France considering ban on burka

A controversial issue has come to the forefront in France's parliamentary debate regarding whether or not to ban the use of burkas on French soil. With more than 5 million Muslim immigrants, France ranks highest in Western Europe as far as the size of its Muslim population. The problem, though, is that the issue of the burka has become black and white, leaving no middle ground for compromise or circumstantial shades of grey.
 This is a difficult topic. The first draft of my opinion is now in my computer's trash bin for several reasons. It is not necessarily a question of whether the burka is good or bad, for in my opinion, they are a sign of the oppression of women, but whether their use can also reflect a truly personal choice. As a student who has had the opportunity to travel to France and Morocco, one of Africa's largest sources of immigrants to Europe, I have noticed a pattern in terms of the practice of Hijab between Muslim men and women.
 Hijab, meaning barrier or partition in Arabic, is mostly understood as the practice of the principles of modesty in Islamic culture. It is inclusive of both behavior and dress. I fully support those individuals who choose to dress according to their customs and beliefs regardless of the culture. I do not have, and should not have, any say in the dress codes of others, whether they are practicing Muslims or members of the American Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), an off-shoot of the Mormon Church. I firmly believe in individual rights.
 What I do have a problem with is whether these women, Muslim or FLDS, actually have a choice in what they wear. And this is where things get interesting. We are all products of our environment. If what we were born into is what we have come to know as normal, like the idea of wearing a burka that covers the body from head to toe, including the face and even the eyes, then our personal choices will, more often than not, follow what we have been culturally and traditionally conditioned to believe. Does this then mean that if the norms regarding dress in a society are written by men for women to follow, and the culture has long been in existence, we can still make the claim that women are being forced to cover up?
 But, let's return to France, keeping in mind that it is a Western country with like ideals. The French listen to rock n' roll, drink, have casual sex, eat pork and talk about evolution. In other words, they live it up. Muslim women in this environment may have the choice to partake in these activities, but just because they live in France doesn't mean they want to throw away their own traditions. Indeed, the Western lifestyle of many French may actually have an extremely opposite effect, reinforcing and amplifying the Muslim lifestyle. This brings us to the argument that the use of the burka is one way for Muslims to find or keep identity in the world.
 While in Morocco, my fellow USD classmates and I noticed that while all women were mostly covered, not all were fully hidden behind a burka. There seemed to be varying degrees of covering up that depended on how strict the individual or family was in regard to Hijab practices. In both France and Morocco, however, I noticed that next to every fully-covered woman was her husband or brother in jeans and a t-shirt. Where is the modesty in that? This double standard reinforces attitudes, including my own, against full-covering burkas and the notion that most Muslim women are afforded a choice in their apparel.
 Perhaps we can give these traditional Muslim communities the benefit of the doubt. Let's compare burkas to makeup, dresses or heels in American culture. We may think that, as a Western society, we are free to dress as we like. In reality, we are often forced into a norm established by advertisers, the media and others. We judge women who refuse to conform and choose to not wear revealing clothing.
 We cannot judge whether a woman is free or not simply because she covers up. Although I do not support the use of full-coverage burkas, I can acknowledge that some women may actually want to dress like that. And if one is actually being forced to do so, then it can be taken up with government services.