It's former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd now. ;P But, like ... should they ban ski masks and whatnot as well, then?
You know, I'm not a racist nor do I generally give a shit if someone is Christian, Muslim or worships a tree in his garden, but I've come to realize that Muslims can really be big hypocrites sometimes. When Europeans come to Muslim countries there's a strict dresscode, they aren't allowed to do shitload of things and get fined for banal reasons. But when burqa gets banned in Europe they act like it's the end of the world.
Odd. I didn't know the Catholic church required any practicing catholic to wear anything specifically. Specifically for the females too. Those that are priviledged to wear anything special are usually due to ancestry or high tradition. It seems to an outsider that the Burqa is a religious culture clothing standard. A further inspection and abit of wondering, and one may conclude that burqa's are really weird. In my opinion, A Burqa is a symbolic oppression thingy. Sure, it might be tradition, but really, it isn't a sign of anything wonderful, but a sign of something oppressive / repressive of females. TL;DR? They're lame.
Most religions are hypocritical though. It's just that because there's an overwhelming modern day fear and manufactured anxiety towards Islam, everyone has forgotten their own hypocrisy and made Islam a scapegoat. I think this a pathetic attempt to remove something because it has ideologies that anyone who is ignorant of it's meaning can't understand what it represents. If you're going to ban Burqas because people are using them for robberies, then shouldn't you ban anything that could potentially be used in a robbery? I'm sick of all this anti-Islamic bullshit. No one stops to say that 90% of the Muslim population are peace-loving, decent people. The media chooses to focus on the 10% that are radical extremist nutjobs and automatically the rest of the world sees all of Islam as the enemy and shows anxiety towards anything that represents it. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of Catholic priests sexually abused children...Does it mean all priests are sick, child molesting bastards? Does it mean we should ban all priests from ever coming in contact with children. Of course not. This story is just a hidden attempt to eradicate a symbol of Islam from actively being on Australian streets and I find it a sickening, primitive way of thinking.
I've been to Vatican which is as Catholic as it gets and no one ever told me how to act or what to wear. There were people inside the Saint Peter's cathedral wearing short pants (which are supposedly banned) and a friend of mine was drunk as a pig and he just walked in without a problem. On the other hand, in Dubai you can go to prison for kissing your girlfriend on the beach.
Security goes before Religion, simply put. Plus, in my opinion, it's oppressing women. I imagine it's like living in a prison, you could give me a 100 million euro's but never will I wear an unhuman thing like the burqa.
Who are we to question their culture though? Besides, it's not like the west don't have their weird laws
There ARE lots of women who wear it by choice, although I think it's only because they are either brainwashed or they're afraid of their husband.
If they are afraid, that implies not choice, but fear. And doing so from fear does not imply choice either. If they are brainwashed, then... hmm...
Might I point out that alot of Christian women or horribly opressed because of the interpreted ideals of their religion, particularly in Catholicism. So because a Burqa is a physical reflection of the opression of women, that makes it worse than the opression that isn't so evident? I don't think so.
Most of the religions tell only their own people what to do and what not to. But Islam constantly tries to tell non-islamic people what to do. Have you ever really heard any example of Ortodox Cristian rule preventing somebody in England from doing something? I really don't care if Muslims are not allowed to draw pictures of Mohammed, but if a Danish non-islamic journalist want to do it, he has the right to do it. A similar thing happened here in Serbia a couple of days ago, and the Islamic community has gone absolutely mad about it. That's what I just can't understand. It's the 21st century for Christ's sake, if I don't let my of religion tell me what to do, I certainly won't let any other. Hmm.. well, for that amount of money I'd wear ANYTHING you say
The oppression of women isn't so evident within Catholicism. At least, I don't know. I wouldn't know to be sure, but I haven't seen any catholic in my life be oppressed by the clothing industry. Nor have I see them oppressed else where. In fact, Religion aside, it is usually cases of Men oppressing ladies in a not very cool way. Otherwise, it seems clear that, with religion aside, it is sexism within particular cases that causes this oppression you speak of.
It's important not to generalise though. Believe me, those types of Muslims that burnt Danish flags etc. in reaction to the whole cartoon scandal, do not represent the majority of Islam. The majority would probably have condemned it because it is a strong belief that no person, Islamic or not, should depict an image of Muhammed, but the news wouldn't focus on a peaceful protest now would it.
The thing is, most women in burqas have families who'll throw them out (or worse) if they don't wear it. Atleast that's how some families were when I still lived in my hometown...
Why shouldn't they depict an image of Muhammed? If the news wouldn't focus on anything out of the ordinary, I'm pretty sure they would go out of business really quick