Last week the diary asked QS Sherbrooke candidate Christine Labrie if the Islamic veil represented oppression. “Oppression tells women how to dress,” replied the one whose party describes itself as feminist. However, telling women how to dress is what the Islamists do. For them, the veil is a magnificent symbol of conquest. Wearing it means sticking to their anti-Western values.
murdered
When I hear QS refuse to condemn the veil for what it is, an instrument of enslavement, I think of Aqsa Parvez. In 2008, this Toronto Muslim woman was murdered by her father and brother. His crime? At school she took off her veil.
Christine Labrie’s nonchalance also reminds me of Yasmine Mohammed. The Canadian of Egyptian descent grew up in British Columbia. She grew up in an Islamist family and will be publishing her memoirs in French this fall. The title says it all: Lifting the veil or how western progressives promote radical Islam1.
Since childhood, Yasmine was forced to wear the veil. Older, she is obliged to wear the niqab. At school, in life, almost no one tries to help him. She is abandoned by the system because she is Muslim. His community takes control of his life and sends him through hell. It’s the same abandonment for many Muslims she visits. Why? For Muslim women should not be told how to live and how to dress, even though they often do not have that choice.
Ms. Mohamed also explains that Muslim women participate in the oppression of their sisters. For some, it makes them forget their own submission. It makes others feel more virtuous and important.
Niqab and burqa
As I read this, I thought of Eve Torres, a former QS contestant in 2018 wearing the veil. Previously, she was spokesperson for the National Council of Canadian Muslims. Among other things, this group had an imam declaring that a man had the right to hit his wife, and the organization campaigned for the introduction of Koranic law into family law (including polygamy).
Shortly before arriving at QS, Torres had attacked the former Couillard government’s state law on religious neutrality. The only important measure of this legislation was the obligation to uncover the face in order to render or receive a public service. The Council of Muslims challenged the matter in court. Such a measure, restricting the wearing of the niqab or burqa, stigmatized Muslim women, according to Torres. Remember, the burqa is imposed on Afghan women by the Taliban after they have militarily defeated us, the Westerners.
