Burqas are usually blue, not black. 
Sorry, confused them with the Italian widows of my youth. 
First, I agree that any kind of ban of this kind tends to be a blunt instrument that can be challenged on a number of levels in free, democratic, secular countries.
But what I see behind this is an attempt by the Dutch people (and by people in Europe generally) to react to an influx of immigrants whose whole religious, political and social ethic is hostile and inflexible regarding the values of the western countries that have received them.
France enacted a similar ban a few years ago. It was directed against the wearing of **any ** religious symbols, including burqas, crosses, stars of David, etc. in public institutions like schools, by staff in hospitals, etc. However, a lot of people saw this as a measure against Islamic headgear, and to some extent it was.
One central fact you must realize is that Islam is a doctrine and a socio-political movement that gives itself the right, the duty and the mission to impose Islam as the universal faith of mankind, by persuasion OR by force, or by any other means.
For starters, the Dutch people are perhaps the most broad-minded and unprejudiced people on Earth. The Nazis would happily have accepted them as fellow-Aryans in their “New World Order”, but they refused to be co-opted into Nazi racism and worked to hide and protect Jews in Holland.
Gay and lesbian people have been openly accepted for decades. But did you know that for the first time in living memory, Dutch gays are afraid of being bashed? By whom? By gangs of immigrant Muslim youths who go fag-trolling in the streets of Dutch cities.
For Muslims, the separation of Church and State is a complete nonsense. Islam is right, and Islam must dominate. Period.
Muslim cab drivers at airports refuse to take passengers who have a bottle of alcohol (unopened) with them.
In Australia, Muslim cab drivers have been refusing to take passengers with animals, such as a cat or a dog in a cage, or even a guide dog used by a blind person.
In French hospitals, angry Muslim men have actually assaulted male doctors who were attempting to help their wives in child labour or other emergencies. In one recently reported case, the man physically threw the French doctor out of the hospital room declaring “You are in Muslim territory here!” (In fact, the man was in a French suburb with a large Muslim population.)
Mulim women in veils refuse to take them off for Customs inspection or to have their photos taken for ID cards. Are the security policies of western countries of no concern to them?
Look at the murder of Theo van Gogh for having criticized Islam. Look at the attempts to control freedom of the press in the case of the Danish cartoons.
When Queen Elizabeth visited Saudi Arabia, she dressed in a head-to-foot long-sleeve black dress with a head covering. Because Saudis do not recognize female heads of state, the Saudis decalred her an honourary man, and she accepted this to conform to the values of her host country.
When is it the turn of Muslims to give an inch??? Do the values of the west have no validity whatsoever in their eyes? Are secularism, the equality of women, and many other freedoms just part of western “decadence” that will be swept away by the final victory of Islam?
When a tolerant and open-minded people like the Dutch start to react, you have to stop and wonder if they don’t have a point, no matter how imperfect the legislative instrument.
Gee, in the US we don’t seem to have those problems. Except the one with the dry cabbies, but we mostly laugh at them and figure they’re welcome to reduce their business any way they choose. Could it be that most Americans are accustomed to the first generation or two of any group of immigrants there will be some who keep following the old ways and figure that we may not have them but we’ll have their children or grandchildren? Have the Dutch, French, German, or English populations been as inclusive as they think they’ve been, welcoming immigrants and not really expecting them to assimilate instantly?
Gee Dropzone, you may not realize it but the sum total of the US experience with Muslim fanaticism extends a little further than cabbies refusing to pick up people with wine bottles. Ever hear of something called 9-11?
I am talking about the day-to-day sort of things you mentioned done by real immigrants, not an episode by a tiny group of fanatics who entered the country for the sole purpose of committing a terrorist act. You seem to be tarring all cranky, old fashioned Muslims with the same brush as the terrorists. The Muslims I know “give an inch” quite often, are happy to live here even if they find some of our customs odd, and plan to make the US their permanent home. The US survived my ancestors, it’s surviving the Mexicans, and it will survive the Muslims because the US appears to be more flexible than Old Europe.
And the appropriate response for the Dutch is to then become hostile and inflexible, and deny them the rights that the West prides itself on?
It’s a shame you’re not the only one who believes this.
Think of a different inch. None of the actions you have mentioned justify the law we’re talking about.
To radical Muslims, no, those things have little value. But what disappoints me is this reminder that the values of the West have very little validity in the West, because those alleged core values are compromised when they are most needed.
“You have to”? I have no problem believing the Dutch are hypocrites on this issue, as much as I’d like for that not to be the case.
Hard line Islam is an intolerant and violent religion.
It has provoked a backlash, and deservedly so.
Here, in the UK, if we see a guy in a turban, we know he is a Sikh and know that he wishes us no harm. Dead safe actually - which is why so many are at Heathrow.
If we see a guy in a white ‘cap’ with a spade beard, and he is young, or a woman in a burqa, then we know that they belong to a very small minority who both wish to stay separate and have preachers who tell them to loathe us.
Unfortunately, a minority of a minority have made such symbols offensive to us.
I reckon that if I took to wearing a few armbands, say a swastika, star of David and something green with Hamas on it, then I would manage to offend quite a few people, and would be arrested for something like inciting other people to disturb the peace.
A minority has sown the seeds - the larger minority will reap the harvest.
Of course, they could easily get round it, for example a white mesh on the Burqa could indicate that the person is a religious nut, but despises the 9/11, 7/7 outrages.
Um, not if “living memory” extends as far back as 1982:
Now, I love the Netherlands (having just returned to the US after two years living there), and I think the Dutch people are great and many of them are indeed extremely tolerant. But they ain’t perfect, and we should beware of assuming that radical extremist Muslims are the only source of intolerance in Dutch society.