Je suis et demeure un combattant révolutionnaire. Et la Révolution aujourd’hui est, avant tout, islamique. Illich Ramirez Sanchez (dit Carlos)
L’erreur est toujours de raisonner dans les catégories de la « différence », alors que la racine de tous les conflits, c’est plutôt la « concurrence », la rivalité mimétique entre des êtres, des pays, des cultures. La concurrence, c’est-à-dire le désir d’imiter l’autre pour obtenir la même chose que lui, au besoin par la violence. Sans doute le terrorisme est-il lié à un monde « différent » du nôtre, mais ce qui suscite le terrorisme n’est pas dans cette « différence » qui l’éloigne le plus de nous et nous le rend inconcevable. Il est au contraire dans un désir exacerbé de convergence et de ressemblance. (…) Ce qui se vit aujourd’hui est une forme de rivalité mimétique à l’échelle planétaire. Lorsque j’ai lu les premiers documents de Ben Laden, constaté ses allusions aux bombes américaines tombées sur le Japon, je me suis senti d’emblée à un niveau qui est au-delà de l’islam, celui de la planète entière. Sous l’étiquette de l’islam, on trouve une volonté de rallier et de mobiliser tout un tiers-monde de frustrés et de victimes dans leurs rapports de rivalité mimétique avec l’Occident. Mais les tours détruites occupaient autant d’étrangers que d’Américains. Et par leur efficacité, par la sophistication des moyens employés, par la connaissance qu’ils avaient des Etats-Unis, par leurs conditions d’entraînement, les auteurs des attentats n’étaient-ils pas un peu américains ? On est en plein mimétisme.Ce sentiment n’est pas vrai des masses, mais des dirigeants. Sur le plan de la fortune personnelle, on sait qu’un homme comme Ben Laden n’a rien à envier à personne. Et combien de chefs de parti ou de faction sont dans cette situation intermédiaire, identique à la sienne. Regardez un Mirabeau au début de la Révolution française : il a un pied dans un camp et un pied dans l’autre, et il n’en vit que de manière plus aiguë son ressentiment. Aux Etats-Unis, des immigrés s’intègrent avec facilité, alors que d’autres, même si leur réussite est éclatante, vivent aussi dans un déchirement et un ressentiment permanents. Parce qu’ils sont ramenés à leur enfance, à des frustrations et des humiliations héritées du passé. Cette dimension est essentielle, en particulier chez des musulmans qui ont des traditions de fierté et un style de rapports individuels encore proche de la féodalité. (…) Cette concurrence mimétique, quand elle est malheureuse, ressort toujours, à un moment donné, sous une forme violente. A cet égard, c’est l’islam qui fournit aujourd’hui le ciment qu’on trouvait autrefois dans le marxisme. René Girard
Il est important pour les pays occidentaux d’éviter de gêner les citoyens musulmans de pratiquer leur religion comme ils le souhaitent, et par exemple en dictant les vêtements qu’une femme doit porter. (…) on ne doit pas dissimuler l’hostilité envers une religion devant le faux-semblant du libéralisme. Barack Hussein Obama
Au printemps, le keffieh se portera en étendard : en version classique noir et blanc, en bleu indigo ou de toutes les couleurs… Magazine féminin
“Islamic chic” is a fast-growing market. The State of the Global Islamic Economy 2014-2015 report shows that Muslim consumers spent around $266 billion on clothing globally in 2013. And Thomson Reuters, which co-commissioned the study, estimates that figure will increase to about $484 billion by 2019. Aab, one of the world’s leading Islamic clothing retailers, opened its first boutique in East London this spring. Complementing its online offering, the physical store opened its doors to a crowd of 2,000 people eagerly awaiting its arrival. The opening of Aab’s London shop is the first in an international long-term growth strategy that includes expanding to key international fashion and financial hubs in the Middle East, Malaysia and Indonesia over the next three years. “With the success of our first flagship boutique in London, we plan to open more in the UK and overseas due to the demand for our brand,” says Nazmin Alim, creative director of Aab. “[With] the population of young Muslims rising, they have [significant] spending power as this is the generation that are now independent, working and exposed to media in more ways than one,” Alim adds. As Islamic fashion is becoming a global industry, plenty is also happening on the couture front. The Islamic Fashion Festival, which started in 2006 in Kuala Lumpur, has been held 17 times to date in cities that include New York, London, Jakarta, Dubai and Singapore. Names like Sydney-based Frida Deguise, Rabia Z and young trend-aware Muslim fashion lovers, dubbed “hijabistas,” are leading a modest fashion revolution with their own brands, garnering hundreds of thousands of followers on social media in the process. “The new younger generation want to be modern without compromising on their halal lifestyle,” says Salma Chaudhry of The Halal Cosmetics Company, which launched in 2013. “We’re in a society where any and all information is at our fingertips, ladies are chatting and sharing information on social media particularly about topics like beauty and fashion all the time.” Chaudhry, who will be speaking about her cosmetics range in Saudi Arabia, France and Azerbaijan this year, predicts both the Islamic fashion and beauty industries are on the cusp of something big. “Muslims of this generation are embracing their identity, and businesses that do not cater to this huge consumer sector will be left behind. I think that halal cosmetics will be as readily available as any other types of beauty products pretty soon. The industry is still in its infancy and the future is about to boom,” she says. (…) The daughter of a religious leader and politician in Sweden, Aldebe’s groundbreaking quest to modernize Muslim fashion provoked the conservative views of Islamist and right-wing extremists alike. (…) When one of Aldebe’s female friends attended Polishögskolan (Police College) in Sweden and needed a suitable hijab, Aldebe was commissioned to create the hijab that now forms part of the official Swedish police uniform. The task, complicated by security considerations, resulted in is a sleek, stylish, yet highly functional hijab that seamlessly blends with the required headgear. So far, just one Swedish police officer wears it for work. But Aldebe will soon be creating an official military hijab for the Swedish army (in camouflage), as well as another for women working in pharmacies and hospitals. (…) “Sometimes, clothes have a larger impact than politics,” she says. (…) The term “Muslim Cool” relating to fashion was coined by ethnologist Leila Karin Österlind in her doctoral thesis on Muslim fashion that has the working title, “Next Year in Dubai Incha Allah. Islamic Fashion and Muslim Cool.” The concept works in two ways: It includes how trendy hijabistas like Instagram star Mariam Moufid and fashion blogger Dina Tokio dress, as well as the way in which Muslim fashion affect mainstream Western brands—for example, H&M’s offering of harem trousers and Moroccan-style kaftans in its collections. Österlind points to how this has also infiltrated wider male fashion: The now-infamous hipster beard, the height of its popularity occurring a few years ago and much-spotted in capital cities worldwide, was originally an expression of Muslim Cool. While valid as a description of previous trends, both “Muslim Cool” and “Mipsterz” are now dated terms according to Aldebe—as is “Muslim fashion” itself. She says that Islamic-inspired fashions are becoming more and more mainstream. “The pressure for fashion profiles and celebrities to always be the first to deliver inspiring looks has contributed to an increased acceptance of the unknown. Trends shift so quickly today, so people are happy to get inspired from other cultures and religions,” she says. The Observer
Le tourisme halal est une sous-catégorie du tourisme religieux qui s’adresse aux familles musulmanes se conformant aux règles de l’islam. Les hôtels de ces destinations ne servent pas d’alcool et ont des piscines et spas séparés pour les hommes et les femmes. La Malaisie, la Turquie ainsi que beaucoup d’autres pays tentent d’attirer les touristes musulmans du monde entier en leur proposant des services conformes à leurs convictions religieuses. L’industrie du tourisme Halal offre aussi des vols où l’on ne sert ni alcool ni produits à base de porc, où les horaires de prière sont annoncés et où des émissions religieuses font partie des divertissements proposés à bord de l’avion. Wikipedia
En Turquie, les hôtels répondant aux règles islamiques voient leur fréquentation croître de façon exponentielle. Cet engouement va de pair avec l’enrichissement de classes sociales amatrices d’un tourisme de loisir mais aussi culturel. Saphir news
Austria‘s alpine towns of Zell am See and Kaprun have been criticised for producing an eight-page guide for Middle Eastern tourists, featuring « cultural advice » on how to behave. The booklet, in English and Arabic, features tips such as the idea that Austrian shopkeepers do not expect haggling over prices, and that eating on the floor in hotel rooms is a « no-no ». Drivers are informed that wearing seatbelts is compulsory, and they will be given guidance on understanding road signs, to reduce their risks while driving. Visitors are also advised not to wear burkas, and to « adopt the Austrian mentality ». (…) It explains that there are many restaurants where Halal meat is served, and with Arabic-speaking staff, but that Austrians also pride themselves on their food. (…) Alpine destinations are exceedingly popular in the summer with Middle Eastern travellers, who look to escape the extreme heat of their home countries. (…) Leo Bauernberger, executive director of the Salzburger Land Tourism company, told the Austria Press Agency that « Arabs are here in the summer for more than 470,000 nights, making them the second largest visitor group after Germans ». But Peter Padourek, mayor of Zell am See, said that tourists wearing the burka was a cause of friction in the area.(…) But other hotel operators have criticised the leaflets, saying that it unfairly stigmatised Arab visitors – who spend an average of £195 per person per day; more than double the daily amount dispensed with by European tourists. Telegraph
SURFERS Paradise and Broadbeach will convert to Islam and feature more prayer rooms, halal restaurants and extended trading hours, says Mayor Tom Tate. On his return from the Middle East, Cr Tate will meet with traders, restaurant owners, hotels and marketing bodies to look at how both tourism areas can better cater for high-yield Middle Eastern tourists. He also wants to extend trading hours during Ramadan to cater for the later rising and dining tourists as one of the major criticisms was the early closing hours of many Gold Coast restaurants. About 20,000 Gulf tourists visit the region each year, staying on average for about a month with combined spending of between $53 million and $75 million. Gold coast.com
C’est en fait un bikini deux pièces islamique, ce qui peut sembler idiot. Aheda Zanetti
Le climat politique actuel n’est pas facile, les musulmans sont scrutés à la loupe et j’espère que les gens comprennent à travers moi ce que veut dire être musulmane. Ibtihaj Muhammad
In 2009, a public swimming pool in Emerainville excluded a burkini-wearing woman, on the grounds that she violated pool rules by wearing street clothes. But burkinis only erupted into a national political issue on Aug. 12 when the mayor of Cannes, a resort town on the French Riviera, banned burkinis (without legally defining what exactly they are) on the Cannes beaches because it represents Islamism. (…) This development astonishes me, someone who has argued that the burqa (and the niqab, a similar article of clothing that leaves a slit for the eyes) needs to be banned from public places on security grounds. Those formless garments not only hide the face, permitting criminals and jihadis to hide themselves but they permit the wearer to hide, say, an assault rifle without anyone knowing. Men as well as women use burqas as accessories to criminal and jihadi purposes. Indeed, I have collected some 150 anecdotes of bank robberies, abductions, murders, and jihadi attacks since 2002; Philadelphia has become the Western capital of burqas and niqabs as criminal accessories, with at least 34 incidents in 9 years. In contrast, the burkini poses no danger to public security. Unlike the burqa or niqab, it leaves the face uncovered; relatively tight-fitting, it leaves no place to hide weapons. Men cannot wear it as a disguise. Further, while there are legitimate arguments about the hygiene of large garments in pools (prompting some hotels in Morocco to ban the garment), this is obviously not an issue on the coastal beaches of France.Accordingly, beach burkinis should be allowed without restriction. Cultural arguments, such as the one made by Valls, are specious and discriminatory. If a woman wishes to dress modestly on the beach, that is her business, and not the state’s. It’s also her prerogative to choose unflattering swimwear that waterlogs when she swims. The Islamist threat to the West is very real, from the Rushdie rules to sex gangs, taharrush, polygyny, honor killings, partial no-go zones, and beheadings. With the influx to Europe of millions of unvetted Muslim migrants, these problems will grow along with the number of Islamists. Nerves are on edge and the political scene is changing rapidly, as symbolized by half the vote for president of Austria recently going to a hardline anti-immigration politician.Issues concerning Islam are arguably Europe’s number-one concern, ahead even of the European Union and the financial crisis; they need to be dealt with by confronting real problems, not by focusing on symbolic irrelevancies such as burkinis, halal shops, and minarets. Burqas and niqabs must be banned (as the German government may soon do), freedom of speech about Islam and Muslims must be reconfirmed, Saudi and Iranian funding for religious purposes must be cut, and a single legal code must apply to all. So, my advice: focus on these real problems and let Muslims wear what they wish to the beach. Daniel Pipes
