France bans the burqa today

[Mr Magoo]

Well done, Do you think we should follow them ?
 
Me yes, But i can see Lot's of protest's and unrest.

[DaveBWFC]

Keep the burqa. They're all ugly and shouldn't be allowed to show their faces in public. Allah akbar.

[Big_Sharps]

They offend me but I am glad they do for the reason Dave said.

[Jamster26]

If France can get away with it (ie it doesn't end up challenge and thrown out by a higher legal power) then I can't see it being anything other than divisive. Divisive between those that want to express their faith and divisive between France (and maybe Europe as a whole) and the more hard-line Muslim nations. I just don't understand what it's supposed to achieve? All the quotes I've seen coming out from the French government that it's about integration with France but I can't see how banning an aspect of someone's faith is supposed to make them feel more integrated with France? (however else you perceive the burqa it is as legitimate article of religious apparel as say a skull cap for example.)

[Jamster26]

The NSS had an interesting editorial on it for anyone interested:

French secularism in trouble as it becomes a political football

By Terry Sanderson

On Monday, France will implement a new law against face-coverings in public places. Women who wear face-covering Muslim veils, including the niqab and burka, in “the street and areas open to the public, as well as cinemas, restaurants, stations, public transport or schools” will be fined £125 or ordered to follow citizenship classes, or both. Veils must also be removed while driving, while crossing borders or taking part in official ceremonies to acquire French nationality.

Husbands and fathers who force such veils on women and girls risk a year of prison and a £25,000 fine, with both penalties doubled if the victim is a minor.

But the authorities in France know in their hearts that this is a law that cannot work. The Interior Minister, Claude Guéant, has issued a nine-page document telling the police to move carefully and with great diplomacy when trying to enforce the law. He says that women wearing the full veil cannot be forcibly obliged to remove it in public.

Officers who stop a woman wearing the garment must instead “invite the person to show their face in order to check their identity and establish a fine.” If the woman persists, officers are instructed to take her to the nearest police station “as a last resort,” but not to either place her in custody or keep her waiting for more than four hours. If she still refuses to comply, the rules state that police should contact the public prosecutor.

Rather than force, police are invited to employ “persuasion” and, where possible, involve a female officer.

The guidelines emphasise that the full veil ban does not apply in the home or to car passengers. Nor is the ban to be enforced in or around mosques, so as not to be “interpreted as an indirect restriction of religious freedom.” Police are also told not to go on “veil hunts” or to seek confrontation over the veil.

The law to “forbid concealing one’s face in public” was voted through last October after a year of heated national debate over the issue. Nine out of ten French people back it, a recent poll suggested.

President Nicolas Sarkozy has already described the burka as a “sign of debasement”, and women’s rights campaigners denounced it as “a walking coffin”. Michele Alliot-Marie, the former interior minister, said it “cuts [women] off from society and rejects the very spirit of the French republic, founded on a desire to live together.” Around 2,000 women, out of France’s 5 million Muslims, are estimated to wear the face-covering garments, according to interior ministry figures.

France banned wearing conspicuous religious symbols such as veils, Jewish skullcaps and crucifixes in schools in 2004.

The guidelines came as France’s ruling UMP party initiated a highly controversial debate on Islam and secularism on Tuesday. Organisers say it was to address changes in French society such as a growing demand for building mosques in a country where a 1905 law formally separates the Church and state.

It is quite clear that the issue of Islam is being used by established parties on the right to appeal to those French people who would otherwise be attracted to the ultra-rightwing National Front.

Secularism is being seen as a tool and an excuse by these right-wingers to punish and isolate Muslims. And this is probably something that has the Islamic extremists rubbing their hands with glee.

There is nothing they would like better than a Muslim population that feels aggrieved, discriminated against and even persecuted. It will drive more and more of them into the arms of radicalism. It will also enrage the liberals and leftists who feel it is their duty to protect Muslims from the bullying right.

At the same time, there is little doubt that Islamists have engineered many of the challenges that are being made to the secular ideal of France, and which enrage republicans.

French people who are deeply attached to the idea of separation of religion from the state are enraged by demands for only halal meat to be served in school canteens, for separate hours for Muslim women only in swimming pools, for state subsidies for the building of mosques, for special treatment in hospitals.

It is also clear that the new law will create confrontations over the burka with women refusing to remove it, refusing to pay fines and eventually being threatened with prison. It is a nightmare in the making.

The main casualty in all this will be laïcité – the French form of secularism - which will now be portrayed as discriminatory and Islamophobic. Many religious leaders boycotted the debate this week, saying it was an attempt to further push religion from public discourse. The Catholic Church, again using its age-old tactic of playing the victim, see how this wicked secularism creates disadvantage for Catholics as well as Muslims, they say.

