Three girls is three too many
Three sisters have suffered serious facial burns after two unidentified men on a motorbike threw acid at them in Pakistan’s Balochistan province. The sisters, aged between 14 and 20 years old, were attacked as they walked from Kalat city to Pandarani village…The police named the girls as Fatima Bibi, 20, Saima Bibi, 16 and Sakina Bibi, 14…Two weeks ago, an unknown group – the Baloch Ghairatmand Group (the Honourable Baloch Group) – claimed responsibility for a similar attack on two women in a market in Dalbandin city. The group had warned women to wear the hijab, the traditional Muslim headscarf, and not to visit markets unaccompanied by men from their families.
So in other words these three girls had acid thrown in their faces because they existed, because they were girls, because they went outside, because they went somewhere, because they were visible, because they walked and talked and breathed, because there were three of them. They had acid thrown in their faces because nothing. They had acid thrown in their faces because two thugs felt like throwing acid on some women, and the Bibi sisters were there. “Honourable” indeed – give me a fucking break.
It is, of course, a very ugly story, but it is a story told so often that it is hard to remember a time when such stories did not form the background to our normal picture of the world. This is why I am with the Belgians and anyone else who says “Enough! We will no longer tolerate this kind of oppression. Women are not to dress in burqas and niqabs, for the precise reason that too many men think that they must.”
Of course, this is still my hobby horse, but I think there is a direct relation between the importation of these benighted practices into the West, and the increasing attention being shown it in the Muslim east. It’s time for liberal societies to stand up and say we will no longer be threatened by this idiocy, we will no longer allow any women to be oppressed, because we do not want it ever to be the case that all women are oppressed. And if terrorism can work with a few, it can eventually work with many, and in the end with all. Just see what it has done to our intellectuals, who have caved in all along the line to the threat of terror. Time to call a halt, and tell Muslims they are welcome to live amongst us, but they do not have the right to live their lives in a sequestered way, which we can see so clearly, in other countries, as a way of oppression and slavery that we do not want to see imported here. And perhaps if we had the courage to do this, to force a liberal dress code on women in liberal democratic societies, women elsewhere in Muslim majority areas would be encouraged, and could see that they no longer should have to walk in fear.
If this is thought to be illiberal, then it’s time, I think, to look at this little word that is forcing us to accept intolerable oppression in our very midst, and forcing us to call it freedom. If we do not do this, little girls in Afghanistan will continue to be terrorised by seventh century men who think women are simply child-bearing animals for the sake of producing more men. The Muslim world needs to be put on notice that we will not compromise over such principles as these. The dignity of women and girls is non-negotiable.
I agree, Eric. In fact, not only do I think that Western governments should take a firm stand against oppressive practices in their own countries, but I am coming to the view that it is high time that we imposed sanctions against countries that permit such atrocious customs and broke off diplomatic relations till they reformed. Very impractical and impolitic, no doubt, but liberalism must be defended and we have to show that we really do mean it when we say that we believe in human rights. Personally, I think that the war against women and girls, including girl foetuses, is hardly distinguishable from genocide.
It goes without saying that the veil is a lousy symbol for one among many lousy religions. But I’m not prepared to say anything to women about how they ought or ought not dress. I won’t throw acid in their faces in order to enforce them to wear a veil. I won’t endorse the nationalistic kind of foolishness that bars them from wearing the veil if they so choose. It’s not my decision.
Rational choice is the cultural symbol that is most important. In liberal societies, the veil has to be taken as a symbol of the wearer’s conscience and association, until circumstances or testimony prove otherwise. Since freedom of conscience and freedom of association are utterly central to the possibility of any good society, my default stance towards the veil is apathy. The kind of culture that enshrines rational choice is the culture that is worth being proud of. That is the “liberal dress code” — whatever you want. I speak, of course, in opposition to the French system, where political correctness has reached a fever pitch, and devout Muslim women are just starting to wear medical masks instead.
Of course, the real issue is whether or not young girls are coerced into their religion. So let’s talk about that. Also, by analogy, I’d prefer to talk about gang crimes instead of gang colors. My beef with the Hell’s Angels isn’t their choice of leather duds. My issue with the Mafia isn’t their designer suits.
If I were a muslim girl’s father, mother, brother, or anyone else who gave a damn about them, I would track down the asshole and hold their leg in acid.
This shit is completely unacceptable in the 21st century.
Truth be told, I do get slightly annoyed when the topic shifts from the horror of forced veiling of this sort backed up with threats of or actual use of force and violence, whether by legal means (as in Iran) or through extreme social pressure (as in this case)…and shifts to whether it’s good or bad to ban the veil in Western societies. This is good for conservative Muslims, since it neatly changes the subject from questions like, “is it acceptable to force or even just pressure a woman or girl to cover herself? Is this really required in Islam? What authority do you have for this? How can you simultaneously claim freedom of religion in order to defend hijab or niqab wearing in Western countries and the horrific violation of Muslims’ rights if this is banned, but then say nothing when stories like this come up, or shrug when mandatory veil-wearing laws come up?” and switches to far more friendly ground (from their view): “Isn’t freedom of choice and religion key elements of Western society? This is a discriminatory rule, you’re singling out Muslims and is clearly racist in intent!” A Muslim who normally has no interest in wearing the hijab might even feel the need to wear it out of solidarity with her “Muslim sisters” in the West, and the civil liberties groups get involved.
Sadly, too many in Pakistan will see this as a deserved attack, even though there are plenty of Pakistanis with a much more relaxed notion of Islamic dress and mores (with a country of 170 million, it could hardly be otherwise!). But there seems to be far too little will on the part of the government to challenge this kind of fanaticism in this self-identified “Islamic state,” especially in remoter provinces like Balochistan.
Yes, Lisa, but it was Eric who brought up the policy question of whether or not certain kinds of clothing should be banned. Once someone does that, it’s hard to avoid discussing it. Which may well be your point, I suppose. Yes?
Personally, I wish it simply went without saying that we’re not going to take some kind of illiberal action like that … and take it from there. When I say “wish”, I really do just mean “wish”, not something like “insist”.
