Ove
Thanks for responding.
I agree with your concerns that local religiously-based communities may put pressure on individual women or threaten gay people. However, I think that this is something we should be able to address in democracies, by supporting the rights of anyone suffering in that way. For example, European institutions such as schools should demonstrate that they will always defend their pupils’ freedom of choice. The police and social services should show they will defend the rights of muslims, where family and community pressure are denying them human rights. I don’t think we can help anyone in that situation by victimising them further.
If we really want to promote certain fundamental democratic values – which are, as you say, “be free, be who you are, respect others” – we need to start respecting people’s choices, even where they seem ridiculous to us.
To behave otherwise is not only morally wrong but also counter-productive. A climate in which supposedly liberal democracies are contemplating banning styles of dress is a climate in which muslims are increasingly marginalised, which hardly seems like a sane way to achieve integration.
I can barely think of any religion that doesn’t have unpleasant consequences for its believers. The more fanatical the religion the worse the consequences. But I still don’t feel that we can help believers by stopping them expressing whatever they believe through the medium of dress. No matter how silly their beliefs seem to me or you.
And my point about locks was meant as part of a reductio ad absurdum. I was trying to show that we can’t easily determine the full meaning of any given form of cultural expression. So, even something that seems as self-evidently good as banning religious symbols in schools is both unenforceable and certain to lead to unforeseen injustices.
This would be true even if the burqa ban wasn’t basically just trying to plaster a layer of pan-stick over the ever ugly face of racism. Which it is.
Banning state sponsoring of devisive religious schools, yes.
Making gestures that are inherently ridiculous in the name of secularism, no.
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