Burka in Germany: Interior minister calls for curbs

[Von Due]

Just saying: Bans on hijabs and burkas is not only a European thing, Chad and other countries in Africa has had bans going for some time now after a number of deadly attacks. Security is the arguement in all cases.

Interestingly enough, one Egyptian religious scholar named Mohammad Tantawi has stated that there is nothing in Islam that commands women to cover their faces, hair or entire bodies. Egypt is also interesting in that among the upper class, there is a sentiment against hijabs and the like. One can ask whether this scholar is of the upper class or the lower classes. Iran on the other hand, saw women wearing veils centuries before there was a thing called Islam. Point of this is, the arguement that they have to wear it because religion dictates it is in reality a flawed arguement and if a nation bans it, one can not use religion as an arguement against the ban. Security is a valid arguement for a ban.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Von Due

Just saying: Bans on hijabs and burkas is not only a European thing, Chad and other countries in Africa has had bans going for some time now after a number of deadly attacks. Security is the arguement in all cases.

Interestingly enough, one Egyptian religious scholar named Mohammad Tantawi has stated that there is nothing in Islam that commands women to cover their faces, hair or entire bodies. Egypt is also interesting in that among the upper class, there is a sentiment against hijabs and the like. One can ask whether this scholar is of the upper class or the lower classes. Iran on the other hand, saw women wearing veils centuries before there was a thing called Islam. Point of this is, the arguement that they have to wear it because religion dictates it is in reality a flawed arguement and if a nation bans it, one can not use religion as an arguement against the ban. Security is a valid arguement for a ban.

Makes sense. Still, it is one of those situations where you have to think about liberty vs security and how the two co-exist...indeed, if they can co-exist.

[Von Due]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Makes sense. Still, it is one of those situations where you have to think about liberty vs security and how the two co-exist...indeed, if they can co-exist.

And here lies the real conflict. Same thing with encryption. It makes our bank transactions over the internet safe, it gives us privacy online, and it protects terrorists, drug/arms runners, paedophiles etc. This conflict goes back decades.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Von Due

And here lies the real conflict. Same thing with encryption. It makes our bank transactions over the internet safe, it gives us privacy online, and it protects terrorists, drug/arms runners, paedophiles etc. This conflict goes back decades.

Eyup, I know some people have baulked at the number of CCTV cameras which have sprung up across London, at the invasion of privacy that such cameras represent, and yet those cameras have definitely been used to apprehend criminals and act as evidence in criminal prosecutions.
I just can't help but think of the words of Ben Franklin though.

[Von Due]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Eyup, I know some people have baulked at the number of CCTV cameras which have sprung up across London, at the invasion of privacy that such cameras represent, and yet those cameras have definitely been used to apprehend criminals and act as evidence in criminal prosecutions.
I just can't help but think of the words of Ben Franklin though.

It is a tough problem and definitely one that is out of my league to find a solution to. I would like to say yes to both but the big prize goes to whoever can come up with a scheme that satisfies both camps. As of now, that scheme is well in the realm of neverland it seems.

[eddie]

Oberon, I think the Burkini's should definitely be restricted The photo will show why!

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/...ban/ar-BBvHZVX

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Oh, must be different in the UK then, they banned that a couple of decades ago because people were using them to block CCTV cameras while robbing petrol stations.

Oh wow! Yeah, that's not a thing over here, bandanas are the style here.

[Gerald]

^It looks like scuba diving without oxygen tanks.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Oberon

It's not a case of bending a European rule to follow an Islamic one, it's a case of making it smoother for those enforcing European rules by proving that both can be used at the same time.
For example, if a woman is arrested, she has the right to be strip-searched by a female police officer. Now this has got nothing to do with religion but common decency. I see no reason why a similar case cannot be made for Burqa wearers and female security officers. If a prominant religious figure says that this is so, then it becomes easier for security officers who don't need to keep calling in the local Imam every time a woman refuses to take her Burqa off. That's the carrot approach.
Of course, you can do the stick approach and just arrest them for obstruction, but I think you'd have a lot of full womens prisons which are hotbeds for extremist recruitment by the end of it. Another time where rash reactionary methods end up creating a bigger problem than the one they were trying to solve.

