Until today’s article by Rebecca Tan, the Post‘s coverage was typical of mainstream Western journalism – burqa bans were pathetic and retrograde and after all almost no one in Europe wears the full veil. All reasonable people support freedom of religious expression, and that’s all the burqa is.
Yet the world of reality has been falling down hard around pro-burqers (if I may), and we begin to see more willingness to acknowledge that most Europeans are ignoring the tsk-tsking of the other side and going ahead and banning this grotesque garment.
[P]olicies governing head veils are likely to grow more prevalent … Countries having nationwide or partial bans are France, Belgium, Bulgaria, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands. Spain and Italy have some local bans in cities or towns. Legislation is pending for local or national bans in Germany, Latvia, Finland, Switzerland and Luxembourg… [G]overnments in Europe now feel like they have license to take such steps because of the legal precedents set by their neighbours.
Blanketing (if I may) the continent, aren’t we? Most of the British would like to ban it, but the moral scolds running the place think the people’s naughtiness needs to be reined in by their betters. Closer to home, Canadians by a large margin want to ban it, but ditto on the moral scolds.
The Post writer still has a little trouble believing you’d ban burqas for reasons other than bigotry or cynical political calculation, but you can see she’s beginning to kind of try to perceive morally legitimate arguments in favor of the ban.
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One suggestion for Tan, by the way: Throughout the article, she talks about the number of “women” who wear the burqa. All writers who want to enter the fray on this one need to realize that girls are typically smothered under burqas at a very young age: ten, eleven. An age when there’s absolutely no choice involved in the matter.
UD has often wondered why pro-burqers routinely fail to mention this as they sneer about how psycho we are to care about the very very few women who wear the burqa. She has wondered why they don’t ask themselves: What’s it like to be in a supermarket or a post office or a classroom and see a little girl lost inside a burqa? If they would just ask themselves that question – put themselves in the position of Europeans who witness this sort of thing – they might have less trouble understanding the enormous and growing popularity across Europe and many other regions of burqa bans.