[Marxism] Re: Islamist s Campaign for Veiling and freedom,

[l.willms@xxxxxxxxxxx (Lueko Willms)]

     Am  15.01.04
schrieb  mekchi@xxxxxxxxxxx
    auf  /ALIST/MARXMAIL
     in  20040116034526.MUMW25266.out001.verizon.net@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
  ueber  [Marxism] Islamist s Campaign for Veiling and  freedom,

m>         The French governmentÆs decision to ban religious insignia
m> from the public schools

   ... is an attack on women's rights, on the freedom to chose one's  
religion, and practice it, and on the rights of the working people.

   Tom O'Lincoln and Nick Friedman have already answered, and I want  
only to add one more example.

   There is a public bath (indoor swimming pool) in Munich which has  
returned to the old practice of reserving some time for women only. On  
two saturdays per month, men are banned from the pool for some hours and  
women can go swimming without fear that men might stare at their bodies.  
In those times when I did frequent indoor swimming pools, it was  
completely normal to have women only hours, and I think, also male only  
hours.

   Now is a public campaign going on, lead and probably also instigated  
by the local CSU (Christian Social Union, the conservative party ruling  
Bavaria) against this women-only afternoon.

  This campaign points to the fact that many Turkish women and women  
wearing headscarfs from all over Munich frequent these women-only-hours,  
and claims the danger of an "islamicist takeover". Women, this campaign  
demands implicitly, should not have the right to protect themselves  
against male curiosity and lecherous stares.

   This campaign is in line with the Bavarian government's intention to  
ban women teachers to wear headscarfs in school, while the christian  
cross is compulsory for all classrooms (with the proviso that a pupils  
parents might demand their removal, a concession granted after the  
supreme court declared the unconditional presence of those crosses as  
unconstitutional).

   All this is part of a reactionary crusade to sow divisions among  
working people, which is violating especially women's rights.

   It would only be logical to extend this right-wing campaign against  
women only hours in the swimming pool to demand that women should not  
have the right to wear swim suits but have to go naked.

   And sure, haven't women in the early years of the women's liberation  
movement not burned their bras as a reactionary imposition by men to  
chain women's bodies? Don't nudists have all sorts of progressive  
arguments for going naked?

   So lets campaign for a law prohibiting women to hide their bodily  
shapes in clothing, this other islamicist threat, or what?


Yours comradely,
Lüko Willms                                     http://www.mlwerke.de
/--------- L.WILLMS@xxxxxxxxxxx -- Alle Rechte vorbehalten --

"Ohne Pressefreiheit, Vereins- und Versammlungsrecht ist keine
Arbeiterbewegung möglich"        - Friedrich Engels      (Februar 1865)

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