France’s veiled polity

When the country’s heart favorite presidential candidate, Strauss-Kahn, quit the race after a high profile scandal in a New York hotel, the battle for coveted slot brings new surprises to the fore.

Now Muslim women, clad in dark-colored head-to-toe burqa, are campaigning for the presidency. Posters of Ms Kenza Drider are already attracting attention, months before the usual campaign time. By wearing the veil, she is breaking a French law imposed since April, liable to punishment and fines both.

Three Muslim face-covering women may not alter the outcome of elections but can surely bring matters confronting other religions and cultures in mainstream political agenda. President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government has adopted a hardline saying that the veil imprisons women. Public opinion surveys also back the French decision to ban face-covering attire. However, none of a couple of thousand veiled French women admires the French public’s sympathy for them.

Ironically, Sarkozy ally and local politician Jean-Francois Cope had championed the cause for ban on the Muslim veil. Drider hails from the same constituency in Meaux, located east of Paris. Previously two veiled women were fined €80 and €120 respectively for attempting to present him a birthday cake. The community is ready to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights.

Reaction to such controversial and discriminatory legislative acts has only begun in countries like France or Austria where Islam is the second religion after Christianity. While public backing of such discriminatory laws is based on ignorance or stereotypes, weak and opportunist politicians are the ones to be blamed. Across the Mediterranean Sea, emotions are high and perceptions are changing since the Tunisians won their political freedom.

Thanks to ultra-right politicians and activists, militants in Middle East and southwest Asia find no dearth of ‘reasons’ to justify blood-letting. Europe is lucky to have Drider and the likes to contest and question their cause through the ballot and the court instead of adopting more spectacular and gory tactics of Mulla Omar and Co. The French trio, running for the presidency, symbolizes unflinching desire within the public to forge an alliance of civilizations.