« What is it about Philadelphia, burqas, and robberies? » (…) The demographics of Philadelphia, whose Muslim population is among the largest in the U.S., make it particularly fertile ground. While only a very small percentage of Philadelphians wear niqabs, they are sufficiently numerous to be seen with regularity. Desensitizing the public to this radical attire opens many doors. (…) Simply put, the increasing prevalence of face-cloaking Islamic garb is rendering traditional masks obsolete. Both provide anonymity, but a niqab grants the wearer access that a mask does not. Whereas spotting a masked individual entering a bank or business strongly indicates a robbery, someone in a niqab doing so may represent just another patch in Philadelphia’s multicultural quilt. Indecision about the wearer’s motives — indeed, most women in niqabs do not have criminal intent — buys crucial time for a heist to unfold on the perpetrator’s terms. The relatively common sight of niqabs, as opposed to masks, also enables a robber to travel to the crime scene in the same face-blocking apparel, further lowering the chances of being identified. Moreover, they take advantage of political correctness, which cautions against scrutinizing people who don such clothes. (…) Islamists promote this cultural paralysis. Case in point: the victimhood narrative pushed in the wake of the latest Philadelphia robberies. One imam declared them « a hate crime against Muslims, » as they allegedly put Muslim women « in danger of being stereotyped, victimized, and ostracized. » City Councilman Curtis Jones Jr. doubled down on the persecution theme: « In many ways I’m reminded of the shooting of Trayvon Martin, stereotyped because of a garment called a hoodie. » Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) chimed in as well. « Islamophobes love to see this sort of thing, because it gives them fuel to express their hatred, » he claimed. « Now they can say, ‘See, this is why Muslim women shouldn’t dress the way they do.' » Therefore, banks must run the gauntlet of « Islamophobia » charges if they pursue a seemingly obvious remedy: forbidding attire that hides customers’ faces from security cameras. Financial institutions nationwide have worked to deter more conventional robberies, reportedly with some success, by implementing dress codes that ban hats, hoods, and sunglasses, but Islamists have fought restrictions on headgear. When disputes arose several years ago over women being asked to remove headscarves or be served in alternate areas, CAIR characteristically demanded more sensitive policies and issued dubious calls for federal probes. Just as predictably, the banks and credit unions tended to cave and exempt hijabs. No doubt robbers note the deference toward Islam enforced by Islamists — a phenomenon exacerbated in cities like Philadelphia with copious Muslims and an aggressive CAIR chapter. (…) How to proceed? The ultimate solution would entail proscribing face-covering apparel everywhere in public, as France and Belgium have done. Yet American banks enjoy plenty of leeway to ban it on their premises right now, assuming that they ignore CAIR’s specious threats and frequently bogus tales of Muslim victimhood. The First Amendment may protect niqabs on the streets, but banks are private entities and thus not bound by it. They also are not listed in Title II of the 1964 U.S. Civil Rights Act among « places of public accommodation » where religiously discriminating against clients is illegal — not that faith-neutral dress codes are « discriminatory » anyway, regardless of Islamists’ pleas. In addition, though numerous states, including Pennsylvania, have civil rights laws that are more expansive than the federal version, the various requirements to accommodate religious practices of customers or employees are not absolute and typically must be balanced against the hardships imposed on others. One can debate whether banks should tolerate hijabs, which often obscure less of the face than hoodies or caps, but it is inconceivable that banks are somehow obligated to welcome niqabs that purposefully hide the face and burden others by undermining safety in a venue where security is paramount. If ski masks are not permitted, niqabs should not be either. Drawing the line with clear policies that prohibit all criminal-friendly garments on bank property would be a significant step in the appropriate direction — and almost certainly a legal one. Situated at the leading edge of this problem in the U.S., Philadelphians have a special responsibility to find effective solutions. Other American cities must stay alert as well, because the ingredients that make Philadelphia a prime target exist elsewhere; Detroit comes to mind. If Philadelphia manages to curtail the trend, its approach can be a template for comparable cities to follow. But if it fails, criminals in the country’s niqab-heavy metropolitan areas may soon thank the trailblazing burqa bandits of Philadelphia for having provided a successful model of their own. David J. Rusin
Aheda Zanetti, une entrepreneuse australienne d’origine libanaise, ne s’attendait certainement pas à ce que tous les regards se braquent un jour sur sa société, Ahiida, créée en 2004 à Sydney lorsqu’elle était à peine âgée de 40 ans. (…) À l’origine, Aheda Zanetti affirme avoir eu l’idée de créer ce concept de mode pour aider les jeunes femmes musulmanes à faire du sport. Arrivée du Liban en Australie lorsqu’elle avait deux ans, la créatrice explique sur son site de vente en ligne: «J’ai remarqué que les jeunes filles et femmes qui suivent les préceptes de l’Islam, en adoptant notamment des tenues vestimentaires modestes, doivent souvent se résigner à ne pas participer aux activités sportives que l’Australie a à offrir.» Il y a 12 ans, estimant que le marché avait du potentiel, elle a donc lancé son entreprise de mode spécialisée dans les maillots de bains et tenues de sports pour les musulmanes. Elle a, dans la foulée en 2006, déposé les marques Ahiida®, Burqini® et Burkini®. Le succès a été immédiat, selon l’entrepreneuse. «Nous avons vendu plus de 700.000 tenues de bain (depuis la création de la marque, NDLR) et nous écoulons également bien nos produits en Europe et en France», explique l’entrepreneuse au Figaro. Les ventes ont, selon elle, augmenté de 40% durant l’été 2016. (…) D’après Aheda Zanetti, 40% environ du marché est porté par des clientes non-musulmanes, pour certaines des femmes qui veulent se protéger du soleil avec ces tenues. Slim fit, grande taille, anti-coup de soleil, la gamme de vêtements proposée par Ahiida est vaste. Les prix oscillent de près de 80 euros (même si en ce moment certains produits sont en promotion à environ 60 euros) jusqu’à près de 130 euros, selon les coupes, par exemple. L’entreprise propose aussi des modèles pour enfants. Malgré les polémiques récurrentes à travers le monde, et sans doute aussi un peu pour en profiter, les grandes marques commencent à s’intéresser à ce marché. Marks & Spencer a lancé une collection de burkinis au printemps dernier, une initiative que la ministre des Droits des femmes Laurence Rossignol avait alors qualifiée d’«irresponsable». De leur côté, les enseignes de mode peuvent-elles réellement passer à côté de la manne de consommation que représente la clientèle musulmane? Selon une étude de Thomson Reuters et de l’institut d’études newyorkais DinarStandard, les dépenses en habillement de la communauté musulmane dans le monde devraient passer de 230 milliards de dollars (204 mds€) en 2014 à 327 milliards (290 mds€) en 2020. Le Figaro
Contraction de « bikini » et « burqa », le burkini est un costume de bain qui enveloppe l’ensemble du corps, des cheveux jusqu’aux chevilles. Son invention est attribuée à l’Australienne Aheda Zanetti, qui a lancé sa gamme de tenues pratiques pour le sport et « religieusement correctes » en 2003. En Australie, où la plage est une véritable « culture », que ce soit pour le surf ou la simple baignade, il y avait « un vide qu’il fallait combler », expliquait-elle à l’Agence France-Presse en 2007. (…) Dans le livre sacré des musulmans, explique Franck Fregosi, spécialiste de l’islam, « il y a des éléments relatifs aux règles de pudeur, mais pas de codification ». Si plusieurs versets du Coran mentionnent le voile, son port n’est pas explicitement exigé, et les avis divergent quant à l’interprétation des textes. (…) Le burkini ne cache pas le visage. Comme le voile, il est donc autorisé en France dans les lieux publics. Seul le voile dissimulant le visage (niqab) est proscrit dans l’espace public depuis 2011. Les municipalités côtières qui ont récemment pris des arrêtés prohibant le burkini sur les plages ont mis en avant le risque de « troubles à l’ordre public » dans le contexte de menaces d’attentats. Le Point
Malgré eux, les islamistes sont des Occidentaux. Même en rejetant l’Occident, ils l’acceptent. Aussi réactionnaires que soient ses intentions, l’islamisme intègre non seulement les idées de l’Occident mais aussi ses institutions. Le rêve islamiste d’effacer le mode de vie occidental de la vie musulmane est, dans ces conditions, incapable de réussir. Le système hybride qui en résulte est plus solide qu’il n’y paraît. Les adversaires de l’islam militant souvent le rejettent en le qualifiant d’effort de repli pour éviter la vie moderne et ils se consolent avec la prédiction selon laquelle il est dès lors condamné à se trouver à la traîne des avancées de la modernisation qui a eu lieu. Mais cette attente est erronée. Car l’islamisme attire précisément les musulmans qui, aux prises avec les défis de la modernité, sont confrontés à des difficultés, et sa puissance et le nombre de ses adeptes ne cessent de croître. Les tendances actuelles donnent à penser que l’islam radical restera une force pendant un certain temps encore. Daniel Pipes
Amid all this intellectual and moral confusion, Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit have deftly proposed the notion of « Occidentalism. » This is a play on « Orientalism, » the formulation advanced by the late Edward Said, whereby a society or its academics and intellectuals can be judged by their attitude to the « other. » Avishai Margalit is a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and has been very much identified with the secular and internationalist wing of the Israeli peace camp. Ian Buruma is known to a large audience for his witty and profound studies of Asia, Germany and England. Both authors had in common a friendship with, and a strong admiration for, Isaiah Berlin. … The authors demonstrate that there is a long history of anti-Western paranoia in the intellectual tradition of the « East, » but that much of this is rooted in non-Muslim and non-Oriental thinking. Indeed, insofar as the comparison with fascism can be made, it can be derived from some of the very origins and authors that inspired fascism itself. In many areas of German, Russian and French culture, one finds the same hatred of « decadence, » the same cultish worship of the pitiless hero, the same fascination with the infallible « leader, » the same fear of a mechanical civilization as opposed to the « organic » society based on tradition and allegiance. Christopher Hitchens
We generally understand « radical Islam » as a purely Islamic phenomenon, but Buruma and Margalit show that while the Islamic part of radical Islam certainly is, the radical part owes a primary debt of inheritance to the West. Whatever else they are, al Qaeda and its ilk are revolutionary anti-Western political movements, and Buruma and Margalit show us that the bogeyman of the West who stalks their thinking is the same one who has haunted the thoughts of many other revolutionary groups, going back to the early nineteenth century. In this genealogy of the components of the anti-Western worldview, the same oppositions appear again and again: the heroic revolutionary versus the timid, soft bourgeois; the rootless, deracinated cosmopolitan living in the Western city, cut off from the roots of a spiritually healthy society; the sterile Western mind, all reason and no soul; the machine society, controlled from the center by a cabal of insiders, often jews, pulling the hidden levers of power versus an organically knit-together one, a society of « blood and soil. » The anti-Western virus has found a ready host in the Islamic world for a number of legitimate reasons, they argue, but in no way does that make it an exclusively Islamic matter. The Economist
