David Mitchell: If they tried to ban the burqa I’d start wearing one
David Mitchell on offence, free speech, and taking liberties…
Governments and legislatures shouldn’t tell people what they can and can’t wear. By doing so, they would, in every sense, be taking a massive liberty. As long as people aren’t wearing crotchless jeans outside primary schools or deely boppers with attached sparklers on petrol station forecourts, we’ve all got the right to wear exactly what the hell we like and I can barely believe that we’re having this debate.
But we are. Stupid people are thinking about an issue that doesn’t need to be thought about and a YouGov survey says 67% of us want full-face veils outlawed. Just when I thought my estimation of humanity couldn’t fall any further, I discover that two-thirds of my fellow countrymen are, or at least were for the duration of taking a survey, morons. I’m so glad the Conservatives are committed to local referenda.
These idiots may not be proportionally represented but they do have a voice in parliament: Philip Hollobone MP. He’s tabled a private member’s bill that would make it illegal for anyone to cover their face in public. “Covering your face in public is strange, and to many people both intimidating and offensive,” he says. Take that, Batman.
Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/25/david-mitchell-burqa-ban-tattoos
David Mitchell: If they tried to ban the burqa I’d start wearing one,
I generally share you’re view that people should be free to dress as they choose. What I don’t share is your apparent view that it’s an open and shut issue with no arguments of at least potential merit on the opposing side. It IS a practice whose spirit is contrary to women’s rights and the equality of the sexes. It may be that many women who wear them might be secretly delighted if the law was passed because they wear the burqa due to social pressures to do so rather than because they WANT to.
Perhaps a compromise. Adult women can wear them if they choose but no minor can.
At this point, liberal though I am, I find myself favoring the ban. The slap in the face to the principle of equality of the sexes outweighs for me the freedom of wardrobe issue—the former seems to me a more important value to uphold.
But I admit it isn’t an easy decision and I’m willing to hear arguments from the other side.
What I don’t share is your apparent view
I don’t share Mitchell’s apparent view, that is.
David Ellis writes: “Perhaps a compromise. Adult women can wear them if they choose but no minor can.”
But this is already the case. Only adult women in the UK wear burkas. Minors wear the hijab, which is similar to the type of headscarf occasionally worn by the Queen. Though it can be argued that it is bad for their health to wear them all the time because they get less sunlight and so lack D-vitamin.
When I first saw burkas, including some that also cover the eyes, when I moved to Leicester in 1999, I was shocked, and still do find them disturbing. Possibly in part because of their similarity to the traditional garb of Death or Nasgul in fantasy, or more recently Darth Vader or the Daleks (though they are now more colourful!). I argued in the local press that people who adopted this type of clothing were not doing their image any good in this country, especially as their husbands often wore modern western dress.
However a ban by law does seem too draconian. The way to achieve change is probably to show disapproval of this form of dress, until those wearing it understand that it is alienating them from the community. It should probably die out within two generations. How would a law be framed so as not to prohibit the wearing of dark sun-glasses, or clowns performing in public places?
A related problem is the segregation of the sexes in public meetings, where the women invariably sit at the back, and men dominate the proceedings. This again is a matter of cultural assimilation. But of course for some the deliberate aim is to assert cultural independence, leading to ghettoisation and claims for the institution of sharia law. Fortunately the tide seems to have turned against this kind of “multiculturalism” – or has it?
I find this debate so fascinating because every time I encounter it I come away thinking something else. David has, in his usual way, created an eloquent argument for tolerance veiled (ahem!) in his oh so hilarious ranting tone of righteous indignation. Yet I think he shoots himself in the foot when he says, “as long as”: -
“As long as people aren’t wearing crotchless jeans outside primary schools or deely boppers with attached sparklers on petrol station forecourts…”
Which immediately suggests that there are exceptions to be made under certain circumstances and that this debate its not the oh so simple argument that David seems to be implying. Indeed the very fact that David says “I can barely believe we’re having this is a debate” undermines his whole argument.
“…we don’t have to respect people’s decision to wear them. We can tolerate but criticise it and, as long as we’re not being abusive, take the piss. Consequently, those women who feel pressured into wearing burqas by cultural or familial forces might become aware that they’re living in a society where questioning those forces is welcomed.”
The very fact this debate exists is an expression of what David hopes we might achieve, people ‘are’ criticising, they ‘are’ taking the piss, some ‘are’ being abusive (but that’s xenophobic bigots for you). If a by-product of this debate is that Muslim women (and men) come to be “aware that they live in a society where questioning those forces is welcomed.” would David be so eager to wish it away as a forgone conclusion?
