I never argued that the government was incapable of banning these things. I’m arguing that it is unethical and immoral for the government to ban these things.
Again, I didn’t say you wouldn’t be able to craft such a law. The point is, you can only maintain such a law so long as you have the numbers on your side. As soon as enough of the population is, say, Catholic, they can pass a law that says, “Catholicism is the official national religion, and membership in the church is compulsory.” Far safer, I think, to set the bar at no government interference with religion at all, in the hopes that whichever religion is in ascendance at the moment, its followers will have internalized the idea that it’s okay for other people to have different beliefs, and that they should attempt to mandate their views on the matter through the law.
I’m also curious as to why you feel that religion should specifically receive fewer free speech protections. Or do you also feel it would be acceptable to pass a law banning, say, the advocation of Democratic party ideals? Or arguments for gender or racial equality? Do you think that free speech rights are something that should be guaranteed by the government, or does the government have the right to force people to shut up if they’re saying something disagreeable to a sufficient percentage of the population?
It’s working against its own stated purpose. You don’t liberate somebody by putting restrictions on them or telling them what to do. You liberate somebody by allowing them to make their own choices, even if you disagree with the choices they make.
But the argument being put towards you is that this won’t result in more women enjoying more freedom - to put it another way, they don’t have to wear the burqa anyway. They are perfectly free not to. Yet they do not. Is it because the government forces it upon them? No. The coercion comes from a different source. Do these restrictions affect that source? No. It’s pretty hard to enjoy the freedom to be able to do something if you’ll get beaten up or disowned for doing so, and arrested for not doing so. It doesn’t create new freedom - it adds an additional layer of coercion, opposite to the first, which means that whichever choice is made, one form of unpleasant results will occur.
Really, there’s no alternatives at all? The one, single option to affect this issue is government-handed down restrictions on burqas? That’s it?
I mean, i’d tend to say that even if these were the only two options, then this particular plan is still worse than doing nothing. But I really doubt there’s only two options avaliable to us.
Well, the worst on the other side is the whole banned garments issue, and banned garments of religiously required apparel, which while certainly a lesser evil than murder, rape, and torture, isn’t exactly an innocent point from which to stand. Too, there’s the problem of stomach; you have to guarantee that people (and more problematically, a government) have the stomach to see the whole thing through, which I tend to find unlikely in this particular situation.
But the big problem I think this fails to address is that it is not those who disagree with the oppressors who are the problem. It’s the oppressors! It’s their minds who need to be changed. We already have laws against murder, rape, and torture. What, precisely, will considerable public opinion (which I would argue is already in place) actually do? What will be the result of this, what will have changed? How will those who would oppress find themselves unable to do so, or unwilling to do so, by this restriction?
If you push, surprisingly enough, people get defensive. Tell someone not to do something they want to, and I guarantee you, their opinions on that issue will strengthen, not weaken. And you seem to be of the opinion that if this doesn’t happen, there will be zero negative opinion existing towards murder, rape, and torture at all, which honestly is bollocks.
The point is, a push can’t just be “a push”, it has to be effective. If I want to convince someone to stop smoking, I could stand in front of them and whack it out of their mouths when they go to light up. But you know, not only wouldn’t it work, but they’d get pretty pissed at me, and not want to listen out of spite. I disagree with you on this issue; I could argue with you using horrible language, swearing and cussing at every point you made, making it clear how strongly I felt; but that would be a bad thing to do because, rightly, you’d reject my clumsy arguments. A push, in and of itself, can do more harm than good, even and especially in the long term.
Muslim men who find women wearing the burqa to be of considerable importance can, alas, do quite a bit about it.
You seem to have something of an odd double impression. On one hand, there are dangerous, oppressive, hurt-causing people with considerable power. And on the other hand, they are weak, law-abiding, easily dealt with people with little ability to effect other people. They can’t be both. If the issue can be so easily dealt with simply by banning a piece of clothing, why exactly should we be so concerned about them at all? They’re apparently so easy to defeat, after all.
