Headscarves OK in Sweden

Directly quoting:

Headscarf Issue Alive In Sweden
December 15th, 2008 by Fred Stopsky of "The Impudent Observer"

The world is suffering from a severe economic crisis, terrorism has devastated people of Mumbai, Israel and Palestinians still fight one another, but for some reason, the issue of what a girl wears on the top of her head is a dominant issue for some people. During the 1960s, men and women went crazy over a boy who wore his hair long, and now in the first decade of the 21st century, a major concern for some is the headscarf. A Muslim student in a Swedish school was told she could not wear her headscarf because somehow it interfered with her work in school. The student was in a hotel and catering course that entails a period of time working in a hotel. But, the hotel refused to accept the girl unless she removed her headscarf.

The young lady refused to abandon her headscarf and sued the school district. The Swedish Ombundsman against Discrimination(DO) awarded the young lady damages of $7,400 and said she had a right to wear the headscarf. The hotel apologized and the ban on wearing a headscarf has been lifted. Now, if we could resolve other religious issues in such an easy manner….

See also this article in "The Local: Sweden's News in English".

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If you're interested in head coverings in Sweden, you might also find this gender-differences story interesting, from the same news source: "Boys blocked from bearing 'girls-only' Lucia crown."

Various Recent News and Notes

Dress Somali

I noticed that this blog is sometimes hit by search engines looking for "Somali fashion" or something similar. Coming across this sweet blog entry called "How to dress like a Somali..." by Palmers on Mission, who help immigrants and refugees from difficult places. She posted pictures. :)

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Dress Muslim Male

OK, I admit it. I'm tired of hearing the tired old complaint that says that women have to dress modestly and men don't. Usually said about those very conservative Muslim women and men. Well, men DO have to dress modestly too. And they do. A recent article in Business 24-7.ae, called "Tailors see brisk sale of custom-made kanduras," illustrates this. The caption for the photo above reads: Demand for the traditional Arab male dress, kanduras, have remained high in the UAE. (AFP)

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Wear a Hat

Janel Messenger of "Pearls" at blogspot tried having a "Hat Fair", in which women who love hats are to post about it and link to her blog. One cute response was: "Sensibility Hat Fair, by "the Primrose Way". One thing she wrote: "Yes indeedy, those wonderful accessories that have been in decline since the beehive hairdo buzzed by. It's a shame that after centuries of never being seen out of doors without a chapeau, that they disappeared so quickly." I also found an interesting blog because of this too - "Jill's World of Research, Reaction, and Millenary," a blogger who really likes her hats. I found a quote on the page, with the photo above: "Intelligent, beautiful women all wear hats - It's a known fact!"

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Book Review: "Light through the veil"

From The Telegraph of Calcutta, India:

"40 days and 1001 nights: One woman’s dance through life in the Islamic world (Jaico, Rs 295) by Tamalyn Dallal talks about a journey that may have been inspired by an Arabic proverb. “To understand a people”, the saying goes, “you must live among them for 40 days.” The author, enthused with this bit of ancient wisdom, travels across five points in the Islamic world — Indonesia, Egypt, Zanzibar, Jordan and Xinjiang, a Mulsim-dominated, autonomous region in China. Dallal is no tourist, though: she embarks on the trip to learn the truth about Islamic culture, and ends up making many other wonderful discoveries. In Banda Aceh, Indonesia, she stumbles on to one of the last surviving matriarchal cultures, while in Jordan, she delves into a traditional world, carefully hidden under a plush, modern exterior. Crucially, the journey also helps Dallal shed her apprehension about the Islamic world being intrinsically violent and intolerant. Dallal uses a lucid prose, free of the burden of politics or ideology which makes her work enjoyable. The dull images accompanying the text could have been improved upon."

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Removing the Veil

An interview article with two women from Sweden who took the veil, and years later made the choice to quit wearing the veil. Trying to present some more of the various points of view on the headcoverings of the world. In this case, the wearing of the scarf seems to have been more political, or even rebellious, than modest. "They Removed the Veil", in Eurozine.com. A secular European publication.

It started as an act of radicalism. Anne Sofie Roald and Pernilla Ouis adopted the headscarf back in the 1980s at the same time as political Islam began to grow. Now they are part of a global trend towards secularisation in which more and more women are shedding their headscarves and veils.