They are not expressions of an outburst in the West of the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict in the Middle East. It is truly modern, aimed against American imperialism, capitalism, etc. In other words, they occupy the same space that the proletarian left had thirty years ago, that Action Directe had twenty years ago. . . . It partakes henceforth of the internal history of the West. (…) It can feel like a time-warp, a return to the European left of the 1970s and early 1980s. Europe’s radical-mosque practitioners can appear, mutatis mutandis, like a Muslim version of the hard-core intellectuals and laborers behind the aggrieved but proud Scottish National party in its salad days. (…) In the last three centuries, Europe has given birth and nourishment to most of mankind’s most radical causes. It shouldn’t be that surprising to imagine that Europe could nurture Islamic militancy on its own soil. (…) In Europe as elsewhere, Westernization is the key to the growth and virulence of hard-core Islamic radicalism. The most frightening, certainly the most effective, adherents of bin Ladenism are those who are culturally and intellectually most like us. The process of Westernization liberates a Muslim from the customary sanctions and loyalties that normally corralled the dark side of the human soul. (…) It would be a delightful irony if the more progressive political and religious debates among the Middle East’s Muslims saved their brethren in the intellectually backward lands of the European Union. Reuel Marc Gerecht
Wherever it occurs, Occidentalism is fed by a sense of humiliation, of defeat. It is a war against a particular idea of the West – a bourgeois society addicted to money, creature comforts, sex, animal lusts, self-interest, and security – which is neither new nor unique to Islamist extremism. This idea has historical roots that long precede any form of ‘U.S. imperialism’ . (…) Blood, soil, and the spirit of the Volk were what German romantics in the late 18th and early 19th centuries invoked against the universalist claims of the French Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and Napoleon’s invading armies. This notion of national soul was taken over by the Slavophiles in 19th-century Russia, who used it to attack the « Westernizers, » that is, Russian advocates of liberal reforms. It came up again and again, in the 1930s, when European fascists and National Socialists sought to smash « Americanism, » Anglo-Saxon liberalism, and « rootless cosmopolitanism » (meaning Jews). Aurel Kolnai, the great Hungarian scholar, wrote a book in the 1930s about fascist ideology in Austria and Germany. He called it War Against the West. Communism, too, especially under Stalin, although a bastard child of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, was the sworn enemy of Western liberalism and « rootless cosmopolitanism. » Many Islamic radicals borrowed their anti-Western concepts from Russia and Germany. The founders of the Ba’ath Party in Syria were keen readers of prewar German race theories. Jalal Al-e Ahmad, an influential Iranian intellectual in the 1960s, coined the phrase « Westoxification » to describe the poisonous influence of Western civilization on other cultures. He, too, was an admirer of German ideas on blood and soil. Clearly, the idea of the West as a malign force is not some Eastern or Middle Eastern idea, but has deep roots in European soil. Defining it in historical terms is not a simple matter. Occidentalism was part of the counter-Enlightenment, to be sure, but also of the reaction against industrialization. Some Marxists have been attracted to it, but so, of course, have their enemies on the far right. Occidentalism is a revolt against rationalism (the cold, mechanical West, the machine civilization) and secularism, but also against individualism. European colonialism provoked Occidentalism, and so does global capitalism today. But one can speak of Occidentalism only when the revolt against the West becomes a form of pure destruction, when the West is depicted as less than human, when rebellion means murder. Wherever it occurs, Occidentalism is fed by a sense of humiliation, of defeat. Isaiah Berlin once described the German revolt against Napoleon as « the original exemplar of the reaction of many a backward, exploited, or at any rate patronized society, which, resentful of the apparent inferiority of its status, reacted by turning to real or imaginary triumphs and glories in its past, or enviable attributes of its own national or cultural character. » The same thing might be said about Japan in the 1930s, after almost a century of feeling snubbed and patronized by the West, whose achievements it so fervently tried to emulate. It has been true of the Russians, who have often slipped into the role of inferior upstarts, stuck in the outer reaches of Asia and Europe. But nothing matches the sense of failure and humiliation that afflicts the Arab world, a once glorious civilization left behind in every respect by the post-Enlightenment West. Humiliation can easily turn into a cult of the pure and the authentic. Among the most resented attributes of the hated Occident are its claims to universalism. Christianity is a universalist faith, but so is the Enlightenment belief in reason. Napoleon was a universalist who believed in a common civil code for all his conquered subjects. The conviction that the United States represents universal values and has the God-given duty to spread democracy in the benighted world belongs to the same universalist tradition. Some of these values may indeed be universal. One would like to think that all people could benefit from democracy or the use of reason. The Code Napoleon brought many benefits. But when universal solutions are imposed by force, or when people feel threatened or humiliated or unable to compete with the powers that promote such solutions, that is when we see the dangerous retreat into dreams of purity. Not all dreams of local authenticity and cultural uniqueness are noxious, or even wrong. As Isaiah Berlin also pointed out, the crooked timber of humanity cannot be forcibly straightened along universal standards with impunity. The experiments on the human soul by Communism showed how bloody universalist dreams can be. And the poetic romanticism of 19th-century German idealists was often a welcome antidote to the dogmatic rationalism that came with the Enlightenment. It is when purity or authenticity, of faith or race, leads to purges of the supposedly inauthentic, of the allegedly impure, that mass murder begins. The fact that anti-Americanism, anti-Zionism, anti-Semitism, and a general hostility to the West often overlap is surely no coincidence. Even in Japan, where Jews play no part in national life, one of the participants at the 1942 Kyoto conference suggested that the war against the West was a war against the « poisonous materialist civilization » built on Jewish financial capitalist power. At the same time, European anti-Semites, not only in Nazi Germany, were blaming the Jews for Bolshevism. Both Bolshevism and capitalism are universalist systems in the sense that they do not recognize national, racial, or cultural borders. Since Jews are traditionally regarded by the defenders of purity as the congenital outsiders, the archetypal « rootless cosmopolitans, » it is no wonder that they are also seen as the main carriers of the universalist virus. To be sure, Jews had sound reasons to be attracted to such notions as equality before the law, secular politics, and internationalism, whether of a socialist or capitalist stamp. Exclusivity, whether racial, religious, or nationalist, is never good for minorities. Only in the Middle East have Jews brought their own form of exclusivity and nationalism. But Zionism came from the West. And so Israel, in the eyes of its enemies, is the colonial outpost of « Westoxification. » Its material success only added to the Arab sense of historic humiliation. The idea, however, that Jews are a people without a soul, mimics with no creative powers, is much older than the founding of the State of Israel. It was one of the most common anti-Semitic slurs employed by Richard Wagner. He was neither the first to do so, nor very original in this respect. Karl Marx, himself the grandson of a rabbi, called the Jews greedy parasites, whose souls were made of money. The same kind of thing was often said by 19th-century Europeans about the British. The great Prussian novelist Theodor Fontane, who rather admired England, nonetheless opined that « the cult of the Gold Calf is the disease of the English people. » He was convinced that English society would be destroyed by « this yellow fever of gold, this sellout of all souls to the devil of Mammon. » And much the same is said today about the Americans. Calculation — the accounting of money, interests, scientific evidence, and so on — is regarded as soulless. Authenticity lies in poetry, intuition, and blind faith. The Occidentalist view of the West is of a bourgeois society, addicted to creature comforts, animal lusts, self-interest, and security. It is by definition a society of cowards, who prize life above death. As a Taliban fighter once put it during the war in Afghanistan, the Americans would never win, because they love Pepsi-Cola, whereas the holy warriors love death. This was also the language of Spanish fascists during the civil war, and of Nazi ideologues, and Japanese kamikaze pilots. The hero is one who acts without calculating his interests. He jumps into action without regard for his own safety, ever ready to sacrifice himself for the cause. And the Occidentalist hero, whether he is a Nazi or an Islamist, is just as ready to destroy those who sully the purity of his race or creed. It is indeed his duty to do so. When the West is seen as the threat to authenticity, then it is the duty of all holy warriors to destroy anything to do with the « Zionist Crusaders, » whether it is a U.S. battleship, a British embassy, a Jewish cemetery, a chunk of lower Manhattan, or a disco in Bali. The symbolic value of these attacks is at least as important as the damage inflicted. What, then, is new about the Islamist holy war against the West? Perhaps it is the totality of its vision. Islamism, as an antidote to Westoxification, is an odd mixture of the universal and the pure: universal because all people can, and in the eyes of the believers should, become orthodox Muslims; pure because those who refuse the call are not simply lost souls but savages who must be removed from this earth. Hitler tried to exterminate the Jews, among others, but did not view the entire West with hostility. In fact, he wanted to forge an alliance with the British and other « Aryan » nations, and felt betrayed when they did not see things his way. Stalinists and Maoists murdered class enemies and were opposed to capitalism. But they never saw the Western world as less than human and thus to be physically eradicated. Japanese militarists went to war against Western empires but did not regard everything about Western civilization as barbarous. The Islamist contribution to the long history of Occidentalism is a religious vision of purity in which the idolatrous West simply has to be destroyed. The worship of false gods is the worst religious sin in Islam as well as in ancient Judaism. The West, as conceived by Islamists, worships the false gods of money, sex, and other animal lusts. In this barbarous world the thoughts and laws and desires of Man have replaced the kingdom of God. The word for this state of affairs is jahiliyya, which can mean idolatry, religious ignorance, or barbarism. Applied to the pre-Islamic Arabs, it means ignorance: People worshiped other gods because they did not know better. But the new jahiliyya, in the sense of barbarism, is everywhere, from Las Vegas and Wall Street to the palaces of Riyadh. To an Islamist, anything that is not pure, that does not belong to the kingdom of God, is by definition barbarous and must be destroyed. Just as the main enemies of Russian Slavophiles were Russian Westernizers, the most immediate targets of Islamists are the liberals, reformists, and secular rulers in their own societies. They are the savage stains that have to be cleansed with blood. But the source of the barbarism that has seduced Saudi princes and Algerian intellectuals as much as the whores and pimps of New York (and in a sense all infidels are whores and pimps) is the West. And that is why holy war has been declared against the West. Ian Buruma
