Here’s your starter for ten for our Saturday slot posing a view for debate:
Although it is estimated that no more than 2,000 people in France wear a burka, it has become a hot topic of political debate:
A parliamentary commission [has] proposed a ban on the garment in all public services facilities, including transport.
The commission’s report stops short of recommending a complete public ban on the head-to-toe covering, which conceals the face, wanted by many politicians. Instead, it calls for those wearing the garment to be denied access to hospitals, buses, welfare offices and all other public facilities. (FT)
As the French plan to impose a ban on the burqa attracted criticism from different quarters around the world, French ambassador to India Jerome Bonnafont said that the burqa and naqab were in contradiction of principles of freedom and equality … The French ambassador further said that the burqa was `unacceptable’ in terms of security and for the women rights movement. (The Economic Times)
Agree? Disagree? Comment away …
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51 Comments
Only if there is a genuine and extremely compelling security consideration in a particular place.
Not because you believe in the state telling people what clothing is “acceptable”.
No of course they shouldn’t be explicitly banned. They should be subject to the same restrictions as any other head gear that conceals the face – no more than that, but certainly no less than that.
Liberté, égalité, fraternité – it doesn’t sound like this meets any of those three goals unless the majority of these 2000 women are being forced to wear burkhas against their will.
If they are being forced to wear burkhas, then perhaps the French government’s efforts should focus on the source of that coercion rather than creating laws that may end up even further restricting the freedom of burkha-wearing women.
Of course, they shouldn’t be banned and it’s almost as if the French (or at least Sarkozy and his supporters on this) are living on a different planet.
In airport security it is sensible for them to be removed in a private room in the presence of female officer(s). In banks (the other situation regularly quoted) – if someone is going to rob a bank they normally have a balaclava/stocking on and a gun – if they choose to wear a burkha instead of a balaclava – what difference does it make? They still have a gun.
I see the wearing of the burkha in the UK as part of our Great British tradition of freedom. And I really do worry about the burkha wearers in France and also here, with the UKIP proposing a ban. They are a minute minority group who are at risk of hatred. They deserve our strong support, not silly, puerile, playground ‘pointing’ and singling out.
I can only think that the French who support this ban have a inferiority complex with a dash of paranoia thrown in for good measure.
Nicolas Sarkozy is 5 ft 6 inches. I rest my case. It’s small man syndrome.
Of course they shouldn’t be banned. It is not the job of the state to tell people what clothes to wear and the idea that it is is completely unacceptable.
That doesn’t stop me thinking that wearing a burka is an attempt by the wearer to be deliberately offensive.
No to a ban – but I feel absoltutely free to show my disdain (and despair). We cannot ignore that it is essentially a horrible mysoginyst practice (not explictly linked to belief) that is at odds to a free society.
I would feel unesassy at making it female-only attendednts at airports, in that that implicitly concurs and supports the absurd position that all the men will instantly start lusting over someone’s property (or is that daughter?)
There are a number of people who like wearing the things. It doesn’t matter why, or how often they do so. Any attempt to prevent these people from dressing as they choose is inexcusable.
Nice to see Google supplying an advertisement for Jilbabs on this thread …
This is a ghastly alliance between secularists and racists. Of course the Burka should not be banned. The non-religious will probably out number the religious in the next twenty years and we (the non-religious) must make sure that we don’t abuse our dominant position in ways like this, like Christianity continues to do so today.
I suspect that as a matter of courtesy they should not be used during family photo-shoots when you are trying to pair off your daughter to a rich arab diplomat. It just turns nasty.
Also, private property owners should be allowed to decide what their patrons may or may not wear and for whatever reason, security or otherwise. Though I fear a clash here with so called anti-discrimination laws which nowadays trump the rights of property owners.
But any kind of public policy regulation on them is unacceptable.
How on earth do they manage to keep this on the right side of the European Convention on Hunan Rights?
Jeremy, did you miss the bit that said this was in *France*?
🙂
Basically we need more Gurkhas and fewer burkhas.
A ban ? Probably no. Banning them outright would be awfully difficult to implement- why shouldn’t a Muslim women be allowed to wear a ski-mask at Aviemore?