The freedom to discard burqas? Wow. Let’s consider what other freedoms France could bestow about its women. How about freedom from holding public office? Let’s make them even more free and give them freedom from having to vote. What else? Freedom from speech, freedom from owning property, freedom from working, freedom from education - the list is long but eventually these woman will be the freest people on Earth.
And those that do not protect religious freedom as ours does, are quantitatively and explicitly WORSE than ours. Just as a constitution that that protects your right to freedom of expression as long you don’t criticize the royalty or the military is.
Not that the US system of governance and society is perfect and exceptional as a whole, but in this particular respect is superior than many other.
I’m not going to quote the l2004 aw in full–or at all, really–but it prohibits at school visible symbols of religion such as yarmulkes for boys, Islamic head coverings for girls, turbans for Sikhs. It does not prohibit “discreet” symbols of faith, e.g., small crosses/Stars of David, or anything that doesn’t show. A commission studied it and came to the conclusion that undue pressure was being applied to girls in the Muslim culture by their parents and their peers. Girls who didn’t wear head coverings were beaten up by their brothers, for instance.
Now my experience has been that in Western countries, women wear what they want to. The mother of one of my son’s classmates is from Libya and did not wear the headscarf until she came to Denver with her husband, and says she wears it because it “feels right” to her now. However, her younger sister who came to visit didn’t wear it–and in fact dressed pretty damned immodestly, even for an American. So I don’t know what pressure she’s under to wear it, and she’s not saying. Whatever this pressure is, it obviously doesn’t extend to her baby sister.
Some religious Jews adopt a different manner of dress when they get married. But it’s only the women. For some reason, it’s always only the women.
In other words, religious symbols are okay unless they’re the type Muslims have.
All of this is an uncomfortable debate for me because I think burqas and headcoverings are a disgusting custom. I’m not surprised women are pressured to wear them and I do think that’s wrong. Nonetheless, this law is disrespectful and demeaning to people who choose to practice their religion this way.
But if you’re offended by the sight of someone else’s religious display, what else is there to be said other than “get over yourself?” You don’t have any particular right to have society enforce your sensitivity, and I see no reason why your right to not look at a cross trumps someone else’s right to wear one.
I think we know why that is. And of course if you want to get into the details, it goes a lot farther than dress. Orthodox Jewish women aren’t supposed to have physical contact with any man other than their husbands, and they’re considered unclean and untouchable during their periods, and are required to have a ritual bath afterward.
In some ways I think it’s less about Islam than it is about an influx of many people who aren’t not adopting French culture wholesale.
[Marley23]: The headscarf can mean a lot of different things and I think it’s unfair to automatically characterize it as a “disgusting custom.” The headscarf has become a more common sight in places like Egypt among the younger people in the past 20 years or so and it isn’t because their parents forced in on them. In the 1950s the Shah of Iran wasn’t so fond of the headscarf but women wore it as a symbol of their faith and as a protest against an unpopular leader. I saw a documentary about Muslims in the United States and when one teenage girl wanted to start wearing the headscarf her father was against it and it caused some tension in the household. Why? Because, as his wife told the daughter, “he is afraid people will think he made you wear it.” She started wearing it.
I don’t find a headscarf to be dehumanizing in the way a burqua is. When someone is wearing a headscarf I can communicate with them just as well as someone who is wearing a hat because I can observe all the important non-verbal communication ques.
I do wish some people in this thread would stop referring to Islam as a monolithic block. I understand there’s a concept of Ummah but Islamic countries do have different standards of behavior and dress. Many Muslims would consider qat to be halal but the people of Yemen don’t see it that way. As someone pointed out the burqa is really limited mostly to groups in the Arabian peninsula. In many ways it’s more cultural than it is religious.
The notion behind the headscarf and the burqa, and similar garments, is that women need covered up for modesty’s sake, and held to a different standard from men. That is disgusting.
Religions tend to treat women as either succubi or distractions, and these items are part of that tradition, although one is much more restrictive than the other. I suppose you could argue that men do that even when religion isn’t a factor because the ancient Greeks may have had the same attitude, but nonetheless, I think the criticism is earned.
