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Belgian awful

Belgium has just banned all wearing of clothing which obscures or semi-obscures the face - in a clear attempt to stop certain religious clothing most often associated with women of a certain faith - on the absurd grounds that no one should be allowed to "see but not be seen" in public. Are bans on tinted car windows and sunglasses to follow? Bans on security cameras? We in the West live in a pan-optical society, and the right to look extends far beyond the right to be seen. Otherwise x-ray specs would be enforced. We have a right, surely, to protect our dignity, modesty, person - and even privacy. More to the point, is religion such a threat to the secular powers that be (namely so-called democracy and capitalism) that it must be basically cleared from the market place and the public squares, as a contagion, like second-hand smoke? Religion threatens humanist mastery, and especially the aims of instrumentalism. It gestures to realms and spaces less visible, and less scientific - indeed, the mystical, the spiritual, perhaps the magical, and, at times, of course, the musical and artistic. At the least, the need or desire for religion is a deep and valid psychological one. Whether there is a God (and we must hope there is, or could be) there is definitely an historic belief in one, extending over thousands of years. It seems churlish and simplistic to seek to rescue these women from garments they have no wish to rend. Such laws are inhospitable and utterly infantile. True freedom would allow for each of use to choose how we wish to be arrayed and disport ourselves. Clothing makes the man. Symbols have power. Without religious symbols, religion is drained and purified, desalinated to the point of evaporation. Then again, perhaps God exists finally in the thin air the State demands he disappear into. To trouble our minds no more.

Comments

Jane Holland said…
Todd, that's a lovely post. But wildly melodramatic, and also quite far off the mark politically. Religion is not merely about spirituality. Indeed, it's rarely about spirituality. In the case of most organised religions, it's about belonging to a club. And some of the members of some of those clubs encourage insiders to hate and even kill those who don't belong to it, or those who sympathise with other points of view besides those of the club. What the Belgium government is bravely, though possibly misguidedly, trying to do is make it harder for members of some clubs to proclaim their allegiance in public, thus hopefully weakening at least public ties of identity and building towards a more tolerant, secular society where clubs of that sort - exclusive, in other words, not open and inclusive - are discouraged. Unfortunately, where a particular sort of religious hatred exists, it will continue in pockets, driven underground by attempts to curb its influence but even more resentful than before.

In this country, we need to ban the reading of poetry. That should make sales shoot up, albeit under the counter. Perhaps if we associated poetry with a certain kind of clothing, and then moved to Belgium ...
Unknown said…
The French ban makes sense; the Belgium one, from what I know of it, doesn't.
Completely obscuring the face is absurd. This is not our culture. If we are expected to wear veils in THEIR culture (and THERE, it's often on pain of prison, death, or maiming), why shouldn't we require our cultural normals to be respected? I don't respect liberalism's inconsistencies anymore. Not one blip, and not one iota. It seems to have taken over Britain. And it's gradually overtaking Canada. There are a lot of reasonable people who just don't like this hypocrisy. I am one of them.
martine said…
Surely our 'cultural norm' is that we respect people's freedom of expression, dress and whatever else, being dogmatic and restrictive (and equally potentially punitive) is doing just what we are cricitising them for. **If you believe in these freedoms** you cannot temper the right to exercise them when people do things that you either don't understand or approve of.
very very interesting and thought provoking post, don't agree with you (or these responses) and may come back when I had had time to articulate my response better.
thanks
martine
Jeannette said…
Actually, with all due respect, there is not a ban -- what happened was that a subcommitttee voted to propose such a law to the parliment, and at some point the parliament will vote on it. It is a tricky subject indeed -- riles up anyone who thinks it has to do with religious freedom, riles up anyone who is appalled by the shrouding of women (and the process by which they start to believe it is their free choice). What's also interesting is that all this is happening at the same time as women are increasingly employed as suicide bombers by the same religious extremists that want them covered. Moderate, observant Muslims need to speak up! Btw, I don't think the "slippery slope" is the best argument here -- We need to stay aware, rational, intelligent, and not get wrapped up (!) in fears about not-very-likely futures.
Unknown said…
Fining people for one simple rule which everyone in our society (except those who want to imposed on us, on our culture, and force us to enforce their sick rules) is hardly unreasonable, Martine. And it is hardly dogmatic. Pragmatic, yes. Also you wrote, "equally punitive." Really??? Are you kidding? Is fining somebody (just like you would fine somebody for parking in front of a fire hydrant, or for speeding) the equivalent of stoning, beheading, (prolonged) imprisonment. I really have to say, liberalism has detestable double standards these days, I'm sorry. I hope I don't offend you. You express yourself well, but you are dead wrong.
Unknown said…
Jeannette raises an interesting point. How is it that that just having a discussion arouses all sorts of absurd ugly responses form Islamists or their fellow-travellers (sometimes the latter's response is worse, and even more rapid).