During the debate it was said that France’s law of 1905, which separates church from state, needs to be updated to take into account the changes in French life. There were few Muslims in the country when it was implemented, but now there are between five and ten million and many new challenges to the concept of laïcité.

It was suggested that 26 changes would be made that would strengthen secularism in the light of the rise of Islam in the country. (See them here)

But debating anything to do with Islam is fraught with danger. Even the title of the debate had to be changed from “Secularism and Islam” to the more anodyne “Secularism: Living better together”. Now the interior minister Claude Guéant has been threatened with prosecution by The Movement Against Racism and for Friendship Among Peoples for supposedly “Islamophobic remarks” after he said: “This growth in the number of (Muslims) and a certain number of behaviours cause problems. There is no reason why the nation should accord to one particular religion more rights than religions that were formerly anchored in our country.”

So debate is rendered next to impossible by hair-trigger sensibilities that detect “Islamophobia” in anyone who tries to move the debate on.

It is this kind of chaos that the Islamists thrive upon. And it poses a severe threat to France’s secular tradition.

http://www.secularism.org.uk/french-secularism-in-trouble-as.html

[Big_Sharps]

Religion has no place in civilised society, fcúk it all off and make them get a proper hobby.

[DaveBWFC]

I predict a riot.

[Jamster26]

Religion has no place in civilised society, fcúk it all off and make them get a proper hobby.

Lol, that's abit extreme isn't it?

[DaveBWFC]

I agree with Sharps. Religion kills more people than drugs. It should be banned.

[Le God]

I do agree with Sharps and Dave gotta be the first time ever i reckon.

[traf]

As Karl Marx said: "Organised religion is the opiate of the masses."

[azreal88]

As Karl Marx said: "Organised religion is the opiate of the masses."

Except he didn't say that.  What Marx actually said was: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."  Marx was saying it was a reflection of a natural desire for social justice and the wish for happiness.  He wasn't against religion as a means to an end, he was against the teaching that suffering in this life for reward in the next was nobel and thought that giving people happiness in this life was better.  It's not as simple as people tend to think.  Marx actually thought religion, seen in the right way, was a beautiful reflection of human desires.

[traf]

We both agree that he said it: it's all down to translation/interpretation.

[azreal88]

We both agree that he said it: it's all down to translation/interpretation.

But without the rest of the text it's misleading.  More catchy though, obviously.  He was against religion though, I agree.

[traf]

But even translating literally: it makes sense.

Religion can be addictive.

[azreal88]

Addictive?  Consuming, perhaps.  It teaches people that their own judgement is always secondary; which is destructive.

[H. Pedersen]

It will also enrage the liberals and leftists who feel it is their duty to protect Muslims from the bullying right.

This is true to some degree in the United States and it’s just baffling.  During the Ground Zero Mosque controversy you had liberals sticking up for people who don’t believe in separation of church and state, abortion, women’s rights, gay rights, etc.  What an absolutely bizarre alliance.

IMHO if you want to wear the burqa then there are plenty of countries where you can.  France won’t miss you.

[Martinbwfc]

I do agree with Sharps and Dave gotta be the first time ever i reckon.

You're just looking for a new boyfriend now Howfens fucked off, I reckon you have a chance with Dave.

[DaveBWFC]

You're just looking for a new boyfriend now Howfens fucked off, I reckon you have a chance with Dave.

Don't be getting all bítchy cos I'm over 16 and too old for you Martin.

[Natasha Whittam]

Some of you should try going to church, more than anything it's a good laugh.

Too many of you have the wrong idea about church, I'm pretty sure there's more going on at my church than at the majority of night clubs in the area.

[Mr Magoo]

Some of you should try going to church, more than anything it's a good laugh.

Too many of you have the wrong idea about church, I'm pretty sure there's more going on at my church than at the majority of night clubs in the area.

What sort of Church is it then ?.

[Natasha Whittam]

What sort of Church is it then ?.

Just a bog standard C of E church but it's run by a young crowd who look more like a cool indie band than church people.

[londonwanderer]

Natasha you do know that real churches don't meet in the remote carparks and whilst you do generally kneel to pray.......

The hijab is an offence against the fundamental human right that all humans male and female are equal. It is not like male muslims have to wear them now is it.

[Jamster26]

Back on topic...If there are women who are forced to wear burqas, will they go out in public just to get arrested so they can get away from the person forcing them?

Could there be some good coming out of this, yeah, ok people who want to wear it, yeah, tough, but people forced to wear it? Could France be the only place in the world to actually deal with this hidden issue?

[Natasha Whittam]

People should be able to wear what they want, when they want.

If you feel threatened by a woman in a burqa you need to get a hobby, there are more important things in life.