German Chancellor Angela Merkel did not adhere to the strict Saudi Arabian dress code for women during talks with King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud on Sunday.
Saudi law generally requires women to wear a full-length robe and cover for their hair in public places, but Ms Merkel became the latest in a succession of female Western politicians to leave her hair uncovered on her visit to the Western city, Jeddah.
Theresa May declined to wear the traditional abaya costume on her visit to the country earlier this month, while Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama have also previously refused the protocol.
Last week, the German parliament voted for a draft law banning women working in some public sector roles from wearing burqas.
Ms Merkel has said that the full-face veil “should be banned, wherever it is legally possible.”
The German Chancellor said she raised human rights concerns with Saudi leaders, such as the country’s system of capital punishment and its role in the Yemeni Civil War, which has displaced at least 2 million people, according to the United Nations.
As well as conferences with the country’s rulers, Ms Merkel also met with Saudi businesswomen.
“I have the impression that the country is in a phase of change and that a lot more is possible now than some years ago, but it’s still a long way away from having achieved what we would understand as equality,” she said.
Comment:
Angela Merkel loses no opportunity, to show her disdain for Islam and disrespecting Islam and the Muslims in the Hijaz and the rest of the world. In that she shares the arrogance of the British Prime Minister Theresa May and the French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen who also lost no opportunity to insult us in our own lands.
One supposes Merkel, May and less subtly Marine Le Pen, were trying to make the point that the western women is ‘liberated’ and they could even become leaders of nations.
And yet both these independent and powerful women, May and less successfully Merkel, were eager to grasp the hand of a sexist, bigoted capitalist leader who openly denigrated women, who talked about treating women in the most foul and disgusting ways. Perhaps they fawned after him as he shares their assured sense of the superiority of the western ‘values’ and hatred for Islam.
When a leader of nation visits another, courtesy and respect for the host nation is expected. With no sense of irony nor shame, Merkel imposes her western values in our Muslim lands, whilst at the same time she is advocating Muslim women how dress and not to dress in her Germany. Not only is this hypocritical, it also denigrates her Muslim citizens and visitors to her own land. (See article from Independent.co.uk: ‘We are not burqa’: German government sets out 10-point plan to define national identity)
This is not actually about women. It is more fundamental than that. It goes to the root of one’s viewpoint about life.
It appears, neither Merkel, May nor Marine Le Pen has actually considered Islam from an objective, rational and intellectual view. Tragically for some, they cannot extricate themselves from the narrow minded arrogance and irrational hatred, carried over from the crusades. And so it gives rise to their colonial mentality and their response is to insult rather than examine.
Allah (swt) says in the noble Qur’an:
لَقَدْ جِئْنَاكُم بِالْحَقِّ وَلَٰكِنَّ أَكْثَرَكُمْ لِلْحَقِّ كَارِهُونَ
“Verily We have brought the Truth to you: but most of you have a hatred for Truth.”
(43:78)
Muhammad Hamzah
I lived in Saudia before until recently, and I can tell you from my experiences that this headscarf rule is not enforced very evenly or consistently. There are a lot of women, mainly non-Muslim expatriates, going around in the shopping malls with hair uncovered, and they only put on headscarf when the Mutawwa, the so-called Sharia police, come with their canes, then they take it off again after Mutawwa is gone, and no one cares except the Mutawwa, not even the kings and princes care about their own . There are also princesses who even dress in short skirts and glamorous hairstyles when they go abroad, such as the wife of prince Alwaleed. Perhaps most shocking thing from your point of view is that most of the expatriates (especially the ones from western countries) are living in private compounds, insular gated communities (a walled village within the city) run by a large company where the laws of the outside don’t apply and the Mutawwa never come in. So here are women there walking around in miniskirts and hotpants, dressed exactly like in the west, and even driving cars within the compound walls. And the authorities do nothing about it because those insulated gated villages within the city are officially “private” places (equivalent to someone’s house) which are not considered as part of the public sphere. And last but not least, they recently opened a mixed gender American-style co-ed university near Jeddah (therefore not too far from Mecca) where women can officially dress however they like, and it seems this college is complete with nightclub-like parties too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hl7MeGCxYos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q63KKnp4jHs
So as you can see, Saudia is a very contradictory society. In sharp contrast, Iran is very strict about enforcing head-to-toe hijab on 100% of all women without exception, including the women of the ruling elites and visiting foreign presidents.