My Thoughts On The Possible Hijabi Ban In France

When you look at my photos on this blog, do you think that I look oppressed?
When you read my stories here, is there any part of you that believe I need "saving" of any kind?

As a hijabi, I'm personally offended by the French Senate's vote to ban under-18 youths and mothers accompanying their kids on school trips (multiple question marks here) from wearing the hijab.

I am outraged on behalf of my Muslim sisters there who won't have the freedom in choosing what they want — or do not want — to put on their own body. 

I am hugely embarrassed for France as a nation for having senate members with ignorant, archaic, and misogynistic beliefs.

They mistakenly deemed themselves worthy of limiting the choices that are given to us as a Muslimah — because, YES, that's what a hijab really is: a choice. To wear or not to wear, that is the question, and understand this: only that individual female Muslim can answer "To wear" or "Not for me" to that question. Understand this: it may be a decree in our holy Quran for women to cover up our aurat, but it's not something anyone, not a living soul, can force onto a female Muslim.

Period.
Nor do we need anyone forbidding us to put it on when it does absolutely no harm to anyone, and especially not to the wearer!

I am disappointed in their so-called first world leaders who cast those votes under the disguise of "freeing" Muslim girls from oppression when in fact, it's their attempt at a thinly-veiled Islamophobia — because what else could it be, when the head-covering of a nun is attributed to "devotion", but the similar head-covering hijab is seen as "extremism"?

I am as opposed to this possible France hijab ban as much as I am opposed to Iran's mandatory hijab ruling. I am opposed to any kind of policing on what women should or should not wear.

I am, plain and simple, disgusted that there are people even considering this ban.

The burqa, the niqab, the burkini, and now the hijab? What is it about skin being covered up that scares the French so much?

Is it because there is invisible, unfathomable power in a woman choosing to cover up when it doesn't visibly benefit them in this world? 

Is it because they cannot understand the willpower and strength that it takes for a woman to envelop themselves in extra layers when the weather calls for the opposite?
(Because you might know how much I've talked — OK, moaned/complained — about how hot and humid Malaysia is, aghhh, but yet, this hijab stays on, covering my neck and hair strands?)

I'm not sure if I'll ever understand their reasoning for their votes, but do I want or even need to understand it? I don't know if I do. After all, this is coming from the same country that has a lower age of consent for sex (15! I mean—???) than the age of consent for the hijab. The logic spewed by these minds is utterly baffling, to say the least.

Right now, there's still hope that the ban won't get passed as the law. I hope my sisters in France, both Muslims and non-Muslims, will fight this ruling. I hope our message to the French government gets across: Do better. Get educated. Listen to the Muslim community, who are as much French as your other communities. Correct those backward steps you've taken, then move forward and be the kind of nation that people around the world would marvel at, instead of just having the one tower to be the sole interest in other people's eyes.

Be Better.

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This is what my humble words could offer on this. All said, with love, by someone who had so loved living briefly in Paris but has zero desire to visit anytime soon — but with the hope there could be positive changes happening soon ♡

PS: I wrote on why wearing the hijab is my choice - and only mine for Yahoo! Style years ago, if you want to have a read!