In the Wall Street Journal today, My friend Peter Berkowitz offers a defense of French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s attempt to ban the full veiling of Muslim women in France.
“Restrictions on liberty in a free society are always suspect and in need of justification,” Peter wisely notes, but “the best justification is the protection and promotion of freedom”—and, as his headline claims: “What might be unthinkable in the U.S. looks more reasonable in France.”
Well, maybe so—but, actually, no, I’m unwilling to concede even that “maybe.” This is a bizarre restriction on liberty, justifiable only in the name of things that are peculiarly French and already limitations on liberty. Particularly the French misunderstanding of the relation of church and state.
Earlier this year, I wrote: “On all topics that touch on religion and public life—from Jewish relations to Catholic relations to Muslim relations—I can’t think of anything good the French state has to teach. Left or Right, the only lesson about democracy that France offers the world is: Don’t try this at home.”
The line made more than a few of our Francophile friends unhappy. But isn’t this latest effort—by the conservatives, no less—proof that the French simply have wrong the whole relation of religion and public life?
April 7th, 2010 | 11:14 am
In an ideal world, it would be hypocritical for a democracy to deny Muslim women the right to wear burqas; however, it is not an ideal world, and Muslims are using–abusing, rather–western civil rights to bring the edifice of western civilization down. A sense of moral satisifaction will be of little comfort to us, when, at the end, we are sitting on the curb with our heads–literally–in our hands.
April 7th, 2010 | 12:28 pm
France isn’t about liberty. It’s about equality. Their disgusting anti-religious lunacy is completely indefensible. Just because they’ve moved on from Catholic-bashing to Muslim-bashing, and just because there are Muslim extremists causing such widespread problems, doesn’t mean anyone should defend the indefensible.
April 7th, 2010 | 3:46 pm
Brian writes: “….doesn’t mean anyone should defend the indefensible.”
That would be Islam (i.e., “submission”) in my phrase book, Brian. And the “bashing” being done has been done to women for 1400 years of this abominable heresy. The burqa is not a simple veil; it obliterates the woman, her personhood, her individual being. Even if they were not carrying signs in Trafalgar Square saying “Islam will conquer Europe”, it is still a public safety issue to have someone’s total visage covered.
The men on this thread might read former Muslim women such as Nonie Darwish, Dr. Wafa Sultan and Ayaan Hirsi Ali to get the perspective of women on the obliterating burqa.
April 7th, 2010 | 4:31 pm
AvantiBev: If the problem is women being forced to wear the veil in France, then make THAT (the forcing) illegal. I would be absolutely distraught if my daughter someday became a Muslim and chose to wear a bag over her head, but that’s her choice if she should choose to make it and the government has no business telling anyone they can’t wear what they want (within certain limits for public safety). Should she ever do that under duress, you bet I’d want the authorities involved, but otherwise it’s NOT the government’s business. Send missionaries to convert the women, NOT cops to take their clothes.
April 7th, 2010 | 6:08 pm
From author Nonie Darwish at Former Muslims United website:
“There is a major difference: in the West, Christianity did not come with thousands of pages of Jesus’s laws regulating every detail in a Christian’s life to control every Christian. Jesus did not call women deficient in intelligence and lacking in religion or that they are toys, slaves in a marriage. Very simply Western feminists were not confronted with the many dead ends that the Muslim feminist is confronting.
Many also believe that the reformation of Sharia and Islam itself will come from its most oppressed group: women. I disagree with that view, partially because the woman is largely the object of extreme regulation in Sharia (Allah’s law).
Expecting Muslim women to be behind the reformation of Islam and Sharia, is like asking slaves to end their own slavery without their masters’ approval or asking prisoners to get out of prison without the guards opening the doors.”
April 10th, 2010 | 10:56 am
I must respectfully disagree with Mr. Bottum. Given the threat that the rising tide of Islam presents to all of Europe, France has every right to protect itself by enacting laws restricting the practice of Islam. Islam is not compatible with western civilization. The sad fact of the matter is that Muslims use western freedoms to undermine those same freedoms. Islam is not a religion of peace and outside of its monotheism, it has nothing in common with Judaism or Christianity. It is time that everyone in the West started treating Islam like the threat that it is to our civilization and our way of life.
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