Il est malheureux que le Moyen-Orient ait rencontré pour la première fois la modernité occidentale à travers les échos de la Révolution française. Progressistes, égalitaristes et opposés à l’Eglise, Robespierre et les jacobins étaient des héros à même d’inspirer les radicaux arabes. Les modèles ultérieurs — Italie mussolinienne, Allemagne nazie, Union soviétique — furent encore plus désastreux …Ce qui rend l’entreprise terroriste des islamistes aussi dangereuse, ce n’est pas tant la haine religieuse qu’ils puisent dans des textes anciens — souvent au prix de distorsions grossières —, mais la synthèse qu’ils font entre fanatisme religieux et idéologie moderne. Ian Buruma et Avishai Margalit
Tell that to the creator of the burkini, the Australian designer Aheda Zanetti, who coined the name for a line of swimwear she introduced to offer women who did not want to expose their bodies — for whatever reason — the freedom to enjoy water sports and the beach. The British chef and television star Nigella Lawson wore a burkini on an Australian beach in 2011, presumably of her own free will. Meanwhile, the world has watched Muslims proudly compete at the Olympics in Rio in body-covering sportswear …
Le multiculturalisme c’est justement accepter que l’autre soit culturellement différent, et l’on ne peut imposer une culture exclusive sans aliéner ceux qui s’en sentent exclus. Annika
Germany is facing its hijab problem, with a number of Islamist organizations suing federal and state authorities for “religious discrimination” because of bans imposed on the controversial headgear. In the United States, several Muslim women are suing airport-security firms for having violated their First Amendment rights by asking them to take off their hijab during routine searches of passengers. All these and other cases are based on the claim that the controversial headgear is an essential part of the Muslim faith and that attempts at banning it constitute an attack on Islam. That claim is totally false. The headgear in question has nothing to do with Islam as a religion. It is not sanctioned anywhere in the Koran, the fundamental text of Islam, or the hadith (traditions) attributed to the Prophet. This headgear was invented in the early 1970s by Mussa Sadr, an Iranian mullah who had won the leadership of the Lebanese Shi’ite community. In an interview in 1975 in Beirut, Sadr told this writer that the hijab he had invented was inspired by the headgear of Lebanese Catholic nuns, itself inspired by that of Christian women in classical Western paintings. (A casual visit to the Metropolitan Museum in New York, or the Louvres in Paris, would reveal the original of the neo-Islamist hijab in numerous paintings depicting Virgin Mary and other female figures from the Old and New Testament.) Sadr’s idea was that, by wearing the headgear, Shi’ite women would be clearly marked out, and thus spared sexual harassment, and rape, by Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian gunmen who at the time controlled southern Lebanon. Sadr’s neo-hijab made its first appearance in Iran in 1977 as a symbol of Islamist-Marxist opposition to the Shah’s regime. When the mullahs seized power in Tehran in 1979, the number of women wearing the hijab exploded into tens of thousands. In 1981, Abol-Hassan Bani-Sadr, the first president of the Islamic Republic, announced that “scientific research had shown that women’s hair emitted rays that drove men insane.” To protect the public, the new Islamist regime passed a law in 1982 making the hijab mandatory for females aged above six, regardless of religious faith. Violating the hijab code was made punishable by 100 lashes of the cane and six months imprisonment. By the mid 1980s, a form of hijab never seen in Islam before the 1970s had become standard gear for millions of women all over the world, including Europe and America. Some younger Muslim women, especially Western converts, were duped into believing that the neo-hijab was an essential part of the faith. (Katherine Bullock, a Canadian, so loved the idea of covering her hair that she converted to Islam while studying the hijab.) The garb is designed to promote gender apartheid. It covers the woman’s ears so that she does not hear things properly. Styled like a hood, it prevents the woman from having full vision of her surroundings. It also underlines the concept of woman as object, all wrapped up and marked out. Muslim women, like women in all societies, had covered their head with a variety of gears over the centuries. These had such names as lachak, chador, rusari, rubandeh, chaqchur, maqne’a and picheh, among others. All had tribal, ethnic and generally folkloric origins and were never associated with religion. (In Senegal, Muslim women wear a colorful Headgear against the sun, while working in the fields, but go topless.) Muslim women could easily check the fraudulent nature of the neo-Islamist hijab by leafing through their family albums. They will not find the picture of a single female ancestor of theirs who wore the cursed headgear now marketed as an absolute “must” of Islam. This fake Islamic hijab is nothing but a political prop, a weapon of visual terrorism. It is the symbol of a totalitarian ideology inspired more by Nazism and Communism than by Islam. It is as symbolic of Islam as the Mao uniform was of Chinese civilization. It is used as a means of exerting pressure on Muslim women who do not wear it because they do not share the sick ideology behind it. It is a sign of support for extremists who wish to impose their creed, first on Muslims, and then on the world through psychological pressure, violence, terror, and, ultimately, war. The tragedy is that many of those who wear it are not aware of its implications. They do so because they have been brainwashed into believing that a woman cannot be a “good Muslim” without covering her head with the Sadr-designed hijab. Even today, less than 1 percent of Muslim women wear the hijab that has bewitched some Western liberals as a symbol of multicultural diversity. The hijab debate in Europe and the United States comes at a time when the controversial headgear is seriously questioned in Iran, the only country to impose it by law. (…) The delicious irony of militant Islamists asking “Zionist-Crusader” courts in France, Germany and the United States to decide what is “Islamic” and what is not will not be missed. The judges and the juries who will be asked to decide the cases should know that they are dealing not with Islam, which is a religious faith, but with Islamism, which is a political doctrine. Amir Taheri
Attention: une coiffe peut en cacher une autre !
A l’heure où la température du débat sur le burkini va bientôt dépasser celle du soleil sur nos plages …
Et que de l’autre côté de l’Atlantique, l’on présente comme une grande avancée de l’émancipation féminine une musulmane qui pousse la pudeur jusqu’à porter le masque sous son masque d’escrimeuse …
Pendant que pour fustiger une France qui a dix fois plus de musulmans, le NYT lui-même monte au créneau …
Pendant que de l’autre côté de la Méditerranée l’on interdit tranquillement dans les piscines des grands hôtels …
Ou qu’entre la Turquie et la Malaisie ou l’Autriche ou l’Australie se développe le « tourisme halal » …
Peut-être faudrait-il aussi rappeler avec le politologue irano-américain Amir Taheri …
Qu’au-delà des radicaux qui récupèrent ou tirent plus ou moins les ficelles derrière …
Ou, contrairement au burkini légalement non-sanctionnable, des petits malins qui s’en servent pour commettre des délits …
Et bien après les pratiques ancestrales qu’elles sont censées reprendre et sans compter les fantasmes de nos orientalistes …
Le hijab comme la version plage de la burkha (c’est l’étymologie proprement oxymorique – voire « idiote » du propre aveu de sa créatrice libano-australienne – du terme burkini) sont, comme l’islamisme, toutes des inventions récentes inspirées et imitées d’inventions occidentales (la tunique, le voile et la guimpe de nos religieuses, notamment au Liban pour le premier, les tenues de plongée moderne pour le second) …
Par des musulmans immigrés en Occident ou occidentalisés redécouvrant et faisant redécouvrir à leurs contemporains, en réaction avec l’Occident qui les fascine et donc comme nouveau marqueur identitaire à la manière de nos « born again » et avec le zèle du nouveau converti (voire, pour les plus intellos, comme l’équivalent féminin de la vareuse, de la casquette ou du col du Grand Timonier aux 30 millions de morts qu’appréciaient tant nos jeunes gens engagés des années 60 ou du keffieh des terroristes palestiniens si tendance d’aujourd’hui) …
Une pratique de l’islam largement et souvent volontairement oubliée comme rétrograde par la génération de leurs parents à leur âge, Iran comme Algérie ou Afghanistan compris …
Et donc que l’on est et que l’on reste effectivement en plein multiculturalisme, invention aussi occidentale que récente !
FRANCE’S Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin has just appointed a committee to draft a law to ban the Islamist hijab (headgear) in state-owned establishments, including schools and hospitals. The decision has drawn fire from the French “church” of Islam, an organization created by Raffarin’s government last spring.
Germany is facing its hijab problem, with a number of Islamist organizations suing federal and state authorities for “religious discrimination” because of bans imposed on the controversial headgear.
In the United States, several Muslim women are suing airport-security firms for having violated their First Amendment rights by asking them to take off their hijab during routine searches of passengers.
All these and other cases are based on the claim that the controversial headgear is an essential part of the Muslim faith and that attempts at banning it constitute an attack on Islam.
That claim is totally false. The headgear in question has nothing to do with Islam as a religion. It is not sanctioned anywhere in the Koran, the fundamental text of Islam, or the hadith (traditions) attributed to the Prophet.
This headgear was invented in the early 1970s by Mussa Sadr, an Iranian mullah who had won the leadership of the Lebanese Shi’ite community.
In an interview in 1975 in Beirut, Sadr told this writer that the hijab he had invented was inspired by the headgear of Lebanese Catholic nuns, itself inspired by that of Christian women in classical Western paintings. (A casual visit to the Metropolitan Museum in New York, or the Louvres in Paris, would reveal the original of the neo-Islamist hijab in numerous paintings depicting Virgin Mary and other female figures from the Old and New Testament.)
Sadr’s idea was that, by wearing the headgear, Shi’ite women would be clearly marked out, and thus spared sexual harassment, and rape, by Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian gunmen who at the time controlled southern Lebanon.
Sadr’s neo-hijab made its first appearance in Iran in 1977 as a symbol of Islamist-Marxist opposition to the Shah’s regime. When the mullahs seized power in Tehran in 1979, the number of women wearing the hijab exploded into tens of thousands.
In 1981, Abol-Hassan Bani-Sadr, the first president of the Islamic Republic, announced that “scientific research had shown that women’s hair emitted rays that drove men insane.” To protect the public, the new Islamist regime passed a law in 1982 making the hijab mandatory for females aged above six, regardless of religious faith. Violating the hijab code was made punishable by 100 lashes of the cane and six months imprisonment.
By the mid 1980s, a form of hijab never seen in Islam before the 1970s had become standard gear for millions of women all over the world, including Europe and America.
Some younger Muslim women, especially Western converts, were duped into believing that the neo-hijab was an essential part of the faith. (Katherine Bullock, a Canadian, so loved the idea of covering her hair that she converted to Islam while studying the hijab.)
The garb is designed to promote gender apartheid. It covers the woman’s ears so that she does not hear things properly. Styled like a hood, it prevents the woman from having full vision of her surroundings. It also underlines the concept of woman as object, all wrapped up and marked out.
Muslim women, like women in all societies, had covered their head with a variety of gears over the centuries.
These had such names as lachak, chador, rusari, rubandeh, chaqchur, maqne’a and picheh, among others.
All had tribal, ethnic and generally folkloric origins and were never associated with religion. (In Senegal, Muslim women wear a colorful Headgear against the sun, while working in the fields, but go Topless.)
Muslim women could easily check the fraudulent nature of the neo-Islamist hijab by leafing through their family albums. They will not find the picture of a single female ancestor of theirs who wore the cursed headgear now marketed as an absolute “must” of Islam.
This fake Islamic hijab is nothing but a political prop, a weapon of visual terrorism. It is the symbol of a totalitarian ideology inspired more by Nazism and Communism than by Islam. It is as symbolic of Islam as the Mao uniform was of Chinese civilization.
It is used as a means of exerting pressure on Muslim women who do not wear it because they do not share the sick ideology behind it.