But then we could concentrate on our horror at the actual event and on what we can do within our liberal framework. If it’s prepared to spend some money, the state always has plenty of things that it can do without becoming illiberal itself. It can engage in education, it can look specifically at child welfare, take certain stances in international forums, choose what community groups it consults/rewards, scour supposedly consenting arrangments for unconscionability if disputes arise, toughen up the law where actual direct harms are involved, even look (in this instance) at banning full veils in certain specific and individually-justifiable locations (such as banks and late-night convenience stores, and in court trials where counsel and judges should be able to observe a witness’s demeanour). Probably other things. There are always multiple policy options other than sweeping criminalisation.
Sorry, Eric, but I think that reaching for illiberal solutions involving the criminal law is almost always a bad way to get policy deliberation going. We can’t control what messages it sends; it can have counterproductive ramifications; it’s usually not realistic and just causes a distraction; and such talk erodes liberal principles that we might want to rely on one day to protect our own freedoms. Other approaches may seem namby-pamby, and less emotionally satisfying, but that doesn’t entail that the illiberal one will be more effective.
But this doesn’t exhaust the space of the problem. Conceding the decision to coercive reactionary elements doesn’t make it any more the individual’s decision.
I think we all agree on the horrifying inhumanity shown by the perpetrators of this vile attack. On the other hand I don’t see a positive advantage to banning the veil or burkha in the west. I live in a city (Stockholm) where its common to see the Burkha being worn – particular suburbs have large numbers of immigrants from Somalia or Iraq where this type of clothing is frequently worn. The city as a whole is quite liberal but there is no attempt to replicate the legislative solutions of France or Belgium regarding imposing a ban. What Stockholm does instead is to concentrate its efforts in education of children, both boys and girls. Its not an instant solution but in the long term it does seem to lead to a more open society – there are very few second generation burkha wearers. Besides, I think it is incorrect to think of wearing the veil as capitulation to fundamentalism. My ex-wife, a Saudi national, came from a secularized family and was not interested in religion yet when she went through a rebellious teenage phase she began wearing the veil just to annoy her parents (she soon stopped because she got bored). Here in Stockholm I see the veil as not just a religious symbol or one of patriarchal oppression (although it can be that as well) but also a symbol of group identity – the Egyptian veil is quite different from that worn by the Pakistani and the Iraqi and Somali burkhas are also quite distinct. Another point is the fact that these legislative measures seem to deny Islamic women the right to be ostentatiously religious themselves in a way that would be unthinkable for Christians (banning a nuns veil for instance) or other religions (banning turbans and beards for Sikhs or yarmulkes for Jews). Even the question of outlawing the covering up of the face is fraught with difficulties (do we also ban motorcycle helmets and ski-masks?)
Well, I don’t suppose anyone will be terribly surprised if I say I disagree. I don’t know what the best solution is, but then trying to retain the illusion that they’re still living in the Near, Middle or Far East, and can organise their lives just as they please (of course, this is about the men, not the women), and maintain traditional women’s dress, just because they can if the threat is credible enough, doesn’t seem to be a satisfactory conclusion either. And since the wearing of traditional “Islamic” dress is largely the outworking of a growing Islamism in the West, and a continuing attempt to show the West a preferred type of social organisation to the one where people do actually get to choose, all for the sake of social solidarity and the respect that is due to Allah, it does not seem to me that it has much to do with liberalism either. I’m not saying that I prefer apparently “illiberal” measures, but if women can be kept bagged in the heartland of liberal democracy, then it is not particularly surprising to find some women in Afghanistan or Pakistan being showered with acid for daring to question societal rulings about dress and education. It also makes liberalism look like a privilege for those who don’t happen to be religious in one of several different idiotic ways, and as ineffective and decadent as most Islamists think it is.
We’ve seen clearly what the threat of Islamist violence can do to men and women who otherwise are all for liberty in John Stuart Mill’s sense. How many public challenges do you see to the idiocies of Islamic claims? Very few. And yet everyone is prepared to condemn and to belittle Christianity, because they know that no one is going to threaten them with murder and mayhem if they do. And how much freedom do girls (perhaps especially) and women have in a context like that? My guess would be: not very much, even if every single one of them said that they were wearing these absurd articles of clothing from a sense of deeply held devotion.
Sure, the whole question gets all wrapped up in questions of liberty and rights. I understand that, and I understand too, that, on the face of it, a moratorium on religious dress seems to threaten rights. I just happen to think that a woman’s Muslim sisters are in greater danger from a woman dressing up in bags for the sake of solidarity (when she could do otherwise) than she would be in a situation where the law simply stated that, if women are bagged, men get fined. As I say, this is one of my hobby horses, but acid being thrown into the faces of little girls who want to go to school is a good sign that most women probably would rather not bag themselves up every morning, in deference to men or Allah (who, since he doesn’t exist, is just an excuse that men use to force their women into bags), and so long as Islamists can force their idiotic ways on the West, by restricting women to bags on the street, private beaches, pools, etc. and female hospital and clinic staff, then you can be sure that there will be no change in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iran, etc., where Islam really does hold onto the levers of power, and where their dreams of power in liberal democracies has to be confined, largely, to imprisoning women in portable prisons, when they are not being confined at home.
And singling out Muslims is not racial in intent, but I wouldn’t confine it to Muslims, since there are other dramatic cases of the same kind of thing in other religions. I’d say that the day has come to stop all sorts of religious dress, just to make it clear that it is intrinsically harmful to the people it affects, and that the Amish, to take but one example, especially children, suffer just as seriously from the idiotic religious scruples of adults who would really rather live in the 18th or 19th centuries than today, and who are as determined to maintain restrictions on children’s education as any of the Taliban are. But I do get rather furious when people condemn, as racist, a condemnation of a practice of oppressing women, which is in no way an expression of race, but is a choice that men generally make for women, even though women themselves may protest that really they are wearing such oppressive dress just because they want to express solidarity with their oppressed sisters.