But saying it’s part of the great British tradition of freedom is far too trite. I’m not allowed to wander down the street without any clothes on. I don’t think I’d be allowed to follow the medieval tradition of flagellating myself in public either, and that was once an equally valid cultural activity.
If I own a shop or business I should be free to refuse to serve anyone who insists on covering their face inside my premises.
Like HarryD I feel disdain. The burkha symbolises the absolute opposite of the kind of liberal society I’ve spent the last 40-odd years wanting to see in this country.
(I can see the irony there in my last sentence but – just how many symbols of illiberalism can a liberal society tolerate?)
The only logically consistent thing for the French to do would be to ban the bikini at the same time, if as they claim they are doing it to crack down on the denigration of women. Anyone in a hurry to do that? Didn’t think so.
PS It’s noticeable that only men have commented to this thread thus far.
James, there are moves afoot to ban topless sunbathing in France, if that’s close enough an analogy for you.
Quite simply no. The state should keep out.
Why should I care what someone else chooses to wear? It is their business not mine. The only qualification I would have is where parents force their daughters to wear these clothes. How the state should intervene then I do not know.
I know some put forward the argument about woman’s oppression. However what is one woman’s oppression is another woman’s choice. In a free society people should be allowed to behave in a way that no everyone understands or can make sense of. As long as in doing so they do not take away the freedom of others.
Passing a law to ban Burkas will be provocative to Muslims who did not face this restriction when they first moved here. It would be seen as a deliberate attempt to make them feel unwelcome in this country.
Whilst I don’t think the burka should be banned in the UK, this debate has really highlighted to me the need for a Bill of Rights.
As was pointed out when the debate arose, many Muslim women feel the burqa is a very positive experience.
However we have to recognise that some Muslim women will have had immense peer pressure from their community to wear them. And they can be ostracised from their communities for not doing so. Similarly other community groups have been known to exert very unhealthy pressures on their members. For example, some churches with their LGBT members, and cases of matriarchal bullying of daughter-in-laws in Hindu households. And there are examples of non-religious, British native groups and communities ostracising or forcing members to behave in ways contrary to their wishes.
I also recall a couple of years ago, a judge suggesting that some aspects of Sharia law could be applicable amongst Muslim communities. This is completely unacceptable. The law in this country should be inviolate, with nothing that is illegal regarded as legal within a subsection of the population, nor anything that is regarded as legal becoming illegal.
For that to be effective, we have to support the right of individuals to make their own choices without fear of any sort of retribution. As a result, a Bill of Rights is crucial to protect vulnerable groups within our society. Specifically to this case, just as we should not ban women from wearing the burka, if they wish, we should also ensure that they cannot be forced to wear the burka against their wish.
There’s a few places in London where you can do that…
” The non-religious will probably out number the religious in the next twenty years and we (the non-religious) must make sure that we don’t abuse our dominant position in ways like this, like Christianity continues to do so today.”
Latest poll put the non-religious in the UK (those with no religion or who say their religion is purely cultural) at 60%
see UK polling report for details
“However we have to recognise that some Muslim women will have had immense peer pressure from their community to wear them. And they can be ostracised from their communities for not doing so. ”
Yes its only Muslim women who can’t think for themselves, yet when normal women face immense peer pressure to wear short skirts or bikinis its a matter of choice? Of course not, trashy media outlets (normally male run) dictate what is fashionable and acceptable or even beautiful, and young girls take it on as the normative fashion of their peers.
Lizzie,
I also said:
So I am fully aware that it is not just about Muslim women and my precise point was that a Bill of Rights should apply to absolutely everyone who lives and works in the UK.
We don’t want to ban them, just require that they have warning labels printed on them.
Or maybe that was something issue involving women and peer pressure…
Lizzie –
pretending the reason for banning is a mixture of racism and sexism isn’t helping in looking at the issue. As I said, I am against banning – not because I think the burqa is a great testament to the freedom of ‘non-normal’ women (or is that Muslim women?), or that there is any difference in their freedom of thought (who said that?) – but because I don’t think the sate should assume that power, and I don’t think it would help community cohesion.
