In France, social responsibility is as important as individual liberty.

[groovedaddy]

MOMENTUM is building in Europe for laws forbidding the wearing of garments that cover the face, like the Islamic burqa and niqab, in public. Just last week, the lower house of the Belgian Parliament overwhelmingly passed a ban on face coverings. And next week, the French Assembly will most likely approve a resolution that my party, the Union for a Popular Movement, has introduced condemning such garments as against our republican principles, a step toward a similar ban.

Amnesty International condemned the Belgian law as “an attack on religious freedom,” while other critics have asserted that by prohibiting the burqa, France would impinge upon individual liberties and stigmatize Muslims, thereby aiding extremists worldwide.

This criticism is unjust. The debate on the full veil is complicated, and as one of the most prominent advocates in France of a ban on the burqa, I would like to explain why it is both a legitimate measure for public safety and a reaffirmation of our ideals of liberty and fraternity.

First, the freedom to dress the way one wants is not what’s at stake here. Our debate is not about a type of attire or the Islamic head scarf that covers the hair and forehead. The latter is obviously allowed in France. The ban would apply to the full-body veil known as the burqa or niqab. This is not an article of clothing — it is a mask, a mask worn at all times, making identification or participation in economic and social life virtually impossible.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/opinion/05cope.html?th&emc=th

[Warpy]

1. Garb that covers the face is dehumanizing, it's meant to be,

making sure the woman appears as a human being only within the home. It's a sort of ambulatory house arrest, preventing her from interacting with anyone outside the immediate family. It restricts vision, not a good idea in an urban environment.

I live in an area where some women wear the abaya, which covers everything but the face. This, to me, is a personal choice, a little dangerous around machinery but not dehumanizing the way masking the face is.

I think I'll be a little more sensitive to the religious piety argument when men have to wear the same restrictive, dehumanizing garments. Until then, forget it. Turning one sex into an impersonal object is not fashion or religious choice, it's slavery.

[MindandSoul]

3. Although I believe the burqua has it's place withing the muslim community

it really doesn't in a modern society mostly (in my opinion) because the dangers it represents.

Try going up an escalator totally wrapped in a coat that reaches the tip of your toes
Try driving with a face veil that keeps only a small slit (when it is not further obscured by a net!) for your eyes.
Try walking in coblestone streets with the same long coat!
Try climbing on a bus or a train with those long veils without tripping over it!

Now, in most fundamental muslim societies, women are NOT permitted to drive, and mostly stay at home, walk (rather than take public transportation) or are driven everyplace! So, at the least, the issues of safety did not apply!

[MisterP]

2. and, of course, "social responsibility" can be used to enforce conformity

in the name of keeping the Panopticon running

[eppur_se_muova]

4. Whatever the merits of the argument, the headline is a keeper.

"Liberty -- Equality -- Fraternity" in France; liberty and free market corporacratic Hell in the US.

[Igel]

5. Yes, it is.

But mostly because the terms are poorly defined.

"Social responsibility" can be caring for one's fellow citizen--I don't see evidence of this in the burqa ban. It can also be making the system, viz. the government bureaucracy, work better. That's arguably one aspect. It can also be increasing the amount of social conformity. Again, arguably one aspect.

But adherence to a common set of values and range of behaviors also builds societal trust. If you don't trust your neighbor you tend to not give them the benefit of the doubt. Moreover, you tend to actively interpret their actions in ways hostile to your well being. We don't like hearing this, but it's true--and you can see it everywhere from Manchester and Amsterdam to Kandahar and Quetta to Compton and Detroit. Or DU and FR.

On the other hand, France in the last 300 years or so hasn't been into building social trust; other European countries have fallen a bit short in that regard, as well. Not all, which is one of the things that makes the claim about social trust if not provable at least consistent with a reasonably-sized set of data.

Individual freedom is another squirrelly word.