In Defense of Burqa against the Relevant Background of Tobacco Prohibition

Burqa (the woman’s veil in South-East Asia) is an efficient means to circle totalitarian laws prohibiting tobacco use, enacted “in agreement with” the pseudo-scientific Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (FCTC).

In an ethnological study, CJ Charpentier (Anthropos, 1974) reports what he has personnally witnessed in Kabul, Afghanistan, by March 1972:

« I once observed in Kabul a veiled lady renting a water-pipe in the street. The boy who owned the pipe lit it for her and she then placed the pipe under her chaderi and sat down smoking a few metres away from the busy street ».

Quoted for the first time in the following reference book (page 223): Le narguilé. Anthropologie d’un mode d’usage de drogues douces [Eng.: An Anthropology of Narghile: its Use and Soft Drugs], Paris, 1997, L'Harmattan, 262 pages.

Image : Courtesy of Ktemoc

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