FORGET suicide jackets, or 19-tonne trucks driven by homicidal maniacs — as happened in Nice on July 14. The latest ‘weapon of terror’ triggering a paroxysm of fear and loathing across parts of Europe is the burkini. A neologistic marriage of the words ‘burqa’ and ‘bikini’, the burkini — a version of swimwear that covers everything except for the face, hands and feet — has been banned in several French seaside towns. It has been described by Thierry Migoule, an official from Cannes which was the first city to ban the garment, as “clothing that conveys an allegiance to the terrorist movements that are waging war against us”. The furore began earlier this month when skirmishes broke out on the Corsican resort of Sisco between groups of locals and Muslims, after tourists who snapped pictures of women bathing in burkinis were attacked by North African-origin men. The incident seemed to have prompted a mass departure from good sense in parts of Europe.

To some extent, France’s paranoia is understandable. Home to the largest Muslim community in Europe, the country has been the target of several terrorist attacks since 2015, most of them carried out by perpetrators linked with the militant Islamic State group. However, French leaders have allowed fear, as well as political considerations in their country’s increasingly right-wing climate, to drive a blinkered response that will further stigmatise and alienate Muslims. In short, it is a surefire route to strengthening the clash-of-civilisations theory so beloved of religious extremists’ apocalyptic vision of the world. That aside, the absurdity of the stance is obvious to anyone not blinded by bigotry. Among the reasons cited in support of the ban is that the burkini is emblematic of women’s enslavement, and that the logic behind it is to “hide women’s bodies in order to better control them”. How is telling women how much of their bodies they can cover any less controlling than deciding for them how much of their bodies they can reveal?

Published in Dawn, August 23rd, 2016