Dive into the burqini debate

I was reading in the paper the other day that a French Muslim woman, Carole (no surname given), had been turned away from her local public swimming pool for trying to swim wearing a Burqini.

The excuse given was that clothes are not allowed to be worn in the swimming pool for hygiene purposes. She had been swimming there before and this was the first time she had been stopped from wearing her choice of swimwear.

Carole is a convert to Islam and of French nationality. This is a woman that was born and raised in a democracy, where freedom of choice (within reasonable limits) is a right enjoyed by all, so for her to be turned away because of what she chooses to wear when swimming seems like a complete miscarriage of justice.

I'm not going to lie, from a personal standpoint, I can't ever imagine myself going for a swim covered from head to toe as I imagine it would be extremely uncomfortable but at the end of the day it's not as if she tried to go swimming in jeans and a jumper or a full length ball gown. Burqinis are made from the same material as most swimsuits and presumably are washed in the same way so the aspect of hygiene shouldn't come into it.

Not that I'm a suspicious woman by nature but, from the outside looking in, I can't help noticing that Carole's ban from the swimming pool in her Burqini came only a short while after French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that the wearing of the burka was 'not welcome in France'. There I go putting 2+2 together and coming up with 11!

More shockingly, according to the AFP news agency, French Minister for Urban Regeneration, Fedela Amara, who is herself a Muslim, said in and interview with the Financial Times on Saturday that the head-to-toe body covering and veil represented the 'oppression of women, their enslavement, their humiliation,' adding that a ban on wearing the all covering burka in France would stem the spread of the 'cancer' of radical Islam.

According to the report: Amara, who is of Algerian descent, said France was a beacon for an enlightened Islam at ease with modernity, so it was necessary to fight the 'gangrene, the cancer of radical Islam which completely distorts the message of Islam. The vast majority of Muslims are against the burka. It is obvious why,' Amara told the newspaper.

"Those who have struggled for women's rights back home in their own countries, I'm thinking particularly of Algeria, we know what it represents and what the obscurantist political project is that lies behind it, to confiscate the most fundamental of liberties," she said. WHAT A LOAD OF OLD TOSH!

Yes, there is no denying that radical Islam, just like any radical religion, can be a problem and I'm not even going to try denying that women all over the world have had to fight for many of the freedoms they now enjoy but the key words here are 'freedom' and 'liberty'.

For some the burka and Burqini are symbols of oppression but for others they are expressions of their freedom to choose what they decide to wear. A blanket ban on such things would be an infringement of the very fundamental liberty that Amara is so busy preaching about and the very hypocrisy of it all seems to have been lost somewhere along the way.

Another irritation in the press this week was the 'outrage' over top Indian actor Shah Rukh Khan being stopped and questioned at a New Jersey airport. I'll be the first to say that the Americans can sometimes be a little over zealous when it comes to their security requirements but no one can deny that they have had reason to be careful and to keep claiming the evil of racial profiling every time someone isn't happy about the way things are done is getting more than a little tedious.

Like it or not, it's inevitable that racial profiling in going to come into it since there is a certain demographic that is responsible for the reasons the security measures are needed in the first place.

And no that doesn't in anyway mean that it's OK to just pull someone out of a queue just because of the colour of their skin or the way they look but if for some reason something about Shah Rukh Khan (most likely his name) gave airport security reason to ask him a few questions, it's their right to do so.

I'm English born and bred, with white skin a British passport and a name that doesn't in anyway imply that I might come from anywhere in the Muslim world and yet my one trip to America a few years ago netted me three hours in security on the way in and five checks on the way out.

Why? On the way out I had four Xs printed on my boarding pass, due to the fact that a last minute change meant that I'd had to get a new ticket at the check-in desk and my final destination was Bahrain. Both of these things were causes for concern to airport security and they dealt with them accordingly.

Was it irritating? Yes of course, but so is having to carry all my make-up in a see through plastic bag, queuing for hours on end and having my shoes X-rayed for possible incendiary devices. Bad people are finding more and more creative ways of carrying out their evil deeds and if we want to live and fly in relative security small irritations are going to have to be part of the package.

The fact that Shah Rukh Khan is a famous actor in India doesn't make him immune to such things, why should it?

Once again at the risk of sounding suspicious, do the words 'publicity for a new movie' ring any bells?