The French

That women should be liberated from exaggerated modesty (I don't think there's much modesty in ostentatious modesty, really) and patriarchal control is praiseworthy but to do so by diktat of law is merely to exchange the petty tyranny of enforced social codes for the petty tyranny of the State and the underpinning of this move in France stems pretty transparently (to me, at least) from not only hypocritical (as Tracer points out above) but also racist/nationalist prejudice. It's easy to be tolerant to people who are just like you, less so, apparently, if they're not.

― Mit der Kattzheit kaempfen Goetter selbst vergebens (Michael White), Tuesday, January 26, 2010 6:10 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

i basically agree with this, but don't find a conclusion that easy to reach. it's a difficult dilemma for a liberal secularist, because this is a very strange kind of "freedom to". (i think it's evasive to characterize it as such, really -- we're talking about children.)

(i don't agree with all of it. i don't think the state is enforcing a "tyranny" by doing this ffs.)

I read this the other day:

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1953382,00.html

Now the French Must Prove They're French:

"What a lot of people don't realize is that with the increasingly strict obligation to prove your citizenship, you can walk into a state administration today to have your ID or passport renewed, and walk out virtually a stateless person," says Naulleau, 48, whose family had been posted to Baden-Baden, Germany — about 30 miles from the French border — when he was born in 1961. "The situation is creating a two-class system of citizenship in which French nationals born abroad or to foreign parents are treated as inferior, and forced to prove their worthiness of being French more than others."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1953382,00.html#ixzz0do5jbogZ

history mayne you don't think this decision is tyrannical? then what is it?

what do you think of this?

Others will opine that one cannot be a true citizen if one hides one's face, because one is thus refusing human interaction. Yet some people wear dark glasses out of shyness or pure ­obnoxiousness, and nobody would think of denying them their right to humanity. The security-based objection, requiring one to bare one's face in order to have the right to pick up one's children from school, for instance, or if so required by a police patrol, is legitimate in the abstract, but only if one conveniently forgets the fact that in practice, the new generation of women – among the many we have surveyed – do not in fact refuse to comply.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/jan/26/proposed-veil-ban-in-france

from that above link: "Pseudo-feminist rhetoric cannot conceal the fact that it is indeed the voluntary veil which is being fought, and not the imposed article."

yep

as an atheist liberal i still think that believing in whatever wacky comfort blanket gets you thru shd be a basic right, really

and any and all actions arising from that belief? Cos that's the edge that we're treading with this, even if in this case it's a bit of a silly example?

xpost: no, its a case of the French old guard and "intelligentsia" unable to deal with the difference

and any and all actions arising from that belief?

Nah, course not. "Rights" is a tenuous and wobbly notion that is purely metaphysical outside of the realm of enforceable law imo but actions that don't actively harm others ought to be outside of the state's power I think. The chain of logic that would make wearing religious symbols an act of harm is a lot longer than the chain that you could create to argue for lots of other acts that states don't see fit to legislate for.

e.g. "don't indoctrinate kids into religions they can't possibly understand" well yeah I don't disagree on the level of personal ethics but how the fuck are you gonna make a law to stop all the other stupid indoctrinations that all adults enact on kids and which are notably worse/more life-unenhancing?

I like a government trying to strongarm women's rights in one clearly racial/cultural arena tho when governments are so notably awesome at stamping out all the other abuses against women

actions that don't actively harm others

U&K, and kinda tough to see where it occurs in this case, apart from a nastily bruised nationalism.

how the fuck are you gonna make a law to stop all the other stupid indoctrinations that all adults enact on kids

starting with religion not a bad step imo, but not just one aspect of one religion

I seriously don't see any difference between raising your kids to fear imaginary deity and raising your kids to be law-abiding passive consumers tbh and think in many respects the former is preferable.

apart from a nastily bruised nationalism

there's the rub. this is just a really big deal for an enormous amount of people.

Several of them not racist assholes.

I seriously don't see any difference between raising your kids to fear imaginary deity and raising your kids to be law-abiding passive consumers tbh and think in many respects the former is preferable.

new thread pls, because whatever about statement one, the 'preferable' part is challops go leór and we could definitely get good mileage out of it for a wednesday.

Outside

I seriously don't see any difference between raising your kids to fear imaginary deity and raising your kids to be law-abiding passive consumers tbh and think in many respects the former is preferable

And now Brits must start wringing our hands also as the BBC asks Should the UK ban the Muslim face veil?

Complete with handy list for more info.

RELATED INTERNET LINKS
Muslim Women's Network UK
British Muslims for Secular Democracy
Independent
British National Party
UK Independence Party

I hate the way the BBC covers stuff like this, like the only people with an interest are veil-wearers and racists.

link to the guardian cover the rest of it maybe?