However, to pretend, in arguing against a ban, that there is not an issue with highly oppressive families and social pressure to conform to this practice, or to draw a false equivalence with “trashy fasion” is surely betraying vulnerable people. For hierarchies to consciously direct women to utterly cover themselves, because they are vessals of sin, is completely different to the mores of whatever fashion is in.
Indeed you seem to want it both ways: ‘non-normal’ (Muslim) women are utterly capable to decide for themselves and want to not be seen at all, whereas white women and young girls are manipulated to wear what the fashion industry wants, against their own interest.
“However, to pretend, in arguing against a ban, that there is not an issue with highly oppressive families and social pressure to conform to this practice, or to draw a false equivalence with “trashy fasion” is surely betraying vulnerable people.”
As no one is pretending that, it’s a bit of a straw-man argument.
On the burqa and more broadly on the islamic issue, the French seem to be less naive than the British. Saying that it is not the role of a state to decide about clothing is of course obvious for any liberal mind.
OK, but is it religion’s role to prescribe a dress code that is now spreading across streets and cities all across Europe?
And what to think about the meaning, i.e. women inferior to men.
A language thing – why has the term “burka” come to mean any all-covering outfit which some suppose Islam asks its female followers to wear?
My understanding is that correctly “burka” is a loose garment which hangs from the top of the head to the ground, with netting to see out. I have never seen anyone wearing such a thing.
However, working in a part of London with a high Muslim population, I frequently see women wearing another sort of
garment, which unlike the burka involves two parts, the separate head part covers all of the face apart from the eyes, the whole thing is tighter than the burka.
I’m assuming it’s this latter garment that is being referred to when people write here of “banning the burka”. I think it is actually called something else.
There’s something of a fashion for it where I am, female students who opt for extreme intepretation of Islamic dress codes tend to be more forward types, “bolshy” as we used to say. Definitely not submissive types who have been pushed into it.
Secularists who have no idea of how religion works just don’t know how to argue about things like this, and tend to adopt positions which only encourage the extremists. It needs to be challenged from within Islam. The challenge would go something like this – true faith is what comes from the inside, not the outside. The wording in the Koran is not to dress in an outlandish fashion, but simply to dress modestly. Wearing all-encompassing outfits is not dressing modestly, it is dressing with a desire to draw attention. Therefore it is not in accordance with a more true interpretation of the Islamic ideal.
The niqab Matthew. And yes, they appear to be used interchangeably – I’m assuming that when France refers to one they mean both – i.e. ones that cover the face as distinct from the khimar scarf that doesn’t. But I think in schools the ban in France includes even that.
OMG! Can it be? Can it really be?
A thread on LDV. 28 comments. And we all agree! All of us!
Even Matthew Huntbach and Jock? Even Geoffrey Payne and me? I must be dreaming!
Mike: “is it religion’s role to prescribe a dress code that is now spreading across streets and cities all across Europe?”
Not sure about the meaning of “role” in this sentence. Religion can “prescribe” (and proscribe) anything it likes. It is a voluntary association; if people want to forego showing their faces in public or eating meat on Fridays, that is their choice. If it ceases to be voluntary then that is a different matter; I imagine there are some muslim women who would be afraid to openly defy their families and religious leaders. Nobody has a right to coerce individuals, even in the name of God.
Anthony A S –
People aren’t explicitly, I agree. But the idea that this is all a matter of strong women choosing to wear the thing – niqab or burkha – deminishes the importance of the actual problem of coercion.
Matthew – I am sure that many students do wear it for identity empowering assertion type reasons or the like. But taking students perhaps begs the question?
The idea, also, that this is secularists who are pushing it is odd, in this country anyway, since it is the decidedly non-secualar UKIP who have adopted the policy in the UK. In France I understand that ‘secular’ takes a slightly differnt meaning, and cannot be used interchangeably across the Channel (it is a ‘secular’ country, with a strong tradition in its form of secularism). Many secularists may support it, for example Maryam Namazie, but can we please get away from the insinuation that secualrism is a strange evil.
HarryD
The idea, also, that this is secularists who are pushing it is odd, in this country anyway, since it is the decidedly non-secualar UKIP who have adopted the policy in the UK.
You have missed my point.
