LAHORE, Feb 2: A major left-wing political party of France is opposed to legal ban on Muslim veil and burqa, fearing the step will not only prove counterproductive for women rights but also draw a veil on exploitation of masses by the capitalist system.
Pierre Rousset, a member of the executive committee of the Fourth International, who was among founders of the left-wing NPA (New Anticapitalist Party) of France, which was formed in the wake of LCR (Revolutionary Congress League) self-dissolution, told Dawn on Tuesday that personally he was opposed to full veil but was of the view that the issue should be tackled through women and secular movements and not legal wars.
“Using legal force to ban an action considered as religious will only make rigid the followers of that religion instead of producing any positive result,” Rousset said.
He said the Sarkozy regime was using the neqab (veil) issue, like the swine flu, to divert public attention from real problems facing the French people due to the abusive capitalism.
He wondered that officials of French armed forces and interior ministry instead of the health department were appearing in TV talk shows unnerving the viewers with imaginary threats to the country’s economy due to swine flu.
Justifying the call for heavy allocations for overcoming the disease, the officials would urge the working community to forget labour courts and talk of economic functioning as the French economy was at the verge of collapse because of swine flu, added Rousset.
He admitted Islam-o-phobia had destabilised the Left movement, robbing it of the chance to describe secularism and women rights in its own way. The only way to come out of the quagmire, he believed, was social struggle.
To a question about the Left movement in Pakistan, Rousset, who is visiting the country for second time, said as a federation the country throws an ingrained challenge to the labour, peasant, women movements and political left. These forces, he suggested, should have a common agenda at federal level while maintaining their differences, if any, at regional level.
Answering a query about the need for forming a new party of the French left, he said the LCR, the old party, had lost its political references for the new generation in a radically changed world after disintegration of the Soviet Union (USSR).
“The new generation came up with different priorities forcing us to form a new organisation conforming to the realities of 21st century.”
The old party was partially dissolved to keep the continuity and not to lose the legacy of the LCR, he added.
When asked to comment on China’s role in saving the American economy by making a heavy investment in the US sub-prime market, he said China-US ties were complex, combining mutual dependence and competition.
Criticising the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for allowing a breathing space to the capitalism by investing in the sub-prime market, he said the CCP had now become ‘Chinese Capitalist Party’.
By Amjad Mahmood