But it seems to me absolutely vital that we cut the gordian knot of the violent hold that Islamism is gaining over Western societies, gaining control, by sheer terrorism, over Muslims who have lived in Western democracies for generations, and are suddenly forced to live in bags instead of freely. These same Islamists are not reluctant to use terrorism to enforce limitations on others’ freedoms too, and some of them, are quite prepared, as they are in banlieues of Paris, to use violent methods to maintain their control over other people, who would rather not be subject to the rules and limitations of a supposedly “Muslim” way of life. The remarkable silence of intellectuals in the face of this sort of assault on the very principles of liberal societies, and their willingness to defend the most illiberal of demands for fear of the violence that might erupt if they did not maintain that silence, all the while defending the silence itself on the grounds of liberal principle, is one of the telltale signs that liberalism is perhaps not capable of dealing with tendencies which threaten to undermine it.
I also don’t think it’ll be helpful to ban the burka, pretty much for the same reasons Sigmund mentioned. It’s already more than enough that Muslim women have one group of people restricting their freedom of how they should dress (for their own good, of course). We don’t need to add another group adding a new restriction (also for their own good, of course). Two wrongs don’t make a right.
What would be more helpful is to make society safer for women who may want to stop wearing the veil. For instance, make sure that there is a viable alternative support system available when a religious community threatens to drop their support because of her decision. Then make sure every woman has easy access to it and knows how to get it.
Of course, this is something that should be done anyway, to make it safer and easier for anyone to change or leave their religion as they see fit.
This discussion is taking place against a backdrop of an ongoing Taliban program of gas attacks on young women who seek a non-Koranic education in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Up to right now, I have tended to side with those liberals who say women in the West should be able to waer hijabs if they want to. But now I am not so sure. (Sorry Russell, Benjamin, Sigmund, Lisa.)
In the major part of the Muslim world, there are somewhat relaxed dress codes in place for men, and severe ones for women. On a visit to Iran a few years ago, I found I could observe the male dress code with no real trouble at all: long pants down to the ankles, which I wear all the time anyway, and shirt sleeves rolled down and buttoned at the wrist. No big deal.
My wife on the other hand had to wear a chador at all times in public, or face arrest by the thought police for indecency. The mere fact that they were not compulsory or banned under the Shah and were not worn much indicates that Iranian women would abandon them at whatever rate if this law was not in place.
We have a universal dress code in the West: one cannot walk naked down the street and not face arrest. Nudists will call this irrational and repressive, and maybe they are right. If you like, this is a prohibition on nudity; alternatively, a compulsion re wearing some clothing at all times in public. Thou shalt not go naked, or thou shalt go about clothed. Take your pick.
We can add to that and say and say thou shalt not go about in a mobile tent, with thy face hidden.
Head covering is OK. It is hard to proscribe some head coverings but not others. But face covering is another matter. It has precedents. (Sigmund, all banks in Australia ban the wearing of motorcycle helmets, ski masks etc in the building, and for good reason. Banning ski masks off the ski slopes, and particularly in city streets, makes excellent sense to me. Wear one in a major city and a hell of a lot of people these days will assume you are up to no good.)
Lisa: A Muslim [woman] who normally has no interest in wearing the hijab might even feel the need to wear it out of solidarity with her “Muslim sisters” in the West, and the civil liberties groups get involved.
Possibly. But then as a political statement, it could be interpreted either way; as solidarity with the oppressed ‘Muslim sisters’ of Afghanistan, or endorsement of the male-dominated culture which oppresses them.
A better analogy in my view would be this: in Europe after New World black slavery began, many blacks lived there and had relatively free lives. Some of them could have taken to wearing chains and leg irons in public as a mark of solidarity with black slaves in the colonial possessions of the countries they were living in. If they had, I doubt if the message generally received would have been that blacks prefer getting about in that gear, though some whites would probably have chosen to interpret it that way. But when a Muslim woman in the West dons the hijab, the message sent and the one overwhelmingly received by the populace at large is that she believes it to be the right and proper clothing for all women in her culture, whether compulsorily worn or not. Particularly if it is a standard hijab. If she went into a camping goods store, bought a hiker’s tent and wore that in the street, her action might be seen as sarcastic and critical. Same if she went about with a plastic garbage bag or hessian sacking over her head. But none of them do anything like that.
When a Western government bans such ‘cultural’ practice, it says on behalf of its citizenry ‘we regard this clothing as oppressive, and we know a good proportion is not voluntarily worn; therefore we are banning the lot of it. Those who don’t like the idea of not wearing it are always free to leave.’
That I am sure would cheer the oppressed women of Afghanistan and other parts of the Muslim world far more than the wimpish liberal response we have seen to date in the West. Fundamentalist Islam is now the main enemy of the West and its enlightenment traditions. Fundamentalist Islam is also fighting on its own home front to head off enlightenment and the rise of liberalism.
The progressive people in the Islamic world merit our support; not the neanderthals and troglodytes who are throwing acid in the faces of schoolgirls, planting bombs in Times Square NY, and sparing no effort to get hold of nuclear weapons.
Lisa: My apologies. On re-reading your comment, I realise that I misread some of it. I do not disagree with you.
Deen: Our comments appear to have crossed. You say: Don’t ban the burka but do more for the safety of those who want to stop wearing it. I don’t think that will achieve as much as refusing to support the Muslim men who force the women of their families to wear it.
@Benjamin Nelson
I appreciate your attempts to adhere to principles, but would like to explore the matter a little further.
If we assume (and I do not think it is far-fetched at all) that among muslim women living in western liberal democrasies there are SOME who have made free and personnal choices on the matter(varieties of veiling), and SOME others NOT having made truly free choices on this matter.
The latter have been subjected to direct or indirect varieties of coercrion -from peers, from family, from the paralell society…..etc.
Now: I assume we agree that this is an significant injustice to the afflicted. It could in fact be regarded as a violation of the rights of the latter group.
Does this mean that you are prepared to sacrifice the rights of the latter for the rights of the former(groups)?
And looking a bit further: is there a number limit ,-or a proportion between these groups where you think the best solution would be to sacrifice the rights of the former for the latte group?.
