Liberté, égalité, fraternité

[ursus arctos]

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

And Bored, your "possibly" isn't going to save you unless you can present some evidence that there are a significant number of French women that are being coerced.

I've been following this fairly closely and haven't seen any evidence to support that claim. What I have read, and heard, and watched are a series of interviews with French women who are wearing a hijab for their own reasons. Yes, it is a small sample size, but it is also consistent on this point (though the personal reasons differ), and it's worth noting that the best estimates put the whole population at around 2,000.

[Bored Of Education]

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

The policeman in your Telegraph link refers to that, ursus

[ursus arctos]

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

I'm not following you.

[Bored Of Education]

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

He refers to the rich Saudi women situation.

And Bored, your "possibly" isn't going to save you unless you can present some evidence that there are a significant number of French women that are being coerced.

I've been following this fairly closely and haven't seen any evidence to support that claim. What I have read, and heard, and watched are a series of interviews with French women who are wearing a hijab for their own reasons. Yes, it is a small sample size, but it is also consistent on this point (though the personal reasons differ), and it's worth noting that the best estimates put the whole population at around 2,000.

I put in that whole part of the point to head off the people that were likely to dive in and say "Of course, loads of them are coerced" which is what I have been having by Sarkozy apologists that I have been speaking to. I am more than happy to accept your more well-informed view and, as I said, it was leaving the possibility in just to show that I accepted it. I was going to put "if not the majority" but, in print, "if not" comes across as the opposite of how you say it in conversation with the right emphasis.

[ursus arctos]

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

Ah, so you don't have any evidence of any significant number of French women being coerced either.

It did read as exactly the opposite, but we're fine now.

[WOM]

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

ursus arctos wrote:

... and it's worth noting that the best estimates put the whole population at around 2,000.

Is that relevant, do you think? Would it be different if it were 20,000 or 200,000?

[ursus arctos]

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

It's relevant to the sample size analysis.

[WOM]

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

Ah. I see.

[dalliance]

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

I struggle a little with those who wear the niqab claiming this ban is an attack on Islam and the right to freely practice their religion. If it is anything it's an attack on an unpleasant cultural anachronism and politically motivated Wahhabi export to the west - there's nothing Islamic about this piece of clothing. Now of course you might still find the human rights issues unacceptable but let's at least be clear what it is.

The article from the previous page which suggested a number of women took to wearing the niqab simply because of the ban shows that its as much about the politicisation of the issue than anything else.

[Bored Of Education]

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

Ah, so you don't have any evidence of any significant number of French women being coerced either.

It did read as exactly the opposite, but we're fine now.

Well, I can see that "no doubt" read exactly the opposite but, as I say, it was an attempt to head off people who are saying "yes, but, you know there are a lot of women being coerced into wearing burqas". I should have just left it out as I have ended up in another cul-de-sac.

Put it this way, I have as much evidence that women are being coerced into wearing burqas as I have them being coerced into wearing crucifixes or those unsettling Jewish wigs and there is no doubt about that.

[Bored Of Education]

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

I struggle a little with those who wear the niqab claiming this ban is an attack on Islam and the right to freely practice their religion. If it is anything it's an attack on an unpleasant cultural anachronism and politically motivated Wahhabi export to the west - there's nothing Islamic about this piece of clothing. Now of course you might still find the human rights issues unacceptable but let's at least be clear what it is.

The article from the previous page which suggested a number of women took to wearing the niqab simply because of the ban shows that its as much about the politicisation of the issue than anything else.

Perosnally, I am taking it from the human rights point of view and the view that they are taking that human right away from one section of people, whether they be practising Islam to the letter or not.

[ursus arctos]

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

Well, the concept of "practising Islam to the letter" doesn't have a heck of a lot of meaning (nor does it for any other major monotheistic relgion, as illustrated by the deaths of millions of people at the hands of their alleged brothers in faith).

dalliance, is your claim grounded in a belief that Wahhabism has no religious legitimacy?

[dalliance]

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

Whether it is any more or any less legitimate than any other obscure strain of Islam I wouldn't know nor care. It is culturally the most odious and threatening version all the same, an extreme bastardisation of Islam trying to gain legitimacy via the sledgehammer application of Saudi Arabian petro-dollars. I don't think that it should be allowed to continue to bring its malign influence to the west unchallenged.

Whatever its status and whatever the rights and wrongs of this French ban - I can see merits on both sides of the argument - I think it is wholly disingenuous for Muslims to claim their right to religious freedom is being challenged with this ban. It's not, perhaps other rights are being restricted but you can't make up rules about your religion to score political points.

[dalliance]

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

I'm interested to know what people think of the growing number of Islamic schools for girls in England that make it compulsory for girls as young as 11 to wear a full niqab when travelling to and from school.

Schools

A lot of this thread has centred around the woman's right to choose to wear the veil and determining the fine line between choice and coercion. We have a situation here where there is only coercion of minors, would we think that banning minors from wearing such garments could only be a positive thing?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

I think you can take as read we're all against schools demanding headscarves because we're pro-secular schooling.

We.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

I work about 200 yards from one of those schools. I saw about a dozen burka-clad women one day, which is unusual. This explains it.

[Lucia Lanigan]

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

If it is anything it's an attack on an unpleasant cultural anachronism and politically motivated Wahhabi export to the west

Even if you believe that, you must admit it's one based on very woolly notions about choice and coercion. If you assert that women are being coerced into wearing fancy dress, how can you then justify penalising the same women for it? You've already suggested they're not in control of/responsible for their own actions.

[MsD]

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

Assuming coercion does kind of infantilise women.

This is all men telling women what to wear/not wear and you can only help by butting the fuck out IMO.

[Wyatt Earp]

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

I was going to say I wished people didn't want to wear the veil, but that it's not bloody up to me, which is sort of the same as MsD's point. Except that it's not bloody up to her either, of course--it's not the fact that we're men that makes it not bloody up to us, it's the fact that human beings are autonomous.

Making it part of a school uniform is quite different, I think. Given that there are "faith schools", we're probably on difficult ground making special cases for banning one piece of bollocks over another, but then, given that there are faith schools, all sorts of absurdities follow.

[MsD]

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

I didn't say it was up to me, people can wear what they like. I don't care.

[E10 Rifle]

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

MsD's last two succinct posts already own the thread.

This whole issue is unspeakably depressing: one thing that does unite both the justifications of the niqab and justifications for banning it is view that what women wear is everybody else's business.

If the answer to women being told what to wear by religion is women being told what to wear by the state, then we're not really making progress are we.

The answer is feminism, from the grass roots. That is all.

[MsD]

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

Exactement.

[MsD]

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

I could expand, as I don't think it's just a feminist issue, but flicking through this thread .. I'd forgotten about all that shit a few pages back.

Tuh.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

"Everybody else" does include rather a lot of women though. It's not quite as depressing as you make it sound, E10. I'm against the French ban, but I have to acknowledge there are plenty of women who support it.

[MsD]

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

Yes, but it doesn't make it their business.

No one goes on about men's hair or clothing AFAIK.