Netherlands law proposed to ban wearing burkas in public?

[Shahed]

Dear Sinan, I am sorry I didn't catch your post (above) about your Canadian friend and yourself earlier. My sincere compliments. That is exactly the spirit I mean.

That's my cousin actually.

And thanks.

[Tribesman]

More active, in what respect? As of yet, I've never heard of any protestant christians sending large amounts of death threats to our politicians. Or making plans to attack nuclear power plants, or that sort of stuff.

That's probably because of our biased media, though

Well there are hundreds of examples this year alone of "Christians" sending death threats to politicians , the judiciary ,clergy ,entertainers , the police , pressure groups , scientists , college staff , medical staff ........

Then this month there was that other religeous group who following up on their death threats to shopkeepers , bus drivers , restauranteurs , schoolteachers ......this time decided it was the turn of politicians , the police , judiciary and gays .

In every branch together with the holy fruit you also find the religeous nuts .

[Cataphract_Of_The_City]

I guess the point is that immigrants are in their majority poor and therefore uneducated people. And uneducated people have a close connection with religion. And then you have those imams that preach all day about how the west will fall under the sword of allah and that muslims have to fight against the infidels. They preach these things in european land. They can preach these things because they are protected by the constitution of the state they live in and yet they attack it.

[Banquo's Ghost]

In every branch together with the holy fruit you also find the religeous nuts .

Almost signature material. A quote from Luke (journeyman's notes, later revised from first draft) perhaps?

[rory_20_uk]

I think that the law is fine.

As stated it is against most forms that cover the face, of any religion.

And also there are few that wear these wierd pieces of clothing, so why the uproar againt something that the majority of Muslims don't wear?

[Andres]

Trying to get this on topic again ...


Banning burka's? Yes!

Why?

They are a symbol tool of oppression. Oppression of women and what's worse, it is a kind of oppression that is still going on in the world. Burkas symbolize an aspect of a (wrong) intepretaton of a Holy book like the Quran which allows women to be treated as inferior beings.

In our society, women are considered to be equal i.e. with the same rights as men. They are to be treated with the same amount of respect as men.

Banning the burka is banning a symbol that stands for an attitude that doesn't cope with the standards of our society.

Those yelling that it's a deprivement of our freedoms are wrong. The burka itself deprives women of the freedoms which they have as being part of our communities.

On a side note, one should always remember that there wouldn't be any "freedoms" for anybody without a certain amount of rules and standards to obey.

[Stig]

Andres is right, and if you don't agree, talk to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, or watch one of her films

[Aenlic]

Trying to get this on topic again ...


Banning burka's? Yes!

Why?

They are a symbol tool of oppression. Oppression of women and what's worse, it is a kind of oppression that is still going on in the world. Burkas symbolize an aspect of a (wrong) intepretaton of a Holy book like the Quran which allows women to be treated as inferior beings.

In our society, women are considered to be equal i.e. with the same rights as men. They are to be treated with the same amount of respect as men.

Banning the burka is banning a symbol that stands for an attitude that doesn't cope with the standards of our society.

Those yelling that it's a deprivement of our freedoms are wrong. The burka itself deprives women of the freedoms which they have as being part of our communities.

On a side note, one should always remember that there wouldn't be any "freedoms" for anybody without a certain amount of rules and standards to obey.

You raise some interesting points, Andres. However, banning burkas to free women from oppression seems to me to be curing the symptoms rather than dealing with the disease itself. The end result of such solutions is that people feel like they've done something when they really haven't done anything substantive at all; so they wash their hands of the issue and ignore the continued underlying causes of the symptoms they think they cured.

[Andres]

You raise some interesting points, Andres. However, banning burkas to free women from oppression seems to me to be curing the symptoms rather than dealing with the disease itself. The end result of such solutions is that people feel like they've done something when they really haven't done anything substantive at all; so they wash their hands of the issue and ignore the continued underlying causes of the symptoms they think they cured.

True. Banning the burka won't solve the problem of the oppression of women within a certain part (an that's a larger part then we like to admit, I'm afraid) of the Muslim community living nowadays in our western societies.

It would be however a strong signal stating that oppressing women is not allowed and not conform with our standards (yes, we have alot of freedoms in our society, but the right to oppress your wife is not one of them).

Off course, it will not be thé solution. Solving the problem as a whole, will be a more complicated matter which will involve a well thought integration policy.

There are no simple solutions for all the problems that come with migration and integration.

So the ban of the burka will certainly not be the solution, but it can be seen as (an important) part of the solution.

It won't cure the disease, but taking away the nasty and harmfull symptoms of the disease will be at least a partial relief for the women involved. They will feel supported by the society where they live in and by it's government.

[Goofball]

Trying to get this on topic again ...


Banning burka's? Yes!

Why?

They are a symbol tool of oppression. Oppression of women and what's worse, it is a kind of oppression that is still going on in the world. Burkas symbolize an aspect of a (wrong) intepretaton of a Holy book like the Quran which allows women to be treated as inferior beings.

In our society, women are considered to be equal i.e. with the same rights as men. They are to be treated with the same amount of respect as men.

Many would argue that push-up bras and high heels are also symbols/tools of the oppression of women. Should we ban them too? (I fervently hope the answer is "no")

[Soulforged]

I'm shocked!!!... What happened to that Adrian II who almost fought tongue to tongue against Redleg when the issue of Freedom of Press arose in Europe. The Adrian II who won't change his sharp arguements against abridging or previous censorship even when a part of Europe was of fire?

...The Constitution of the Netherlands says:
Art. 6 (Religion and Belief)
(1) Everyone shall have the right to manifest freely his religion or belief, either individually or in community with others, without prejudice to his responsibility under the law.
(2) Rules concerning the exercise of this right other than in buildings and enclosed places may be laid down by Act of Parliament for the protection of health, in the interest of traffic and to combat or prevent disorders.

The freedom to express is separated on another article. Here it talks about "manifesting" religion as a different thing.

As Aenlic has correctly pointed out that a religious custom is not in the correspondent religious holy book is not an arguement against said use or custom. So we can safely place burquas as an use or custom from Islam.
So it's actually to manifest religion, to use a burqua, even if it's not what you wanted to manifest.

On the second point, and as wise constitution, it establishes the reserve or exception of this right of the people, when the safety of said people is at stakes. So what has to be established is if there's a concrete sensible and inmidiate danger of "disorders" to the public in this days in an specific territory: the Netherlands. Adrian II says that there's a sensible danger ("battered womans"), now is this danger concrete and inmediate, or is it more spread and mediat, more abstract. This kind of reserves are only made for when there's a danger with those three characteristics in space and time, wich can affect a concrete society as a whole because it endangers stability.

Now... How does using burquas today does that? I don't know, perhaps some dutch can tell me...

EDIT

To me, a nation is a political project. Nothing more, nothing less.

Excuse me for being clichè Adrian, but you do realize that that's one of the principles of mussolinian fascism, don't you? You're aware of what that implies. Subordinating an espontaneous community of individuals, natural of course, to politics, to the State?

I'll quote a fragment of a discourse from Mussolini wich is after the years 1929-30 in Italy: "It's not the Nation who has created the state, like in the old naturalist conception that served as a base for the publicists studies of the XIX century's States. It's the nation who's created by the State, wich gives the people, aware of his own moral unity, one will and, by consequence, one efective existence." Love and integration through unity. At all cost, as an statal purpose. I know that you're not saying this at all cost. But do you hold the same principle?