It is a sign of support for extremists who wish to impose their creed, first on Muslims, and then on the world through psychological pressure, violence, terror, and, ultimately, war.
The tragedy is that many of those who wear it are not aware of its implications. They do so because they have been brainwashed into believing that a woman cannot be a “good Muslim” without covering her head with the Sadr-designed hijab.
Even today, less than 1 percent of Muslim women wear the hijab that has bewitched some Western liberals as a symbol of multicultural diversity. The hijab debate in Europe and the United States comes at a time when the controversial headgear is seriously questioned in Iran, the only country to impose it by law.
Last year, the Islamist regime authorized a number of girl colleges in Tehran to allow students to discard the hijab while inside school buildings. The experiment was launched after a government study identified the hijab as the cause of “widespread depression and falling academic standards” and even suicide among teenage girls.
The Ministry of Education in Tehran has just announced that the experiment will be extended to other girls schools next month when the new academic year begins. Schools where the hijab was discarded have shown “real improvements” in academic standards reflected in a 30 percent rise in the number of students obtaining the highest grades.
Meanwhile, several woman members of the Iranian Islamic Majlis (parliament) are preparing a draft to raise the legal age for wearing the hijab from six to 12, thus sparing millions of children the trauma of having their heads covered.
Another sign that the Islamic Republic may be softening its position on hijab is a recent decision to allow the employees of state-owned companies outside Iran to discard the hijab. (The new rule has enabled hundreds of women, working for Iran-owned companies in Paris, London, and other European capitals, for example, to go to work without the cursed hijab.)
The delicious irony of militant Islamists asking “Zionist-Crusader” courts in France, Germany and the United States to decide what is “Islamic” and what is not will not be missed. The judges and the juries who will be asked to decide the cases should know that they are dealing not with Islam, which is a religious faith, but with Islamism, which is a political doctrine.
The hijab-wearing militants have a right to promote their political ideology. But they have no right to speak in the name of Islam.
Voir aussi:
August 18, 2016
After bans on full-face veils, head scarves in schools and rules about students’ skirt lengths, France’s perennial problem with Muslim women’s attire has taken its most farcical turn yet with a new controversy over the “burkini,” body-covering swimwear whose name is an amalgam of burqa and bikini. As of Thursday, five French mayors had banned the burkini, calling it, variously, a threat to public order, hygiene, water safety and morality, tantamount to a new weapon of war against the French republic. Thierry Migoule, an official with the city of Cannes, the first to ban the burkini, declared the swimwear “clothing that conveys an allegiance to the terrorist movements that are waging war against us.”
This hysteria threatens to further stigmatize and marginalize France’s Muslims at a time when the country is listing to the Islamophobic right in the wake of a series of horrific terrorist attacks. And with presidential elections scheduled for next spring and the right-wing National Front’s popularity on the rise, French officials and politicians have leapt to support the mayors.
Prime Minister Manuel Valls on Wednesday called the burkini a symptom of “the enslavement of women” that “is not compatible with the values of France” and said “the nation must defend itself.” France’s women’s rights minister, Laurence Rossignol, declared the burkini “the beach version of the burqa” and said “it has the same logic: Hide women’s bodies in order to better control them.”
Tell that to the creator of the burkini, the Australian designer Aheda Zanetti, who coined the name for a line of swimwear she introduced to offer women who did not want to expose their bodies — for whatever reason — the freedom to enjoy water sports and the beach. The British chef and television star Nigella Lawson wore a burkini on an Australian beach in 2011, presumably of her own free will. Meanwhile, the world has watched Muslims proudly compete at the Olympics in Rio in body-covering sportswear.
The fact that French parents are increasingly dressing their toddlers in remarkably similar suits to protect them from the sun, or that a wet suit also covers the head and body, adds to the hypocrisy of this debate. But at the heart of the dispute is something far darker: French politicians’ paternalistic pronouncements on the republic’s duty to save Muslim women from enslavement — by dictating to them what they can and can’t wear. The burkini rumpus is also a convenient distraction from the problems France’s leaders have not been able to solve: high unemployment, lackluster economic growth and a still very real terrorist threat.
Voir également:
La société Ahiida a été créé en Australie en 2004 par Aheda Zanetti. Elle est aujourd’hui implantée au Moyen Orient, au Canada, à Singapour, en Afrique du Sud et en Europe. D’autres marques se sont lancées sur ce créneau.
Aheda Zanetti, une entrepreneuse australienne d’origine libanaise, ne s’attendait certainement pas à ce que tous les regards se braquent un jour sur sa société, Ahiida, créée en 2004 à Sydney lorsqu’elle était à peine âgée de 40 ans. En pleine polémique sur le burkini en France -qui s’étend en Espagne-, des voix s’élèvent pour demander une loi afin d’interdire ce type de tenue de plage couvrant le corps et la tête des femmes. À l’origine, Aheda Zanetti affirme avoir eu l’idée de créer ce concept de mode pour aider les jeunes femmes musulmanes à faire du sport. Arrivée du Liban en Australie lorsqu’elle avait deux ans, la créatrice explique sur son site de vente en ligne: «J’ai remarqué que les jeunes filles et femmes qui suivent les préceptes de l’Islam, en adoptant notamment des tenues vestimentaires modestes, doivent souvent se résigner à ne pas participer aux activités sportives que l’Australie a à offrir.»
Il y a 12 ans, estimant que le marché avait du potentiel, elle a donc lancé son entreprise de mode spécialisée dans les maillots de bains et tenues de sports pour les musulmanes. Elle a, dans la foulée en 2006, déposé les marques Ahiida®, Burqini® et Burkini®. Le succès a été immédiat, selon l’entrepreneuse. «Nous avons vendu plus de 700.000 tenues de bain (depuis la création de la marque, NDLR) et nous écoulons également bien nos produits en Europe et en France», explique l’entrepreneuse au Figaro. Les ventes ont, selon elle, augmenté de 40% durant l’été 2016.
À l’international, Ahiida a désormais un pied sur chaque continent. L’entreprise est, d’après son site, implantée au Moyen Orient, au Canada, à Singapour, en Afrique du Sud et en Europe. «Nous sommes ravis du volume de commandes internationales, passées par des femmes en quête de tenues de bain et de sports pudiques», commente Aheda Zanetti. «Nos marchés les plus importants sont les États-Unis, le Canada et l’Europe.» Selon elle, les ventes de l’entreprise ne souffrent pas des interdictions prononcées dans certains pays, comme cela a été le cas au Maroc. «Nous pensons que les femmes européennes, notamment, ont adhéré à nos lignes Burkini Swimwear et Hijood Sportwear et à ce qu’elles représentent.» D’après Aheda Zanetti, 40% environ du marché est porté par des clientes non-musulmanes, pour certaines des femmes qui veulent se protéger du soleil avec ces tenues.
Boom de la consommation musulmane
Slim fit, grande taille, anti-coup de soleil, la gamme de vêtements proposée par Ahiida est vaste. Les prix oscillent de près de 80 euros (même si en ce moment certains produits sont en promotion à environ 60 euros) jusqu’à près de 130 euros, selon les coupes, par exemple. L’entreprise propose aussi des modèles pour enfants.
Malgré les polémiques récurrentes à travers le monde, et sans doute aussi un peu pour en profiter, les grandes marques commencent à s’intéresser à ce marché. Marks & Spencer a lancé une collection de burkinis au printemps dernier, une initiative que la ministre des Droits des femmes Laurence Rossignol avait alors qualifiée d’«irresponsable». De leur côté, les enseignes de mode peuvent-elles réellement passer à côté de la manne de consommation que représente la clientèle musulmane? Selon une étude de Thomson Reuters et de l’institut d’études newyorkais DinarStandard, les dépenses en habillement de la communauté musulmane dans le monde devraient passer de 230 milliards de dollars (204 mds€) en 2014 à 327 milliards (290 mds€) en 2020.
Voir encore:
Histoire du burkini, des origines aux polémiques
Après la polémique, retour sur l’histoire du burkini : son invention, son apparition en France, et le marché qu’il représente aujourd’hui.
Source AFP
Le burkini, cette tenue de bain islamique couvrante au centre d’une polémique pour avoir été interdite par quelques municipalités du littoral, est apparu sur le marché français il y a quelques années, mais son développement en France reste difficilement quantifiable.
D’où vient le burkini ?
Contraction de « bikini » et « burqa », le burkini est un costume de bain qui enveloppe l’ensemble du corps, des cheveux jusqu’aux chevilles. Son invention est attribuée à l’Australienne Aheda Zanetti, qui a lancé sa gamme de tenues pratiques pour le sport et « religieusement correctes » en 2003. En Australie, où la plage est une véritable « culture », que ce soit pour le surf ou la simple baignade, il y avait « un vide qu’il fallait combler », expliquait-elle à l’Agence France-Presse en 2007.
Quand est-il arrivé en France ?
Le blogueur musulman « orthodoxe » Fateh Kimouche, spécialiste de l’économie islamique, estime que le burkini a fait son apparition en France autour de 2008. Il est désormais accessible sur les sites de vente en ligne de « mode islamique », mais reste peu répandu sur les plages. Fateh Kimouche parle de phénomène « impossible à chiffrer », et très minoritaire parmi les musulmanes. « Il y en a très peu. Se baigner habillée, c’est beaucoup plus commun », assure-t-il.
Quel marché représente-t-il ?
La créatrice des burkinis australienne Aheda Zanetti dit avoir été surprise du succès de ses burkinis, qui se vendent, selon ses déclarations à la presse, partout dans le monde. Mark&Spencers, qui a lancé cette année deux modèles de burkini, assure avoir épuisé tous ses stocks.
« La France accuse un retard sur la mode islamique », estimait en mars Hélène Agesilas, cocréatrice de la marque Fringadine, qui vend des vêtements longs typiques de la « mode pudique ». Le choix de certaines grandes marques, comme Uniqlo ou Mark&Spencers, de développer des collections de vêtements islamiques, avait à l’époque fait polémique en France. Pourtant, « il y a une réelle demande des femmes », soulignait alors Hélène Agesilas, citant une étude selon laquelle le marché mondial de la mode islamique, évalué par un cabinet à 230 milliards de dollars en 2014, pourrait atteindre plus de 320 milliards en 2020.
Que dit le Coran ?
Dans le livre sacré des musulmans, explique Franck Fregosi, spécialiste de l’islam, « il y a des éléments relatifs aux règles de pudeur, mais pas de codification ». Si plusieurs versets du Coran mentionnent le voile, son port n’est pas explicitement exigé, et les avis divergent quant à l’interprétation des textes.
Que dit la loi française ?
Le burkini ne cache pas le visage. Comme le voile, il est donc autorisé en France dans les lieux publics. Seul le voile dissimulant le visage (niqab) est proscrit dans l’espace public depuis 2011. Les municipalités côtières qui ont récemment pris des arrêtés prohibant le burkini sur les plages ont mis en avant le risque de « troubles à l’ordre public » dans le contexte de menaces d’attentats.
Voir par ailleurs:
Ban the Burqa, Allow the Burkini
Daniel Pipes
Philadelphia Inquirer
August 23, 2016
France has been seized by a silly hysteria over the burkini, prompting me to wonder when Europeans will get serious about their Islamist challenge.
