Women who wear burkhas in public in France will be fined

[norks]

It causes segregation between YOU and someone wearing one.

 

It does not segregate me, and many other people on here, and someone wearing one. Indeed, I have conversations most days with someone wearing a face veil (and not people i have met before).

 

The fact that it makes YOU uncomfortable is neither here nor there.

 

 

 

and pigs love allah :hihi:

 

 

 

mmmmmmm:rolleyes:

[boyfriday]

i know but these were not steel toecap trainers

 

I'm not sure what your point is ricgem?

 

So you're aggrieved that your employer enforces rules to protect you, but not your Sikh workmate, yet you believe it's the Sikh who's receiving some preferential advantage??

 

If you all standing in a line and an 8ft RSJ landed on your toes, who do you think would end up in hospital and unable to work and support their family?

[quisquose]

The question is though how do you decide just because you dont like something its a good idea to make it illegal?

 

How much police time would you be happy spent finding and prosecuting people wearing the burqa?

I always like to refer to the Harm Priciple as described by John Stuart Mill in On Liberty. Basically “the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.”

 

With this rule in mind I find it difficult to justify the enforced wearing of front seatbelts, the banning of smoking clubs where everyone including the staff smoke, and indeed the banning of the burqa.

 

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown came closest to a justification in her excellent article here. She didn’t quite do it for me, but what she clearly did do for me is make the penny drop that objecting to a ban on purely libertarian grounds, which is what I was doing, is a bit rich given that most recent bans have been put in place for so-called liberal reasons.

 

(Oh, she’s a Muslim by the way mafa, which clearly contradicts your Freudian slip of a post #757. Some of the most vocal advocates of a ban are Muslims.)

 

Most of us think the wearing of the burqa is unwelcome, many think it is rude and offensive. However, because we are overly sensitive to its supposed religious or cultural ‘specialness’, society struggles to deal with it in the proper manner. We only talk about bans because we are uncomfortable with communicating with burqa clad people as we should.

 

I think it is illiberal to ban a mode of clothing, but the burqa itself is illiberal and it is not illiberal to ask somebody to show their face when you are talking to them. We are just too afraid to ask.

 

The advocates of a ban mention the security issues of the burqa, and the correct response is that the burqa is no different to other forms of clothing that cover the face such as the motorcycle helmet. This is only true if we are not afraid to ask.

 

In #788 boyfriday logically compares the use of the burqa in a crime to the wearing of false wigs and rubber noses in another. It’s not so logical in the real world though. Criminals don't wear stupid disguises to gain people's trust, to ask to be let in. The spate of jewellery robberies where the burqa has been used to gain entry is to take advantage of our reticence to question it. Where we would have no hesitation to refuse entry to somebody wearing a motorcycle helmet, we are afraid to refuse entry to somebody wearing a burqa because it might "offend".

 

Last year I got on a 52 bus at the bottom of Staniforth Road and a girl in a niqab got on with her pushchair and said “40 please”. I remember thinking to myself she could be in her 20’s, but the bus driver never questioned her. My guess is he was too afraid to.

 

I’ve just had a quick chat with my friend that worked in the HSBC at Darnall before it closed. She confirmed that they first began to see women in niqabs post 9/11, which is what I expected from my observations. I asked, “how did you deal with customers that wore them, if they needed to be identified?” She replied, “well it’s not very often you really need to prove somebody’s identity, but when we did we got the odd one that objected quite loudly. In the end we would not ask when perhaps we should”.

 

So it seems our problem is that we are actually afraid to deal with the burqa as we should. We give it special status that is undeserved, and the supporters of a politicised Islam see this as a weakness and begin to wear it in increasing numbers.

 

People have the right to wear what they want, but they should not have the "right" to conduct themselves in public life, consult a civil servant, attend interviews, educate children and so on, with their faces covered (without medical exemption). Neither should they expect to be given special treatment.

Edited February 3, 2010 by quisquose

[norks]

drivel, dear.

 

I bet when you go abroad you are the one speaking to the natives in very loud, slow English, and dining in the Egg-and-chips bar.

 

 

 

and that just about sums you up dont it, as long as we all love islam were great other than that we are knuckle dragging oafs..

 

 

oh the irony of you ignorence and intolerance:hihi:

[boyfriday]

In #788 boyfriday logically compares the use of the burqa in a crime to the wearing of false wigs and rubber noses in another. It’s not so logical in the real world though. Criminals don't wear stupid disguises to gain people's trust, to ask to be let in.

I'm pleased you picked up on that point quisquose, a large part of people's objections to the burka is it's alienating demeanor, in other words it doesnt naturally engender trust between the wearer and a non Muslim for the reasons you and I have previously explored and agreed with.

 

A succesful robber is far more likely to gain the trust of his victim if he looks and behaves like them and appears congruous with his surroundings, the 'stupid' disguises the Graff jewellery store robbers employed made them look more like George Clooney and Denzil Washington than Krusty the Klown and they walked with £40 million.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/aug/14/graff-diamond-robbers-disguise

 

 

The spate of jewellery robberies where the burqa has been used to gain entry is to take advantage of our reticence to question it.