By the way: quite a number of debaters seems to forget that not even the most liberalistic societies have bestow UNLIMITED religious freedom. Most of the liberal socities I am aware of does not e.g. allow markedly under-age marriage. So it is not htat we HAVE to cater for religious without putting up limitations.
I’ll go with Eric on this.
Cassanders
In Cod we trust
Ian said:
(Sigmund, all banks in Australia ban the wearing of motorcycle helmets, ski masks etc in the building, and for good reason. Banning ski masks off the ski slopes, and particularly in city streets, makes excellent sense to me. Wear one in a major city and a hell of a lot of people these days will assume you are up to no good.)
That sort of security based policy for banks is common in other countries also – even in Sweden (well the motorcycle helmet bit, at least). That’ s not the issue here. I am not arguing that we go along with the burkha in every circumstance. Clearly covering the face presents a serious problem in situations like passports, driving licenses and banks, post offices and government social welfare agencies and there are good reasons to ask to uncover a persons face in these circumstances. The question is whether is is appropriate to restrict the wearing of these coverings in public spaces at large (say walking down the street, using public transport or going to a park).
Well using public transport is certainly fraught (from a security angle) these days too…and in fact arguably all public spaces are.
Yes, but does the burqa really fit the description “rational choice”? I don’t think it does. For some people it is a choice (and for others it isn’t), but not really a rational choice, not in this world (which is one in which women are beaten or acid-doused or killed for not wearing it or for wearing it not quite correctly).
That’s not to say I favor the ban; I’m ambivalent. But I think it’s way too simple and too optimistic to valorize it as part of rational choice.
Ian, I used the slavery-and-chains analogy years ago (here) in arguments over the French ban on hijabs in school and other government buildings. I think it’s a good analogy. I understand why people resist bans on kinds of clothing, but I also think there’s a lot of evasiveness about what hijabs and burqas say about women.
Just two words about this issue, which also applies to titquake: Medine Memi. For those with strong stomachs who want to know who Medine Memi was:
Camels, Gnats and Shallow Graves
http://www.starshipnivan.com/blog/?p=1607
Dirigible, true, but my idea of the space of the problem is a lot bigger than you suggested. My opinion is restricted to the correct default stance we ought to take towards veiled women who live in liberal democracies. So if a woman gives positive signs of oppression, then you act on that.
Ian, I thought about the nudity thing briefly before posting. I decided not to bring it up, because it’s irrelevant. The ban on nudity isn’t a reaction to a cultural symbol that references an abstract idea of oppression.
Cassanders, in my view, a lifestyle that is sincerely adopted and/or committed to across time is a rationally autonomous decision, regardless of the social conditions that produced it. But I think you have in mind those cases where the lifestyle has not been sincerely adopted. Yet those people have the right to run their own lives, and ought to be protected in making their choice. So I’m not sure where the tradeoff is supposed to be.
@Ian MacDougall:
I disagree. “Not supporting Muslim men” is way more passive than building a social and financial safety net. They don’t really need your support, but giving people a real choice to move away from their influence is going to directly undermine their control.
But I agree that this is not the only thing that should be done (which is why I said “for instance”). We could also promote the idea that morality isn’t defined by how closely you follow some arbitrary religious rules, but by how you treat other people. And that casting someone out of the community because they don’t believe what you want them to believe is a terrible way to treat people.
Benjamin: …it’s irrelevant. The ban on nudity isn’t a reaction to a cultural symbol that references an abstract idea of oppression.
Is that so? Even if we accept your choice of categories, can’t the absence of something be in its own way a symbol, like the riderless horse at a state funeral, or the empty chair at a wake? All round the world there are occasional examples of streakers making some statement or other by running naked through streets, across football grounds etc. They don’t do it because they are hot (in the caloric sense).
I think you sum up the ethical difficulties those in liberal societies face quite well in what you say in response to Cassanders. But on the other hand, there seems to be more disagreement over this issue in this company of liberal bloggers than I have ever seen here before.
Not an easy call. Except that your average authoritarian Islamic fundamentalist, wherever situated, is likely to go bananas on receiving news that hijabs, burkhas, FGM and similar quaint customs associated with Islam are banned somewhere; and just as likely to receive news that they are not with smug satisfaction.
I know that as a philosophical position it’s probably got the odd hole in it, but anything that discomforts a Talibanista or any other kind of fascist is OK by me. Well, provisionally anyway.
Bans on nudity should be repealed. It’s not a high-priority issue by any means, but I wouldn’t want to argue anything on the basis that these bans are unproblematic so something analogous to them is also unproblematic.
Ian, I don’t doubt that absence can count as a symbol, so you’re correct on that count. But repression (sexual) and oppression (political) are not necessarily coextensive. And in the case of nudism I don’t think there is a plausible case to be made that they overlap — I’m not even sure either of them are necessarily involved. When Barney Gumble runs naked through the Sadie Hawkins dance, he’s neither sexually desirable nor politically revolutionary, he just wants attention.
Also, the fact there is vocal disagreement on this issue on this forum only tells us something about the forum as a collective, not necessarily the aggregate of individual opinions. It is not uncommon for me to self-censor my posts in other threads, for instance, which might contribute to a misleading sense of consensus upon certain issues where there is none.
I don’t agree with moral views that are based entirely on spite, even when the spite is directed towards villains like the Taliban. While passions like spite are necessary to our sense of justice, they’re certainly not enough. Moral codes don’t exist just to annoy the people we don’t like!
You make it sound so petty. “We don’t like the Taliban so let’s annoy them”. Ben, it’s not a matter of taste. We don’t “dislike” organisations like the Taliban, we hate such things and oppose everything they stand for. At least, I hope we do. It’s not about being “spiteful”, it’s about actively opposing them on every level. We should deny even their right to exist. We should deny the “right” of anyone to wrap themselves in bombs and blow up civilians, to crash aeroplanes into buildings, to gas schoolchildren, to stone teenagers, or bury them alive, or stamp their daughters to death. This is not petty “dislike”! This is not “spite”! You cannot be thinking what you are saying. And to say that Ian’s is a morality based “entirely on spite” would be insulting if it were not so palpably absurd (unless we are to assume that throwaway comments are the very substance of what he is saying?) But as “passions like spite” (assuming that spite is worthy of so grandiose a name as “passion”) are by their nature opposed to “our sense of justice”, it is more likely that you just don’t know what the word means!! Please do not trivialise this, it’s unbearable.