For starters, what is a burkini? The word (sometimes spelled burqini) combines the names of two opposite articles of female clothing: the burqa (an Islamic tent-like, full-body covering) and the bikini. Also known as a halal swimsuit, it modestly covers all but the face, hands and feet, consisting of a top and a bottom. It resembles a wetsuit with a head covering.
Aheda Zanetti of Ahiida Pty Ltd in Australia claims to have coined the portmanteau in 2003, calling it « smaller than a burka » while « two piece like a bikini. » The curious and sensational cross of two radically dissimilar articles of clothing along with the need it fit for active, pious Muslim women, the burkini (as Ahiida notes) was « the subject of an immediate rush of interest and demand. » Additionally, some women (like British cooking celebrity Nigella Lawson) wear it to avoid a tan, while pious Jews have adopted a variant garment.In 2009, a public swimming pool in Emerainville excluded a burkini-wearing woman, on the grounds that she violated pool rules by wearing street clothes. But burkinis only erupted into a national political issue on Aug. 12 when the mayor of Cannes, a resort town on the French Riviera, banned burkinis (without legally defining what exactly they are) on the Cannes beaches because it represents Islamism. A court then confirmed his ban and the prime minister of France, Manuel Valls, further endorsed it (on the grounds that the burkini is a religious expression that has no place on the beach) as did François Fillon, a likely candidate for president next year. Thus encouraged, other French municipalities followed suit, including the city of Nice, plus another nine towns in the Alpes-Maritimes Department as well as five towns in the Var Department.This development astonishes me, someone who has argued that the burqa (and the niqab, a similar article of clothing that leaves a slit for the eyes) needs to be banned from public places on security grounds. Those formless garments not only hide the face, permitting criminals and jihadis to hide themselves but they permit the wearer to hide, say, an assault rifle without anyone knowing. Men as well as women use burqas as accessories to criminal and jihadi purposes. Indeed, I have collected some 150 anecdotes of bank robberies, abductions, murders, and jihadi attacks since 2002; Philadelphia has become the Western capital of burqas and niqabs as criminal accessories, with at least 34 incidents in 9 years. In contrast, the burkini poses no danger to public security. Unlike the burqa or niqab, it leaves the face uncovered; relatively tight-fitting, it leaves no place to hide weapons. Men cannot wear it as a disguise. Further, while there are legitimate arguments about the hygiene of large garments in pools (prompting some hotels in Morocco to ban the garment), this is obviously not an issue on the coastal beaches of France.Accordingly, beach burkinis should be allowed without restriction. Cultural arguments, such as the one made by Valls, are specious and discriminatory. If a woman wishes to dress modestly on the beach, that is her business, and not the state’s. It’s also her prerogative to choose unflattering swimwear that waterlogs when she swims. The Islamist threat to the West is very real, from the Rushdie rules to sex gangs, taharrush, polygyny, honor killings, partial no-go zones, and beheadings. With the influx to Europe of millions of unvetted Muslim migrants, these problems will grow along with the number of Islamists. Nerves are on edge and the political scene is changing rapidly, as symbolized by half the vote for president of Austria recently going to a hardline anti-immigration politician.Issues concerning Islam are arguably Europe’s number-one concern, ahead even of the European Union and the financial crisis; they need to be dealt with by confronting real problems, not by focusing on symbolic irrelevancies such as burkinis, halal shops, and minarets. Burqas and niqabs must be banned (as the German government may soon do), freedom of speech about Islam and Muslims must be reconfirmed, Saudi and Iranian funding for religious purposes must be cut, and a single legal code must apply to all.So, my advice: focus on these real problems and let Muslims wear what they wish to the beach.
Voir de même:
Philadelphia and the Burqa Bandits David J. Rusin
PJ Media
June 27, 2012
Some scoff at the idea that face-covering Islamic veils endanger public safety in any Western nation, let alone the United States, but Philadelphians do not have the luxury of blissful ignorance. As recent events highlight, their city has become the American epicenter of robberies and murders carried out by criminals disguised as fundamentalist Muslim women. Several factors help explain Philadelphia’s place at the forefront of this trend. Will other U.S. cities be next?
The latest wave of burqa banditry to target Philadelphia began at a branch of More Bank in the East Oak Lane neighborhood two days before Christmas. Following similar heists on January 6, March 14, March 20, and April 4, the Philadelphia Police Department and FBI issued a wanted flier for a pair of black males in « Muslim-like clothing covering their heads and bodies. » Surveillance images indicate that the outfits include face veils (niqabs) and « burqa-like robes, » to quote one news item, leaving just the eyes visible. The same Wells Fargo branch struck on April 4 was then hit again on April 13, after which Muslim groups offered $20,000 for information leading to the perpetrators. No arrests or further bank robberies have been reported.The criminal applications of this attire also were on display during an April 18 homicide at a barbershop in Upper Darby, a township bordering West Philadelphia. Police believe that a love triangle inspired Sharif Wynn to enter with a gun and demand money from the barber, Michael Turner. Wynn insists that he merely meant to scare the man, but officers say that he shot Turner intentionally at point-blank range. The police superintendent has revealed that the attacker was « dressed in Muslim female garb, was covered from head to toe. The only thing that was showing was his eyes. » Authorities identified Wynn through interviews and his electronic trail.
Though assembling a complete history of niqab-aided crimes is hindered by the unknown consistency of media reporting, the seven incidents outlined above appear to be the most that the Philadelphia area has suffered in any four-month period to date. However, the city earned its reputation as a burqa banditry hot spot long before this recent spike.
The worst episode occurred on May 3, 2008, when three Muslim men — two dressed in female Islamic apparel and face veils — held up a Bank of America branch inside a supermarket in the Port Richmond section of Philadelphia. Police Sergeant Stephen Liczbinski gave chase, only to be shot to death by robber Howard Cain, whom officers killed shortly thereafter. Cain’s accomplices were caught, convicted of murder, and sentenced to life.
The Philadelphia area endured many additional cases between then and now. On November 16, 2009, a man in a face veil attempted to rob a Bank of America location in the suburb of Drexel Hill, but he left empty-handed after an employee played dumb; DNA from a niqab discarded near the scene later led to an arrest. Other unsuccessful perpetrators have included an armed man in a « long black dress … and a hijab covering his head and face » at a Sovereign Bank branch in the city’s Mount Airy neighborhood on February 1, 2011, and a niqab-wearing man at a branch of the same bank in Woodlynne, New Jersey, just across the river from Philadelphia, on June 13, 2011.
Women have gotten into the act as well. Police arrested Lashawnda Jones in December 2010 following robberies of four TD Bank branches within a 40-mile radius of Philadelphia during the prior two months. Though Jones had sported a niqab in the earlier heists, she used only a headscarf (hijab) for the final one, in which she lured tellers to the vault, brandished firearms, and stole $103,000. Soon after showing her face, she was behind bars.
A blog post by Middle East Forum president Daniel Pipes collects more examples from the area. Similar cases throughout the West — including many in Europe and a few others in North America — are listed too, but crimes of this nature occur with surprising frequency in the City of Brotherly Love. « What is it about Philadelphia, burqas, and robberies? » he wonders.
The demographics of Philadelphia, whose Muslim population is among the largest in the U.S., make it particularly fertile ground. While only a very small percentage of Philadelphians wear niqabs, they are sufficiently numerous to be seen with regularity. Desensitizing the public to this radical attire opens many doors.
« Whatever happened to the mask? » a local imam said in response to recent crimes, referring to ski masks often employed by robbers. Simply put, the increasing prevalence of face-cloaking Islamic garb is rendering traditional masks obsolete. Both provide anonymity, but a niqab grants the wearer access that a mask does not. Whereas spotting a masked individual entering a bank or business strongly indicates a robbery, someone in a niqab doing so may represent just another patch in Philadelphia’s multicultural quilt. Indecision about the wearer’s motives — indeed, most women in niqabs do not have criminal intent — buys crucial time for a heist to unfold on the perpetrator’s terms. The relatively common sight of niqabs, as opposed to masks, also enables a robber to travel to the crime scene in the same face-blocking apparel, further lowering the chances of being identified.
Moreover, they take advantage of political correctness, which cautions against scrutinizing people who don such clothes. A 2009 article in Philadelphia magazine captures how this atmosphere contributed to the robbery that left Sergeant Liczbinski dead: « To Western eyes, two of them became hijabi — Muslim women who cover themselves — by pulling on full-length black burqas. They became, in a sense, invisible. The bank sat inside a busy supermarket, where shoppers would surely notice the two monoliths moving among them; but just as surely, those shoppers would pass by with eyes cast down, or aside, or beyond. They may be drawn for a moment by the sheer otherness of the hijabi, but would dependably look away with a twinge of awkward guilt for having noticed. » The journalist explains, « So complete were the robbers’ identities — so perfect their invisibility — that the store’s security cameras recorded the manager as he talked to an emergency dispatcher, and walked out between two of the disguised figures, » utterly oblivious to them.
Islamists promote this cultural paralysis. Case in point: the victimhood narrative pushed in the wake of the latest Philadelphia robberies. One imam declared them « a hate crime against Muslims, » as they allegedly put Muslim women « in danger of being stereotyped, victimized, and ostracized. » City Councilman Curtis Jones Jr. doubled down on the persecution theme: « In many ways I’m reminded of the shooting of Trayvon Martin, stereotyped because of a garment called a hoodie. » Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) chimed in as well. « Islamophobes love to see this sort of thing, because it gives them fuel to express their hatred, » he claimed. « Now they can say, ‘See, this is why Muslim women shouldn’t dress the way they do.' »
Therefore, banks must run the gauntlet of « Islamophobia » charges if they pursue a seemingly obvious remedy: forbidding attire that hides customers’ faces from security cameras. Financial institutions nationwide have worked to deter more conventional robberies, reportedly with some success, by implementing dress codes that ban hats, hoods, and sunglasses, but Islamists have fought restrictions on headgear. When disputes arose several years ago over women being asked to remove headscarves or be served in alternate areas, CAIR characteristically demanded more sensitive policies and issued dubious calls for federal probes. Just as predictably, the banks and credit unions tended to cave and exempt hijabs. No doubt robbers note the deference toward Islam enforced by Islamists — a phenomenon exacerbated in cities like Philadelphia with copious Muslims and an aggressive CAIR chapter.
Many Philadelphia Muslims cover their hair, so banks encounter substantial ambient pressure not to adopt rules that could affect any religiously motivated garments. This author recently visited branches of six major banks in Philadelphia and found only one — a PNC Bank location — with a sign requesting that customers take off hats, hoods, and sunglasses. (Coincidence or not, there is no record of PNC Bank being struck by burqa bandits.) As if to dissuade others from launching similar policies, Amara Chaudhry of CAIR-Philadelphia already has bemoaned, in the words of an MSNBC.com article, how a Muslim « was not allowed to enter the branch [of one bank] before first removing her hijab, making her feel as naked as removing her blouse and bra. » CAIR officials have not specifically addressed niqabs in banks or complained of women being denied service because of them, but the year is still young.
How to proceed? The ultimate solution would entail proscribing face-covering apparel everywhere in public, as France and Belgium have done. Yet American banks enjoy plenty of leeway to ban it on their premises right now, assuming that they ignore CAIR’s specious threats and frequently bogus tales of Muslim victimhood. The First Amendment may protect niqabs on the streets, but banks are private entities and thus not bound by it. They also are not listed in Title II of the 1964 U.S. Civil Rights Act among « places of public accommodation » where religiously discriminating against clients is illegal — not that faith-neutral dress codes are « discriminatory » anyway, regardless of Islamists’ pleas. In addition, though numerous states, including Pennsylvania, have civil rights laws that are more expansive than the federal version, the various requirements to accommodate religious practices of customers or employees are not absolute and typically must be balanced against the hardships imposed on others.
