Of all the problems in the Netherlands, this seems to be a priority:
The Dutch government announced plans Friday for legislation banning full-length veils in public places and other clothing that covers the face — putting the Netherlands at the forefront of a general European hardening toward Muslim minorities.
Personally, I think the burka is ridiculous, and I generally would prefer that those that I’m speaking to are not in a burka, but legislating against it? I guess the Dutch government wants to make things worse, before they get better.
Peej
I’ve tried several times to comment on the posts for today but they have reduced me to nothing more coherent than angry splutterings. Gah.
Peej
Er, I meant the posts from today and yesterday. Apparently, in my world, a day is 48 hours long.
Beth
Wouldn’t this legislation have the result of making the most devoutly religious just stay home, thus further isolating them from mainstream Dutch culture? So much for assimilation.
At the same time, I don’t want to completely dismiss the Dutch concerns. I don’t think you can legislate an answer, but I do think you get a unique set of tensions and concerns when you have a relatively liberal society that is faced with an influx of more conservative immigrants, or just immigrants whose cultural/religious beliefs are at odds with the norms of the dominant liberal culture.
Our conventional wisdom is that it is only rednecks and conservatives who worry about immigrants moving in and “changing our way of life,” but in truth I think liberals sometimes have an even bigger problem with that confrontation, when they finally notice that it’s happening. Where I have seen it directly is in law enforcement matters … I was appalled down to my liberal toenails when I first encountered the Hmong/Lao “this is our culture” defense to child molestation, but I’ve seen it multiple times now. (I don’t really buy it, incidentally, because in every case the girl and her parents reported the offense to the police, and they were from the same culture.) Various recent immigrant populations are more tolerant of spousal abuse than we like to think we are. Those are obviously very different issues than veils and burquas, but I think they set up the same sort of tension, especially since so many issues regarding women’s roles and what constitutes a “choice” and what is something you do because of strong cultural pressure are issues that we are still working out in “mainstream” society, anyway.
But I don’t really see how making a law that keeps women from leaving their houses really fixes the issue, nor do I see how legally restricting a woman’s choices increases her liberty, if that is what the Dutch think they are doing.
tarikur
This is just show that Europeans have no tolerance and oppress women just as European accuses the Muslim of doing. Banning a woman to wear veil is same as forcing a women to wear veil, both are oppressive to women and violates women’s right. Congratulation Dutch people, you guys are just like Taliban.
This just show Europeans don’t care about Freedom, Democracy, Diversity, Torlance, Women’s Right, Religious’ Right, Minority’ Right, Human Rights. Next, time they preach those things, just laugh at them as jokes
tarikur
It kills the Westerners to think that Muslim women actually choose to wear it. Only thing they want to believe is that women are forced to wear it by men.
Look at the countries like Turkey or Tunisia that government banned it and discourage it. But the Muslim women continue to wear it with big numbers. In the BBC news, they said 65% of the all women in Turkey wear veil.
Very, very small percentage of women are forced to wear it by men but nearly all women wear it because they choose to wear it.
tarikur
We all know why they can’t ban the full Muslim veil or hijab because Nuns wear the same veil for the same reason.
Why is it when nuns wear veil, people consider them holy and pious but when Muslim women wear veil, people consider them ‘submissive and oppressed’?
MB
I think you’re reading it as giving far more evidence than it does, Tarikur. I agree that banning it as as offensive as requiring it, but your damnation list of European hypocrisy hardly follows. If enacted, however, the Dutch will be following your examples (Turkey and Tunisia) into dangerous territory – it simply adds pressure to an already near-boiling situation.
Beth, I think you’re quite right in that liberal-leaning types are more likely to be a bit willfully ignorant (if I can put it that way) in their rush to accept and embrace cultures (I suspect you see more of it there than I do here). I like to think that that’s more an affliction of the sophomore cultural studies kids that they’ll soon grow out of, but every once it a while, I see it shape the views of some otherwise very smart people.
In any event, I think we’ll see the American Left have to deal more directly with this as the conservative Catholicism of many Latino immigrants starts to make its way into the political leadership of the left.
Peej
As usual, Beth makes some good points, which highlight my own internal conflict. Make no mistake; I do not agree with any legislation that targets a minority group on the basis of a belief or action that ties into their identity of being a minority. However, there is a part of me that has to struggle with the right to allow others to pursue what their beliefs are, even if I disagree with them and, more importantly, if I truly believe that belief isn’t so much a belief as an exploitation of a minority group within that minority itself. Because I truly believe that the introduction and/or mandate of the burka as proper attire for Muslim women, in certain Muslim sects, is nothing more than a deliberate misinterpretation of Islamic laws and shari’a by male interpreters for the sole purpose of limiting women.
Note I don’t make that distinction for what is generally referred to as the veil, which I use to denote the typical attire of head scarf/head covering and modest attire so only the face, the hands, and the outline of the body are showing. I can and do have an easier time believing that is attire willingly taken up by some Muslim women, but attire that robs you of your individuality and identity completely is not and never will be liberating in any sense.
My comment to Tarikur is that while I am not going to argue numbers or even the general observation that most Muslim women wear the attire because they want to, one must take into consideration political atmosphere and cultural influence, which is separate from religious influence, to an extent, in these cases. For example, there is a very large population of women in Iran, which make up a large number of the overall Muslim female population, and I can assure you that the majority of them are NOT wearing it willingly, but are doing so by government mandate. Interestingly, the mothers and aunts and grandmothers of this generation that would like nothing so much as to toss off the head scarf were the ones who took to the streets in 1978 and took on the veil as a symbol of their fight against the oppressions faced under the Shah’s regime. If you went back to 1978, the atmosphere then was very much similar to the brewing in Turkey and Egypt and because wearing the veil was frowned upon at the time (although not illegal); that frowning upon was seen as a pervasive symbol of the Shah’s tyranny against the true Iranian culture (which is and will always be, unfortunately, coupled with Islamic culture, instead of standing on its own). Wearing the veil, therefore, became a more form of protest, than a voluntary acceptance of the definition of modest attire for women that is a part of the Shi’ite belief. When the veil became a weapon of control in the new government’s hands, the same women who were showing the dame behavior you quoted were quick to turn against it (except they can’t, since they can be executed by law). [Which sums up my feelings about the burka: I do see it specifically as a weapon of control (whether on the personal or government level) and not as an acceptable derivation of the Muslim fundamental beliefs, even though at the end of day I have to defend someone’s right to wear it.]
I guess what I am trying to say is that it is easy to quote numbers and trends but there is a lot more context around those numbers and trends, and the difference between adopting a way of life as an act of rebellion versus an act of belief, especially where women are concerned, that get lost in such quotes.
MB
Which is not just the crux of the question here, but also at the center of the larger cultural changes that Beth raises. Our strong (and correct, I’d say) adherence to defending that right to wear it carries many consequences, including the enabling of situations that we find abhorrent in and of themselves. And it is
those behaviors, actually what we’re talking about the majority of the time in the subjugation of women through cultural controls, isn’t it? And for the most part, there is very little that can be done – legally – about that subjugation. Which leaves it to liberal society to bring about the change with some cultural salesmanship – show the younger generations the value of tolerance and equality. And one of the most important things about that is it is not forced. That lack of force has to be one of the most compelling things about it, I think.Beth
I would like to congratulate all participants in this conversation for their/our ability to discuss this sensitive issue without using the idiotic non-word “islamicization.” The NPR reporter this morning was less successful.
It sounds like an exercise video. Islamicize your way to a firm butt in 30 days!