It seems disgraceful to me that the worst imaginable atrocities are being committed while we quarrel about a woman’s freedom to wear the chains of her oppression in our streets. Of course the burkha must be denied. We have to make a statement that in our society people have faces and responsibilities. Responsibilities, not just freedoms; duties, not just rights.
This garb isn’t a fashion of clothing and it must be carefully distinguished from such. It is in practical terms a uniform and it is intended to say that a woman has no face, no voice, that her body is shameful, her mind limited and dull, and that this is the will of god and no toleration is possible. It is a statement that the wearer is property and that no man but its owner may look upon it. And it is an expression of a pathological view of sexual feelings for which all women are to be endlessly punished. How can it be even considered sane to be “offended” by a woman’s face or the shape and movements of her body?
Therefore it is a deliberate insult to all free women in our society, and a threat of what will happen to them when Islam takes over. Permitting it is to endorse those who are using every violent and unscrupulous means that they can think of to enforce it. We have to say, this wicked cruelty shall not happen here.
Gordonwillis,
I would be interested in reading the wording of a law that would enforce your wishes above – particularly one that stays within the limits of the US constitution.
Foreign constitutions are not my concern, Sigmund, and in any case the moral questions must come first.
OK Gordon, forget the US constitution. How would you word this law in your own country?
Gordon, for all that, look at what I was responding to:
That’s an appeal to spite as a prime facie indication of moral worth of some symbol. I say that’s not enough.
Maybe you think I’ve misread Ian. I probably did him a disservice by not using the words “prime facie” — I apologize for that. But the comments I quote above are not “throwaway comments”, they are Ian’s point! By ignoring these sections, you risk trivializing his remarks.
Your final three paragraphs are useful because I disagree with almost everything in them. Muslim women in liberal societies can speak for themselves. I am not their representative. Some Muslim women are proud to wear the veil; if so, I don’t mind. Some Muslim women hate it; if so, they ought to be able to do what they like. The default position has to be that the meaning of the symbol lies with the people involved with that way of life. It is just clothing, it isn’t (necessarily) an indication that they abdicate civic responsibility, etc.
So I suppose — to think of an olive branch — if a majority of Muslim women pressed for a ban on the veil, then I would take that quite a bit more seriously as a problem for the liberal view. But that would be an unlikely event — more likely is that they would migrate to less orthodox communities, voting with their faces and feet. And, if you want to take the long view, that’s the story of how religions do through genuine change.
No they can’t! Not all of them, and not necessarily. Of course they can’t. And as for Muslim girls…
It’s not about whether you (or I) mind or not. Do try to talk about this stuff without being so glib! It’s not about you or me, it’s about Muslim women and social pressure and women’s rights. Please don’t just dismiss all that as some kind of fatuous minding.
But the people in question don’t agree, so that doesn’t in fact resolve the conflict.
I’ve been quite respectful of Ian’s defense of spite as a prime facie indicator of moral weight, or at least I’ve tried to be. So I’m a bit incensed that Ophelia and Gordon are ignoring and trivializing his argument, claiming that I’ve misrepresented him with a silly or fatuous view. I haven’t, I don’t think (correct me if I’m wrong, Ian). In fact, I think Ian’s view has some intuitive attractions that I happen to disagree with. For instance, there was a time when I was convinced that justice and revenge were by and large the same idea. I don’t think so now, but it’s a tempting and recurring view that we need to work our way out of.
Ophelia, I acknowledged the existence of social pressure in my reply to dirigible. My position is only a default stance, to be defeated by concrete evidence of oppression in the circumstances.
That’s not stated glibly, hastily, or any of that — it’s what my view is. Maybe you disagree with the view, or disagree only by a hair, or ultimately agree but with a few added caveats along the way. That’s all good. But I want to cut to the chase. You’re asking me to hem and haw, but I don’t think we’re entitled to. And I’ll happily defend the view, whenever possible.
The case of children is a separate question, and will depend on other debates we might want to have. For one thing, in my reply to Cassanders, I argued very briefly that a lifestyle that is committed to across time is rationally autonomous, regardless of the social conditions that produced it. This, of course, excludes children because they haven’t sincerely adopted anything across time. For another thing, it’s separate because I’ve been interested in defending religious association and conscience; but as far as minors go, the assumption is that they’re too young to think for themselves, so other rights are in play (like rights of the guardian, for example). Since I don’t want to have a debate over legal custody, I will grant whatever point you like when it comes to children. Ban the enforcement of religious garb for minors, on Dawkinsean grounds of child abuse and so on; fine, for present purposes. I’ll still contend that you are in no position whatsoever to ban it for adults.
As for whether or not the people in question agree — well, if they don’t, then there’s not even a case to be made for a ban. And that’s being generous. I’m not even sure there’s a case to be made if they did agree to ban the veil. I’d have half a mind to say, “No, we don’t do that kind of thing here. Wear whatever you like.”
To cut to the chase, this entails that I’d have to defend the legal right to wear t-shirts bearing swastikas, Motoons, aborted fetuses wearing party hats, etc. Well, whatever. These things may not be moral equivalents (Motoons vs. swastikas, for instance). But one of the tough problems involved in being a liberal is that the moral right to liberty protects morally abhorrent and morally acceptable symbols alike. If you feel that intuitive conflict in your gut, that’s a good thing, it’s a healthy thing. But I will insist that we break on the side of liberty until we’ve run out of options.
Notice here that I’m making a very bold claim. I’m not restricting myself to legal rights. I’m saying, the law has a spirit, and the spirit of the law is the moral claim to liberty of conscience and association.
I didn’t say a word about how you represented Ian! I was replying to your post on its own.
