No, you demanded a cite for a statement I never made, with bonus snark. I corrected your error. Also explained the analogy rather politely. And provided some cites for other things I said. What have you contributed?
Hey!! Take it to the Pit, you two.
Oh, this is the Pit…
Right, but your query that the burqa might not in fact be part of Islam (when it so clearly is worn by many, and for reasons directly related to their religion) rather implies that you believe an even stricter test is required. When you said:
what, specifically, did you mean by “required by the religion”?
Maybe I’m overly cynical but this scream out to me as a faux-political statement concerning muslim immigration to Europe and not a matter of oppression and suchlike.
The law in question is a big ol’ ‘Y’all ain’t welcome here’ to muslim’s considering immigration. And it’ll probably, depending upon enforcement and public support, drive some percentage of the existing muslim population to beat feet for elsewhere.
Given the issues surrounding the Islamic presence in Europe at the moment that’s what I’m seeing.
You rang? Actually, I moved back to the US in Sept. 2006 after two years in the lovely Netherlands, and you see what they get up to when I’m not around to keep an eye on them. Btw, the SDMB’s Maastricht is Dutch, but I don’t know if she gets to the Pit much.
They blindsided me with this one—when I lived in Holland I hadn’t even heard that there was serious discussion of burqa-banning. Moreover, I never once saw a burqa-wearing woman there, although there were plenty of women in hijab (headscarf) and various forms of modest Muslim dress.
AFAICT, the position of the Dutch constitution is more a guideline for the principles that the laws should follow than an arbiter of what sorts of laws are permissible, as in the US constitution. Moreover, AFAICT the burqa-ban law is not actually unconstitutional, according to Article 6 of the Dutch constitution which establishes freedom of religion:
See that there clause #2? Parliament has authority to regulate religious expression outside of “buildings and enclosed places” in order to “combat or prevent disorders”. (“Disorders” imperfectly translates Dutch “wanordelijkheden”, meaning more like “disorderliness, untidiness, dishevelment”. It may seem weird to allow for restrictions on religious expression for the sake of preventing “untidiness”, but believe me, it’s very important to the Dutch! More seriously, it might be interpreted as “excessive disturbance or disruption”.) So banning burqa-wearing in public, whatever we might think of its morality, doesn’t seem actually to contradict the Dutch constitution, if it’s done in order to prevent “wanordelijkheden”.
My personal take on the issue: Burqa = Pardah. That is, the burqa is an expression of the conservative Muslim principle of restricting women exclusively to private life (pardah). In this view, women are not supposed to interact at all with people (especially males) outside their own households.
Ideally, this means that women never leave the private part of the house, except in restricted and supervised circumstances where strangers can’t see them. The burqa is a compromise, for situations (e.g., household shopping) where women have to leave the household but are still supposed to be not really interacting with the outside world.
I think that conservative Muslims have the right to practice pardah if they want to (although I bet that a lot of Muslim women who do aren’t doing it because they want to, but because they’re forced to). But I think that if you’re going to follow a principle that says you shouldn’t interact with the outside world, you should stay home as much as possible. If you’re supposed to live only in the private sphere of your household, then stay in your household. Don’t expect to take part in the outside world while still maintaining your pardah status.
Now, in real life for most people, it’s impossible to spend your whole life in your own household. So I think reasonable accomodation should be made for burqa-wearing in situations that pardah-practicing women can’t avoid, like shopping, traveling, visiting hospitals, etc. Certainly I think that outright banning of all burqa-wearing in public is indefensible. (Especially when one considers that there’s no similar restriction on wearing of things like sunglasses or scarves or ski masks, which can be made equally effective at hiding one’s face.)
However, if you’re going to participate in less essential or more social activities, you need to recognize the customs of the surrounding culture that regard such activities as interacting with the world outside your household, and not expect exceptions to be made for you because you’re supposed to be following pardah. If you’re socializing, being photographed, holding a job, talking to people, taking a class, teaching a class, whatever, you need to do so with your face uncovered. If you insist on practicing pardah, then do so, but stay out of participation in the outside world. (And that goes for people hiding their faces with sunglasses, too, not just burqa-wearers.)
Thanks for the insights, Kimstu. I’ve been to the Netherlands several times, so I know how important orderliness is!
BTW, the aritlce I linked to made it sound like the law was a done deal, but the story in my paper today said it was pending legislation, likely to pass. It also said there were only about 50-100 burqa wearers in the country, although I suspect they get more than a few visitors wearing, if not a burqa, then niqab, which would probably be banned by this law as well.
Good LORD, that thing scares the crap out of me. Maybe because I’m in the middle of watching Silent Hill, but it looks like something that would float up to you in a haunted house (on Halloween at midnight after all your friends have mysteriously vanished because you decided to split up to find your missing cat) and murder you.
