In the Burqa Ban, Italy's Left and Right Find Something to Agree On

[rug]

he thing about Italy's proposed law to ban women from wearing veils that cover their faces is that it's not clear what difference it would make.

Just like in France or Belgium, which have introduced similar measures, Italy does not have a large population of women who wear the burqa or the niqab, which cover almost the entire body and face. "In my 20 years in Italy, I don't think I've seen ten women who wear the veil," says Izzeddin Elzir, head of the Union of Islamic Communities in Italy (UCOII), the country's largest Muslim organization. According to Elzir, most Muslims in Italy subscribe to a school of Islam that doesn't require women to keep their faces covered. "In summer, there are more, because there are lots of tourists ," he says. "But here in Italy, we see few cases." (See pictures of Muslim modernity.)

The legislation, which was approved by a parliamentary commission on Tuesday, occupies a strange place in the Italian political spectrum, uniting the socially liberal left with the xenophobic right. (A similar measure was floated by the previous left-wing government.) If approved by parliament, it would close a religious exemption to previous legislation that prohibits anybody in Italy from donning garb that would make their identification impossible. The proposed law has the support of the Northern League, a populist political party that has built its electoral success by fanning fears in a country being changed rapidly by immigration.

And yet, the bill's main sponsor is a naturalized Moroccan immigrant, a Muslim woman who runs an association of Moroccan women and edits an Arabic-language newspaper. Souad Sbai is a member of Silvio Berlusconi's party and a former member of the National Alliance, a party with fascist roots that in Italy's topsy-turvy political system has become one of the country's main champions of immigrant rights. she is also championing a measure that would ease the path to citizenship for second-generation immigrants.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2086879,00.html#ixzz1UAqJpNR3

[ZombieHorde]

1. Those women should only wear freedom clothes!

Check out this woman being liberated from oppressive men in France.



Freedom clothes; wear them or we will fuck you up.

eta: Just in case anyone is wondering, :sarcasm:.