TOKIMATSU and Her HIJAB -- Trying to get Herself Banned from France !
Naaaah, she's OK. You can still see her face. And...she's NOT a Muslim. See the ★ mark further down in the caption.
Now...let's talk about a place where the RELIGIOUS USE of the above "Fashion" has caused some real problems : FRANCE !
First of all, let's clear something up : FRANCE HAS NO PROBLEM WITH HEAD COVERINGS and FULL BODY ROBES for Religious women. They've been accepting of it for ages : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sisters_(Daughters_of_Mary)_Ro...
Do you think France is going to outlaw the public wearing of black and white Habits and Head Coverings of their country's Catholic Sisterhoods, thereby breaking the hearts of their numerous Penguin Fan Clubs in Antarctica ? Heck, no !
What France does have a problem with is.... FACE COVERING.
WARNING : THE FOLLOWING CAPTION CONTAINS SOME HIGHLY OPINIONATED COMMENTS ABOUT RELIGION AND FASHION. SINCE GIVING MY HONEST OPINION AROUND HERE IS SOMETHING THAT OKINAWA SOBA IS RARELY KNOWN FOR (*cough*), I BEG YOUR INDULGENCE !
Yes, we can see this smiling Geisha's lovely face. What a sweetie-pie she is ! However, if she goes to France, and tries to completely cover her whole face, leaving a Gort-the-Robot slit for her eyes, and demanding to be allowed to walk into stores, banks, museums, schools, and other public places where the historical and cultural policy is IF YOU CAN SEE MY FACE, YOU GOTTA SHOW ME YOUR FACE....well, then, Okinawa Soba will cast my lot against her, and be on the side of those in the French Government who are trying to ban the "Bank Robber" version of the Islamic head covering.
GORT the Robot : news.cnet.com/i/ne/p/2006/gort_550x367.jpg
GORTINA the Yemeni : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Muslim_woman_in_Yemen.jpg
Hey, even in the Wild Wild West, head-coverings and neckerchief BANDANAS were A-OK, too...until you covered half of your face with them --- at which point it was pretty clear somebody was about to get robbed at gun point !
DON'T GO INTO A BANK IN RURAL TEXAS DRESSED LIKE THIS : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EFatima_in_UAE_with_niqab.jpg
HEADS UP ! In the "multicultural" USA, I am required to remove my HAT and SUNGLASSES upon entering my own Bank. Bank policy says EVERYBODY MUST SHOW HIS FACE --- and no religion in the world can save me from that policy !
Further, the Japanese would probably not tolerate anyone going into a public place of business with a paper bag over their head --- even if two eye holes were poked in the damn thing.
Civilized democracies striving for the nominal equality of its male and female citizens have a complete right to make laws saying that, in a public forum, we all show our faces to each other.
In Tokimatsu's Japan, there was a religious order of males who decided to walk around with baskets over their heads. There was also a time when the Japanese government found a need to BAN THIS HEAD COVERING. (Flickr Set near the bottom of this caption).
★ In the photo above, Tokimatsu's Japanese head covering has nothing to do with religion. This is a common winter head wrap that kept fashionable Japanese women warm as they walked and traveled about during the winter months. It also kept their fancy hairstyles in place against the wind, rain, and snow.
SEE MORE EXAMPLES OF THIS JAPANESE WINTER FASHION HERE : www.flickr.com/search/?q=Scarf&m=tags&ss=0&ct...
Note : A Muslim girl from Malaysia was well taken with these photos, and wrote to ask if she could use one of these "Head Scarf" photos as her Flickr "Buddy Icon".
Of course !
There is also another highly talented Muslim girl from Asia among my flickr contacts who, while proudly and publicly defending her Islamic faith, DOES NOT WEAR A HEAD COVERING AT ALL when she goes to a country that does not dictate religious or cultural dress codes.
A LESSON IN FOUNDATIONAL ISLAM :
According to Muslim scholars themselves......
► The term hijab or veil is not used in the Qur'an to refer to an article of clothing for either women or men.
► The meaning of hijab has evolved over time.
► Guidelines for covering of the entire body except for the hands, the feet and the face, are found only in texts of the fiqh and hadith that were developed later, and the face-covering HIJAB was never ordered, commanded, demanded, or decreed by Muhammad.
► Since neither ALLAH nor MUHAMMAD were involved in ordering the face-hiding hijab that is now causing some problems in the secular democracies of both FRANCE and TURKEY, there remains an unsettled, continuing debate among Muslim scholars around the world about the degree of head covering "required"
► Some of that debate is found HERE :
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijab
NOTE : If you are someone who believes that Allah demands all women be publicly housed in head-to-toe embroidered pup-tents made with with eye-slits covered by perforated spaghetti strainers (see link below), please do not post a comment telling me that my opinion about these matters is wrong.
Instead, please re-direct your complaints to the broad spectrum of Imams and Islamic scholars who "decide" these things for the faithful --- and even today continue to disagree amongst themselves as to how far their religion can go in gift-wrapping the faces of their female believers.
In the meantime, I don't know about France, but.....
IT IS PROBABLY NOT A GOOD IDEA TO GO INTO A BANK IN RURAL TEXAS DRESSED LIKE THIS : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Burqa_Afghanistan_01.jpg
My opinion is simply that : my opinion. And my opinion is not a blasphemous one.
AGAIN, as long as Islamic Scholars themselves cannot come to any agreement about the rightness or wrongness of the claims being made by certain French babes who say that ALLAH has commanded that they walk around in unventilated pup-tents, then I am certainly entitled to my opinion, too !
AND AGAIN, in the world at large, when people are in an open society that proclaims equality of men and women, IF YOU CAN SEE MY FACE, YOU GOTTA SHOW ME YOUR FACE !!!
Continued CLARIFICATION HERE : www.flickr.com/photos/24443965@N08/4545278568/#comment721...
A TON OF PHOTOS : HIJAB & NIQAB GALORE !!! www.flickr.com/search/?q=niqab
I think I should make a HEAD COVERING Set that shows these fashions as they exist outside the Islamic world --- both secular (as above) and as "required by God" or by religious order. Come to think of it, I've already got Set right HERE :
www.flickr.com/photos/24443965@N08/sets/72157604414628141/
Above photo ca.1890s large format, hand colored albumen print. Attributed to Yokohama photographer KOZABURO TAMAMURA.
NOTE : Photo Series Number A 76 (Thanks, Noel43 !)
RANDOM SOBA : www.flickriver.com/photos/24443965@N08/random/
Photo prise le 22 avril 2010 (© Okinawa Soba / Flickr)
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