Sarkozy: Full-Body Muslim Gowns a “Symbol of Enslavement”

It is terrible....

It certainly seems odd to have to say that at least one French guy has the nads to say what's on their mind and not just suck up, especially a French prez. Makes ya wonder....: How'd he get in there???

I'm not denying that the burqa is more often that not used to oppress women, but there are some who do choose to wear it. We may not like their religion, but I really see this as a matter of principle, that people should be free to practice their religion if it doesn't hurt anyone, whether we think their religion is odd or not. Making a problem out of women who're not surpressed, but merely religious, doesn't accomplish anything.

Again, I'm sure the majority of the ones who wear it are forced to by men. As I said, getting rid of the burqa is not going to 'free' them. The problem is much deeper than that. They'll still surpressed. In fact, they'll probably just stay home if they're not allowed to wear the burqa.

As the burqa is means for Muslim men to impose "modesty",it follows ipso facto that women who don't wear them are " immodest" according to them.The slur this casts over free women is the problem.I don't care what muslima's wear in totalitarian sharia nations but when the burqa is worn in the West, free women are accused of being sluts and in many reported instances raped by islamic assholes.What about the freedoms of OUR women?If these "devout" slaves must wear these horrid coveralls they SHOULD STAY HOME!! and certainly not be allowed to teach in schools,enter banks or have passport or drivers licence photos taken while they have them on.Really,the fact that we humour these throwbacks at all is mind boggling.

Jonesy,

The main problem with islam is that at its core, practicing it condones,
nay, DEMANDS hurting people. Look at the example set by the pedophile
Muhammad, whom muslims regard as the perfect example of how humans are to
behave, and you will see the proof.

It is abundantly clear to every reasonable person that the burqa says more about Muslim men than it does about Muslim women.When these women of faith..bahahahahah...excuse me.......when these women proclaim to wear this fashionable garment.....haahahahaha....hehehe...sorry this is just too silly..you know what I mean.

Jones, the burqa and the niqab are outfits that totally dehumanizes women who wear them. It would be unconscionable that society gets used to it. Consent to your own enslavement is not an argument. Slavery was abolished in the US even if some slaves could have argued that it was a choice of theirs to be enslaved. Likewise, society thought it was unconscionable to have circus exhibiting human beings suffering from various types of disabilities. These exhibitions were banned, even if some of the disabled believed they were honorably making a living out of their condition.

Women in burqas are denied the fundamental right of every human being to feel part of the community and society at large. They are treated like dead things and walk under a shroud. This is so inhumane, even dogs would be rescued from burqas.

I think banning it would be far more oppressing that not. It's like we're saying "You can't make your own decisions, so we'll make them for you". If a woman CHOOSE to follow her religion, how is it a "symbol of enslavement"? It is exactly the oppositte allowing them to make their own decisions. As for the ones who're forced by their husband, father, uncle etc. the burqa is the least of their problems...

Jones - The burqa has nothing to do with religion. You think a Muslim woman is allowed to "make her own decisions"? Please, is that a joke? "...the burqa is the least of their problems"? It is definitely the beginning. Women are made to learn early on their position in life. It is the foundation for a lifetime of further subjugation.

I long for the day burqas, hijabs, abayas...and man-dresses will be banned here. Of course I know this will never happen. It is absolutely everywhere. I sometimes have to question if I am still in America. I get so angry seeing these women scurrying behind the "men" like obedient pets. It becomes increasingly more difficult to keep my mouth shut and not share my opinions with them. I want to pull the veils off of these women and ask them why they do not free themselves - why they do not want the freedom American women have. I want to grab the men and slap the shit out of them for the way they treat women. Both the men and women look at me as though I am the one who is oddly dressed and out of place. I don't have to wonder how my clothing would be tolerated in their homeland, but WE have to "be more tolerant of their culture". I am going to smack the next person who tells me that.

Christine, feel free to speak your mind to these women, it's important they hear it from another woman, their men can always say another man is trying to steal their woman if they try to speak to them. We do have freedom of speech as well as religion. As long as you can keep your emotions in check and speak respectfully, you can tell them the truth. One of the things that you could tell them about our freedom of religion is that it means they are free to change religions, or change the religion they belong to, or that they can renounce religion and live by whatever beliefs they please, as long as they are within the law of the state and country. It really bothers me that the feminists in this country are so silent on this issue. They used to burn bras, aren't these cover alls much worse than bras? Religious issues on birth control and abortion didn't stop them from advocating them, why should Islam be any different? Feminists advocate sexual freedom for ALL women, don't they? Freedom for Islamic women is the quickest way to reform that cult I can think of. If we can't get rid of it, might as well reform it. Women are one of the greatest forces of moderation there are.

