Instapundit has linked to a commentary (here) on a Martha Nussbaum article (here) on banning the burqa in Europe. He has added a link to another commentary (here). I don’t claim to have read every comment, but it is striking that no one seems to have a clue about why France banned them.
Paul Berman in his book The Flight of the Intellectuals talks about all of this, and what he says is quite interesting:
Paul Berman in his book The Flight of the Intellectuals talks about all of this, and what he says is quite interesting:
1. Before 1989, Muslim immigrants to Europe basically tried to live like Westerners. Immigrant girls who were Muslim dressed like their non-Muslim female classmates. (209)
2. What changed things was that the Islamists among them gained power, and in 1989 they were able to force the Muslim women into making all kinds of changes, such as wearing headscarves, not taking gym classes, and refusing to see male doctors. (209-10)
3. Schoolgirls who were frightened into wearing headscarves testified (in closed sessions where they were guaranteed anonymity) about what was actually going on. “And so, the debate over the headscarf law took on a new dimension, once the French public had heard this other and unexpected side of the story” (211).
Now back to Nussbaum. She writes that “in today’s Europe women can dress more or less as they please; there is no reason for the burden to religious liberty that the ban involves.” And right here we run up against the huge divide between the average, New York Times-reading liberal and the rest of us, who have chosen to use different sources of information. For that liberal or leftist, the main problem with Muslims is not the threat they represent to our way of life, but that conservatives are prejudiced against them and that Western nations have been and continue to be imperialists over them. This mindset allows Nussbaum to say what seems absolutely incredible, that “there is no evidence that Muslim families have a disproportionate amount of [domestic] violence. Indeed, given the strong association between domestic violence and the abuse of alcohol, it seems at least plausible that observant Muslim families will turn out to have less of it.” Has she never heard of honor killings? Her mindset also allows her to reach her conclusion: the arguments in favor of a burqa ban “are discriminatory.” Yes, prejudice against Muslims is horrible.
What all this comes down to is, who is right about the facts, Nussbaum or Berman? Can every woman in Europe dress as she pleases, or are some coerced into wearing what they would not ordinarily wear? An awful lot could depend on this (such as the survival of, not just Western civilization, but of feminism itself.) Both writers are to the left of center. Most liberals and leftists would side with Nussbaum, but it seems to many of us that in doing so they are acting quite the opposite of their usual habits. Plus, in Berman's favor there is the testimony of Bruce Bawer, the gay writer who went to Europe to escape from the influence of fundamentalist Christians only to find the Muslims of Europe to be much worse.
Nussbaum does admit that “when Turkey banned the veil long ago, there was a good reason in that specific context: because women who went unveiled were being subjected to harassment and violence.” This, of course, is what people like Berman and Bawer and many conservatives say is happening right now in Europe among Muslim women and even perhaps among non-Muslim women who live in Muslim-dominated neighborhoods.
Nussbaum then suggests that “if people think that women only wear the burqa because of coercive pressure, let them create ample opportunities for them, at the same time enforce laws making primary and secondary education compulsory, and then see what women actually do.” Let me comment on this suggestion.
1. When she says “let them create,” she evidently assumes that those of us who believe in this coercion have total political power and can do anything we want, including creating these opportunities. Alas, that isn’t the case.
2. Those of us who already suspect that this coercion is happening do not need to do any of this to confirm our views. And for those who reject the possibility of this coercion, it is hard to think of any evidence that would convince them, given that there is so much evidence that is currently available (including not just Berman’s book, but what happened in Iran after the eviction of the Shah, the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, the murder of Theo van Gogh, and so on). If none of this convinces them, why would they be convinced if Nussbaum’s suggestion were implemented?
3. What would “ample opportunities for them” do? Is she talking about job opportunities? How would that help? And if not, then what is she talking about?
4. She makes some sense when she talks about enforcing laws about compulsory schooling, and in fact there may be some Muslim girls who can’t even get to school, but the girls who testified in France were apparently not excluded from going to school; it’s just that they were forced to dress in certain ways, to avoid gym and what not.
5. If there are Muslims girls who can’t even get to school, who exactly is going to do the enforcing of these laws? Is she serious about this? Hasn’t she ever heard of the no-go zones for the authorities in Europe? Their existence should have become known to everyone – even New York Times readers – at the time of the 2005 riots in the suburbs of Paris.
6. As for seeing what they would do if freed from coercion, we already know that. If Berman is right, we saw up until 1989 how schoolgirls in France dressed, and it was just like their non-Muslim peers. There is no need to do a sort of social experiment to answer this question.
7. I’ll grant that Nussbaum’s statement is a sort of gesture in the right direction. But what is really needed is an intense and muscular cultural war against the Islamist elements among us. And we can’t have this because the leftist Establishment is against it. Of course, it seems quite strange that they are against it. It seems strange that these people think that, say, fraternity boys need a strong dose of sensitivity training, while Islamists (who are much more sexist than fraternity boys are) do not. But that is what they do think, and any suggestion that Islamists should undergo, say, a month of sensitivity training would meet with strong resistance from the army of journalists and professors and Hollywood celebrities that dominate our culture.
And so we do what is possible rather than what we would like: we ban the burqa.
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