Citizenship classes?
This sounds like forced assimilation to me. I don't look that favorabley to the religion of Islam, but a government doing this is just plain scary.
If they dont like it they can go back to where they came from. You cant come to a new country and obligate the locals to accept offending practices from your country of origin. Covered muslim women represent an offense to the progressive Western World, not a simple neutral cultural element.
While many of society's laws are created to prevent people from being offended, for example the, very relevant, law against public nudity in general, I know it is impossible to keep everyone from being offended all the time and in trying to do so society often tramples upon a very basic human right: free speech. These women should be able to express themselves by wearing burqas, just as much as someone should be able to use "foul" language without being in serious danger of law enforcement intervening. I think that people take things too personally and then hand the responsibility of change off to the government. If the people of France in general are offended by the wearing of burqas then they should promote a social movement against it and confront those practitioners in a way in which nothing is obligatory. I think people are involving themselves to heavily in other peoples' affairs, forcing their own beliefs upon them. This type of law making is not a staple of progressive society but instead of "backward" countries like Iraq, or a better example would be the acid attacks in Srinagar, India, force women to wear the coverings. Governments should be protective (from things like war, and environmental destruction) and liberative (enforcing people's rights to do certain things, like women's right to vote), not domineering and controlling.
I don't see how covering their faces entirely is free speech. On the contrary, I am convinced that wearing a full face veil is an oppression of such essential liberty.
In France, it is very difficult to talk with religious groups (of any religion). Talks have been organized (even just a couple weeks ago) on the expression of faith to the public. France has been a secular country since 1905. After the horrors of WWII, it was deemed illegal to explicitly be able to identify one's religion in public (because the Nazis obliged Jewish people to wear a yellow Cross of David and people were obliged to be able to prove they were Christan baptized at anytime, even when just walking in the street).
One of the most famous French expressions [1] is the following (translated to English):
One's freedom stops where starts the freedom of others.
This expression is meant to teach one to limit their own freedom in a community and to not abuse of power. Banning expression limiting and often male-imposed full face veils enables two important freedoms:
- The freedom for the woman to choose her own religion without the obligation of a man
- The freedom for one to choose their own religion without being influenced by their public surroundings (no visible Christian crosses, no visible crosses of David, no visible full face veils)
In addition, it also put everyone and every religion on the same level of tolerance. As DENDODGE very rightly writes in the "Good!" thread, expecting to be allowed to do so in public is imposing your religious beliefs on others, and should not be permitted.
P.S.: If I had to choose between seeing some naked people in the streets and people wearing burqas, I would prefer seeing naked people. Now that would be an expression of liberty!
I see this point of the argument much better now. Thank you for your response, I believe it has changed my opinion on the topic. Lord Arador (talk) 03:48, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
If the woman's family has been living there for, say, three generations, would you still say that she should go back "where she came from"? What if she is an ethnically French, but has converted? Banning burqa is like banning the wearing of crosses. I'm sure some Muslim-majority countries ban that too, but do we really need to go down to their level?
And what's wrong with that? When France starts cracking down on muslim pedophily will you also complain of forced assimilation?