The CharmingBurka breaks no laws of the Koran, only taste

A great man (or was it Tim Gunn) once said that fashion had to be culturally relevant. To that end we bring you the CharmingBurka. The kit sends a "self-defined" picture of the woman beneath to every Bluetooth mobile phone in the vicinity. According to the project's mastermind -- Markus Kison -- no laws of the Koran are broken. Video? You'd better believe it, after the break.

Gallery: The CharmingBurka breaks no laws of the Koran, only taste

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[tanooki2003 @ Feb 8th 2008 11:03AM]

Thomas Ricker you really seriously need to go kill yourself right now for making this a topic.

[dame ethyl @ Feb 8th 2008 3:12PM]

islam bites.

[dame ethyl @ Feb 8th 2008 3:26PM]

i don't 'gotta respect' ANYTHING that's abusive and oppressive to other people for the sole 'misfortune' of their race or gender! would you avert your eyes if you saw someone beating their kid in the grocery store because it's 'their thing'? well, these women get beaten with sticks by the moral police for the slightest infractions, basically, they simply arent welcome in public, despite the fact that they have to do ALL the work in those parts of the world.

those places and those cultures stink.

[Scott @ Feb 8th 2008 3:52PM]

Ok, am I the only one that thinks she looks like Plava Laguna...or is it just me?

[Rozan @ Feb 8th 2008 4:50PM]

Damn just reading the article I knew what the backlash was going to be in the comments section. I am a Muslim from Bangladesh (yup that country full of beggars and tormented by tornados and floods) and let me just tell you that the majority of women here dont wear the burka. Of those that do, it is by their own choice.

However some arab countries do force their women into wearing them. This is largely due to arab culture and has nothing to do with Islam.

We all get very emotional when it comes to religion. What most of us fails to see is that even though the majority of subject matter in all major religions are the same, there are some few differences that makes all religions fight between each other to the bitter end.

Come on people when are you all going to realize that its all just control systems designed to keep us fighting one another. All major issues of violence in this world is due to religion.

And by the way I think the bluetooth burka idea is plain dumb. If you want to coverup then there is no reason to send out your pics.

[James @ Feb 9th 2008 10:04AM]

RE: the OP... alternately, you could just move out of the 12th century and stop draping half your population in burlap sacks.

[Cobraphx @ Feb 9th 2008 2:30PM]

As far as the original topic of a bluetooth enabled photo transmitting burqa goes, it's definitely a item without a market. If you are a woman in a country forcing you to wear a burqa, broadcasting your photos will get you stoned to death just as fast as not wearing the burqa. If you are a woman wearing a burqa in a place that doesn't force it's adoption, you are wearing it because you want to (or because your father or husband forces you to; if it's your father indulge him, if it's your husband... well, you married him (or your parent's forced you to marry him, tough break there being born into a family that won't let you make your own decisions)) and there is no purpose to broadcasting the photos. The technology is an interesting statement in itself, there are plenty of women in this world that resent being forced to wear the burqa because the men in their country cannot control their animalistic urges.

As far the the religious pot shots back and forth goes. Everyone needs to grow up. More people have been murdered in the name of religion than all the natural disasters in the history of man have taken. Christianity and Islam have been two of the largest offenders in this, throw in the Nazis and you've probably have covered the big three. Throwing modern day moderate Muslims under the same bus as jihad extremists is just wrong. The same goes for lumping all Christians in the same group as the right wing radical Christians. We are all haunted and judged by the worst of our 'kind'.

The basic covenants of Islam and Christianity are 90-95% the same. But all the hate, wars and distrust come from that last five to ten percent of difference. Take Christianity, some believe dancing is evil, others believe eating shellfish will corrupt you, some believe that women must obey their husbands in all things and not speak to other men, some believe you must be vegetarian to get to heaven, others believe if you are really, really sincere you can apologize your way into heaven. Every group believes they have it right, and everyone else is going to hell because they have it wrong. My guess is that no one has it all right, so everyone should just calm down and try to get along. Seek out the 90% you agree on and show tolerance for the 10% you don't.

