Is wearing a burka in Canada a matter of religious obligation, cultural tradition, religious freedom and women rights, or an exhibition of political Islam? This question is afresh again because of the recent announcement by Canada's Immigration Minister Jason Kenny that veiled woman are required to remove niqabs or burkas from their faces while taking the citizenship oath.
The Minister's announcement has stirred a hot debate within Muslim groups, media, political parties, and civil liberty organizations. But the Quran doesn't instruct Muslim women to cover their faces with niqabs so it's not a religious obligation. And it can't be a cultural tradition for veiled women, especially those who were born in Canada and the West.
As somebody Muslim-born, I am not aware of any Muslim country where all women are forced to veil themselves due to any cultural conditioning.
It's their right to cover their faces. This is the argument given by some western feminists, human rights activists, and civil liberties groups. But as a citizen it's my right to see the faces of people I meet in public places.
Furthermore, the niqab or veil is not a dress. It's not even a dress code. It's just a manifesto of political Islam, implying medieval oppression imposed by tribal Muslim men on their women.
Unfortunately, some civil liberties groups and so-called human rights activists are supporting women who want to be unequal to men and segregated from society by putting veils on their faces.
Have these activists asked these women and their proponents why they are scared of showing their faces to society? They might answer it's their religious right or their personal will.
But actually, it's due to strict conditioning. Men made Sharia laws and shaped the political agendas of Islamists. Probably only a tiny percentage of veiled women are doing so as political retaliation of liberal or secular values through Islamic traditions. This act is usually a reflection of inequality, intolerance, suppression, and oppression.
Would a liberal democracy such as Canada's allow medieval religious rights that are not compatible with the spirit of true liberal democratic values to be practiced in society? If the answer is "yes," then we should be ready for all those religious rights, from Sharia laws to armed Jihad to be accepted.
But we should not let this happen.
At the moment, it looks like we have been trapped by our own pre-set liberal values.
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is the most quoted argument by Islamists, civil liberty groups, so-called liberal intellectuals, and governments in Canada to justify religious practices.
Islamic extremists in Canada are twisting the words and laws in order to further their Islamist agenda which includes curbing free press in Canada and retaining medieval religious restrictions in their Muslim communities.
It seems that only three words from our Charter, "freedom of religion," are guaranteeing the act of suppression, oppression, intolerance, and inequality among Muslim women.
Our politicians should have the guts to add few more words so that freedom of religion is guaranteed as long as it doesn't contradict the rule of the law in the country.
And according to the law and the Charter, concealing identity and gender inequality should be unlawful and unacceptable.
So-called human rights activists working for women's right to wear a burka should be asked: Is it possible for a burka-wearing woman to work as a school teacher, a banker, a police officer, a soldier, a doctor, a bus driver and so on?
If not, then why are they marginalizing Muslim women and snatching their rights to live a normal life in the name of their so-called rights?
If the societies in the U.S., Canada, and all western countries are serious about granting real civil liberties to Muslim women, they should oppose any conditioning and brainwashing associated with the burqa-wearing obsession.