I don’t really understand the rest of what you say, frankly. Maybe you’re just not aware of the fact that many French Muslim women and girls supported the ban on hijabs in school, partly precisely because many Muslim women and girls are not free not to wear it because of “community” pressure.
Sigmund: I see my job as lobbying like hell and getting Parliament to sort out how the law will work. I suppose it would be pretty much along Belgian lines. I see my role as a citizen to draw attention to the problem and stir up the moral debate. I am no lawyer, and there is no reason why I should have to answer every possible question on the constitution before I am allowed to shout about walking adverts for forced marriage, child abuse, mutilation and murder.
Ben: If I believed that Muslim women have a real choice in this matter, my response would not be quite the same. But I don’t believe many of them do.(a) Many don’t, say so, and are forced to obey; end of story.(b) Some will say they choose it, when the reality is that they have no choice and their acceptance is equivalent to our acceptance of death; better to “accept” than complain about what we are powerless to avoid.(c) Some really have bought the package and think it’s the truth. They are complicit in the oppression of their sisters. Their “choice” cannot be allowed to dictate to the rest.(d) Some (b)-people become (c)-people through self-persuasion.
This is real iniquity. It isn’t just a simple matter of freedom of choice.
I didn’t think I had misread Ian, but perhaps I did. I’ll have another go.
Ophelia, see my third to last paragraph.
Suppose that every single Muslim woman except one said that the veil is oppressive and supported a ban. In that case, I would still condemn it, because it is superfluous majoritarianism. a) It is superfluous, because if every single Muslim woman (minus one) says this, then they would be in a position to vote with their feet and their faces. Men have a lot of power, but it’s the power of acquiescence — if women say, “No,” then the very act of saying in a single voice, “Enough of this” is enough power to change the unwritten law. And if it isn’t enough — if men start fighting back using coercion — then the liberal state has an obligation to intervene to prevent or end the violence. b) It is majoritarianism, because there’s still that one dissenter, and because it’s just a piece of cloth whose meaning is hers to decide.
If I think that about the extreme hypothetical case, then you can pretty well expect that I will have similar reservations about the French one.
Gordon, that’s fair, those are legitimate concerns. You would object to my formulation of autonomy, then. You think that the social genesis of wants in the long run tells us a real story about personal autonomy.
I don’t hold that view. So I can say something about (a-b), but I have nothing to say for cases (c-d). I’ll try to explain why.
The only stable way of dealing with coercion (your case a) is to give women every opportunity to leave communities that they find abusive. You can do a lot of things that help people in these situations — community outreach programs and various other social services. I advocate all of these things, and would consider a great many other kinds of legislative reforms to make the process of disengagement easier.
But ultimately, people have to claim rights for themselves in the context of their own lives. And if we don’t respect that, if we interfere with peoples’ lives beyond the choices that they make, it can only be because we’re making an illicit claim to represent all of them and their personal interests. That’s paternalism. There’s no escaping the fact that when we say, “We will ban the veil”, it paves over somebody’s right to wear the veil of their own choosing. The presumption here must be that we have a better sense of the person’s well-being than they do. That’s a mistake; we don’t, because the person’s well-being is relative to the meaning they associate with the symbol, and the meaning of the symbol is personal. This is the same problem that causes me to dismiss (c-d). They are rationally autonomous people, and their choices must be respected.
What about (B)? It seems to have a lot of intuitive power. But these would seem to be women who are questioning their commitment, or have not made the commitment to the veil. They, in other words, haven’t made the commitment through time. So, there is no rationally autonomous decision in question here. I am not sure what to say about this case, except that it seems more like (a) than like (c) or (d).
Benjamin: In fact, I think Ian’s view has some intuitive attractions that I happen to disagree with. For instance, there was a time when I was convinced that justice and revenge were by and large the same idea. I don’t think so now, but it’s a tempting and recurring view that we need to work our way out of.
Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. I can resist anything except intuitive attractions. (Pace Oscar Wilde).
I don’t agree with moral views that are based entirely on spite, even when the spite is directed towards villains like the Taliban. While passions like spite are necessary to our sense of justice, they’re certainly not enough. Moral codes don’t exist just to annoy the people we don’t like!
Agreed: but not that what I said was spiteful. Authoritarian creeds like modern Islam are diametrically opposed to liberalism and the societies that foster it, and right at the moment there appears to be no shortage of Islamic militants willing to destroy as many lives as possible, including their own, to make whatever philosophical point it is they are trying to make. Also to win their 72 heavenly virgins in the process.
Most Muslims in my own experience are not militants, and just want to get on with their lives. But mainstream Islam does not do nearly enough to demonstrate a genuine opposition to the fundamentalists, militants and bombers, who in my view constitute the greatest physical danger to those who espouse Western liberal values. And those militants also want to get nuclear weapons. As regards that and many of their other ambitions, I say we should discomfort them. I do not think of that as spite so much as legitimate self defence.
Cosmopolitan cities of the Muslim world (like Istanbul) are pretty vibrant places. I have no problems living with Islam, but I would hate to live under it. Bin Laden yearns for a revived Caliphate, and will not be the last fascist crackpot to have such universalist authoritarian dreams. Such people have to be opposed in my view, and strongly.
Following 9/11, many (like the journalist John Pilger) opposed any retaliatory action on the part of the US Government. While being very aware of the way vendettas get going and keep up their own momentum, I expected that doing nothing in response would raise bin Laden’s prestige in the Muslim world, with all that implied. Similar reasoning led me to support the military de-throning of Saddam Hussein, and the previous action by Britain against the Argentine takeover of the Falklands. But I also spent much of my own youth actively opposing the involvement of the US and Australia in Vietnam. Looking back, I still believe I took the best position on each of those issues.
As for the relationship between justice and revenge, I thought about that in relation to the execution of Saddam Hussein in early 2007. I wrote a piece on it at the time for Margo Kingston’s Webdiary. You might be interested cf your own views. But I still stand by that one too.
Ben: I have replied to your #26 post, but nothing happened after I pressed ‘submit’. The system has its own sense of Islamic irony. When I tried to re-submit, it would have none of it. Time will tell.