The Guardian article linked upthread makes a lot of sense (although I'm amazed at the responses it gets). I can't see how anyone could construe this ridiculous proposed "ban" as anything but straight-out racism.

calling it racism is more problematic then just calling it fascism imo

Easier to say that it's racist in its consequences than in intention but easier still to say that racists will support it because it's a fit with their beliefs.

history mayne you don't think this decision is tyrannical? then what is it?

hmmm, i don't know, perhaps some kind of vigorously sexist code of behaviour, rigorously enforced.

just don't get why single out the racism aspect when it's more directly sexist, xenophobic, culturalist etc. xp

Well, it's sexist, xenophobic and culturalist, but it's also racist because it's singling out a practice associated (in French people's minds) with Arabs. Never mind that I can go weeks in Paris without seeing a single niqab, making this a central issue reinforces those associations of Arabs = religious nutcases = danger to society, etc etc.

yeah it only applies to one ethnicity of people. unless you've turned muslim, had a sex change and moved to france steve, which i wouldn't put past you

yeah it only applies to one ethnicity of people.

is it ethnicity, is it race, or is it a particular interpretation of a religious creed? im pretty sure it applies to more than one ethnicity.

Arabs and Cat Stevens.

Yeah you are right obv but let's not pretend this is high-minded melting pot shite pls.

which i wouldn't put past you

er, thanks? ps don't you live in france

It does apply objectively to other ethnicities, but subjectively in France, veiled women = North African Arabs.

This is mere quibbling. Veils are associated with brown-skinned foreign Muslim women. Point, finale. Thre is a desperate strain in French national culture which wishes everyone could be like the Portuguese, Polish, Spanish, German or Russian Jews, Italian, etc.. immigrants of years past and just be fuckin' grateful to become French. Black Africans and Arabs and Asians who have suffered under the boot of the French Empire and its notorious hypocrisy are sufficently wide-eyed not to worship French culture unquestioningly and sufficiently disabused of any naivete to recognize the racist strain in French culture.

(i don't agree with all of it. i don't think the state is enforcing a "tyranny" by doing this ffs.)

Excuse me for being an old fashioned liberal, but anything that doesn't stem from the individual woman's agency is nontheless an imposition; perhaps a welcome one but still an act of immensely patronizing "We know better than you do."

I went to school with a very clever Pakistani woman who felt very liberated by her veil since it was a very overt negation of her status as a sex-object. I didn't always agree with her take on things but I did have to concede to her her right to dress and think as she wished and the French mania for banning all Arab/Muslim traditional female clothing makes me very uneasy for those French (white) women who might wish to convert to Islam not to mention, say, women undergoing chemo, who think the veil might be good cover, not to mention mere provocatrices or nuns.

anything that doesn't stem from the individual woman's agency is nontheless an imposition

yes. i agree with this 100%.

(which is why i think this is a thornier question than a lot of yall are taking it for.) (i worked with a clever enough (why does it matter?) afghan woman who felt very liberated by not wearing a veil, since it was an overt symbol of patriarchy.)

(why does it matter?)

'Cause she wasn't an idiot. I rather treasure that in people.

I acknowledge the thorniness which is why I wish that demogogic politicians wouldn't turn this into an opportunity to score cheap points.

I don't see it as solely a question of individual liberty, because it effectively removes the possibility of any communication between the individual wearing the veil and everyone else. I think the State has a legitimate interest in not allowing such walls between its inhabitants.

We've done this back when Jack Straw wanted to burn down mosques but tbh if "removing a barrier to communication" is the best the State's got then it needs to be thinking up better pretend reasons for doing something.

it effectively removes the possibility of any communication between the individual wearing the veil and everyone else

er, except it doesn't

Women in niqabs can still communicate! My four year old son went up to one the other day and she was perfectly happy to talk to me & my son.

The public transport ban on covered ladies, though? I am surprised for various reasons that nobody's mentioned HOODIES or TERRISM.

back when Jack Straw wanted to burn down mosques

you might as well write for the Mail if your left knee is gonna jerk as badly as their right one

An important point is that most of the younger women in France wearing niqabs are a) French-born and b) doing it entirely of their own volition, to the point that sometimes their parents don't even want them doing it. So here it's less a patriarchal thing and more a way of marking themselves out as different and that's why the French establishment doesn't like it, because multiculturalism is not very républicain.

Already got a gig at the Mail under my real name Peter HCONTROVERSIAL MODERATOR EDIT

does france even have a court system?? wouldn't the pols pushing this policy worry that it would be found illegal or whatever?

It's my understanding that there are Muslim women from France to Turkey to India who are rebelliously wearing the veil as a kind of generational fuck-you to 'well-meaning' secularist liberals who wish to liberate them without even bothering to confer with them, first.

Tracer, my understadning is that is why they're only talking about State-run public spaces like public transport and govmt buildings.

the french! cant live with em, cant live without em. am i right?

dunno how Grace Jones got away with her act on the Eiffel Tower in A View To A Kill

MW i think in the US at least you'd still run into constitutional trouble

jupiter mode

Mark you'll be pleased to hear my father in law has protest voted in the last I don't know how many presidentials because he believes the current system to be tailored for De Gaulle, no longer fit for purpose and that there should indeed be a 6th republic to change this

he's right! france it's time, i can fix you

(not by being president to be clear)

Emperor.

“I enjoy food! destiny has brought me this lamb chop!”

he should watch his step, politically motivated violence is coming back, baby!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62dzgy0q37o

Excellent news.

A feminist anti-immigration group called Némésis said Deranque had been outside the venue to protect its members. Némésis has blamed Young Guard for the attack - an allegation it denies.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62dzgy0q37o🕸

Excellent news.

what the fuck the BBC is paywalling now to us yanks?

fuck you beeeb i just use a vpn and tell you i’m from Scunthorpe