On a French Burqa Ban
A little over a week ago, French President Nicholas Sarkozy announced in a speech to the French Parliament that burqas, the head-to-toe covering that some Muslim women wear, “will not be welcome on our territory.”
His statement is, of course, profoundly wrong-headed. The next hop in my train of thought is naturally, “What’s next?! Banning the kippah, which supposedly systematically oppresses Jewish men?” Of course, the French Parliament has beaten me to the punch, as Sarkozy’s statement comes several years after legislators banned the hijab, crosses, and kippahs from public schools. The message seems to be that religious faith is a wholly private matter that should not be allowed to creep at all into public view. In a sense, this isn’t wholly off the mark. But the problem here is that the French take a weak view of religion. I submit that any set of axiomatic beliefs upon which a worldview is built ought to be considered a religion, and that all “religions” — Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism Atheism, Paganism, Kant-ianity, Jedi, Secular Humanism, etc. — ought to be treated as equals. No particular faith ought to be given undue privilege over the others, and this means that the state endorsing Christianity is as wrong as the state implicitly endorsing Atheism.
Muslims in France seem to be held in contempt equally on both the left and the right. Undoubtedly, it is to Sarkozy’s benefit to come out strongly in favor of traditional (white) French identity as Islamic immigration from North Africa continues to increase. But to ban the burqa is ultimately an empty attempt to use law to force cultural change among a minority. I’m skeptical of the law’s ability to shape the moral contour of a people. Laws have rarely been able to change the minds of a nation; they are most effective as an outpouring of what the people in a nation believe should govern them. A New York Times opinion piece gets it right: “It is a misguided effort to enhance the status of women grounded in speculation about what a woman hidden in a burqa must feel. Yet whatever she feels will certainly not be changed by a law telling her what not to wear.”
Check out what The Daily Show has to say on the matter:
Samir, I like this; our sentiments are similar on this. I always have one question (for myself more than anyone) for your perspective, though: can a government, or a nation, really be “neutral” with regards to the most fundamental realities of human life? Can a collective entity truly be without committment to a certain interpretation of ultimate reality? Where then do our laws come from? Where then is the basis of our common dialogue?
Important questions. I don’t believe that a government (or any collective entity) can be neutral or without–as you put it quite nicely–any committment to a certain interpretation of ultimate reality. I do suggest, however, that for a government, the best ultimate reality to pledge allegiance to is probably not Christianity but rather liberal democracy.
A Christian state might work if all the nation’s citizens were Christian, just as a Muslim or a left-handed or a Jedi government might work if its populace were thoroughly Muslim or left-handed or Jedi. But in a society whose participants are so fundamentally at odds with each other on a worldview level, the basic principles guiding our public dialogue should flow from concerns of peacefully coexisting, protecting groups from other groups and the government, and protecting the rights and freedoms of the individual. Of course, liberal democracy is not a perfect political philosophy and it certainly brings its own worldview and baggage, but it’s a solid Lowest Common Denominator that can bring different communities to the table with a sense of common purpose (let’s not kill each other; let’s feed and protect our families; and let’s protect my freedom to do what I want without infringing upon the rights of others). And ultimately, a state committed to protecting the rights even of its most bizarre minorities is the best bet for the peculiar and counter-cultural Christian worldview.
There is more than a century since France has turned its back on faith. French law adopted in 1905 secularism; the law on the Separation of the Churches and the State. Coming from a president who is supposed to be the guarantor of the constitution that speech is absurd. France is a nation which has lost its religious identity, on behalf of what Sarkozy is taking such position?
I think that this is only a political game, where Sarkozy wants to make friends in the extreme right.