that you’ve made multiple times in your arguments. You should use real and situational examples rather than fabricate extreme stories that provide high impact but little relevant arguments.
"I laugh at your ridiculous hyperboles that you’ve made multiple times in your arguments. You should use real and situational examples rather than fabricate extreme stories that provide high impact but little relevant arguments."
Don't patronize me, these are extremely relevant and you fail on many times to see what the burqa and religion really is. A collection of ridiculously outdated practices that have no basis, no benefits in any sense and does our society harm and damage, Christianity included. Not only did you fail to answer this question, but your reactions to my "ridiculous hyperboles" demonstrates that you have a double standard. On one hand you think what I said is ridiculous, on the other hand you accept the very practice. (doublethink?)
"...In George Orwell’s FICTIONAL book..."
Orwellian theories are largely based on facts and history, Non-fictional might I add. The plot is fictional, but the theory and principles are not. Even the rather fantastic theories of doublethink in fact exists, but thats again another discussion.
You are correct that the people of 1984 did not have a comparison, nor did they have a choice. Religion does NOT give you a choice, and most burqa wearers are not brought up in an environment where they had a comparison or a choice.
Many children in highly conservative and religious families are not given a choice of religion. They are taught from an early age to agree or face eternal damnation.
Your comparison of Alcohol Prohibition and religious practices at first glance could seem very valid, however it is not very well thought out.
1. Our parents do not feed us Alcohol from a young age. Religious ceremonies often begin at birth.
2. Burqas are worn by girls who reach puberty (Just like to take this opportunity to point out that Burqas are actually worn by a very small population of muslim women overall), legally we can not obtain alcohol until we are legally adults, 18 in our jurisdiction, 21 in some others.
3. Alcohol can be consumed in moderation that does not cause harm, even with scientific health benefits. Binge drinking is a choice. Burqas can not be consumed in moderation and is not a choice.
We could debate about this for years without a conclusion, but I will stop posting comments from here on. Feel free to rebut
I’m patronizing you because they aren’t relevant yet you continue to use outrageous hyperboles. You’re examples are extremely exaggerated and when my whole argument is that there are varying degrees of ‘wrong’ and ‘right’, comparing something that is clearly in the ‘grey’ area to a polar extreme fabricated example is a flawed comparison.
“A collection of ridiculously outdated practices that have no basis, no benefits in any sense and does our society harm and damage, Christianity included.”
In addition to covering a woman’s body, it’s used to demonstrate one’s faith. Just like the Jewish Kippah. Jewish kids growing up in school get bullied for wearing those hats so under your argument; the Kippah is causing society harm and damage and should be banned as well. Why not ban the Kippah too; it’s just an item of clothing that has no basis or benefit… right?
Yes, I do agree that the theories and principles in 1984 are non-fictional, but the examples ARE fictional. If there are current and relevant real life examples that are applicable, I’d like to hear them, but the examples you gave weren’t. I still stand by my argument that burqa wearers in Australia DO have a comparison and DO have a choice.
“Religion does NOT give you a choice, and most burqa wearers are not brought up in an environment where they had a comparison or a choice.”
I think you need to give religious people more credit than you’re portraying them as. The majority of people (with the exception of a few), don’t just blindly follow a religion and accept every single practice that their religion tells them to. People DO have a choice. I follow Catholicism but there’s an abundance of things I don’t agree with in the Bible and their belief system. Not just me, but the majority of people are intelligent to make their own decisions in life. So many catholic people get divorced, steal, use contraception or tell lies. That’s their own choice and their religion isn’t forcing them to do anything.
My Alcohol Prohibition argument wasn’t a comparison between the disadvantages of alcohol use and religion. It was a comparison between the logic of banning something that is thought to be ‘more harmful than good’. So your three comparisons are comparing the wrong thing.
“3. Alcohol can be consumed in moderation that does not cause harm, even with scientific health benefits. Binge drinking is a choice. Burqas can not be consumed in moderation and is not a choice.”
Like WTH. I know this is off topic, but there’s no way you can argue alcohol is more beneficial than harmful. You completely disregard all the scientific studies that highlights all the disadvantages of alcohol. How alcohol leads to other drugs, how adolescent drinking inhibits cognitive development and how alcohol has a cascading effect that is harmful not only to the user but many people around the user. Again, I was pointing out the flawed argument of banning something that is more harmful than good, and not a comparison of alcohol and religion.
And of course the burqa cannot be consumed in moderation… It’s an item of clothing. It is worn to varying degrees though, with some Muslims not wearing the full veil. And it IS a choice.
The one thing I do agree on, is that we can debate this for years without coming to a conclusion, so this too shall be my last post.
if its not the full veil hieu, then its not called a burqa ;)
we're talking about full veil just to get it clear
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