Sir Wilhelm - I do feel free to speak with these women, given the right opportunity. Unfortunately, they are usually surrounded by their "keepers". There was a muslim woman I met last summer at the park where I run. She was there with two other women and her two children. As the other two women completely ignored me, I asked her about her life - about Islam. I told her I was interested in different cultures. When I approached the subject of how women are treated in her culture, she instantly got irritated or maybe uncomfortable is a better word. She said, of course, that it is a lie and her life is good. I told her about my life. I said that I am a Christian, I am divorced, work, have my own home and enjoy the freedom to do whatever I like. She said she felt sorry for American women - that the men do not take care of us and do not respect us. It was difficult for me to respond without flipping out, but I explained that she was terribly misinformed. She used my own words against me citing the high divorce rate in America. I asked about her husband. She had very little to say about that. I asked her what she knew of Christianity, but she would not answer, and started talking about Islam. Over all she was pleasant, but very firm in her beliefs. When she figured out that my interest did not mean that I wished to convert, she told me that she needed to leave. I saw her a few times after that, but as soon as our eyes met, she turned away. I agree with you that freedom for the women of Islam would be a big step in the right direction of trying to reform this death cult. But, I also think that many do not (or think that they do not) want to be free in the way that you and I may view freedom. This is the only life they know and they have been brainwashed into believing it is good. This is evidenced by some of the comments left on this site by muslim women. I guess my point is that I don't ever see muslims blending in any way into our society and I would like for them all to just leave. That is not to say that if someone actually wanted to escape the chains of Islam, that I would not do whatever I could to help. I will also continue to tell everyone that I can about the evils of Islam. I also agree that many feminist's organizations are silent on this issue. I am not surprised and do not care much for them as they stand for too many things that I am against.

There's another very serious side to this whole debate that's being overlooked. Muslim extremists have used women, children, the handicapped and disabled as homicide bombers. In the case of the women and girls they used, their coverings concealed the bombs, belts and/or vests they wore. So there is the potential for a terrorist hiding under everyone of these garments. There's enough justification in these facts for a ban on these garments, imo.

Sir Wilhelm - That's a very good point. There are countless incidents of the burqa being used for this purpose. Since no one can tell who is hiding under these "modest garments", they can also be worn by men.
http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2006/11/niqabs-...

I meant to mention that about men, Christine, thanks for picking me up on that. Good link too. I think all the "modest garments" should be banned for security reasons and if the Muslims don't like it, they can leave.

Look Storm Rider,
Sarkozy is the leader of a major Western government and he is standing up and opposing one of the major symbols and tool of Islamic oppression, the burqua. He may not be your ideal of perfection but we need to give credit and thanks where they are due. It is altogether possible that your political ideas may also contain a flaw or two. I understand suspicion, but given the defeatist posture of supine submission to oppression that characterizes the West, Sarkozy stands out and is to be encouraged.

The French have not been friends of the United States since their proto-Communist "Revolution." They folded in front of the Nazis and then became Nazi allies - waging war on our land and naval military forces during Operation Torch.

http://www.internet-esq.com/ussaugusta/torch/in...

The French never joined NATO during our war against Totalitarian Communism, and they refused American Air-Force flyover of France during our military action against terrorist-led Libya in 1986.

http://eightiesclub.tripod.com/id313.htm

The French cut deals with the mass-murderer, arch-terrorist, Saddam Hussein over and over, including "Oil for Food."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-vie...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,140478,00.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil-for-Food_Progr...

Yes, the comment by Sarkozy on burkas is helpful, but the overall picture of France is disgusting. In the end, if the past is an indication of the future, they will betray themselves and the cause of Human Liberty to Totalitarian Islam.

Hello Storm RIder,
Well, I stand corrected. The history of French accomodation to ruthless regimes is impressive. Frankly, I did not know a lot of what you reported and documented.
But if we do not applaud and encourage them when they do the right thing, we weaken the ability of those French who are willing to resist the Muslim offensive in their country.
But, point well taken, vigialnce and self reliance are essentiai. Staying our course in Israel is key.

