yeah, this absolutely seems to be targeting the top layer of (potential) repression, but will only seed more resentment of fundamental muslims everywhere. i’d bet that if it passes, another form of repression — more incideous — would take its place, as you say; these women in denmark might cease to be seen outside again… or will wear MJ masks ;)

new world odor… i like that. mind if i use that elsewhere?

First of all, the Netherlands isn’t the first country in Europe banning the burqa. In Belgium, one can already get fined 50 Euro’s for wearing one (BBC News).

I am an atheist btw, but the burqa-ban worries me terribly. I’m against the ban.

The local discussion on this supression is constantly fuelled by this Hirshi Ali-woman and Geert Wilders-guy in politics. She ‘lost’ her sister, because her sister chose this religion. She’s probably one of the many people that ‘lobbied’ for this law. I believe Geert Wilders even concocted the whole idea on the ban.

It is supposed to be introduced due to the fact that these women are surpressed. I fear that this ban will simply result in these women not leaving home at all. See what I mean? This isn’t even a working solution to the problem at hand. It smells like a new world odor more than a law trying to help these women…

It is a scary form of repression. What’s next? Unshaved facial hair? Other clothes? Jewelry? Tatoos?

(Oh, and by the way, Pim Fortuyn was a weird man — he was a member of this ‘club’ striving to reduce the number of Dutch citizens to 10 milion; currently, it’s 16.3 mil. He’s praised by people but politically, he didn’t actually do anything less causing a big theatrical fuss about irrelevant things. He actually got shot by a left-winged white guy.)

secondly… there is no way we can have this conversation in terms of absolutes. though i will argue — maybe it’s via the bias that you pointed out above — that the meaning behind the KKK hood is *more* absolute than the meaning behind the burqa.

here’s my take…

the kkk (not the hood) was/is a tool to keep order or the status quo for more than 75 years now. historically, if a state/township needed dirty work to be done, the kkk moved on it as the state/township already had representation within the ranks. the same thing goes for how union-breaking businesses operated. it’s the microcosm, or the foundational concept behind state sponsored terrorism oversees. now, the hood is 100% a representative symbol of those repressive and deadly social interactions — from burning crosses to lynchings to shooting people dead in cold blood in american towns. what’s more, the hood has now disappeared in most circles, yet the intimidation remains like a virus.

now, i’ve seen women walking the streets of new york wearing burqa’s carrying shopping bags. i’ve also seen images and read stories — similar to you — of the role the burqa has with a similar type of absolute repression in hardcore islamic states. this axiom, though, is context specific (yet on an individual level, even within the context of western culture, these woman might feel the same repression or just not know differently). but america and denmark are countries of law, seperate from religion, so religion doesn’t dictate legal behavior… yet (in America, SD withstanding). it’s the woman’s choice (on some discernable level) to wear the burqa in non-opressive macro cultures, as women have legal recourse if they chose to remove it. you could say that the choice to remove it is non-existant — with the pressures of the family or community — but unless women in burqa’s are being abused in the streets of new york or denmark, what is a state to do?

not pass legislation to take away symbolism, that’s for sure. look how the kkk hood disappeared over the years. the hood, not the beliefs…

religion has many sharp, coarse and rough edges to it — as you pointed out — but it does have enlighted threads to it as well… that’s why i’m not an atheist i guess… we can’t force such a cultural extraction on anyone *unless their legally protected rights are being violated.* if muslim women in denmark or the US lobbied for such legislation, that would be an entirely different story, as the dialog would be coming from within the sub-culture itself.

i think we pretty much end up in the same camp on this one, but with one difference… i live in the south now. ;-)

In a free country with a solid rule of law, both the burqa and the white hood are harmless except on a psychological level. But if the people who advocated the wearing of either type of headgear ran the world, or America, or the Netherlands… well, I think that would be terrible beyond belief. When Americans seek to prevent the Klan from marching or wearing hoods in public, they are expressing a fear that the Klan will gain the ability to exert more power over our country’s culture and laws, that they might be able to terrorize yet again with the blessing of the public and the state. When Europeans try to legislate the burqa, they are also expressing their fear of a national cultural shift that may someday impact them directly and cause great harm to women who, like the Iranian revolutionaries, most certainly do not want to give up their modern, western, 21st century human civil rights.

But there’s little we can do legally about either sort of *potential* oppression until someone breaks our more conventional laws against violating another person’s basic civil liberties. My position is this: liberals should recognize the burqa as a symbol of oppression, but we should not legislate against it.

It is my view as a rationalist/atheist that any person who willingly submits their will to another person on the basis of religious custom is, indeed, completely and utterly brainwashed. A person who willingly covers their face and erases their public identity, avoids the touch or even the presence of people of the opposite sex other than their spouse, who teach their children that one kind of person is preferred over others because a deity says so, or any number of such non-violent but psychologically oppressive religious practices, is being profoundly and deeply harmed. Note that I’m not only talking about Muslims here — this applies to many Christians, Jews, Hindus, and others as well. Non-religious people deeply fear religious customs that do harm to the human spirit.

I did not, however, mean to say that I support the anti-burqa legislation at all. I simply meant to point out that it’s not necessarily old fashioned religious bigotry that does it, but rather a very poor balance between (a) rational atheistic values and (b) free speech values. Europeans are in the bizarre position of valuing their atheistic, feminist, libertine culture over religious freedom, and indeed over freedom of speech itself. It’s a conflict of values that we in America don’t have to face quite as dramatically as they do.

I agree that it’s misguided to aim legislation at the aspects of oppression that do not involve physical harm or measurable discrimination. I oppose anti-burqa legislation with the same reluctant but rock-solid conviction that I oppose anti-KKK legislation. Free speech trumps all.

Some thought the whole concept abhorant, while others thought, because the women freely chose to participate in the custom, that it was a re-affirmation of their consevative Judaism (just as koshering their kitchens might be)

When a woman chooses of her own free will to embrace a religious custom, that is most definitely her choice. If she is being compelled to participate in it, or there is some sort of repressive mandatory state regulation regarding the religious custom, she is not choosing how she might practice her faith.

Conversely, if there is a state regulation mandating that she is forbidden to express her faith because it might affect others–well, that’s the old “greatest good for the greatest number” which, quite often, ends up being its own form of repression.

My feelings on this–if the woman is living in a country that supposedly esposes religious tolerance, and she is choosing, of her own free will, to follow a religious custom, then that is her right. If there is some sort of community or family coersion, that’s not the court’s business. If she is killed because her family got angry at her for not wearing it, that, too, is a completely different issue and one that a law like this will not ameliorate.

Unless… your point regarding the current climate in Europe is actually serving as motivation in Denmark to curb specific religious customs before they contribute to a populous acting out the male domination/female submission role on a grander scale. To me, that’s the wrong message and strategy to employ.

The women quoted above aren’t brainwashed; they’re devout to their roots and customs. It truly is their choice as to how they dress themselves. For a Dutch legislator to talk about “hostility and medieval times” and then force a mandate… well, that smacks of other “non-women friendly” legislation currently making the rounds in the states regarding the ultimate choice for women.

Now, if domestic violence or other forms of husband/wife issues arise within the Muslim community that clash with Danish law, the Danes can pretty much just deal with it like they do with any other domestic issue between a couple as there is separation of church and state. If certain Muslim families (small in numbers I’m sure) don’t want to modernize their beliefs, well, they have choices. 1) go to jail 2) conform 3) live elsewhere. Again, those numbers are probably few and far between, but legislation like this will only deepen that root.