What were we talking about?

Photos: AFP

There's this absolutely brilliant ad on TV, that starts with a girl taking her mother out to a fancy hotel after getting her first salary. The mother hesitates because she isn't used to such high standards but the daughter tells her she can more than afford it. Problem is when they get there, they get stopped by, who I assume is, the hotel manager who rudely remarks "look at their clothes! They are probably here for the first time." At that moment, the girl removes an obviously dirty shawl to reveal a blindingly white, excellently washed, piece of garment. What bothers me isn't the fact that she was discriminated against because of her clothes. It is why this very fancy hotel hired a terrible terrible manager who does not understand customer relations at all. Why not spend some money and get a better, customer-friendly manager? Every taka is a taka after all. And speaking of takas and clothes let's address the burningest issue of the month: The Burkini Ban.

Firstly, the entire ordeal of labeling a very regular surfer suit must have been a tedious one. What on Earth is a Burkini anyway? Some say it is a bastardized cross between a Bikini and a Burqa, but the inventor of the Burqini, Aheda Zanneti, explained that it was more about marrying Australian culture with an Islamic one. She stressed that nowhere in the holy book is the Burqa mentioned and nor the pre-requisite to cover one's face and she's absolutely right. However, end of the day, it is still a loosely-fitting glorified swimsuit, playing at modesty. In Israel, they have a similar kind of garb for hitting the beach and they call it “modest swimwear”, because some people actually do not want to be almost wholly naked when swimming and I doubt much of it is to do with an oppressive culture. It seems, the West and most Westerners don't understand modesty and cannot fathom why a woman would willingly choose to cover herself up and not show her pseudo-feminist powers. The ruckus over the Burkini ban is also a confusing one. If the Burqa ban is rightfully in place, shouldn't the Burkini be banned too? Or is it a way of targeting muslims? In reality, the 2010 French ban on any type of concealment of the face was very much too a move against Muslims and the Burkini ban is no different and three months away from elections, these desperate times always call for desperate measures. The fourth Reich rises in Europe and there isn't much anyone can do about it. 

Of course, radicalist rightist aside, it is always fun to have a target, although we are more prone to focus on other's problems, to distract from our own. It's why some people conspired, in the heart of Bangladesh, to sow the seeds of yet another classist discord. As if rightfully and 2000 percent legally acquiring all land wasn't a slap in the face enough, some thought of rubbing salt in the faces of those they had wronged, or rather those of their “kin” by banning the lungi outright. A security issue or a classist one because when a terrorist den was unmasked in the area most protected from all Lungi Party, they weren't found be wearing lungis. Although even if they did, they'd probably change. How ridiculous would it be to be shot in a lungi? And let's face it, shot would be the only proper way to deal with terrorists. Question them? Hell no. We asked politely and said please come out with your arms in their air but they didn't want to and they called us bad names. Then, they literally dropped bombs in response. So we went in chewing gum and doing what we do best, Duke Nukem 3D style (classic 90s kids shoutout).

And guess what they were wearing? All black everything. Which tells us that hell yeah what you wear tells us a lot about you so articles of clothes should be banned without question. In fact let's extend that to other fashion things. Ban matching your pants and your shoes unless you match your shirt too, ban jeans with a shirt tucked, ban the disrespectfully disturbing flip flops back to the beaches and can people without gang-affiliations please not sport bandanas? No it's not a metal thing you freaks; get back to your torn-broke-looking tweener jeans and your shirts with nonsensical signs and band names.

So this wasn't really about the Burkini Ban but the 27th of August wasn't about Rampal and illegal detentions actually happen so cool your jets because things change, it's time to move on, she never loved you to begin with. The world we live in is a chaotic place and none of us have the attention span any longer to focus on any one issue. We take up arms and own every cause but mostly for the feel good factor. Of course, there are noble people around us but they are the ones who live their lives with honesty and not mired in pushing their own agendas and labels during every national or international tragedy. And on this note we end with one final thought: As long as we have puppets bought by businesses who we call our world leaders, the world will never change and the Burkini Ban is just the start.