Bronwyn,
I've been to France several times, and I have a friend in Paris who stays with our family whenever she comes to the United States. My wife and I stayed in her apartment in Paris last summer, and we also stayed with one of her friends in Normandy who gave us a tour of the D-Day beaches. France is a beautiful country, and so is their language, and I believe the French people are good as well. Like much of Europe (and now our own Democratic Party) the French suffer from a long tradition of unjust and tyrannical legal and political power. Good people can't make a good nation if their legal and political system is corrupted, i.e.: if government power does not derive through the consent of the governed and when government becomes destructive of the individual's rights to life, liberty and creative pursuit of happiness. In the end good people laboring under an unjust or tyrannical legal/political system can make an evil nation or an evil religion; witness Nazi Germany, Communist Soviet Union and Islam. I don't expect France will take a firm stand against Totalitarian Islam because their leaders, their legal and polical traditions and their Marxist/Socialist system of government power has removed their love of human liberty. In the end I believe the French will bow to tyranny; but I pray to be wrong.

“In 1699, French territorial claims in North America expanded still further, with the foundation of Louisiana in the basin of the Mississippi River. The extensive trading network throughout the region connected to Canada through the Great Lakes, was maintained through a vast system of fortifications, many of them centered in the Illinois Country and in present-day Arkansas. As the French empire in North America grew, the French also began to build a smaller but more profitable empire in the West Indies. Settlement along the South American coast in what is today French Guiana began in 1624, and a colony was founded on Saint Kitts in 1625 ...The Compagnie des eacute;les de l'Amérique founded colonies in Guadeloupe and Martinique in 1635, and a colony was later founded on Saint Lucia by (1650). The food-producing plantations of these colonies were built and sustained through slavery, with the supply of slaves dependent on the African slave trade.”

“The true beginnings of the second French colonial empire, however, were laid in 1830 with the French invasion of Algeria, which was conquered over the next 17 years.... It was only after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870--1871 and the founding of the Third Republic 1871-1940 that most of France's later colonial possessions were acquired. From their base in Cochinchina, the French took over Tonkin (in modern northern Vietnam) and Annam (in modern central Vietnam) in 1884-1885. These, together with Cambodia and Cochinchina, formed French Indochina in 1887 (to which Laos was added in 1893, and Kwang-Chou-Wan in 1900). In 1849, the French concession in Shanghai was established, lasting until 1946.... Influence was also expanded in North Africa, establishing a protectorate on Tunisia in 1881 (Bardo Treaty). Gradually, French control was established over much of Northern, Western, and Central Africa by the turn of the century (including the modern nations of Mauritania, Senegal, Guinea, Mali, Côte d'Ivoire, Benin, Niger, Chad, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo), as well as the east African coastal enclave of Djibouti (French Somaliland). The Voulet-Chanoine Mission, a military expedition, was sent out from Senegal in 1898 to conquer the Chad Basin and unify all French territories in West Africa.... The ruthlessness of the mission provoked a scandal in Paris.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_North_Africa

“As the French empire in North America grew, the French also began to build a smaller but more profitable empire in the West Indies. Settlement along the South American coast in what is today French Guiana began in 1624, and a colony was founded on Saint Kitts in 1625 ...The Compagnie des eacute;les de l'Amérique founded colonies in Guadeloupe and Martinique in 1635, and a colony was later founded on Saint Lucia by (1650). The food-producing plantations of these colonies were built and sustained through slavery, with the supply of slaves dependent on the African slave trade.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_North_Africa

“In the 18th century, France carried on two types of trade with its New World colonies. One was the direct trade by which France sent wheat, wine, metal objects, and building materials to the New World in exchange for sugar, and, to a lesser degree, cotton, cocoa, tobacco, rocou, and coffee. The other was the triangular slave trade, which the French referred to as the "circuit" trade. French ships loaded with trade goods sailed to Africa, where the goods were exchanged for slaves. The slaves were then taken to France's New World colonies, where they were exchanged for sugar and other plantation products.”

http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=1587

“The Du Bois Institute dataset lists 4,033 slaving voyages by French-registered ships destined for the Americas that sailed between 1669 and 1864. It excludes a large number of voyages whose final destination lay in the Indian Ocean.”

http://www.historycooperative.org/cgi-bin/justt...

“In the history of the Atlantic slave trade, the French turned four times as many Africans into slaves as the Americans did, they used them far more brutally, and French slavers not only got a head-start on Americans, they continued the slave trade--legally--until 1830, long after the rest of Europe had given it up. And they kept at it clandestinely until after the U.S. Civil War. France officially abolished slavery in its colonies only 14 years before Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, and then only under pressure from slave uprisings.”

• Slaver voyages: France, 4,200; British North America/United States, 1,500.
• Slaves transported: France 1,250,000, British North America/United States, 300,000.
• Slaves delivered to: French West Indies: 1,600,000, British North America/United States, 500,000.*

http://vernondent.blogspot.com/2005/05/french-s...

