They had, no doubt about this. The safety issue is an afterthought. The ban on the burqa is the result of an unholy alliance between the anti-muslim right and the feminist left, sanctioned by the general population that finds this kind of dress offensive.
Note that the burqa is incredibly rare in France to begin with, French muslims originating from countries where it has never been a traditional garb. For the same reason, it’s likely that wearing it isn’t a coerced decision (by parents, husbands…) in most case but the result of a conversion to some extreme brand of Islam.
Oh no, the horrible peer pressure of billboards! That must be why these billboards make atheists afraid to not be religious in public:
Your black and white references to attempt all women of Pakistan with one bigoted brush just ain’t gonna stick. Are there some folks who are trying to get women to wear headcoverings, undoubtably. Are there many, many women in Pakistan who feel free to wear hijabs or not as they feel like? Again, undoubtably. But you can’t even begin to try to see the later, at all. Regardless of all the pictures showing women comfortably uncovered. It seems like some sort of bias has convinced you that all women in Pakistan are pressured to wear the hijab to the same level that all Americans are pressured to wear pants. That’s just not true and has been shown to you over and over again.
If you want to have us believe that there is this overwhelming hijab or burka pressure, I’m going to have to reiterate Left Hand of Dorkness’s constant request for a cite that you have failed to provide.
Honestly, I was under the impression that the head-covering pressure IS a huge thing in Pakistan. Is it true in some regions of the country but not others, maybe? Or am I just totally wrong?
*“The ban is officially called, ‘the bill to forbid concealing one’s face in public.’ “It refers neither to Islam nor to veils. Officials insist the law against face-covering is not discriminatory because it would apply to everyone, not just Muslims. They cite a host of exceptions, including motorcycle helmets, or masks for health reasons, fencing, skiing or carnivals.”[28]”
*
So face-coverings of non-Muslim basis are widely excepted.
In any case, that’s not the only law. There is also for example Law #2004-228 of March 15, 2004, which effectively banned all forms of hijab in public schools (ostensibly also all overt emblems of other religions as well).
The effect: some Muslimahs who would prefer to wear hijab do not (this is the ‘desirable’ part, I guess, for the anti-Muslim set). Also, France gets more Islamic private schools, which are very conscious of their enforced separation, and more girls are denied out-of-home schooling of any sort.
If you want to argue what that what you have been arguing for the past page+ is a strawman, go right ahead. It just looks like cowardly retreating after you’ve been shown wrong by pictures, and your inability to provide a cite.
Perhaps in the Northwest territories (the Taliban controlled areas), but definitely not in the major cities. Karachi and Lahore have tons of women walking around in public without head coverings. Pictures of bazaars or public pictures looks like Delhi.
It is really silly to assert that women in Pakistan all throw on headscarves while going out in public while shopping due to pressure… the pictures posted show otherwise.
See, this is some bullshit. You can cover your face for a carnival, but not for religious reasons or modesty? Could a strict Muslim woman decide to wear her motorcycle helmet everywhere? Could she claim to be a germophobe?
Yes, I already read it when you posted it the first time. But regardless of the reasons stated in the bill, I followed the debates about the ban, contrarily to you, and there isn’t the slighest doubt in my mind about the real motivations. And I can tell you that people at the time weren’t arguing and discussing about the ban on covered faces, but about the ban of the burqa.
I can’t find the article anymore, but I remember reading at the time that there were only … 26 ? Or 48 ?.. something like that, I don’t recall the exact number, but I do remember it didn’t reach three digits. So, only XY women affected by the law. In all of France.
Considering the time (and public dime !) spent arguing, debating, paternalizing, de-empowering, infantilizing, grandstanding and celebrating ; I figure it would have been cheaper and easier to just send canvassers and ask them directly whether they were being oppressed.
Don’t worry, the far right wanted to ban the yamaka too, in the name of equality, but moderates won the election so we’ll see if they want to rethink that sometime soon.
Someone was on BBC America last night saying he was told by the police that wearing a yamaka in public would be considered provocative on his part if anything happened. I haven’t actually found out how true that is yet.
The French freedom of religion seems to be you are free to practice you religion so long as it’s behind closed doors with the curtains drawn and never show any sign of it in the light of day.
I’d almost worry about calling myself a trekkie out loud.
Which wasn’t difficult since there were exactly zero such schools 5 years ago or so. I think there might be 2 or 3 now.
Also, private schools in France are very different from US private schools. The oerwhelming majority of them receive large public funding in exchange to submission to very strict rules that make them essentially identical to public schools (identical curriculum, enlistement based on religious affiliation banned, etc…). Private schools that are self-funded hence freer in their education methods are very rare and typically target children of the upper upper class, not a religious crowd (I believe though, that some are Jewish schools).
I suspect (not sure) that the now existing private muslim schools belong to the first category and that their only peculiarities are probably optional Arabic and religion courses, and the presence of some kind of Muslim chaplain.
I wouldn’t know for sure if the ban of the hijab applies to private schools too. Never wondered about it.
Interesting! In the US (at least in the south), a lot of the less expensive private schools are extremely religious–basically little more than church basement operations designed
to get around the creeping threat of secularism in the public classroom. But the more expensive schools often (though by no means always) have a nominal religious affiliation–there might be a chapel on campus, but there are no religious tests for entry. Is there even this nominal religious affiliation in French private schools?
The trouble is that the “punishment” of social ostracism for having said something massively unpopular is not a “damage” that can meaningfully be recovered by the courts. You can’t sue me in order to get your popularity back. And if what I said was true (in the U.S. at least) you can’t even sue me for monetary damages or punitive fines.
Think about staging a boycott of someone’s business. A storekeeper says something unwise about some hot-button issue. A bunch of people organize a boycott. The guy’s business suffers, and he loses a ton of money that quarter.
What should be done about this? Does anyone suggest we have laws against organizing boycotts, or laws establishing liability for loss on the heads of people who organize boycotts?
Free speech must include this too. Free speech is not only an abstraction. Yes, we have the ability to cause others to become social pariahs. Yes, we have the ability to cause businesses to lose loads of money.
Lycée Averroès, in Lille, opened in 2003 and was the first recognized Islamic school in France.
[Quote=Jocelyne Cesari, Why the West Fears Islam]
As of 2012, there were 29 Islamic private schools in France, most of which emerged as a consequence of the 2004 law…
[/quote]
