Marc DeGirolami has a convincing rebuttal of Jean-François Copé's, the majority leader of the France's parliament, op-ed in the New York Times justifying the intent of his party to pass a law banning the burqa. Sugary excerpt:
It would be more honest of Copé simply to admit that France (like much of Europe) feels itself and its Western culture under threat by Muslims and their ways. Copé does not want to ban the veil because he feels a fraternity with that population, or because he is acting with a view to their own "real" happiness, a happiness which they just can't see right now (oh, but they will!). He wants to ban the veil for reasons which satisfy the French and the Belgian majorities because he wants to stigmatize what he deems to be a condemnable way of life -- to punish people whose ways of life he finds inimical to the survival of French culture.
To put all of this in the language of "fraternity," and to claim, as Copé does, that this legislation "is aimed at no particular religion and stigmatizes no particular community," or that it is really aimed at helping his fellow man, is the worst sort of self-deluding lie. It is doubly false. First, Copé does not feel fraternity toward the Muslims whose practices he aims to criminalize. He feels enmity toward them. And second, if he really wanted to make them happy, he would let them do as they wish -- rather than imagine that he actually knows more about what their religion demands of them than they do.
What strikes me most about the arguments used to ban the burqa is they are both illiberal and ahistorical. They glossed over the fact that throughout history liberal societies have faced greater and more legitimate threats and have never been able to resolve existential or identity issues by using laws. The most dangerous thing that the drive toward burqa's bans is highlighting is that the descendants of Voltaire and other great philosophers no longer know how to win ideological and political arguments and are therefore forced to act as if laws exist to cement identities and to stifle debate thus embracing falling the paternalistic urge to decide for their societies to remain as it is without having to convince and to teach. In short, Jean-François Copé and the others are acting as if there have never been any evolution in French and other societies and if it is solely necessary to say that the burqa is unacceptable to make it .
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