Wednesday, August 04, 2010

Burqa Bans - Berlinski makes me Waver a Bit

She certainly recites all my objection to the ban nicely and fairly. But then she describes things I had not seen. Her argument is basically that by trying to defend a free public space by refusing to ban head covering, we are implicitly destroying it, or at least allowing the construction of a large ugly non-free public space in our midst. (The old tolerating intolerance argument.) She has seen things I have not seen, and so I must ruminate some more. She has not changed my mind, but has surely given me a lot to think about.
She has certainly got me to the point where I would not join a protest against any bill in Ontario to restrict facial or body covering.

1 Comments:

At 2:49 PM, Blogger Claude said...

I'm very proud of my province (Quebec)for having the courage to exhibit common sense in banning the hijab for certain transactions where identity is mandatory.

It's a start. I pray the day will come when a father will not feel that he has the right to defend his honor by killing his young daughter who wanted to wear the same clothes than her decent Canadian schoolmates. I was shocked and ashamed that this happened in Toronto. (Aqsa Parvez, murdered by her father and brother, in 2007, for refusing to wear the hijab.)

This is not a question of religion, but of control over women, dictated what is acceptable and proper to wear by religious fanatics.

My family doctor is a very Godly man, a Shi ite Moslem. He doesn't require that his wife and daughters wear garbs that they haven't chosen themselves.

 

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