Who is David Mitchell? He like so many celebrity atheists is a well educated, middle-class, white, male, who has no idea what it is like to be living as a female in a religion that – as far as doctrine is concerned – treats you as second class. A doctrine that expects you to be subservient and differential to your male superiors. He is not – as some Muslim women are – new to this country, unfamiliar with the language and the customs, the extents of the law and their personal freedoms and rights. He is not monetarily dependent on a spouse and living in an isolated religious environment, some of which forbid you from even interfacing with the outside world.
David Mitchell suffers none of these hindrances, and the people who do are rarely in a position to speak or to stand up for their own rights without suffering grievous reprisals from the minority of extremists living within their own religious communities.
We need only think of the scold’s-bridle, a monstrous dehumanising facial cage, designed to deprive the wearers (specifically women) of their freedom of speech. If I were a woman and subject to such an implement I would welcome the support of the outside world, to free me from such barbarity. Though you would never know it because I can not express my displeasure, even less so in a community that accepts the bridle as common attire that keeps me ‘in my place’.
And so, much as I respect David Mitchell for his views, his intelligence and his comedy; I feel he has gravely oversimplified this issue and has used his familiar comic hyperbole to obscure the fact that he hasn’t really given much consideration to the specifics of this debate. Instead he has opted for a broader, blurrier picture of the issues in hand, grand gestures of a general nature; but alas, such a broad net has plenty of holes through which the persecutors and their victims can slip.
I personally don’t think a ban will happen, but I think it should happen in some form or another. Public and government buildings; banks, building societies, airports and all places of a higher than average security, as well as children and their teachers, should also be exempt from veils and facial covering of any kind.
The idea that tattoos can be a means of obscuring the face is laughable as is the use of sunshades and glasses. A permanent facial tattoo is as good as an ID card and sunshades and glasses are not expected to be worn religiously, they have health benefits, and a person can just as easily be asked to take them off as any motorcycle helmet.
Perhaps David is too accustom to his celebrity status? Does he not realise that the vast majority of people aren’t famous stand-up comedians with an open platform to criticise and take the piss? That your average woman or man on the street or at work is more likely to be sued, sacked, even physically attacked, for the sake of taking the piss? People with children to feed and bills to pay can not afford the openness that is afforded by the celebrities in their ivory towers.
So what are they to do? What are ‘we’ to do? Well, we are of course doing the one thing that can safely be done and that is to debate it in the hope that something somewhere changes, either within the Islamic community or if necessary in the law!
I hope Mitchell is just trying to provoke discussion by his position. We do not have the right to wear exactly what we want; neither to we have the right to do anything we want at anytime. That is called anarchy, not democracy.
@Ankhsey – what about liberal democracy? If we consider democracy on it’s own we might just as well vote to deport them all – that would be perfectly democratic.
If you managed to get that vote through, it would be perfectly democratic, Antony, but it wouldn’t be a liberal democracy, as liberal democracy does not respect an absolute majority rule. Apart from election of representative, liberal democracies are restricted in their actions by the country’s constitutions or precedents in law.
In reality, democracies have specific limits on specific freedoms, which are deemed necessary to guarantee the existence of democracy.
Like many I find full face burkas disturbing. I feel it as a deep insult to liberal democracy and all it stands for. However I would find a ban to be disturbing. Laws that limit the actions of a minority by the majority must be very strongly justified. Examples would include fox-hunting and smoking – I support the legal intervention to protect the fox and to protect the rights of non-smokers but I feel there needs to be demonstrable harm before such a law is passed – I’m not sure that burka-wearing harms the majority, disturbs – yes, insults – perhaps, but harms?
It seems to me that the person who is harmed is the person wearing the burka and we should be directing our attention to helping them. If we ban it what would happen to them? I’d bet that these women will then never be allowed out in public. How does that help them?
Education is the answer (another argument against sectarian – sorry “faith” – schools), education of the men in particular and robust implementation of the law against abusive behaviour. I feel though that the best thing that can be done is for women from the wider community to engage with, befriend and support the burka-wearers. It’s not going to be a quick or easy road.
Just a footnote. When I was growing up in the 50′s my mother would never leave the house without a hat or a headscarf, nor my father without a tie. Dress codes are a powerful statement of who we are.