The Common factor between Sarkozy and Mulla Omar

The Common factor between Sarkozy and Mulla Omar

I found common factors between Mulla Omar and the French President Nicola Sarkozy, where the former imposed the veil on the women in Afghanistan and the latter forced women to unveil in France. The common factor between them is the adoption of “the forcing approach”, and if continued we will find that both are the same in the degree of short-sightedness, stupidity and limitations.
 
There is no need to prove this about Mulla Omar who received enough criticism where nobody outside Afghanistan mentioned anything positive about him.

It is the stance of the French President that needs to be discussed as he gave his speech before the Parliament on Monday 22nd June 2009, in which he fiercely attacked the veil, and described it to be from “the age of slavery and degradation”.
 
This speech came in response to the campaign launched by a number of French MPs after seeing some Muslim women moving around in the cities of France wearing the veil, which they considered a threat to the secularity and the values of Republic, and those are the  same extremists who issued the decision in 2004 of banning the headscarves in French schools considering it a religious symbol which threatens  the secularism in France.
 
The number of veiled women in France is unknown in which there is a Muslim population ofsix million, but  press reports speak of their limited number in general, despite that, there mere presence angered some Mps who demanded its ban like the ban of the headscarves five years ago.
 
One cannot hide his amusement of this over sensitivity about the looks of the Muslim women and their oppression in a country which allows wide public freedom. It is not understandable how the community and the law allow women to remove their clothes as they wish, while getting annoyed with women who cover their faces!
 
I do not defend the veil, and I think that it”s rooted in the Eastern traditions more than being associated with the religious teachings, that it is still a part of the appearance of women in some countries in North Africa (Algeria and Morocco in particular), in the Gulf area and some Asian countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan for example, therefore my defense will be based on the call to abide by the freedom of dressing and respecting the traditions of the other more than being based on religious teachings.
 
If we were to analyse the case, we will find that the pretext of defending secularism has no basis, because England is a secular country, so are Italy, Germany and USA, though the veil did not lessen its secularity, but I attribute this to two main factors;
 
The first is that the French people are not interested in or welcoming  cultural diversity, despite their continuous defence of diversity in the political field. This discomfort makes them always insist on the dissolution of the other and require them to give away their identity to get “integrated” in the society and receive the “honour” of the French citizenship.
 
The second factor has to do with the French secular nature which is adversary to religion and everything related to it, this is different from the British secularism which respects religions (the queen is the head of the Church). This makes us note that there is a difference in the level of secularity as there are extremists and moderates, and it”s not enough for someone to call himself secular, because we have to identify the nature and limits of this secularism, for the term not to delude us.