[Jonathan @ Feb 11th 2008 10:14PM]

The whole burka thing seems to stem from the inability of guys to be able to keep their hormones under control. It's kinda funny lots of religions have issues of sexuality. They are so scared to talk about human sexuality that you have these extreme cases pop up in Christianity and Islam. I mean if Christians kept up some of their OLD traditions (like in Puritan times) women wouldn't be able to show their ankles....ankles!!!

And respecting someone's religion doesn't mean that you, or the whole world has to accommodate to it! In the U.S. government is not supposed to get involved with religions, yes I know we've done a bad job of that, but the Separation of Church and State is there so that a religion or someone else's religious beliefs cannot be forced upon you or cause you a restriction in you safety or rights by law.

[Laura @ Feb 13th 2008 8:29AM]

Mmm, as a girl I say I found pretty interesting how Muslim women find a way to "be seen" without stripping off their traditional clothing. A way to be "religion complaint" but... well, not really. Anyway, why would them want be seen if you cannot date or go out with a man in public? I mean, it seems to me the most useless gadget for this kind of social intercourse.

I'm still trying to understand how the burqas serves as a benefit as to prevent perverts, abusers, etc.

For the little I know about psychology, when you prohibit something, the human being feel compelled to find a way to do the banned thing anyway. That means that it is not casuality that all that abuse of Muslim womans happens where there's this kind of restrictions exists, and not only about clotting but marriage and social relations as well.

I agree wholeheartedly with different posts that talk about the insecurity of women in every place of the world. No, I'm not American, either European. I live in South America, in a beautiful country called Argentina. We have problems with sexual abuse, yes, we do, but covering ourselves we don't believe we will find a solution to this issue. We try to educate our girls to prevent and fight this kind of behavior, by talking about it and report this to the authorities. The key thing is that, even when our security system is far from excellent our cops take care of us when something happen. The jury takes our side as individual whose rights were wronged. One of my best friends was raped and I had in my vicinity a rapist (have a quite close encounter with him but fought with my life to escape. Mission accomplished). I can tell how horrible is to feel vulnerable and trapped, but you always have to keep in mind that your body is yours and nobody have the right to do you something that you don't want to. I guess that because we stand in different beliefs we behave this way.

And as to provoke with the way you dress... a rapist is a human with mental problems that see women (or children, in the worst cases) as an opportunity to satisfy a desire to overpower you. You're not a human being to them, just a hole with tits to be filled. The day my friend was attacked, she was covered from head to toe (was winter) and he took advantage of that (lack of mobility, I suppose). For me, I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I wasn't wearing anything revealing at all (if loose jeans and a big t-shirt are revealing to you... I find vague your definition of sexy, at least).

Oh, just that. Hope you all can understand me and get my point.

Cheers,

[not-on-a-no-fly-list, yet @ Feb 13th 2008 4:24PM]

I agree - it's more basic than religion or politics, it's simply a power struggle. To me a burqa takes AWAY a woman's power to communicate with her eyes and face (only 15% of human communication is the words you use, think about that! and all these written posts here...), it makes her less human, more like an object, and therefore mysterious, an object of curiosity.

Headed by Afghanistan, Muslim countries have by FAR the highest rate of female suicides in the world. Protecting women? I don't think so. Look at the evidence, then make the theory.

I would even go as far as to say that even the women in the west who "choose" to cover up probably have issues with self identity, with how they think they are being perceived. They are more worried about what people think of them than about what they bring to the world - impressionism vs. expressionism.

[Benson @ Apr 16th 2008 9:42PM]

The point of burqas is not, as I understand it, to stop abusers. It's to stop other men from seeing you and being tempted, because Islam is weak on the notion of withstanding temptation. "She was asking for it" is a remarkably successful defense. But the husband that she is ordered to submit to is free to be an abuser, so it doesn't stop them.

The point is a simple matter of jealosy; to protect your woman from others, in the same sense you would protect any piece of property. It's not for her benefit at all.