Originally Posted by
Cable87
Well folks,
I'm literally just back from a week in Paris yesterday, and I was staying (part of the time) with a Tunisian Muslim girl I know, and I must say from 1st-hand experience, that the Burqa and the generally repressive behaviour of men over women in certain Eastern cultures simply has to come to an end, and should NOT be tolerated in Western countries.
The girl I was staying with, who I'd met here and been involved with for a few months before she moved back, was worried immediately upon my arrival about her neighbors and other people in the neighborhood seeing me entering/exiting her building, as rumours and rude things could be spread about her in the Muslim community if they knew I was staying there. Well sure enough, after the first night I was there, there was a note left on her door by an older (Muslim) neighbor, saying that they were offended and thought it was highly inappropriate for her to have me staying with her! This was followed by comments and stares as we went in and out of her apt the next few days, as her place is right by a market and hotel run by Arab/Muslims. She told me that as we were passing each time, they would be commenting about it in Arabic, saying that she was a 'slut' because she was letting me stay at her place.
A few days later, her phone started ringing at 5:30 in the morning-- she kept ignoring it until finally after being repeatedly woken up by it, I told her to answer it around 7:30. it was her half-brother, drunk and angry, telling her he was coming over to confront her (and presumably me as well) about the fact she was letting me stay there. 10 minutes later, there was a knock at the door, and she didn't answer it; she went out a few minutes later when she heard shouting in the stairs, and sure enough it was her drunken bother, yelling that she was a slut, and had a man in her apt. She rang the police because he was saying threatening things, and she told me he'd hit her last month. She then confronted him in the corridor, as I was just inside the door-- she managed to keep him occupied until the Police arrived and took him away.
I had to go and stay the rest of the time at a hotel, and she's now terrified that something even worse will happen to her because of this situation. Oppressive behaviour towards women like this has NO PLACE in Western societies, and it has to come to an end. I'm normally highly tolerant of the cultural beliefs/practices of others, but this was just too much to witness first-hand, and the horrible double standards placed on this girl by her family (despite them having lived in Europe for over 10 years, and her mother even being from Poland) are just terrible, and I hope they ban the burqa and all overtly oppressive behaviours towards women immediately.