Pulling back the veil on Western politics

(Lléida, Spain)

PART ONE: THE POLITICS OF EQUALITY – CORRAMOS UN ESTÚPIDO VELO

This week the council in Lléida, north-east Spain, has announced that it will refuse entry to any woman wearing a burqa or a niqab into any public administration building. The council attempted to extend the ban to cover any public thoroughfare until it was ruled that the council did not possess the power to legislate for that area. Catalonians insist we see them as a separate and homogeneous nation, so it would only be fair to them to mention the fact that towards the end of April PP (the ultra-conservative Partido Popular) councillors in Badalona distributed leaflets containing the slogan “We don’t want Rumanians” on the streets of the town.

However, Lléida is by no means alone in this new legislation. At the end of March Belgium became the first European country to ban women wearing either a burqa or a niqab from appearing in any public place. France has a partial ban in place on women wearing the veil in public places and the Italian authorities have been fining women in public for months. Quebec banned women wearing the veil from entering government offices from March onwards, completely forgetting that the government is the servant of the people and not the other way round, and last October even clerics in Egypt were planning to ban the veil in certain educational establishments.

The effect of banning women from public offices according to their dress will be to further undermine the standing of women in society. They are denying a certain proportion of the female population of the country the right to deal with their own administrative issues. They will be unable to deal with public officials and will be obliged to rely on the men in their family for such issues as passports, identity cards, child allowance and housing benefits. Apparently we are already worried about not speaking to women who have no voice – this measure renders women even more mute. This is not to even mention the ethics of effectively placing women under house arrest.

In the case of the government offices it appears that no-one considered it would be more appropriate to introduce an alternative such as having a room where women can bare their faces to a female employee, therefore allowing integration in the same way we have always integrated other people who for whatever reason are in danger of not enjoying the same status as the majority of the community.

These measures are typical of highly unintelligent patriarchal authorities. For a start, they only affect women, making a mockery of the suggestion that they exist in order to make women more equal. (Note that in the West we have to make women equal – there is no suggestion that perhaps they already are and we simply have to recognise it more, no, women are incapable of being equal enough and therefore need our help.) Secondly, the authorities claim they are banning a piece of cloth but they choose to ignore that there is human being behind each one. They are not banning cloth but people.

Were any women consulted on this matter? Have any Western women tried walking around in a niqab? Have any of these politicians ever lived in a country which totally rejects your culture and beliefs? Have they ever considered the question of personal choice or do they just assume that all women outside our perfect Western world are oppressed? All the niqab-clad women I have spoken to say it is their choice – and believe me, none of them was afraid to express their opinion on this or any other subject – and anyone who believes women have no voice underestimates the complicated dynamics of relationships in any country. Women are not weak.

PART TWO: ORGANISED RELIGION – THE CRUTCH THAT TRIPS US UP

Having said that, imposing minority religious ideas based on personal choice on a majority is somewhat akin to running a country according to the wishes of the supporters of one football club. If you see the comparison as far-fetched look around – religious people often show as much passion as a football supporter and their chosen crutch is as pointless as the playing of the same league year in, year out.

France has been widely criticised for banning these garments for not being in tune with French cultural and societal values. However, not every person has a religion but everyone (except for a few hundred stateless people) has a nationality, which is why the world is not run on religious grounds but is organised according to nationality and by extension cultural and societal values. Religion is no more than a lifestyle choice and belonging to an organised religion is by no means necessary in order to survive; on the other hand legally you cannot be without a nationality and any individual obliged to live unprotected by the umbrella of nationality would be leading a precarious existence. Nationality has its cons but it is the best system there is for now.

The alternative, allowing organised religion to run a country, leads to travesties of justice and atrocious crimes against anybody who gets in the way. If you doubt this, read the Murphy Report. Then read the Ryan Report. Then talk to the survivors of Catholic abuse.

As an example of nationality over religion take Kurt Westergaard, the Danish journalist now famous for “that” cartoon, who said in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El País, "I have fulfilled my job requirements, a job which is in tune with the Danish tradition of defending free speech”. His was not religious pig-headedness, but rather a rational continuation of his existence as a Dane.

PART THREE: WHEN IN ROME, FOR GOD’S SAKE DON’T BEHAVE LIKE THE ROMANS

So if nationality is the key, and national territories should be allowed to impose the rules it wishes to, should we always follow the moral code existing in whatever country we visit? Should women be obliged to remove their niqabs in public in Western countries and dress in jeans and trainers like Western women? Should gay men accept being imprisoned and tortured in almost every sub-Saharan African country? Should they accept the risk of being put to death? Should we become cannibals in a community in which cannibalism is acceptable?

Would it be better to insist that there is a certain ethical code – the European one, obviously (!) – which should be accepted as the norm the world over?

And should we continue to condemn as fascists the people who insist that “you do what we say; if you don’t like it, go back to your own country” or should we condemn as fascists the people who try to import new social impositions from other cultures?

PART FOUR: CONCLUSION

The answer is obvious. We should get over ourselves and stop telling people how to live their lives. Politicians should stop moralising and get some work done which actually benefits the people. Priests should stop abusing people and oppressing society and get a real job. We should talk to each other and ask each other’s opinions instead of just assuming that our way is better. In short, it’s time to live and let live.

Shadows over Europe

(Düsseldorf, Germany)

Last week in the North Rhine-Westphalia elections German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU party lost 22 seats, with the Green Party and The Left Party picking up eleven new seats each and leaving the Chancellor’s party with the same number of seats as the SPD. Most commentators agreed that the result was a punishment for the decision of the German government two days previously to agree to spend €22.4 billion on bailing out Greece.

This is another blow to the concept – and indeed to the reality – of a united Europe and comes barely seven months after the Irish government was obliged to beg (blackmail) the Irish people into reversing their earlier decision to reject the terms of the Lisbon Treaty. The people of France and Holland had already voted against the first version of the Lisbon Treaty, the European Constitution, in 2005 and were also obliged by their respective governments to think again.

No such problems have beset the British government, because it already shares its people’s inherent mistrust of Europe and its meddling.

Meanwhile, at the other end of Europe, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia took the plunge in 2004 and were joined by Bulgaria and Romania in 2007, although the latter will still have to endure work restrictions set by the richer EU nations until well into the next decade.

The popularity of Europe is moving across Europe like the shadow of a cloud over ripe cornfields – as more and more Eastern countries want in, it seems the richer Western European countries want out. How long will it be before the shadow reflects the geographical boundaries and the reality of Europe moves east too?