This is not about clothing, it’s about culture. The French want their country to remain French. Whether or not the legislation passes their constitutional tests the message is clear. If you don’t want to be part of French culture then move back to the 3rd century hell hole from wence you came. YOU’RE NOT WELCOME HERE.
I will, beacuse its the truth. Ideas of the kind you just posted are EXACTLY why the first amendment exists, to protect us all from people who want to restrict our freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
What you propose is no different to proposing making it illegal to criticise the military in public. You’re not taking away ALL our rights of free speech, just those that bug you when your eating your big mac, and dammit it really gets your goat when your sitting in Mickey-Dees and some smelly hippey is criticizing out brave men and women in uniform. I assume you’d have no problem with banning that either ?
A society that protects my rights to freedom of religion and freedom of religion is BETTER than one that doesn’t. End of story.
If Sarkozy had just come out and said this, this would be a much shorter debate. But the official justification for this law is “helping oppressed women.” Sending these women back to their “3rd century hell holes” doesn’t seem to be helping them a great deal, does it?
As an aside, it’s worth pointing out that these would actually be, at best, 7th century hell holes, as Islam didn’t exist in the 3rd century.
Men in many parts of the Muslim world are supposed to dress in a certain way to preserve their modesty as well. Some of the more observant ones will make sure their arms and head are covered as well. One of the neat things I learned from my anthropology courses was to be a bit more self aware of my own culture. We in the United States hold women and men to different standards when it comes to what we wear. While there are no formal laws that prohibit me from wearing makeup and and a dress there are certainly plenty of informal rules enforced by my peers that would make doing so difficult.
There are a lot of complex and varied reasons for the hijab beyond just the need for women to cover up for modesty’s sake. In the Koran one of the reasons to wear the hijab (for both women and men) was so that they could be identified as one of the faithful. I’ve already pointed out the women of Iran who wore the hijab in the 1950s in protest of the Shah. I used to have the same attitude you did to the headscarf until I did some extensive (well, extensive for an undergrad) research on it. The hijab can be a tool of oppression, a protest, a declaration of identity, or many other things. Read a bit about it and maybe you’ll change your mind. Or maybe not.
I seem to recall an instance in a Muslim country where young men playing soccer were required to wear long pants, as shorts were considered immodest. Granted this is hardly the same as a burka, but it’s also a modesty requirement.
I don’t see anything disgusting about a group deciding that they need to keep their flesh covered. It’s been a part of many cultures over the years. There is a fairly long list of things I do find disgusting that are tolerated in our culture – tatoos, for example, and body piercings – but I have to simply look away and control myself.
Some European countries – like France – have no problem with being topless, or even nude, on the beach. A great many countries – like the U.S. – have a big problem with it. Would we object to the French making a fuss about our insistence that swimmers wear bathing suits? Are we oppressing women by forcing them to keep their breasts covered?
If you choose to live in a country, IMHO, you should expect to be asked to comply with that country’s standards. When in Rome, etc.
It also hardly unique. In most Western nations, men can go around in public without a shirt, and women cannot. It’s a pretty clear double standard, but is it really “disgusting?” I honestly can’t get that worked up about it, and I don’t really see that much difference between that custom, and women wearing headscarves.
Burqas, obviously, are an entirely different kettle of fish.
Are any of them expected to wear burqas? Or, to expand on a related issue, are they barred from driving, from access to schools, or from leaving their homes without male relatives? I’m not an expert on religious garb, I admit. There are modesty standards for men and women, but the standards for women go further. Are there any exceptions to that rule?
This is a discussion about laws, so I don’t think dragging informal standards into it is going to shed a lot of light on the issue.
Which is why I have said in this thread, and others, that women sometimes choose to wear it and should be allowed to do so. But the roots of women being required to be more modest than men are generally oppressive.
Three years ago, the coach of the Iraqi men’s national tennis team and two players were murdered for wearing shorts. The Taliban killed men who shaved their beards. There are oppressive rules for male clothing, too, I know.
I’d say it’s unfair, but a rule restricting your right to take off clothes is less onerous than a rule forcing you to change the way you dress. Incidentally both men and women are allowed to go topless in New York, and that’s how the law ought to work.