And just for the record, I was referring to the burqa, not the faceless reaper costume.
Anything (or law) that makes it difficult or impossible to express a form of sexism is to be lauded.
There’s a line where freedom of “expression” ends; burqas cross that line.
I agree with you.
I also think that it is reasonable to ask that a person’s face be visible for a driver’s license photo, a mug shot, when stopped by a policeman, or while inside a “sensitive” building like a courthouse, airport, bank, or government office.
It is then left to individuals to decide whether they want to do the things that involve unmasking. Do you want to keep your burqa on, or do you want a driver’s license? Tough choice yes, but that’s life.
Oh no. The few dozen women who wear burqua/niquabs in the Netherlands are young militant moslims. One such young lady, married to Hollands only convicted terrorist Samir A, has been fined several times for wearing a niquab in public, yet defiantly continues to wear it.
The ladies you are thinking of, the ones forced to stay home by tradion and their male relatives, almost never wore niquabs or burquas anyway, as far as I can tell. They usually wore just the headscarf. So really, that argument doesn’t hold up.
And as to anyone in this thread who thinks that prohibiting the burqa ought to be law because it represents repression, sexism, medieval religiosity, etc–fascist much? I can agree that I wouldn’t want my own daughter to be raised to think she has to wear one, but the rest of the world isn’t me. Freedom of religion was invented so that people could carry on with their little voodoo and raindances in peace.
That line being what? When someone expresses something we don’t like? Pretty cheap “freedom,” if you ask me.
Express is the wrong world; how about execute?
I guess you disagree with banning Nazi garb in Germany then?
I do disagree with that, but there’s also a difference. You can at least make the claim that the Nazi garb is akin to an implied threat or intimidating gesture against someone other than the wearer.
How does some woman wearing a burqa affect her society at large?
Are there laws in the Netherlands about a man keeping his wife prisoner in their home?
Both Florida and Georgia have laws that it is illegal to wear a mask in public, based on the KKK.
In Stevensville, Michigan, it’s against the law to wear a mask while riding a horse …
In Belgium, it’s against the law to wear a mask on the street, and the law predates the current terrorist attacks.
In Italy, it’s against the law to go on the street with your face covered.
In Virginia, it is a felony to wear a mask if you are over 16. There are exceptions for Halloween.
New Mexico, along with other states, have laws against “concealing identity”. The New Mexico statute states:
Seems pretty broad …
US Courts have held some antimask laws unconstitutional:
Decisions holding antimask laws unconstitutional, or restricting their use, include:
What’s my point? Ummm … err … well, just wanted to put some facts out from the usual unreliable sources. The point is that the purpose of anti-mask laws is to prevent bad folks from acting with impunity because they can’t be recognized.
The problem with the burqa is not that it is just a mask, but that it conceals everything about a person. I mean, the most wanted terrorist on the planet could walk around in a burqa at any time and you wouldn’t even know he was not a woman.
Given the problems that the Dutch, and the Europeans in general, have had with terrorists (Islamic and non-), I can see that this would be a very bad thing. I suspect that prevention of terrorist men walking the streets with impunity, rather than anything related to Islam or women, is behind the Dutch law.
w.
No, not really. If he really held her prisoner and she escaped somehow and pressed charges, then yes, she would be protected under Dutch law. This has someties happened with battered wives or daughters opposing arranged marriages, or daughters trying to escape punishment for “indecent behavior”. How well Dutch law protects these women is another matter. The Netherlands have unfortunately seen a few dozen or so cases of women murdered by their families in cases of “honor-revenge”.
But Dutch police doesn’t go around saying: “Hey, mr Abouthaleb, your ID shows you are married, yet your kids school says they haven’t ever seen your wife at PTE-night. We’d like to have a chat with mrs Abouthaleb, please.”
A few years ago, research showed that most Moroccan mothers of children in elementary-school age, when asked to point in the direction of their kids’ elementary school, *did not know. * :eek:
That’s how much they were integrated in society and in their kid’s lives.
Man, that’s sad.
My belief is that this proposed legislation is aimed at letting the women concerned taste a little more freedom than they have been, and that the idea of banning the burqa is that women will go out in public without wearing it. I don’t believe the driving force behind this is to force the women to stay at home and not venture out.
Unfortunately it seems that might be the result.
On the bright side, while I’ve been researching this thread I’ve found many web sites where Muslims exhort Muslim women not to wear the burqa or any face-covering veil. So that’s something positive.
I agree with you, too. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for the law to require a person’s face to be viewable in certain situations, related to public safety. But, as you say, the individual then has a choice.