I would it were otherwise, but liberalism has its limits. If Islamic women are permitted to go about in black tents in western cities, it is only a matter of time before suicide bombers start availing themselves of the opportunities so presented. Motorcycle helmets are permitted in streets, but right now in New York, a ski mask would probably get you arrested. Banks do not permit either inside their doors.
In Austria, and perhaps Germany, Holocaust denial is a criminal offence. My own view is that HD should be illegal, but given misdemeanor status. Denialists are a damn nuisance, because if people don’t waste a lot of their time dealing with their (fatuous) claims, they claim victory in the ‘debate’, get publicity and a moral boost. There is a case to be made for dealing the same way with female tenting.
I would not mind tented women in the streets if (a) I could believe that they were not coerced in some way into that style of dress and (b) there was zero point zero chance they were actually a disguised fanatic up to no good. There are debating points to be made both ways, but I confidently predict that the whole moral debate will end the day a hijab blows up in the middle of a western crowd.
In the mean time, they should be banned completely from schools, banks and public buildings.
I would like everyone to be free to dress as they please. While ‘Islam’ is sometimes translated to ‘peace’ , it actually means ‘submission’. In other words, conformity. Islamic societies in my limited experience are about the most conformist ones going. And some Muslims seek world domination, as did the Catholic Church before them. I thought that went out with the villains of Captain Marvel comics. But it didn’t.
A plague on all such houses.
Your comment went into spam for some reason, Ian, but I let it out quite promptly. It’s there now.
Thanks Ophelia. Out of spam at last. Meanwhile I should probably have posted the following on this thread instead of ‘Beware the rising tide of…’:
One rotten apple spoils the whole barrel. Breaking with my usual practice this morning, I visited N&C before going to the usual Sydney Morning Herald website. So I did all my above posting ignorant of Burqa bandit in armed cash grab
Enough said.
Ian, your example is of a male thief who used a niqab (not a burqa – if he had worn a burqa then he wouldn’t have needed the sunglasses) as a disguise when he robbed someone in the street. In other words he used an arabic dress plus an extra layer of disguise in order to conceal his identity from his victim.
Think for a second how you would need to word a law that would have prevented or discouraged such a crime. Banning the burqa wouldn’t have worked – it wasn’t a burqa. Banning the niqab? Again, how do you word such a law without causing enormous problems – for instance do we introduce a law saying individuals must not conceal their face in public? Are we prepared to outlaw motorcycle helmets in the public streets, which are much more concealing than the average niqab (again I am not disputing the reasonable idea of requiring the face to be visible in banks, post offices and government buildings)?
Ian, let me see if I can get this right. Take: “anything that discomforts a Talibanista or any other kind of fascist is OK by me. Well, provisionally anyway.” Since we’re talking about a piece of cloth, here, then presumably if Talibanistas hated curly moustaches, then you would (provisionally) smile upon a curly moustache dress code. I’m saying it doesn’t even make the cut, provisionally (except for entertainment value).
You argue here that the aim is not spite, but self-defence. I’d like to bring in your article at this point, because it is edifying, and adds some nuances to your view. I can’t overlook the fact that one central aim of the article is (after my own heart) a claim to the indispensability of revenge to justice — a defence of spite, in other words. So you ask, “Is there not an element of revenge in any punishment; an attempt even through mercy, kindness, feeding and watering, to heap at least a few coals of fire on the head of the transgressor?” And answer: “Try as I may, I cannot find a neat watertight barrier that distinguishes punishment on the one hand from revenge on the other, making it possible for us to find a holy grail of revenge-neutral punishment.” By your own lights, then, it would be surprising if any punitive action could be sharply distinguished from spite.
At this point, you might claim that the ban on the veil is not a punishment at all, because self-defence does not necessarily involve punishment. (To be clear: punishment is retrospective, in response to harms done; self-defence is prospective, done in response to harms that are to come.) We are meant to ban the veil in order to prevent future injury, nuclear or otherwise.
But the first question is whether or not you’re punishing other people for making autonomous choices with respect to their religious associations.
To the extent that you are, then the anti-veil policy is not (mere) self-defence — it’s either punishment or collatoral damage. If it’s punishment, then it’s hard to distinguish from spite, by your own account. If the latter, then your anti-veil policy must involve the most naive and implausible kind of utilitarianism, of the “kill the one to save the five” sort that gets debunked in every intro to ethics class. Specifically, in this case, you’re trying to “save” Gordon’s (a-b) by excluding (c-d). Worse, this indicates, I think, a reluctance to “live with” Islam, to use your helpful remark.
To the extent that you aren’t punishing autonomous persons for their religious associations, i.e., you’re punishing people for actual harms done, it concerns their actions and not the veil. So it is irrelevant to the policy. Moreover, since it involves punishment, it is hard to discern from spite.
The second question is whether or not spite is provisionally moral. In the article, you argue that utility is the ultimate moral arbiter of the moral acceptability of punishment, not spite. Since punishment and spite are continuous, and utility can recommend punishments, then utility can endorse spite; but that, of course, doesn’t mean that spite morally recommends punishments. Fine.
But then we’re left wondering why “anything that discomforts a Talibanista or any other kind of fascist is OK by me. Well, provisionally anyway”. Given your wider arguments, one would think instead that provisional decency is given to us by utilitarian arguments, not appeals to spite. But if you’re making a utilitarian argument, it’s not a good one (see 1); and if it isn’t a utilitarian argument, my prissy and vaguely Dawkinsean initial reaction to your quote was sound.
But now (in your second post) you’ve already indicated a reluctance to accept either option. You don’t want to continue saying that spite confers provisional legitimacy, and you don’t want to produce collatoral damage. I’m left wondering if there’s any anti-veil argument left that you can make that applies to adult women. Of course, there are arguments against the veil in banks — which is not an argument against the veil per se, but against any identity cover-up at all. And there are arguments against young schools, which I conceded for the sake of argument, because it’s too complicated for me to think about right now. But religious attire is perfectly legitimate for public spaces, which is what I presumed was the core of what we’re arguing about.