“Vietnam was absorbed into French Indochina in stages between 1858 and 1887….The First Indochina War (also known as the French Indochina War, the The Anti-French War, the Franco-Vietnamese War, the Franco-Vietminh War, the Indochina War and the Dirty War in France and in contemporary Vietnam, as the French War) was fought in French Indochina from December 19, 1946, until August 1, 1954, between the French Union’s French Far East Expeditionary Corps, led by France and supported by Bảo Đại’s Vietnamese National Army against the Việt Minh, led by Ho Chí Minh and Võ Nguyên Giáp. Most of the fighting took place in Tonkin in Northern Vietnam, although the conflict engulfed the entire country and also extended into the neighboring French Indochina protectorates of Laos and Cambodia…. It was called the “dirty war” (la sale guerre) by the French communists and leftist intellectuals (including Sartre) during the Henri Martin affair in 1950…. The Indochinese conflict broke out in Haiphong after a conflict of interest in import duty at Haiphong port between the Viet Minh government and the French. On November 23, 1946 the French fleet began a naval bombardment of the city that killed over 6,000 Vietnamese civilians in an afternoon according to one source… 1950 also marked the first time that napalm was ever used in Vietnam..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Indochina_War

I don't agree with your rather generous assessment of the French as
"good".
During WWII,the French almost singlehandedly sent to Auschwitz
thousands of French Jewish children.Klaus Barbie,the Butcher of Lyon
said that almost 90% of the "job" was done by the French,without being
supervised.
It's a nation of COWARDS and TRAITORS.I despise them as a whole.
Each day France is becoming a muslim country.It DESERVES that awful fate.

JewHawk,
As I think about it some more I believe it is necessary to judge people by their group during war. Nazi and Japanese soldiers carried a death sentence collectively, and the sentence was executed by our military forces during World War II. Although many German and Japanese civilians were killed by our military as well, they were not the collective enemy in the same sense as their government and military forces. We declared war against the governments of Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany, but not against their civilians per se.

"Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the state of war between the United States and the Government of Germany which has thus been thrust upon the United States is hereby formally declared; and the President is hereby authorized and directed to employ the entire naval and military forces of the United States and the resources of the Government to carry on war against the Government of Germany; and, to bring the conflict to a successful termination, all of the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the United States."

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/WorldWar2/...

"Whereas the Imperial Government of Japan has committed unprovoked acts of war against the Government and the people of the United States of America: Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the state of war between the United States and the Imperial Government of Japan which has thus been thrust upon the United States is hereby formally declared; and the President is hereby authorized and directed to employ the entire naval and military forces of the United States and the resources of the Government to carry on war against the Imperial Government of Japan; and, to bring the conflict to a successful termination, all of the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the United States."

http://www.historyguy.com/us_dec_war_japan.html

I believe the elitist Marxist/Socialist leaders of France bear the blame for the sorry state of their nation today and for much of their miserable history dating back to their disgusting "Revolution."

Dear Storm RIder,

Don't you feel that the excesses of the French Revolution were perfomed by a peole driven to the extremities of despair because of the crushing poverty and senseless violence to which the pepole were subjected by the arrogant and pitiless aristocracry? Doesn't there deep contempt for the clergy and unfortunately, for God, arise from centuries of the Roman Catholic church in France ratifying every abomination of the aristocracy as the will of God?

I have heard it said that the British escaped a similar revolution only because of the strong series of Christian revivals which swept through that land and caused reform of some of the worst excesses of the society and strengthening the moral fiber of the nation. France was not so blessed.

I believe that the US stands in need of a mighty revival with God, so that we will not reproduce exactly the same behavior that we deplore in the French. It seems to me that we are not better than others by nature, but by the mercies of Jesus and therefore we ought to walk humbly. Sure, let's contend for the liberty and freedom of the US by all means. This is our watch and we are responsible, but all of this spewing of hatred and resentment really doesn't do us any good. It is not strengthening.
Bron

Bronwyn,
Yes, I believe you are right; the French (and the Russians) had Leftist Socialist Revolutions which ended up delivering legal and political systems as bad or worse than the Rightist Monarchies (in league with their Churches) which they overthrew. However, enough time has gone by now for the Left to end its self-serving quest for Collectivist Utopia. Marxist/Rousseauist Communism/Socialism doesn't work; it suppresses the creative work ethic of the state-supporting middle class through the burden of over-taxation, and likewise for the state-supported "proletariat" since they won't labor creatively if they don't have to. I call this property-related, social-engineering, perversion of the electoral process the “Marxist Shuffle.” By this “Robin Hood” purchase of proletariat votes, the Left has discovered a way to install its self in an elitist minority system of government which no longer reflects the consent of the governed, i.e.: the middle class majority; and they are slowly infringing on our sacred, unalienable rights to pursuit of happiness (property) and liberty. Will they go all the way to tyranny with our rights to life and self-defense?

