Should the Burqa be banned in Western countries? Pages 1 2 3 4 5 6 NEXT | |
I see absolutely no good reason to prevent people from wearing as many clothes as they want to Even with the people who ARE being forced into it it's just attacking a symptom instead of the root problem, and isn't going to solve anything. If someone believes in remaining covered THAT strongly, is telling them they can't more likely to draw them out or get them to lock themselves in their house for the rest of their life? | |
But what about when a photo for a id needs to be taken, should they be forced to remove the burqa so that their face appears on the photo, or should they be allowed to take a photo with the burqa on? Also what about at places like banks or presidential/congressional rallies/debates , shouldn't they have to remove it for security reasons? | |
It should be treated as any other covering of the face. You are within your right to wear it, but you have to accept the consequences. You should also be required to remove it when you are providing identification, especially to police.
And this is the issue we have in Australia over them. Laws are slowly popping up in various states requiring wearers to remove them for identification purposes, mainly because of a case where women was cleared of her minor crimes because no one was able to actually confirm her identity. | |
Im 'for' banning the Burqa. But not for the same reason of most Christians in the country. . . | |
I don't agree with an outright ban as stated above. But yes, they should be treated the same as every other head covered for security purposes. Also I don't necessarily have a problem with someone getting an ID photo with them wearing a burqa, but I expect them to take responsibility when everyone rejects it as inadequate... but I suppose if they're given that ID it's officially sanctioned as valid and they're obliged to so... probably best to force them to get bare headed IDs The leap of logic some people have from "The burqa does not comply with current security regulations in some buildings and gets away with it" to "The burqa should be banned in public" confuses and terrifies me though | |
Of course it shouldn't be banned. It's clothing. Should they be required to show their face in the same places everyone else is? Of course. ID, Banks, Servos, etc.
What reasons? | |
Well. Because while we may see it as a piece of clothing, and they might use it as a defense. Truly, its a religious symbol. And they see it that way. And not a religious symbol like one that is about faith in your deity, but more a religious symbol like a chain. And from a purely ideological point of view, im against that. Its in the Khoran, its openly admitted in Saudi-Arabia. And its a piece of culture that doesnt belong in a modernized soceity. Slavery, whatever name it carries. Is illegal in our country, and if Dothraki refugees came to us, I would also be against them trying to get at 'least' one kill before the ending of a wedding. Because murder is also illegal. And to the few western women who converts to Islam and wears it, I think truthfully they really do not know what it stands for. And they wear it purely as a means to provoke. That is my opinion, and even if I hold it. The majority does not and it will never come to matter a whole lot. That being said I think the people who want it banned because it hides peoples faces are also on to something, we cant wear a facecovering mask while enterring a back either. People say its banned in France but truly its just banned in Schools, Hospitals and Banks and such, I believe its not banned from the streets. I would be against it being anywhere. Neither am I against it because its muslim specifically. If Christians had a symbol like it I would have been against that, although I am already a bit iffy about them wearing a device for execution around their necks, it does not actually represent that so its still different. | |
Symbols are kinda a personal thing. What different things symbolise is entirely unique to the person looking at it. Regardless of the symbology, if someone is an adult, why exactly should they not be allowed to decide what to dress or express their religion in a way that affects nobody but themselves? Frankly, I think it is the height of hypocracy to say to people "we value freedom.. but you can't wear that because I think its weird and has a historical meaning I don't like". Our "progressive" society seems to have a great deal of trouble with anyone that doesn't follow its standards, even if they do nothing to insist that other people follow theirs. | |
Why would you ban clothes? People have the right to say and wear what they want so long as it doesn't hurt anyone. Even if it does 'symbolism Islam' or whatever our politicians have up their butts about it, how is that different from wearing a cross? | |
Only if they want a photo ID of themselves. If they aren't willing to let a photograph prove who they are--you know, to identify them; as in ID--then by definition they cannot have that piece of ID. | |
It's a public symbol of a very extremist ideology to which many people take offense. I don't see any problems banning it. Wearing a burqa doesn't fall under religious freedom in any way as Islam can still be practised freely with a burqa ban. In the same way wearing a cross or building a church is not banned, but sounding the bells on those church all day and night is. Religious freedom is a principle that state one can't ban all worship of a particular religion, it's not an unlimited right.
But here's the catch: the moment you allow unrecognizable IDs, everybody who rejects them is branded a racist. The problem must be tackled at the ID rules or it will get out of hand. And speaking for my country, that passport rules (not covering your head, aspect ratio demands, not smiling on the picture) don't apply to Muslims is quite outrageous enough already, with no need to make the priviledged treatment of Muslims are worse.