 

 

Is it really a 'spate'? From the thousands of robberies that are commited each day there are probably more common and effective devices used to avoid detection than the burka.

 

Besides which, does anyone really believe banning the burka will reduce robberies and muggings? Those villains who use it as their disguise of choice will simply go back to pantyhose or its equivalent.

Where we would have no hesitation to refuse entry to somebody wearing a motorcycle helmet, we are afraid to refuse entry to somebody wearing a burqa because it might "offend".

Oh quisquose, I know you've been torn in your deliberations over this issue, but relying on this justification is simply the lazy mindest of one of our resident Pitchforkers and you're certainly not one of them.

 

I wouldn't be worrying about offending people in order to establish their identity, and I'm sure it's only a tiny minority of burka wearers (already in the tiny minority), who would be offended by such a request-they're well used to establishing and proving who they are, just like the rest of us..the fear of offending is created in your mind, not the prospective offendee.

[quisquose]

Following on from my post above I think this is a nice summary of the case for a ban:

 

The classic argument here is of course John Stuart Mill's harm principle: burka-wearers may be misguided, but if they are only damaging themselves then there's little a liberal state can or should do about it. The French answer - and Alibhai-Brown's - would seem to be that in fact they are harming other people through their choice of dress. For example they are:

 

(1) implicitly denigrating other women - especially other Muslim women - and thus making it harder for them to exercise autonomy;

(2) damaging the image of Islam and the Muslim community in wider society, thus promoting community disharmony (YAB quotes an incident in which one conspicuously veiled woman provokes a hostile response from other Asians, who are heard to mutter "Stupid women, giving us all a bad name. They should send them back.");

(3) creating delays in security arrangements where visual identification is required;

(4) providing cover for criminals and possibly terrorists who have been known to adopt the burka as a convenient disguise;

(5) the deprivation of sunlight is bad for their health, and may lead to increased healthcare costs.

 

This, then, is what the difference between the debate in Britain and France comes down to: not liberalism versus illiberalism, nor even secularism versus multiculturalism, but two competing conceptions of what it is to be liberal. It may take a generation to find out which is right.

 

I think that about sums it up.

Edited February 3, 2010 by quisquose

[boyfriday]

Following on from my post above I think this is a nice summary of the case for a ban:

 

The classic argument here is of course John Stuart Mill's harm principle: burka-wearers may be misguided, but if they are only damaging themselves then there's little a liberal state can or should do about it. The French answer - and Alibhai-Brown's - would seem to be that in fact they are harming other people through their choice of dress. For example they are:

 

(1) implicitly denigrating other women - especially other Muslim women - and thus making it harder for them to exercise autonomy;

(2) damaging the image of Islam and the Muslim community in wider society, thus promoting community disharmony (YAB quotes an incident in which one conspicuously veiled woman provokes a hostile response from other Asians, who are heard to mutter "Stupid women, giving us all a bad name. They should send them back.");

(3) creating delays in security arrangements where visual identification is required;

(4) providing cover for criminals and possibly terrorists who have been known to adopt the burka as a convenient disguise;

(5) the deprivation of sunlight is bad for their health, and may lead to increased healthcare costs.

 

This, then, is what the difference between the debate in Britain and France comes down to: not liberalism versus illiberalism, nor even secularism versus multiculturalism, but two competing conceptions of what it is to be liberal. It may take a generation to find out which is right.

 

I think that about sums it up.

 

None of that is justification for banning it though, more excuses. If it were then there are other modes of dress that would be similarly prohibited and reasons created to justify it-religious habits for example.

Edited February 3, 2010 by boyfriday

[L00b]

besides which, they have banned it from being in public at all, not just when there are security implications, making this point moot.

I wish all comments would be informed: THERE IS NO BAN IN PLACE, IT IS CURRENTLY THE SUBJECT OF DISCUSSIONS AND A PUBLIC ENQUIRY, A BAN MAY YET NEVER BE VOTED.

 

Sorry for shouting, but it's getting tiresome to correct a simple, but pretty fundamental point

[teuton]

cooljules - why do you think we should start banning items of clothing?

 

Should we ban hoodies

 

yes as soon as possible

[quisquose]

Where we would have no hesitation to refuse entry to somebody wearing a motorcycle helmet, we are afraid to refuse entry to somebody wearing a burqa because it might "offend".

Oh quisquose, I know you've been torn in your deliberations over this issue, but relying on this justification is simply the lazy mindest of one of our resident Pitchforkers and you're certainly not one of them.

Does that really put me in the "pitchfork" category boyfriday?

 

Rather than calling for a ban, I'm trying to explain that our problem with the niqab is of our own making by giving it special status that is undeserved.

 

The bank cashier who told me that she would rather cash the petty cash cheque without question, the busdriver that allows the child fare without question. These are all every day examples of our own hesitation to communicate as we should, but instead we hide behind the anonymous and childish shouts to ban.

 

We are cowards, if we are uncomfortable communicating with somebody who has their face covered we should tell them, but instead we want our MP's to sort it out for us.

Edited February 3, 2010 by quisquose