Feminist Looking Glass

This blog has, on a number of occasions, discussed French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s support for a proposed ban on women wearing burqas in all public places.  (For example, see this most recent post about a statement by the French Immigration Minister.)  Emily and I have disagreed about the proposed ban.  I wrote that enacting such a ban was a positive step for women’s rights, even though it was clear that the proposal was intended as a means of slowing the growth of the Muslim population.  Emily wrote that such a ban would be anti-Islam rather than pro-woman.

I still believe that banning burqas would be a positive step for women’s rights.  However, in Sarkozy’s latest statements about about the Muslim population, he does not even attempt to put any spin on his beliefs and there are no positive steps that could come from his statements.  Simply put, Sarkozy is blatantly prejudiced against Muslims.

Voicing sympathy for the recent move by the Swiss to ban minarets, he warned French Muslims to practice their religion discreetly: “Christians, Jews, Muslims, all believers regardless of their faith, must refrain from ostentation and provocation and … practice their religion in humble discretion.”  However, it was clear that his statements were specifically directed to Muslims, since he wrote that anything that could appear as a challenge to France’s Christian heritage and republican values would “doom to failure” a moderate Islam in France.  According to Sarkozy, this “discretion” must be done in order to preserve France’s “national identity.”

Many French agree with Sarkozy.  The article in the Times Online says that Sarkozy enjoys “majority public support” for his beliefs that Muslim women should be banned from wearing burqas in public. (Parliament may propose an outright ban next month.)  And a recent survey found that 46 per cent favored banning minarets, with 40 per cent against.   And more than 40 per cent opposed building any mosques at all, with only 19 per cent in favor.

There are other French officials, of course, who are vociferously opposed to Sarkozy’s stance on French Muslims.  But Sarkozy’s stance, combined with apparent support by many French citizens, and with the Swiss ban on minarets, show that there are some truly frightening things going on in Europe.  The Times Online article includes this paragraph on how a French official is even trying to say that keeping true to a “national identity” is so important that, if not done, it could lead to another Hitler situation:

The left-leaning intellectual world was also appalled when Adolf Hitler was brought into the debate by Christian Estrosi, the Industry Minister. “If on the eve of the Second World War, the German people had taken the time to asked themselves upon what German identity was based … then perhaps we would have been able to avoid the … shipwreck of European civilisation,” he said.

Yes, some truly frightening things are going on in Europe.

Filed under: Burqa and Other Veils, International, Race/Ethnicity, Religion Tagged: | Burka, Burqa and Other Veils, France, Sarkozy