The only argument that’s left appears to be an appeal to fear. If the terrorists bomb us then we’ll tear off the veil. Well, what else are we going to do if the terrorists bomb us? Today Motoons, tomorrow the world.
Sigmund: The press reported it as a burqa (burka?). Maybe as a concession to bad taste the thief wore both a burka and sunglasses. I don’t know, but I am happy to bow before your expertise on the various forms of Muslim attire.
How does one draft the legislation? Well, if it can be drafted for banks and schools, as I understand it has been in France and Belgium, then I dare say it can be done for the streets. I suggest elsewhere that the wearing be a misdemeanour rather than a crime. The established fact that it can be used as a form of handy disguise by criminals makes it reasonable in a modern western context. And though western law may be an ass at times, but it is not a complete ass. It is able to make fairly fine distinctions.
In Muslim countries, dress codes are never voluntary. Go to Iran and wear a short-sleeved shirt out into the street, and the thought police will arrest you. It is reasonable to assume that a woman wearing a burka is doing so at least in part because she has been subject to community or family pressure to do so; arguments re individual freedom cut both ways in reality.
The sooner the whole bizarre practice is stamped out world-wide the better IMHO. Banning burkas is placing a constraint on individual liberty. So is banning the rights of some family/community members to force others to wear them.
Someone correctly notes that “this shit is completely unacceptable in the 21st century,” yet the resident equivocator BN can only manage to be “apathetic” on this issue.Well at least the BS is consistent. Sentence after sentence, paragraph after mind-numbing paragraph to prove that there are indeed fairies dancing on the head of a pin, or, in this case, that there is some larger “human rights” issue about banning face-covering, instead of the practical issue about the effects of face-covering on women — particularly in Western society. In fact, Western society has its dress codes, ie. public nudity is not allowed. No reason why face covering (by women only), with all its mysogynystic implications, not to mention potential for terrorism and crime, should not be allowed when public nudity is not.
Of course, BN will no doubt respond by pointing out my intellectual shortcomings, as is his wont. That’s fine. I’m more interested in pointing out the moral and ethical shortcomings implicit in “apathy” on female face coverings, which should be a serious concern for any clear thinking progressive 21st century human.
I freely admit i cannot match the intellectual prowess that allows BN to unabashedly parade his “apathy” on female face covering. It reminds me of two famous quotes: First Orwell, who said some ideas were so thick only self-styled intellectuals could support them; then Buckley (William F.), said he would rather be governed by the first 100 names out of the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard.
For myself, I can only hope that those individuals, agencies and govts genuinely interested in improving human and women’s rights aren’t taken in by this kind of pseudo-intellectual jerking off.
I’ve had to give this some thought, and in the meantime have got distracted. However, I think that this is just one aspect of Ophelia’s can of worms, and I believe it to be the single biggest issue facing us, and the one issue that we never do seem to face squarely.
We don’t see women teeming and hoardeing (sorry about that) and sweeping with fire and sword. We don’t see them descending like the wolf on the fold and stealing the land, the milk the honey and the women. Why not?
Here is a thread about what is done to women, but where are all the women complaining about it? I do not know whether it is because we have over centuries murdered so many courageous women that women nowadays do not seem very willing to speak out on their own behalf. yes, I know many do, but why not all?
We have a serious problem. I don’t think democracy particularly suits women. In fact, I doubt if anything really does. Democracy is definitely a men’s thing. Unfortunately, no one has yet invented a better idea. But I think that if we are to involve women fully we need to accept that it won’t be an entirely simple matter of protecting this freedom or that. Why is it that even in the West women are still exhibited, prohibited, extolled, abused, declared equal and paid less? My daughter once told me that when she had very blond hair she was treated noticeably less respectfully than when she had dark hair. There seems to be a common assumption that the more attractive a woman is the less likely she is to be intelligent. I think that men really do have difficulty with the notion of something desirable being able to assert its independence, and for many men the very possibility of rejection is intolerable. I submit that we are quite simply pathological, maybe even insane, when it comes to relations between the sexes. We are simply afraid to look. It is just easier for us men to wrap women in mobile cells than to face up to and deal with our paranoid terror of our own desire for women and our rage that what we desire should have power over us. We blame women for our own shame.
As a teacher I have once or twice found myself advising some nice young lady on an affair of the heart. It is strange to me how even highly intelligent girls are so ready to blame themselves when they are clearly being unconscionably manipulated. Even my own daughter once had a fit of this curious malady and it was only because I got really angry about her wretched young stalker that it occurred to her that, just possibly, it might not be all her fault after all.
I think we have to remove this question from the sphere of religion and culture and declare, first, that it is all about men and their fears and wants and god has nothing to do with it. And second, I think that we should simply not tolerate any arguments made in defence of what has to be regarded as psychological abuse. We are animals. As individuals at least we cannot entirely help ourselves. We are causally determined. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t suffer. Whatever the democratic rights and wrongs I am convinced that women have to prevented from hiding their faces and bodies on our streets and encouraged to walk about like persons, and we must address the inevitable psychological problems as pathology. I think we have to make it impossible for men to justify their attacks on women by removing any possibility of women being obedient to their most unreasonable demands. No doubt this isn’t realistic, but the problem is men, not women, and what else are we going to do? How many more women are going to be buried alive?
Having said all that, just found this, and it’s probably true:
http://www.icl-fi.org/english/wv/886/veil.html
Also
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=CKAvZ0U7d7sC&pg=PA141&lpg=PA141&dq=shooting+of+unveiled+women&source=bl&ots=L87hY1gN4l&sig=jK
Ho hum… Is this impossible, or what?
I don’t think we need to accept that statement as uncomplicatedly true – because it’s too definite and one-sided. It’s at once too definite and not complete enough. It may be (and probably is) true that bans will lead to expulsions of some Muslim women from schools, universities and the workforce, which will reinforce their isolation and oppression, but it also may be (and probably is) true that it will provide space for other women to free themselves from hijabs and burqas. (“The veil” is not a useful term.) The whole passage is just way too simplistic about a complicated issue.