Burqa Banning

The French are propsing to ban burqa wearing in their country. The burqa is the full, face-covering, Muslim veil, worn only by women, and thought by many to represent the subjugation of Muslim women by men. Christopher Hitchens wrote this piece in support of the ban: http://www.slate.com/id/2253493/

I wrote this response to his article on the Project Reason site:

http://www.project-reason.org/newsfeed/item/in_your_face_french_attempts_to_outlaw_the_burqa_strike_a_blow_for_the_righ/#c5729

In thinking about the issue afresh I am trying to clarify my thoughts. Let me state clearly that I understand that it's most likely that women are made to wear the burqa in many communities, in fear of the repercussions which would be handed out by men.

At the moment I can think of three arguments made in support of the burqa ban and I'll address them as I go.

1. Women are forced to wear it on pain of death or torture. Whilst I overwhelmingly agree this is the case, our laws should be made to address the 'forcing' part of it, not the end result of the force (the wearing of the veil). Hitchens states, with no hint of irony, "...they are attempting to lift a ban: a ban on the right of women to choose their own dress...". This would be fine unless a woman chose to wear a burqa, in which case she would be banned from choosing her own dress! It might be the case that some men in another order might require their women to go out in public dressed in their (the men's) previous day's unwashed footy gear, on pain of death or torture(obscure example I know...). Clearly we wouldn't ban footy gear, but we would investigate how we could prevent some humans from making other humans do and wear things that they do not want to.

2. It poses an unacceptable security risk. This is a reasonable point but would easily be addressed by requiring veil-wearers to adhere to existing laws and conventions governing any face-covering garment in certain situations. I agree strongly that no religious considerations could be invoked that would exempt a women from this standard.

3. It flies in the face of accepted Western values such as openess, and the ability to interact with someone fully by observing their face along with other elements of their conversation; or as Hitchens says "the right of all citizens to look one another in the face". Again I accept and understand this point - there are few better examples of the cultural divide between Muslims and, lets say for brevity, the "west" than this confronting piece of material. One could go as far as saying it is socially divisive in the sense that it entrenches a nearly insurmountable "us and them" mentality. We are on a slippery slope though if we start to approve laws that discriminate against a minority of people because their ways make the rest of us uncomfortable.

Are there other arguments in favour of banning the burqa? If I find some I'll address them here.