The French

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
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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

Probably but not at airports, etc... We don't allow women to wear a veil for ID photos, for example.

Well yes, and if someone asks for your ID at a store or while you're driving or anything, you have to remove any kind of facial covering so they can confirm that it is you. Regardless of whether the person asking is a man or a women! Has there been a legal case in which a US police officer has had to ask a veil-wearing woman to show her face?

as noted above the cases of women refusing to remove their veils for police officers are entirely imaginary afaik

Well I meant in the US specifically, and also I didn't imagine that a woman would refuse, more that she would have to comply but then possibly sue for damages (not sure how that would work -- can you sue for being forced to comply with the law?).

Not usually, Laurel. One does have the option of staying at home after all.

Looks good.

Video summarizing last night's riot in Lyon. (not mine, I only added filters) pic.twitter.com/bcjG2NE35V

— ⛛ Anarchia! 🏴‍☠️🏳️‍⚧️🦜 (@ThCollierPerles) April 18, 2023

Guess what happened next. You won't believe!

The prosecutor is asking for 8 months imprisonment. For picking up €20 in front of a Sephora.

— meerie jesuthasan (@durianist) July 4, 2023

the night courts

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/20/france-immigration-bill-passed-controversy-emmanuel-macron-marine-le-pen

Love how this racism is described as controversial