It's different from wearing a cross in the way that wearing a Ku Klux Klan outfit is different from wearing a cross around the neck. | |
Why not ban ski masks first? How about baseball hats combined with sunglasses. I've oft heard the argument that it's about identification, but if you're banning the burqa for that reason why aren't you banning other identification obscuring things? Or you could go at it from another direction. Many of the more conservative religious traditions, think orthodox Jews, have very specific dressing codes for men and women. However, we'd never dream of discriminating against them. Sure, I disagree with them going that far in their religion, but that's not my choice to make. I mean, we don't want government in our bedrooms, why would we want them in our closets and wardrobes?
But you can wear a KKK outfit in public. People will get offended, but you retain that right to wear that outfit. It might not be religious suppression, but it is suppression of public expression in the least. | |
Im not American, I dont value total freedom. Now what were you saying? Sorry. Had to do it, its like you automatically assumed hypocrisy. No, their symbol doesnt 'just' symbolize their religion. Thats what you dont understand, a lot of westerners think it symbolizes islam but it doesnt. It Symbolizes the woman being owned by her husband. Some women choose to wear it out of free will, because it is the right thing to do and they dont want others than their husband seeing their hair or their face. But seriously, that sort of women-oppresion should not be in the west. And people who say its 'not' that. Dont understand the symbol. | |
The state should not dictate what its citizens can and cannot wear for taste purposes. If there is a rational argument like security issues, hygiene or other practical things I can see it being banned from workplaces or hospitals on these grounds however. | |
I'm not American either.. but Western countries, in general, claim at least to value freedom. Furthermore, if a person wants to wear something, they should be allowed too, even if it does "symbolise slavery". Frankly, if someone wants to be owned, that's their own damn business. | |
That's only a US based thing where everything coming from a religion is allowed. Pretty much every other country has laws against offensive extremist expressions. For instance in january 2009 you had these pro-Hamas demonstrations by pro-Palestinians which saw violence and slogans like "Hamas, Hamas, Jews must be gassed", and these were banned. Likewise a KKK demo including the suits would be banned because their message is inherently racist, and advocating racism is not allowed. But there's additional reasons, because heavy veils like the burqa are used to isolate women and control their lives to keep them in the fold of rigid patriarchy. The harm which that does (demonstrated extensively in research regarding health, social position, wealth, happyness) is another completely pragmatic grounds for a ban. If you have something which is hurting people a lot, you ban it. Compare to the race laws of the US. Those were also banned because of the damage they did to blacks and the inequality they promoted. In that case, people also didn't go 'but racism is a protected opinion which can't be banned'. | |
No. No its not, we dont allow prostitution or indebted servitude either. Its not their own fkin business. | |
The problem is a lot of the women wearing it DON'T want to be owned, but out of fear or family pressure are forced into a life they don't want to live, with their identity and rights stripped away by the wearing of the Burqa and the anonymity it brings. That's why the issue is so difficult, some people think banning it is against religious freedom of expression, which perhaps it is - but if that religion is persecuting women whose rights come first? | |
While I can certainly understand not enshrining it in law, within a relationship it's up to two people where the boundries lie. Plenty of people do allow Prostitution, in fact it's a fairly large subject of debate in many places. Grown adults should be free to make their own decisions within their relationships, let alone regarding something as simple as clothing. If there is abuse going on, then it is something to be reported and investigated by the appropriate authorities. A burqa doesn't mean abuse any more than a short skirt or a bikini means the wearer is a slut, it means the person wearing it has decided what they want to wear.