In a small town in Québec, they wanted to have a rational discussion, with a set of guidelines to help people who enter the town understand their culture, and of their expectations. Some of us remember this episode as the Reasonable Accommodation talks. The fact that people couldn't even discuss this in their own town without being condemned (unreasonably) but supposedly "more cultured" people in big cities like Montreal made thoughtcrime illegal by default. No prison, but perhaps, at least so far, just the ones in our heads. Eventually, if we continue shutting people up this way (and I'm not saying it will or won't, but tendencies in Britain/Europe, Canada, and also gradually in the U.S. are moving in that direction.
Sheenagh Pugh said…
I have a particular take on this: my hearing gets no better and to have a proper, non-embarrassing conversation with someone, I do need to see the way their lips move. To put it mildly, that ain't possible if the someone wears niqab. Whose "rights" trump whose in that situation, pray? I get over it by simply avoiding any conversation with someone so dressed, but don't you think that's a pity?

I think there are two things you might not be considering, Todd. One is possibly gender-related. It is possible to read extreme forms of dress like niqab not only as meaning "this is the way I interpret modest dress" but as "this IS modest dress and you folk who don't wear it are, therefore, a bunch of sluts". It can be read as a criticism of the normal dress of others, in other words, which they will then resent. I must admit I'd have thought men would feel insulted too, at the suggestion that a passing glimpse of face would turn them into ravening lechers. There's also the matter of pressure. I recall that when some rather self-advertising young teen wanted to wear jilbab to school instead of the religiously perfectly acceptable hijab, it started an unseemly competition among girls' brothers, pressuring their sisters to wear it in a spirit of "my sister's more modest than yours". I can't help thinking that modesty consists more in behaviour than in dress and is seldom best achieved by wearing clothing so extreme as to amount to an advertisement of modesty - rather a contradiction in terms, no?

As for the law, I think it best kept out if possible, but it is a fact that in our culture, for some centuries covering the face (as opposed to the hair) has been a sign of criminality; where do you think highwayman's and burglars' trademark masks came from? Since it would be manners, if we were in somewhere like Saudi, to respect their dress code, ought the same not to apply in reverse?
martine said…
Dear Thoth
Sorry, bad choice of word there, i meant equally in the sense of 'also', they are suggesting punishing people for their choice of dress, not that a fine is like being beheaded. I just think that this type of bill is just the wrong reaction to the situation/problem. By Sheenagh's argument anyone's choices about just about anything could potentially be an implied criticism of others, are we suddenly all so sensitive about our own decisions. I think her final comment is more telling if viewed in reverse: subconsciously we (I mean our society) think these women are criminals because they cover their faces, not that we fear they might be, we assume they are. It is totally about the fear of something people don't understand. I for one have no idea what goes on in the mind of someone who choses this form of dress but I have no wish to force them to go around in jeans and t-shirt . This is what you expect when you live in a multicultural society, people who think differently.
with respect
martine
Mark Granier said…
For what it's worth, I think Sheenagh puts it very well, as does Jane (and I also agree with much of what Thoth and Jeannette say). I think the niqab and burqa should be discouraged in schools and the workplace. The Belgian law does seem a bit extreme though, and if people are imprisoned as a result they would no doubt be considered martyrs.

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