I don’t believe that Americans are inherently better than other people, but we have inherited better values and government from our founding fathers, i.e.: rational government designed to secure our sacred rights and equality under law. The American Revolution is the only revolution which is based on the sacredness of human equality before law (not Marxist/Rousseauist government-enforced economic equality) and the sacredness of our essential and unalienable God-given rights to life, liberty and creative pursuit of happiness (property). Ours is also the only revolution which is based on the purely rational enlightenment idea of just government power deriving from the consent of the governed (majority rule under the constraints of our Declaration and Constitution).

Unfortunately I see the Marxist ideas of the French and Russian "Revolutions" on the advance, and the ideas of our American Revolution on the retreat. I really am concerned about the future of the American Revolution and the future of my children. I for one do not consider the American Revolution to be limited to our history books; I believe our Revolution is being slowly destroyed, and for the sake of our children we must resurrect the American Revolution – a Revolution first and foremost in God-given unalienable human rights, and secondarily in rational law and government – law and government whose sole purpose is to secure equality under law and secure those human rights.

Well, I think it is wrong to judge people in groups - that is by definition prejudice, i.e.: pre-judging. It is better to judge each person as an individual. Having said that I believe the proclivity of the French, as a nation, to choose or bow to tyranny repeatedly in history is a tremendous shame on their country; and I've given many references above as examples. I believe it is possible to have many good (even most) people in a bad society; a corrupt legal/political system can make it so. This explains the evil of German society during WWII, even though most Germans were not evil as individuals; but they didn't have the courage to resist evil, and so were drawn into evil. The same applies to Islam; most Muslims seem to me to be descent individuals; but like the Germans before them, they are caught in an evil system - this one is of Totalitarian Sharia Law and Mass-murdering Islamic Jihad; and the ordinary Muslim, like the ordinary German, doesn't appear have the courage to resist evil. The French ruling classes are not resisting evil today because they do not hate evil; and as a corollary, the French leaders, as history has shown repeatedly, do not love human liberty, nor will they fight for it. The ordinary Frenchman is caught, as is the ordinary Muslim, in a downward spiral toward tyranny; their leaders didn’t learn a damn thing from the Nazis.

The French are still Marxist-Socialists; their so-called Revolution was the inspiration for Karl Marx and the Communist Revolution. In the end the French will do a deal with Totalitarian Islam because both Marxism and Political Islam represent forms of arbitrary law - one Secular - one Religious - neither of the people, by the people, for the people. There are no sacred, unalienable, individual rights to liberty and creative pursuit of happiness (property) under Marxist-Socialism (France) or under Political Islam. The individual's right to life its self is routinely violated by Political/Military Islam; and since Marxist-Socialists refuse the individual a right to bear arms in self-defense, the individual's right to life is tenuous in France and in Europe as a whole. No, I do not trust the French; they simply don't love human liberty, and will not fight for it – The Democratic (Neo-Marxist) Party Leadership in the United States patterns its self after the French.

“THE first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows, "Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody." Jean Jacques Rousseau

http://www.constitution.org/jjr/ineq_04.htm

“Society must be made to operate in such a way that it eradicates once and for all the desire of a man to become richer, or wiser, or more powerful than others.” François-Noël Babeuf

“The French Revolution was nothing but a precursor of another revolution, one that will be bigger, more solemn, and which will be the last.” François-Noël Babeuf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois-No%C...

http://www.marxists.org/history/france/revoluti...

“The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property” Karl Marx

“In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend.” Karl Marx

“You must, therefore, confess that by "individual" you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property. This person must, indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible.” Karl Marx

“In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things. In all these movements, they bring to the front, as the leading question in each, the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time.” Karl Marx

“The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state… Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property” Karl Marx

http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/mani...

Wow, I wish this guy had some pull in Canada. I was in the grocery store yesterday and just about walked over this muz chick in full ninja gear. I didn't even see her, she was in front of a wall of coffee beans at the bulk counter and blended right in. Hell, it could have been a man..who can tell?

Bravo Sarkozy! If only Obama cared enough about women and his own daughters to make a similar statement. If only he did not care about connecting to some Muslim never never land and actually wanted to be an American.

I just can't decide if I like Sarkozy or not. One day he says something I really like, and the next he says something stupid. I wish he'd make up his mind. France really does need to crack down though, because it's about to be taken over by Muslims along with the rest of Europe.

Hmmm France is starting to look better every day.