A defense of the burqa? No, but rather, a criticism of Sarkozy.
No, I don't like burqas either, and I personally don't see why women have to hide their face and hair and general humanoid body shape when men can show theirs.
But we don't need fodder for a culture war. This is just bad timing. This comes at a time when so-called "western" countries should be working toward seeking common ground with other cultures from various parts of the world. This is at a time when the rest of the world just endured eight years of jackassery from the United States, the most prominent (and ugly, to many countries outside North America and Europe) representative of western culture. Thank goodness the world has decided that it's time for a change. Hard-liners are starting to lose power, in both western countries and around the middle east.
Please don't screw up this very delicate amount of progress that we've gotten so far.
Not to mention, the first word of "liberty, equality, fraternity" is "liberty", and if something like this happened in the United States, I would firmly defend a person's right to choose what they wish to wear (within reasonable bounds, of course). If the concern is that a scarf should not be warn in the workplace because it could get caught in machines and be safety hazard, I could still see a reasonable point of dispute--I'm not sure I'd agree with that, but at least it's still a reasonable point of dispute. However, "it looks wrong" is not even a reasonable point of dispute.
In short: While I agree that "it looks wrong", I don't think it merits banning, and even if you really want to ban it, now is a very bad time to do so.
But we don't need fodder for a culture war. This is just bad timing. This comes at a time when so-called "western" countries should be working toward seeking common ground with other cultures from various parts of the world. This is at a time when the rest of the world just endured eight years of jackassery from the United States, the most prominent (and ugly, to many countries outside North America and Europe) representative of western culture. Thank goodness the world has decided that it's time for a change. Hard-liners are starting to lose power, in both western countries and around the middle east.
Please don't screw up this very delicate amount of progress that we've gotten so far.
Not to mention, the first word of "liberty, equality, fraternity" is "liberty", and if something like this happened in the United States, I would firmly defend a person's right to choose what they wish to wear (within reasonable bounds, of course). If the concern is that a scarf should not be warn in the workplace because it could get caught in machines and be safety hazard, I could still see a reasonable point of dispute--I'm not sure I'd agree with that, but at least it's still a reasonable point of dispute. However, "it looks wrong" is not even a reasonable point of dispute.
In short: While I agree that "it looks wrong", I don't think it merits banning, and even if you really want to ban it, now is a very bad time to do so.