If the woman is being forced into doing something against her will, then that is domestic abuse... which last time I checked is a crime. | |
In a free country, the state should not dictate its citizens' everyday clothing choices, by and large. It obviously can reasonably require acceptable exposure of the face for official identification purposes. Furthermore, public and private organisations may reasonably refuse to do business with customers and clients who do not provide sufficient means of facial identification, and may reasonably require staff to not show excessive, overt religious alignment as part of uniform regulations. | |
First of all, I'm curious about that episode of Question Time where they talk about the possibility of banning the burqa in Australia because I've heard absolutely nothing about that in ages. The only federal parliamentarian I remember making a fuss about it was Senator Cory Bernardi and that seemed to have fizzled out years ago. Perhaps it's more of a big deal in different states, since I'm only properly familiar with state politics in Queensland. Personally I couldn't care less about women wearing the hijab or anything like that, since it doesn't obscure the face at all and certain Christians and Jews who've had more representation in Western societies for a longer time wear very similar head coverings, but when it comes to the burqa and niqab specifically, that can make me uncomfortable. Everyone's different and there are always going to be people in society who don't share all of a society's values but still deserve to be part of that society, but generally speaking, I think a core part of how people interact in Western societies involves being able to see one another's faces and eyes, and not hiding ourselves away from one another using a veil. Doing so seems to me to be a sort of withdrawal from society. However, I think an even more important core value that Western countries share is that people should have freedom of religion and freedom of self-expression, which includes no restrictions on what you can wear. In addition, it's impossible to regulate what people wear in their own homes, so banning the burqa and niqab could result in women who wear those being forced inside and never feeling able to leave the house. This would be hugely counterintuitive if your purpose for banning the burqa and niqab is to liberate women. For these reasons I don't support banning the burqa or niqab, however I think it's fair for government agencies and retailers and employers and so on to require women to remove their face coverings when asked for identification purposes. I don't think a retailer, for example, would let anyone into his store if they were wearing a motorcycle helmet or a ski mask without them at least taking it off temporarily to show who they are. I'm not saying these other accessories are directly comparable to a burqa because they have no religious significance but I think the principle is similar enough. Surely there's a way to treat the issue sensitively, respecting these women's religious observance while also still requiring them to have the same responsibilities that everyone else has. One final point, possibly the most important of all, is this: this issue is politicised out of all proportion. The number of women who wear the burqa or niqab in any Western country I can think of is ridiculously low. I live in a working class surburb in Australia which is home to a lot of new migrants and I will sometimes see women wearing hijabs or similar headscarves, but never in my life have I ever seen anyone wearing a burqa. Only once have I ever seen a woman wearing a niqab and that was waiting in line to go up to the observation deck of the Eiffel Tower, so she might have just been a tourist and not a permanent resident of France anyway. I can't remember the statistics off the top of my head, but women who wear full veils are a small minority of all Muslims, which themselves are only a small minority in most Western countries anyway. Be wary of any politician who wants to make a big deal out of the burqa, because it's probably just cheap, racist dog-whistling to scare people into voting for them. | |
Then we should be focusing our efforts on actually fixing that problem, instead of just making it LOOK like we have by removing it from the public eye | |
No. A piece of clothing is not inherently harmful, and some Muslim women undoubtedly wear it because they want to, not because they've been threatened or forced into doing so (and doing so is already illegal anyway). These women have chosen to remain within Islam, and choose so every day, and hence it is nobody's problem but their own how much that choice limits their freedom. If they want to ostracise themselves by expressing the medieval cultural values symbolized by the Burqa, that's their choice entirely. And even when it's a garment forced on women, the piece of cloth is still only a mere symptom of the fundamentally rotten culture behind this puritanical oppression of women. The archaic and discriminatory "values" of Islam is the real problem here, not its rather terrible fashion sense. If a husband is threatening his wife into wearing a burqa, then the solution is not to take away the right to do so for her and others, but to throw the husband in jail (and when relevant back to whatever primitive society he came from). | |
I'm not sure who the "we" is in this sentence. Some of the most highly developed, democratic countries in the world, like Germany, the Netherlands, and most Australian states plus New Zealand have full legalised prostitution. Of course, I don't support indentured servitude or slavery, while a contract that indentures or enslaves someone should never be legally valid, it's impossible for a government to have so much control over someone's life that it can prevent someone from effectively being someone's unpaid servant if that's what they want to do with their life. Before you accuse me of being some kind of nihilistic libertarian asshole, I'm not detached from reality. I know that this would almost never happen in reality and it's a very murky ground when it comes to whether or not women who wear the burqa are making a choice to practice a particular religion or whether the burqa is just a tool of degradation and bondage. I don't think it's possible to say that in every case it's a symbol of religious devotion or that in every case it's a symbol of oppression, and I know that a lot of women that do wear the burqa would be coerced or forced into doing so, but for those women who for whatever reason do genuinely want to wear it and to live under that sort of fundamentalist Islamic way of life, they should be allowed to. | |