What I was trying to say is that well-meaning secularists often fail to put their point over effectively to those who are not secularists, because they have no idea of how the religious mind works. Rather they base their lines on stereotypical and pejorative images they have of how the religious mind works. The same applies, of course, exactly in reverse.
The result is that both sides go off with a satisfying feeling that they are right and the other side is wrong, and what debate takes place is more a form of mental masturbation than anything else.
What an odd comment. I know plenty of religious secularists, and most of the non-believers I know were previously religious at some point in their life. I also know a couple of religious people who used to be non-believers (or at least apathetic). Where do these people fit into your little dichotomy of non-comprehension?
I’ll tell you what I think. I think you just have a big chip on your shoulder about all the bad press your Catholic Church is getting and you need to behind “they just don’t understand us” because there is litteraly no other defense. That’s what I think.
Seeing you lot congratulating yourselves on how wonderfully broad-minded and tolerant you all are on this issue makes me understand why the Lib Dems are doing so poorly, despite Labour and the Conservatives being so unpopular.
Do any of you talk to any of your fellow countrymen and women? Do you think there is widespread support in the population at large for increasing numbers of anonymous veiled women on the streets?
According to an Angus Reid Public opinion poll in January, 72 percent wanted the burqa banned in all public places while 79 percent wanted a ban on burqas in schools, universities and airports. However, 75 percent said there should be no public ban on the hijab.
What this tells me is that the hijab is seen as legitimate, while the burqa is not. Hiding your face is the ultimate rejection of the people and society around you. The French understand this.
That so many of you support the development of a parallel Muslim fundamentalist society in our midst demonstrates how far the LibDems have drifted from mainstream British society.
Indeed, it is terribly depressing that so many people in Britain find others’ freedoms uncomfortable. And not just on this issue.
I’d frankly be surprised, however, if the percentages quoted, if it was a representative sample geographically as well as politically, had ever seen anyone in burqa or niqab.
I’m afraid sumptuary laws are one thing we should be grateful have long gone.
Now, while we’re at it, would someone let that ex-marine out of Perth jail please without demanding he put clothes on.
Where are all these veiled women? I remember noticing a distinct increase in their numbers a few years ago but these days you hardly see them.
I’m not saying they exist but it is hardly a national crisis in the way that AlanF suggests. Nor should a moral panic about the subject be allowed to dictate policy on the area.
I can’t help but feel that all this talk about the veil is ultimately code for something else, which is a wider intolerance towards ethnic groups. It’s dog whistle stuff. It isn’t just liberal to resist this, it is incumbant on us to tackle it face on.
James, just because you “feel” that this is to do with race and immmigration (which you may well sincerely do, and it is a legitimate idea, of course) I can’t help but think that this is obscuring the more fundamental issue of universal human rights that Sanjay was talking about. I feel all too often in these cases that defending minority groups (rarely expressed as individuals, although here there has been talk of that, thankfully) allows the most conservative and radical wings legitimisation, which helps stymie progress and debate – which could occour if we face up that these are *people* living in Britain (not Muslims, or anything else, primarily).
We should treat them first of all in the same manner as anyone else. That demands that we deplore the burqha, not vehemently state how much we think they have a right to wear it (which, just to repeat, I think they do).
On AlanF, I will merely mention, follwing James, that opinion polls do not create right or wrong.
James thinks any opposition to the burqa is ‘dog-whistle stuff’, i.e. racist, while Jock doesn’t think opponents are ever likely to have seen a burqa in real life, and presumably just want them banned out of bigotry.
Not good enough, my friends. For too long we’ve had ‘progressives’ insulting those with different opinions on this and related issues, and attempting to stifle debate. How about trying to marshall some real arguments?
My own experience is anecdotal which is why I quoted the Angus Reid poll, but it exactly reflects the conversations that I have had as a former activist in Derby and Luton, where the increasing presence of the burqa is seen by many as a takeover by Muslim fundamentalists of the public space.
These are towns where there is already deep polarisation between Muslims and other communities, with the establishment’s coddling of fundamentalism often cited by non-Muslims as a big problem. And when I was back in Luton last September, a spate of crime by burqa-clad thugs was causing real anger.
