DrM’s comments reflect a worryingly widespread (false) narrative that pits a ‘racist’ white French electorate against an undifferentiated group of ‘Muslims’ who oppose it. Such thinking is not merely untrue (there is a huge number of Muslims in France who support the ban, this is fact), it could not be more unhelpful.

Your arguments I must say are equally dubious. Firstly, “for those cases where individuals do not wish to wear the burqa, then they are perfectly free to take it off over there in the UK”. This is pie in the sky! On what planet do you live? While ‘taking the appropriate steps to ensure their safety’ when faced with violence all sounds very nice, it has no grounding in reality. The fact is that many women are not free to take it off (without the threat of violence or the prospect of complete isolation from her only community). I publicly debated a number of male muslim students over and over again at Leicester University, who openly spoke of their perceived ‘right’ to beat their sisters and relatives who unveiled (please note, I am by no means suggesting this is mandated within Islam or that it is reflective of all muslims, I’m simply trying to point out that there is a very real culture of oppression that exists within many muslim communities in the UK, and it needs desperately to be addressed).

A behaviour’s cultural import says nothing whatsoever of its right to exist. The notion that it lies beyond criticism, or that it is the business of those who practice it and has nothing to do with meddling outsiders, is (fortunately) not one that is given much credence in secular states. The ‘cesspool’ of Western culture aside, the French state has a duty to combat the erosion of its own values. It did not just ban headscarves, it banned ALL religious symbols in public schools.

There is also an important point to be made about the connection of the foulard islamique as they referred to it in France, and the rise of islamic fundamentalism within France. During the violent attempt by the Algerian government in the 1990s to purge armed fundamentalist swathes from the country, many of these radicals sought refuge in France. There is a direct correlation between the rise of organisations such as the Islamic Salvation Front (FSI) and Conseil Europ’een des Fatwas et de la Recherche and the increase in the number of women wearing a headscarf of some kind. The latter would make declarations such as ‘We are determined to convince Muslim women that covering her head is a religious obligation. God has prescribed this modest dress for the Muslim woman so that she can be distinguished from the non-Muslim woman’.

The defense of the veil in schools is but a small part of the overall educational agenda of some of these groups within France, and each appeasement by the French state is a bridge to the next. The state in Western countries has a duty to oppose such moves, and to protect where it can against women who may the victims of oppression within their communities.

Now, while none of this may tie in to your own feelings on the subject, painting a pretty picture of a world in which people are ‘perfectly free’ to act as they wish simply does not wash.

As for the French president’s statement, he obviously sees the burqa as a symbol of the repression of women in Islamic societies and that it is a tradition which is designed to prevent young Muslim girls from fully integrating into French society. The burqa is their constant reminder that they’re not part of the country in which they are living, while it suggests at the same time that those who don’t wear a burqa are somehow less pure and corrupt. In a world without Islamic extremism and terrorism, the wearing of such garments probably wouldn’t be an issue at all for Sarkhozy, but that’s not the world that any of us lives in.

The bottom line is that the wearing of niqabs, hijabs and burqas is based upon the notion that the sight of a woman’s hair and flesh is a temptation which promotes impure thoughts and acts by men who cannot be held responsible for their actions. The woman is inherently a vessel of evil who cannot be trusted, so she is covered and sequestered. This is most definitely not a religiously mandated tradition. But it does come straight from the male clerics and mullahs who have ruled Muslim communities for centuries. The first Muslim women to cover themselves certainly didn’t do so out of their own volition.

Which is precisely what the French government proposes to do to people who hide their faces.

Now, to answer your questions.

No, I do not believe that every instance of women wearing a Burqa is motivated by pure, unadulterated personal choice. I would contend that, where a women IS motivated by pure choice, she would be in the minority. I would think that the majority of Hijab wearing women do so because of its cultural import rather than because of any religious reason. Those devout women would also be in the minority.

I do NOT deny there might be areas where removing these garments would lead to shame, the withdrawal of social acceptance, and even the threat of violence. There is nothing illegal about a group of people placing conditions on social acceptance, and using ostracism as a tool of enforcing group uniformity. That is normal human behaviour. Threats of violence, however, should be handled by the proper legal means, with the individual in question taking the appropriate steps to ensure their safety.

For those cases where individuals do not wish to wear the burqa, then they are perfectly free to take it off over there in the UK (I’m in Australia). That is their fundamental right. What is not their right is the continuation of social or familial acceptance to which she was accustomed, of which the burqa was a condition.

Many Muslim women do not feel this choice already, and walk around everyday, getting on with their lives, without so much as a worry. I would suggest those who wish to emulate their example.

Do you really believe things like this? By that I mean do you actually, in your heart of honest hearts, think that when a committee assigned by the government to research these issues and make recommendations (including…might i add…muslims)think in any way about the glory days of empire? It is such a heartbreakingly weak defense. Why not simply argue the issues?

There are some very simple questions here, that it seems you must answer in any honest debate on the subject (rather than simply dragging out such tired arguments that skirt the tough decisions):

Do you think that in EVERY instance of a Muslim woman wearing ANY kind of headscarf/veil, it is a pure, unadulterated personal choice?

Do you deny that there are areas in the UK where removing these garments would bring them at least a degree of shame in their immediate community, not to mention the threat of violence?

Assuming you think there might at the very least be ONE case…what should be done about protecting the individual rights of those who do not feel comfortable removing it but want to do so?

The French law in no ways bans the hijab or anything else in any other public place other than primary and secondary school (where, arguably, girls at this age are at the most risk of being intimidated). There is not a public university in the land where it is banned.

What is it exactly that you suggest with regards to those who might not feel this ‘personal choice’?

Again, the issue with the burqa is a symbolic one. Many traditions call for the covering of the head and body. Catholic nuns wear habits. Amish women have strict clothing standards as well. It’s not a question of wanting to control women by forbidding them to wear their cultural garments. It’s a matter of what those garments represent in a modern world that is struggling with Islamic extremism and traditionalized misogyny. If Muslim women were raised to believe that wearing a niqab, hijab or burqa was solely their choice, rather than their husband’s or father’s, the tradition would probably die out in a generation. But it won’t as long as men as doing the enforcing.