One can debate whether banks should tolerate hijabs, which often obscure less of the face than hoodies or caps, but it is inconceivable that banks are somehow obligated to welcome niqabs that purposefully hide the face and burden others by undermining safety in a venue where security is paramount. If ski masks are not permitted, niqabs should not be either. Drawing the line with clear policies that prohibit all criminal-friendly garments on bank property would be a significant step in the appropriate direction — and almost certainly a legal one.
Legend has it that when the infamous Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks, he replied, « Because that’s where the money is. » If Philadelphia’s niqab-clad outlaws were asked why they disguise themselves as Muslim women, they might offer an equally straightforward answer: because it works. So long as religious garb resembling the dress of bandits proliferates and sensitivity toward it trumps security, the stage is set for actual bandits to adopt such clothing for their nefarious ends, just as terrorists regularly don burqas and niqabs in Muslim-majority nations. (Fewer reports of veiled robbers emerge from the Islamic world, but one suspects that these crimes would be less likely to reach Western media than high-profile terrorist attacks.)
Situated at the leading edge of this problem in the U.S., Philadelphians have a special responsibility to find effective solutions. Other American cities must stay alert as well, because the ingredients that make Philadelphia a prime target exist elsewhere; Detroit comes to mind. If Philadelphia manages to curtail the trend, its approach can be a template for comparable cities to follow. But if it fails, criminals in the country’s niqab-heavy metropolitan areas may soon thank the trailblazing burqa bandits of Philadelphia for having provided a successful model of their own.
David J. Rusin is a research fellow at Islamist Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum.
Voir encore:
JO-2016/Escrime: l’Américaine Ibtihaj Muhammad, sabre au clair face aux préjugés
Rio de Janeiro – Sous son masque, l’escrimeuse Ibtihaj Muhammad couvre sa tête d’un foulard et combat les préjugés qui ont jalonné son parcours jusqu’à Rio où elle deviendra la première sélectionnée olympique américaine à porter un hijab.
Avant même le début des tournois individuel et par équipes de sabre féminin des JO-2016, Muhammad a déjà l’impression d’avoir, un peu, gagné.
Elle a été citée en exemple par le président des Etats-Unis Barack Obama. Elle fait partie des 100 personnalités les plus influentes de la planète en 2016 pour le magazine Time. Et elle ne compte plus ses passages à la télévision, où elle a pu raconter son parcours et tenter de changer la perception de sa religion, l’Islam.
« Le climat politique actuel n’est pas facile, les musulmans sont scrutés à la loupe et j’espère que les gens comprennent à travers moi ce que veut dire être musulmane« , explique-t-elle.
Depuis les attentats du 11 septembre 2001, les Américains ont une perception négative des musulmans, amplifiée par les attentats jihadistes qui ont frappé l’Europe depuis 2015.
Le candidat républicain pour la présidentielle Donald Trump ne rate jamais l’occasion de jeter de l’huile sur le feu: il a notamment proposé durant sa campagne de bannir l’entrée des Etats-Unis aux musulmans du monde entier.
– L’escrime choisi par sa mère –
Muhammad se sent agressée par les discours de Trump et rappelle à l’envi que « les Musulmanes, en particulier aux Etats-Unis, sont de couleurs différentes, proviennent de milieux variés et participent activement au fonctionnement de la société« .
Durant son enfance, dans la lointaine banlieue de New York, cette fille d’un ancien policier de la brigade antidrogue et d’une éducatrice spécialisée a souvent été stigmatisée, pour la couleur de sa peau, pour sa religion.
Et comme beaucoup, à 13 ans, elle a trouvé refuge dans le sport, pas n’importe lequel, l’escrime, le seul qui a trouvé grâce aux yeux de sa mère parce que sa fille pouvait porter son hijab.
« Même là, on m’a fait comprendre que je n’appartenais pas à ce sport, car j’étais afro-américaine, car j’étais musulmane, mais je n’ai pas voulu que ces préjugés se mettent en travers de ma route« , explique la diplômée en relations internationales de la prestigieuse université de Duke.
Très vite, elle « se sent tout simplement bien » sur la piste d’escrime, comme « si être derrière ce masque me permettait enfin d’être moi« .
– Championne du monde par équipes –
Les résultats ne tardent pas à venir, d’abord dans le championnat universitaire, qu’elle a remporté à trois reprises, puis avec l’équipe des Etats-Unis, lors des Mondiaux 2014, d’où elle a ramené cinq médailles, dont une en or.
Privée des JO-2012 à cause d’une blessure au poignet droit, Muhammad aborde le rendez-vous de Rio à la 12e place du classement mondial.
Mais pour décrocher son visa olympique, elle a dû faire face à la peur, non pas sur les pistes, mais de ses concitoyens.
« Quand j’entendais les informations parler des Musulmans sortis d’avions à la demande d’autres passagers, j’étais en plein dans les qualifications olympiques, j’étais vraiment inquiète, je me disais +Qu’est-ce qui se passe si on m’empêche de monter dans l’avion’+« , raconte-t-elle.
A 30 ans, Muhammad sait qu’elle a encore beaucoup à faire pour combattre les préjugés: en avril, à Time Square, place emblématique de New York, un inconnu l’a suivie et lui a demandé si elle était une « terroriste » venue faire « exploser quelque chose« .
« Est ce que je peux changer l’image qu’ont les Américains de ma religion et influencer le débat’ Je ne sais pas, je veux juste essayer d’être performante à Rio« , lâche-t-elle, presque désarmée.
Voir par ailleurs:
En Turquie, les hôtels répondant aux règles islamiques voient leur fréquentation croître de façon exponentielle. Cet engouement va de pair avec l’enrichissement de classes sociales amatrices d’un tourisme de loisir mais aussi culturel
Un chiffre, et non des moindres : 200 % ! Ces cinq dernières années, les hôtels dits « halal » ont vu leur clientèle multipliée par trois.
Le premier hôtel à avoir offert un environnement conforme aux codes de la morale islamique, Caprice Thermal Palace, a ouvert ses portes à Didim, près de la mer Egée. Cette petite bourgade tranquille de 3 000 habitants est à présent envahie par les complexes hôteliers. Depuis la naissance de Caprice Thermal Palace, ce type d’hôtels a fleuri un peu partout en Turquie devenue, avec la Malaisie et l’Indonésie, pays leader du tourisme de loisirs halal.
En quoi consistent les hôtels islamic style comme les nomment les Anglo-Saxons ? Ce sont souvent d’immenses complexes hôteliers, à l’image du village de vacances Sah Inn Paradise, à Antalya, dans l’une des régions les plus prisées pour le tourisme balnéaire : cet hôtel luxueux en bord de mer, entouré par un bois et une plage privée, offre des espaces séparés pour les femmes et les hommes, de la viande halal uniquement, interdit l’alcool et facilite la pratique religieuse de ses clients. Pour le mois de ramadan, l’hôtel s’adapte, par exemple, aux jeûneurs en laissant les immenses piscines ouvertes toute la nuit jusqu’à l’heure du sahur.
Revivifier le sentiment d’appartenance à la oumma ?
En Turquie, cet engouement pour les hôtels halal est l’expression de l’ascension de plus en plus visible d’une classe moyenne pieuse.
Le succès est également encouragé par l’attraction qu’exerce ce pays sur les touristes musulmans du monde entier. En témoigne la naissance de sites spécialisés sur le tourisme halal comme Crescent Tour ou Islamic Travel, où la Turquie est plébiscitée comme destination de rêve pour les vacances.
Pour autant, le tourisme halal n’est pas uniquement un tourisme de loisirs, il est aussi culturel. Ainsi, Islamic Travel propose des circuits pour « explorer la oumma », c’est-à-dire se rendre dans des pays marqués par une tradition islamique, aller à la rencontre des gens, et faire naître au sein des musulmans le sentiment d’appartenir à une communauté qui transcende les frontières. Les tours sont organisés dans des villes portant la trace d’une appartenance à l’islam, mais aussi en Chine, en Grèce ou en Espagne où la présence musulmane dura 800 ans.
Les visites sont rythmées et organisées en fonction des temps forts religieux, comme les cinq prières quotidiennes, la prière du vendredi ou le ramadan.
A Istanbul, les visites des plus célèbres lieux de culte sont ainsi organisées au moment des prières pour faire du tourisme… tout en pratiquant sa religion.
Voir encore:
Austrian town produces guide for Arab tourists: ‘Don’t haggle, and don’t eat on the floor’
Austrian holiday town has produced a special guide for Middle Eastern visitors including advice to avoid haggling and not eat on the floor in hotel rooms
Austria‘s alpine towns of Zell am See and Kaprun have been criticised for producing an eight-page guide for Middle Eastern tourists, featuring « cultural advice » on how to behave.
The booklet, in English and Arabic, features tips such as the idea that Austrian shopkeepers do not expect haggling over prices, and that eating on the floor in hotel rooms is a « no-no ». Drivers are informed that wearing seatbelts is compulsory, and they will be given guidance on understanding road signs, to reduce their risks while driving.
Visitors are also advised not to wear burkas, and to « adopt the Austrian mentality ».
The guide states: « Austrian women are free to choose their own dress style, and this is visible in their choice of modern, colourful clothes. Here the colour black symbolises mourning, and is rarely worn in daily life.
« In our culture, we are accustomed to look into the smiling face of the person opposite us in order to gain a first impression and establish mutual trust. It would be a great pleasure for us if you could join us in celebrating the uniquely joyful Austrian mentality and show us your colourful scarves and dresses and, in this way, show us your smile. »
It explains that there are many restaurants where Halal meat is served, and with Arabic-speaking staff, but that Austrians also pride themselves on their food.
Marina Latini, from the Zell am See tourist board, told The Telegraph that the booklet was produced with all tourists in mind – not just Middle Eastern ones.
« It’s been written for everyone, » she said. « The information is important for all our visitors. »
Alpine destinations are exceedingly popular in the summer with Middle Eastern travellers, who look to escape the extreme heat of their home countries.
Last week the Al Tayyar Travel Group announced that it had signed a « landmark » agreement with Jaadcar, a luxury car rental company, which offers « services tourists from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia visiting Zell am See, a very popular destination in Austria ».
Leo Bauernberger, executive director of the Salzburger Land Tourism company, told the Austria Press Agency that « Arabs are here in the summer for more than 470,000 nights, making them the second largest visitor group after Germans ».
But Peter Padourek, mayor of Zell am See, said that tourists wearing the burka was a cause of friction in the area.
« Here the Arabs have the problem that their strong presence in the region is very clearly visible because of the burka. That causes irritation among locals and among visitors from other countries, » he told The Daily Mail.
« The guests coming from other countries carry away with them a different image of our region. »
But other hotel operators have criticised the leaflets, saying that it unfairly stigmatised Arab visitors – who spend an average of £195 per person per day; more than double the daily amount dispensed with by European tourists.