Now I can foresee all sorts of problems enforcing a burqa ban but I think the French experience is interesting. Their refusal to allow secular values to be infringed by religious garb in schools has been broadly welcomed by liberal Muslim organisations, which recognise that the ever-more restrictive clothing imposed on women by fundamentalists is deeply misogynistic and a way of fracturing civil society .
A lesson we would be well advised to heed.
“According to an Angus Reid Public opinion poll in January, 72 percent wanted the burqa banned in all public places while 79 percent wanted a ban on burqas in schools, universities and airports.”
So what? I daresay you could produce all sorts of illiberal and intolerant garbage from opinion polls if you asked the right questions.
The point is that it isn’t up to the state to tell people what clothes they can and can’t wear. Calls for that to happen are far more threatening to our society than some women choosing to cover their faces in public.
HarryD: you a right that we certainly shouldn’t welcome people choosing to dress in this way. As Matthew Huntbach eludes, a lot of young people seem to be adopting this mode of dress not to express religious conviction (which is dubious anyway because there is no such stipulation in the Qu’ran) but out of a desire to shock; it’s the modern day equivalent of wearing a safety pin in your nose. I think we should expose poseurs for what they are.
What I don’t accept however is that this is a big national issue deserving of the moral panic that is going on. By contrast, the sort of bodyimage pressures that young women are exposed to is a far bigger deal warranting a far bigger response (not convinced it needs public policy changes either, but there is certainly a need for consciousness raising in the way Jo Swinson et al have done brilliantly over the last six months).
AlanF: You’ve just taken a debate about the burqa and projected it into the same old tropes about the “Islamification” of society, thus proving my point. Your point about bank robbers wearing burqas in Luton is just laughable – presumably you think we should ban balaclavas and crash helmets on the same basis?
Go easy there Alan; that is not what I said and your misrepresentation does your argument no favours. However, it is simple fact that people tend to overestimate such “difference”. For instance, a poll in Norwich schools a couple of years ago asking people what they thought the proportion of black people in Norwich was produced a figure ten times the actual proportion in the population. It was not, so far as anyone could tell, bigotry related or prejudiced, just a tendency to overestimate.
As to whether a “spate of crimes” perpetrated, allegedly, by people in burqas is enough to warrant banning them, might I suggest that we make a start with Adidas track-suits and beanie hats first – I think they are implicated in more crimes across the country than anything.
Personally I find it tempting to cover my face in public places since I have no idea what areas have facial recognition software running behind their unseen spy-cam intrusions on our daily lives too!
All that said, having spent most of my school years in the environs of Derby, it really would not surprise me one bit to find it a city, shall we say, a little backwards on integration!
Oh, and I’m with Anthony Aloysius St – I would not care if it were 99% in favour of a ban, this would not be a liberal party if it caved in to that and I wold not wish to be a part of it.
Jewellery shops have been targeted by burka wearers in the West Midlands, Glasgow, and Oxfordshire, travel agencies in Dunstable and Luton and a securicor van in Birmingham in the last year alone. Gangland attacks in London are increasingly being carried out by thugs in niqab-style face coverings who use the anonymity to evade CCTV.
How about WPC Sharon Beshenivsky’s murderer Mustaf Jama slipping through Heathrow on his way to Somalia wearing a niqab and using his sister’s passport? You see, for the security services to ask him to show his face might just have been considered Islamophobic, and that’s the last thing we want, eh, folks?
And then there was would-be tube bomber Yassin Omar, who escaped in a burka after his mates had killed 52 and injured 700 in London. Laughable, James? I think not.
It’s kinda weird, isn’t it. You have to take off your helmet in banks and government offices and everyone else is frisked and photographed to within an inch of their lives at airport security, but in tolerant, progressive modern-day Britain, Burka wearers get a free pass.
I’ll give you this Alan: there are certain high security environments where a burqa should be treated as any other kind of clothing which covers the face and the wearers to be required to show themselves. But that isn’t the same thing as a blanket ban, nor is the problem limited to Muslims.
AlanF
So you’re arguing that the burka is undesirable because it frustrates attempts to keep tabs on everybody’s movements using CCTV?
I suspect you may have come to the wrong website …
There is no blanket burka ban in France. Current proposals are that it will only extend to public transport, hospitals and government buildings.
