Aug. 26, 2016
The Burkini: Another victim of globalization
Everyone knows by now that the
burkini, or burquini, is the creation of a Lebanese-born Australian designer
named Ahedi Zanetti. It is a swimwear that does not differ much from a wetsuit
generally worn by divers, windsurfers, and other water sports enthusiasts,
except that it is made of swimsuit material, is looser, and much more colorful
and elegant. It was created originally in the early 2000s for Muslim women who
did not want to expose their bodies while swimming, but is now worn by a
multitude of women, including Jewish-Haredi women in Israel, women and children
wanting protection from the sun, and others. The designer claims that 40
percent of her sales are for non-Muslim customers. Suddenly, this swimsuit
became the center of controversy when a number of French Côte d’Azur towns
banned it. The ban spread to other sea coasts of France including “Sisco” in
Corsica, and is planned in “Oye-Plage” and “Le Touquet” on the English Chanel.
The mayors of the last two towns “admit to never having seen [a burkini],”
according to the New York Times.
Why the panic?
The reasons given by the French
officials are varied, unrelated, and illogical. French Prime Minister Manuel
Valls announced that the burkini “is not compatible with the values of France
and the republic.” Laurence Rossignol, families, childhood and the rights of
women minister, declared that the burkini’s “logic ... is to hide women’s
bodies in order to better control them.” The reason advanced by Sisco officials
for the ban was simply to “protect the population.” An official of the city of
Cannes, the first town to ban the burkini, declared it “clothing that conveys
an allegiance to the terrorist movements that are waging war against us.” The
mayor of “Villeneuve-Loubet,” said, that “it is unhygienic to swim fully
clothed.” Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post exclaimed: “For whom? The
fish?”
Some observers have invoked
analogies from the past in order to put things in perspective and demonstrate
the illogic of banning the burkini. Actress Annette Kellerman, it is said, was
arrested in 1907 in Boston for wearing a one-piece knitted swimsuit that covered
her body, tightly, from neck to toes, something similar to the burkini, on
grounds of indecency. Parker mentions that, in the early 20th century, modesty
police in Washington “literally measured women’s bathing suit skirts to ensure
adherence to the legal standard of only 6 inches above the knee.” Remona Aly of
the Guardian recently reminded the readers that, in the ’50s, “the itsy bitsy
bikini was ... banned in Spain, Portugal, Australia, Italy and many states
across the U.S. It was even banned from the beauty pageants after contestants
in the first Miss World scandalously wore the two-pieced swimwear.” In fact,
the history of women’s swimwear, from the full-body type to the string, is
replete with conflicts between those claiming that they show too much and those
who claim that they show too little.
But these analogies do not reflect
the issues of today. They were disagreements within the same cultures, between
“liberated” individuals and “conservative” or religious individuals; between
those who were “ahead of their times” and those who were “behind the times.”
The issues now are more complicated. This time the differences are not within
cultures but among cultures. They are brought about by factors that have little
to do with liberalism and conservatism in a given society, but by the fear from
an intruding culture. It is not the burkini itself that is the issue, it is
what the burkini represents in the minds of much of the French population, in
the context of their rejection of the recent flood of Muslim refugees and the
terrorist incidents that were perpetrated, not by refugees, but by French
Islamists. It is certainly not the fact that the burkini covers the entire
female body that is at issue. The picture of nuns having fun on the beach,
fully attired, does not illicit the same reaction on the part of the
predominantly Catholic French. No ban could ever be imposed on Jewish Haredi
women playing on French beaches fully clothed, or in a burkini. The 2016 summer
Olympic games in Rio were preceded by a wide coverage by fashion magazines,
French included, discussing the new and varied fashion attires worn by
athletes, including burkini-like modest attires, and did not illicit any
negative reaction from the French media.
The French reaction to the burkini is
part of the largely western reaction to “human globalization,” that is, to the
melting of borders and the mixing of people of different cultures and
ethnicities, which is taking place at an accelerated pace. As I have argued in
earlier articles in The Daily Star (July 5 and Aug. 9, 2016), this is true both
in Europe and in the United States. It is, in all cases, the fear that the
invading cultures will change the receiving societies in their favor and take
away the political privileges traditionally enjoyed by the native population.
In continental Europe, it is basically the unjustified fear that the flow of
Muslim refugees will change the Christian identity of the continent. In
England, it is basically the resentment of the immigration of eastern Europeans,
particularly Poles. And in the United States, it is the growing political power
of the non-white population, particularly Hispanics, blacks and Asians, who
actually elected President Barack Obama, in 2008 and 2012, in spite of his
receiving only a minority of the white vote. It is this “human globalization”
that lays behind the sudden surge of nativist, anti-immigration and
Islamophobic political parties in continental Europe, as well as the successful
Brexit movement in England. And it is the same phenomenon that lays behind the
popularity of the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, among the white population
in the United States.
But “human globalization,” like its
twin sister “economic globalization,” is an inevitable and relentless process
that will continue and intensify in future no matter what resistance is placed
in its path. Sooner or later the rational political forces will likely prevail,
but not before a lot of harm has been done, particularly, but not solely, in
terms of anti-terror laws that curtail human freedoms, as happened already in
the United States, France and elsewhere. In France, at present, the political
leadership of practically all parties has joined the chorus against the
burkini, while anxiously eyeing the surge in popularity of Marine Le Pen and her
nativist “National Front.” There is no hope in the horizon for the rise of a
charismatic French leader who would swim against the tide to defend the
burkini. And the poor burkini; it will probably go down in history as another
French victim of the globalization of mankind.
Riad Tabbarah is a former ambassador
of Lebanon to the United States.
A
version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Daily Star on
August 26, 2016, on page 7.
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