I know its an unpopular opinion and I often get rooted together with religious fundamentalists for doing so (Their reason being more along the lines of 'Their religion is wrong') But I dont believe we should legalize it just because we cant prevent it. Murder isnt legal either, it still happends. Relationships with minors aint legal either, still happends. | |
Only if crosses and those little hats Jews wear are also banned. People have the right to wear whatever they want, anyway. | |
So if I go to work and swap my decent trousers, blue shirt with security logo for an SS uniform including swastika's, nobody is allowed to say anything about it? | |
The reason why murder and sex with minors is illegal is because the murderer or the child rapist are harming someone against their will. Murder is illegal everywhere, but not all types of killing can be considered murder. Voluntary euthanasia and/or assisted suicide are legal in some Western countries, for example, and in a lot of Western countries it's legal to kill someone in self-defence to preserve your own life. Sex with minors is illegal because the reason why a minor is considered a minor is because the government has decided that they lack the maturity and responsibility to give legal consent. The act of having sex with a minor is inherently having sex with someone against their will, because legally, they are not responsible enough to have that will. The universal rule to all of this for me is that if someone wants to do something, they should be able to do it, unless it involves harming someone else against their will. | |
The government? No. Your employer, on the other hand... | |
I forget the high number of Europeans we have that frequent R&P. My apologies. That is their choice. As I said before I quoted you, both conservative Christians and conservative Jews can have very strict dress codes too. Granted, it isn't face obscuring, but that's really the only thing that isn't obscured by the ankle length dresses and long sleeved blouses. Often times it's also representative of an extremist view, but I've heard of no recent move to ban these forms of dress. It seems that the Muslims are just an easy target for tyranny of the majority due to the sheer difference of in appearance from what western culture normally wears. Banning a form of dress, in and of itself, just seems overreaching to me. | |
Thanks for finding that image, Volf, that was the exact same one I was going to use to illustrate my response. Anyway, without further ado, here is Batou's Exciting Burqa Adventure: I live in London and there are a lot of Muslims who live here too, so I see almost every version of the Islamic veil/scarf on an almost daily basis. In fact, the way Muslim girls and women choose to wear their headscarves varies even more than the above info-image would suggest - for example, I've noticed that a lot of younger East African ladies wear their hijab more like a turban or caribbean headscarf, leaving their neck uncovered. Some more Westernised (perhaps even secular) Muslim girls actually don't wear head covering at all, and I've noticed this is more common among women of Arabic or Iranian/Kurdish background. I don't have anything bad to say about any of this so far. I don't have a problem with Muslim ladies wearing hijabs (on the contrary, many of them look very beautiful wearing them), and even if I did object to it, it'd be a fairly irrelevant non-issue because a hijab is is essence nothing more than an ethnic hat, and there's nothing immoral or illegal about wearing a hat. If I had any objection to Islamic dress it'd be with the face-obscuring niqab and burqa. Both are a grey-area from a security point of view, but more than that I find it difficult to get my head around why somebody would elect to hide their face in public. From a Western viewpoint, hiding your face is associated with guilt or criminality, or else an overt form of ownership or bondage. I'm not saying that any of this actually contributes to a woman choosing to wear a burqa - heck, it's many times more likely they're just going along with tradition or sub-cultural norms - but you can see how to Western eyes it's an antithetical mode of dress. Anyway, excitingly enough, I actually speak to a lady who wears a niqab on a fairly regular basis. English clearly isn't her first language, but we can still make eye contact and communicate pretty well, and furthermore it's not the "alien encounter" many people presumably imagine communication with a niqab-wearing lady to be. Talking to a lady wearing an eye-obscuring burqa, now that may well push me out of my comfort zone, but I daresay I'd get over it in time. Right now, banning the burqa would be a bit like banning deerstalker hats - mostly irrelevant because so few people actually wear them. So, clearly this isn't an issue of practicality; it's a symbolic thing. On the one hand, Muslims are correct to oppose any restrictions on their right to show reasonable cultural/religious symbolism. And on the other hand, it's true that Western countries (Europe and America) have established cultural norms that new immigrants ought to respect and work within - if a Western woman can be criticised for baring her arms in a Muslim country, then why shouldn't Muslim women be respectfully asked to show their faces in Western countries? In summary: if burqas disappeared from the face of the earth tomorrow, my response would be "and nothing of value was lost". Until then; meh. | |
So, you also support banning S&M gear and nose rings, yes? | |
No, I don't think the government should tell adult women what style of clothing that can wear. It would be horribly anti-woman to suggest that woman can't pick their own clothing while men can.
I saw a bunch of people covering their face the last time we had a bad snowstorm too. Also skiing. Oh, and then there was last Halloween. Where I live it is ALWAYS legal to cover your face, although you may be required to identify yourselves to appropriate legal authorities on request.
Oh they will say something about it, but its not illegal in most countries, nor should it be. In your specific case (and I should have guessed long ago you were a rent-a-cop) you would however be out of uniform and subject to discipline. | |
RED ALERT! We have a straw man argument! Red Alert! | |
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So I was watching an old episode of Question Time and they were discussing the possibility of Australia banning the Burqa. I further looked on Youtube about the subject and I found these videos...
Videos against banning the Burqa
Videos for banning the burqa
Personally I think that if a country wants to ban the burqa it should be the governments right to do so, but what about you Escapist? Do you think that a government has a right to ban the burqa and/or should the Burqa be banned?
A picture of a burqa for those that don't know what they look like