Beyond that, French legislators regard this as a line in the sand. The basic message being sent out is that Islamic fundamentalism has no place in French society and that the state will take action to safeguard the founding principles of the Republic.
I spent a good part of last year in France and was impressed at the sophistication of the debate on this issue and the many different opinions expressed, both for and against. There was a real debate.
What I find dispiriting here is that here is no debate at all. The progressive consensus, as defined by government, NuLab, the LubDems, the BBC, the Guardian and the Independent, is that any opposition to any manifestation of Islam or Islamism is ‘racist’, and as such must be shouted down.
This is meant to be a discussion site for Liberals. Why no mention here of the pressure put on Muslim girls to wear this barbaric clothing, or the vile beliefs of the Salafi groups who impose this on their womenfolk? Why are the opinions of the communities who live cheek by jowl with this ignored? This would have been meat and drink to the members of the party I joined back in the 70s. Instead, the prime issue here seems to be that anybody should be able to wear what they want. Talk about missing the wood for the trees!
Phew – what a rant!
As an anarchist Lib Dem member there is no “racist” issue involved. But like Herbert Spencer I just don’t think there should be any laws pro- or pre-scribing what people can and cannot wear. As i said at the top of the thread, it is up to private property owners to decide whether they want particular dress codes on their property and I have no problem with them doing so. But it is not the business of the state (there again, nothing is IMHO!).
And the best way to prevent wholesale Islamification, if that is a worry and whatever it means, would be to eradicate the state monopoly power any one group could get a hold of and manipulate.
Does wearing a kilt in Derby scare them that Bonnie Prince Charlie is returning? Or do they still celebrate having sent him packing?
ianm
I’ll tell you what I think. I think you just have a big chip on your shoulder about all the bad press your Catholic Church is getting and you need to behind “they just don’t understand us” because there is litteraly no other defense. That’s what I think.
Yes, and the same applies for secular liberals as viewed by Catholics. There is often a ridiculous misunderstanding of where liberals are coming from within conservative Catholic circles.
The consequence is that while both sides feel self-gratified attacking each other, neither side is getting anywhere doing so. But within the religious circles, these sort of arguments tend to bolster the conservatives at the expense of the liberals.
I can see this happening within Islam. That is why I suggested an alternative attack on the niqab, which I think would actually serve the purpose rather than just make us feel good.
AlanF, do you deliberately enjoy misrepresenting and misreading? Can you not see that there is a debate going on, right here, and that you are part of it?
Immigrant burqha wearing men causing increase in crime: panic! panic!….I’m sorry, as an argument, that is laughable. Using the London bombings (I would reccommend Simon Jenkins recent piece on terrorism) to try and give a solemn obligation on the discussion is disingenous.
James, OK, I’m sure I agree to much of your views on this. It is a matter of emphasis, perhaps: I think that liberals should say much more clearly that the thing is terrible, and it is just that we shouldn’t ban it, rather than talk about rights and unfair attacks and racism, which makes it sound as if we want them to wear it.
I live in an area where some women do cover their heads and faces. I know some Muslim women who dislike the practice and others who cover their faces.
The strange thing is that when I see a woman I don’t know with her face covered it makes me feel uncomfortable. Yet when it is a woman I do know I recognise her instantly and say hello and have a chat.
There is another aspect to this though. One of the murderers of Sharon Beshinivsky (whose family live in my ward) escaped by disguising himself as a woman wearing a burqa.
What right has any government to ban the wearing of any clothes. I am a male Christian and if I choose to wear a head covering of any kind, no matter what the reason, I am allowed under law. I understand covering ones face in a bank or similar must not be allowed, but if i want to wear a hood, or balaclava in the street it is my right to do so, providing I am not intenting to stir up trouble, or causing incetement. i dont know the full legal issues, but BANNING someone from wearing clothes must contravene the human rights act.
I’ll get my self one of these Burqha and rob a few banks and post offices. No one will challenge me before I get to the counter. (Unlike motorcycle helmets). If you would like to join my Burqha Gang we can walk down the high street and see how many people cross the road to avoid us, we can also give the Chavs outside the off licence a run for their money.