Voir enfin:
Gold Coast: Mayor orders more Muslim-friendly city
Shannon Willoughby
Gold Coast.com.aus
SURFERS Paradise and Broadbeach will convert to Islam and feature more prayer rooms, halal restaurants and extended trading hours, says Mayor Tom Tate.
On his return from the Middle East, Cr Tate will meet with traders, restaurant owners, hotels and marketing bodies to look at how both tourism areas can better cater for high-yield Middle Eastern tourists.
He also wants to extend trading hours during Ramadan to cater for the later rising and dining tourists as one of the major criticisms was the early closing hours of many Gold Coast restaurants.
About 20,000 Gulf tourists visit the region each year, staying on average for about a month with combined spending of between $53 million and $75 million.
Numbers have been down in recent years with the Islamic festival Ramadan falling in the middle of school holiday period.
Holidaymakers travel either side of Ramadan.
“I want to double the number of students and double tourism and I think in order to do that, we bring the traders and retailers together to talk about their culture and what we can be doing to grow tourism,” Cr Tate said from Abu Dhabi.
“If we are going to be a truly global destination, then we need to think about these things.”
Surfers Paradise Alliance chairwoman Laura Younger said she would welcome discussions if it meant adding value for businesses in the precinct.
“If the traders see there is an opportunity, there is no doubt they would adapt to that opportunity,’ she said.
“Surfers is a very diverse multicultural precinct and traders are always looking for new opportunities.”
Islamic Society of Gold Coast secretary Hussain Baba urged the Gold Coast to be better equipped.
“The Muslim tourist loves to shop and it would be great to have places to pray in the shopping areas. That way they don’t have to go to the Mosque or go back to the hotel they can continue shopping.
“They also like to shop until late, so extended trading hours would be good. This is not just for the middle eastern tourists, but the Chinese Muslim groups and the Indonesians and Malaysians,” he said.
The owner of the Tandoori Place at Surfers Paradise, Surjit Singh Dhillon, said he would welcome discussions about extended trading.
“Already we have big groups from the Middle East which come in at 10pm and we open to 11pm,” he said.
“We would be more than happy to talk about further extending these hours. People now realise the market is there and we stock halal meat to (cater for) any Muslim.”
Cr Tate this week visited the Director General of the Department of Tourism and Commercial Marketing, Helal Al Marri, as part of his 10-day trade mission in the UAE.
Cr Tate said about 500 students from the Middle East visited the Gold Coast each year.
He said as part of ongoing relationships with the Middle East, he would bring a delegation to include the vice-chancellors from both Bond and Griffith universities to the region next year to form “working groups” to build on the double figure target.
Source: http://www.goldcoast.com.au/
Voir par ailleurs:
The Rise of “Islamic Chic” and Hijab Haute Couture
As Islamic fashion is becoming a global industry, plenty is happening on the couture front.
Karin Wasteson
The Observer
July 16, 2015
Karin Wasteson is a Swedish journalist covering fashion and finance. In 2009, she graduated from Queen Mary, University of London with a BSc in Econom
The characteristic scent of Arabic perfumed oils linger around the entrance of Selfridges, a high-end Central London department store, where abaya-clad women from the Arabian Peninsula can often be seen searching for their latest luxury item in the Louis Vuitton and Gucci boutiques. Fashion-interested and with money to spend, Gulf Arabs also flock to the iconic British shopping mecca Harrods, which was bought by the Qatari royal family in 2010 from Egyptian businessman Mohamed al-Fayed.
Wealthy Middle Eastern consumers have long enjoyed shopping in European fashion capitals, but now Muslim fashion designers are increasingly claiming their own space in the world’s fashion scene.
“Islamic chic” is a fast-growing market. The State of the Global Islamic Economy 2014-2015 report shows that Muslim consumers spent around $266 billion on clothing globally in 2013. And Thomson Reuters, which co-commissioned the study, estimates that figure will increase to about $484 billion by 2019.
Aab in East London
Aab, one of the world’s leading Islamic clothing retailers, opened its first boutique in East London this spring. Complementing its online offering, the physical store opened its doors to a crowd of 2,000 people eagerly awaiting its arrival.
The opening of Aab’s London shop is the first in an international long-term growth strategy that includes expanding to key international fashion and financial hubs in the Middle East, Malaysia and Indonesia over the next three years. “With the success of our first flagship boutique in London, we plan to open more in the UK and overseas due to the demand for our brand,” says Nazmin Alim, creative director of Aab.
“[With] the population of young Muslims rising, they have [significant] spending power as this is the generation that are now independent, working and exposed to media in more ways than one,” Alim adds.
As Islamic fashion is becoming a global industry, plenty is also happening on the couture front. The Islamic Fashion Festival, which started in 2006 in Kuala Lumpur, has been held 17 times to date in cities that include New York, London, Jakarta, Dubai and Singapore. Names like Sydney-based Frida Deguise, Rabia Z and young trend-aware Muslim fashion lovers, dubbed “hijabistas,” are leading a modest fashion revolution with their own brands, garnering hundreds of thousands of followers on social media in the process.
“The new younger generation want to be modern without compromising on their halal lifestyle,” says Salma Chaudhry of The Halal Cosmetics Company, which launched in 2013. “We’re in a society where any and all information is at our fingertips, ladies are chatting and sharing information on social media particularly about topics like beauty and fashion all the time.”
Chaudhry, who will be speaking about her cosmetics range in Saudi Arabia, France and Azerbaijan this year, predicts both the Islamic fashion and beauty industries are on the cusp of something big.
“Muslims of this generation are embracing their identity, and businesses that do not cater to this huge consumer sector will be left behind. I think that halal cosmetics will be as readily available as any other types of beauty products pretty soon. The industry is still in its infancy and the future is about to boom,” she says.
QUIRKY TURBAN HAUTE COUTURE
Iman Aldebe is a Stockholm-based fashion designer who focuses on quirky turban interpretations as an alternative way of wearing the hijab. Raised in a religious Muslim family from Jordan—“I hated my mother’s baggy and shapeless clothes,” she says—Aldebe studied design at high school and started creating dresses for friends’ graduations and weddings at an early age.
DESIGNER IMAN ALDEBE. PHOTO: BINNIAM ESKENDER
Each one of her trendy pieces is hand-made. Her collections are sold in exclusive galleries in Sweden, Paris and Dubai. “I’m always at the forefront because I’ve worked with Muslim fashion during a large part of my upbringing. It used to be men designing women’s clothes but now women have taken over,” she says.
The daughter of a religious leader and politician in Sweden, Aldebe’s groundbreaking quest to modernize Muslim fashion provoked the conservative views of Islamist and right-wing extremists alike. “If you are paving the way for something new, you can count with a certain resistance,” she says.
When one of Aldebe’s female friends attended Polishögskolan (Police College) in Sweden and needed a suitable hijab, Aldebe was commissioned to create the hijab that now forms part of the official Swedish police uniform. The task, complicated by security considerations, resulted in is a sleek, stylish, yet highly functional hijab that seamlessly blends with the required headgear. So far, just one Swedish police officer wears it for work. But Aldebe will soon be creating an official military hijab for the Swedish army (in camouflage), as well as another for women working in pharmacies and hospitals.
CHALLENGING NORMS
Aldebe is currently working on her first Islamic clothing line for both men and women for the Arabian Peninsula, particularly Riyadh and Dubai. Combining Swedish style with long, traditional garments, her norm-breaking collection is all-white for both sexes, challenging the Gulf norm that women should wear black and men white. The white collection aims to strengthen women’s role in society and promote equality. “Sometimes, clothes have a larger impact than politics,” she says.
Making art out of fashion, Aldebe says, has always been a tool for her to try to eliminate prejudices and open up the eyes of the fashion world to other cultures and religious influences. “I want to show the emergence of strong, individualistic, intelligent, independent and driven women with a different background from the Swedish one, and that are Muslim,” she explains. “I’ve wanted to eradicate the image of the oppressed Muslim woman that voluntarily isolates herself from society to live on welfare and produce babies.”
DESIGNER: Iman Aldebe. Photo: Hector Melo
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is the second largest consumer of Muslim clothing in the world, spending $22.5 billion in 2013. In first place is Turkey, with $39.3 billion spent on the merchandise in the same year. “When I was asked to change UAE’s traditional outfits, I discovered that the men’s traditional garments have remained the same for centuries. But colored female abayas are now slowly being accepted,” Aldebe says.
“Since I’m not confined to a certain norm, it’s been easier for me to think outside of the box and to create something modern, particularly after the Arab Spring,” she continues. But she has stuck with the wealthy region’s penchant for silk, pearls and Swarovski crystals, which features heavily in her newest designs.
Anas Sillwood, manager of Jordan-based Islamic clothing company Shukr, points out that most women, however, don’t wear haute couture. “The majority of Muslim women wouldn’t wear turbans. But Muslim women are looking for nice evening gowns to wear to special occasions,” he says. “At Shukr, we’re trying to meet some really pressing needs in the Muslim community.”
“Shukr’s sales are highest in the summer months because Muslims can’t find mainstream alternatives. In the winter months, sales slow down because the clothes become more modest in mainstream stores,” says Sillwood.
“Ideally, Muslims have a very balanced approach towards clothing—they want to look presentable and beautiful, but they don’t become obsessed with it, or with the latest fashion,” he adds.
BEYOND “MUSLIM COOL”
The term “Muslim Cool” relating to fashion was coined by ethnologist Leila Karin Österlind in her doctoral thesis on Muslim fashion that has the working title, “Next Year in Dubai Incha Allah. Islamic Fashion and Muslim Cool.” The concept works in two ways: It includes how trendy hijabistas like Instagram star Mariam Moufid and fashion blogger Dina Tokio dress, as well as the way in which Muslim fashion affect mainstream Western brands—for example, H&M’s offering of harem trousers and Moroccan-style kaftans in its collections.
A design by Jordan fashion house Shukr. Photo supplied
Österlind points to how this has also infiltrated wider male fashion: The now-infamous hipster beard, the height of its popularity occurring a few years ago and much-spotted in capital cities worldwide, was originally an expression of Muslim Cool. According to Österlind, there are mainly two trends that are taking over the global Muslim fashion scene: tight outfits combined with wraps or turbans and Khaleeji-influenced (Gulf style) abayas, and large, built-up hijabs. “Being a Muslim today is increasingly connected to consumption,” Österlind told Swedish newspaper DN in April.
While valid as a description of previous trends, both “Muslim Cool” and “Mipsterz” are now dated terms according to Aldebe—as is “Muslim fashion” itself. She says that Islamic-inspired fashions are becoming more and more mainstream.
“The pressure for fashion profiles and celebrities to always be the first to deliver inspiring looks has contributed to an increased acceptance of the unknown. Trends shift so quickly today, so people are happy to get inspired from other cultures and religions,” she says.
Sillwood believes Islamic international fashion companies will emerge to compete in the fashion industry. He says that Turkish companies, while much bigger than Western Islamic clothing companies, are heavily influenced by Turkish fashion, which is not appreciated everywhere, and they are unlikely to become major international brands.
“Overall, the Islamic fashion industry will become more and more similar to the mainstream fashion industry—in terms of presentation and style of clothing. Because of the globalization of Western mono-culture, it is probably Western Islamic clothing companies that have the greatest chance of becoming major international fashion companies,” he says.
*[This article was originally published by Fair Observer’s content partner, Glammonitor.]
Publié par jcdurbant 