Searching a woman - how do you tell it is? - should not be depending on a husband or older brother or father allowing it, nor should it need any "religious authority" to allow it to make it what you call a "smoother" procedure. That is what its about as reason number one. An Imam has not to have any say in it, nor the family. The Imam has no rights over this women, the father has none, the brother has none. The women does not get owned by them, it is not their slave - by our rules, and it is our rules that rule here in our home countries, its not their rules, their rules do not count here, with us. Ewuality o men and women is to be defined and enforced by our laws, not by their backwardly worldviews - if they want to stay here. Nor do they have any claim to make that allows them to agree or to not agree that the law of the land gets applied only if they agree to it. Do we out a bank robber to court only when he agrees to it?= Do we quesiton a suspect only when he agrees to get arrested by the police? No, we apply the laws, period, with or without his agreement. The person wearing a burkha got to be searched? Fine, like any western women it should be done by a female police officer - and there is nothing to be claimed by Mr or Mrs Burkha beyond that. Compliance - nothing else. Agreement by Imam or family is not relevant, and should not be needed by law and police.

Its not only that the state or the police should not need an Imam's or a family's approval to apply the law. Its more about that you accept that Imams and fathers have possesional claims for that - supposed - woman in the burkha. You step right into that trap that the article by Birgit Kelle describes, and I summarised that point even if not translating the whole thing.

You already accept the claim for possession of women by men and religion by your suggestion to respect these men's views and make it a smoother experience for them - and you do not even realise that. - THAT is what its about as reason number two. And from an ethics point of view it is about the more important reason. Do we tolerate a slave holders claim for haviung the right to hold slaves, or not? You say we shall make it smooth a procedure to not upset his porecious slvery worldviews. I say we should not giv episs for whether he is upset or not. He complies with our rules, gives up slave holding, or he gets the boot kicked into you know where and flies back to where he cam eform in no time.

This, and nothing else.

---

No helmets in German banks for sure.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Searching a woman - how do you tell it is? - should not be depending on a husband or older brother or father allowing it, nor should it need any "religious authority" to allow it to make it what you call a "smoother" procedure. That is what its about as reason number one. An Imam has not to have any say in it, nor the family. The Imam has no rights over this women, the father has none, the brother has none. The women does not get owned by them, it is not their slave - by our rules, and it is our rules that rule here in our home countries, its not their rules, their rules do not count here, with us. Ewuality o men and women is to be defined and enforced by our laws, not by their backwardly worldviews - if they want to stay here. Nor do they have any claim to make that allows them to agree or to not agree that the law of the land gets applied only if they agree to it. Do we out a bank robber to court only when he agrees to it?= Do we quesiton a suspect only when he agrees to get arrested by the police? No, we apply the laws, period, with or without his agreement. The person wearing a burkha got to be searched? Fine, like any western women it should be done by a female police officer - and there is nothing to be claimed by Mr or Mrs Burkha beyond that. Compliance - nothing else. Agreement by Imam or family is not relevant, and should not be needed by law and police.

Its not only that the state or the police should not need an Imam's or a family's approval to apply the law. Its more about that you accept that Imams and fathers have possesional claims for that - supposed - woman in the burkha. You step right into that trap that the article by Birgit Kelle describes, and I summarised that point even if not translating the whole thing.

You already accept the claim for possession of women by men and religion by your suggestion to respect these men's views and make it a smoother experience for them - and you do not even realise that. - THAT is what its about as reason number two. And from an ethics point of view it is about the more important reason. Do we tolerate a slave holders claim for haviung the right to hold slaves, or not? You say we shall make it smooth a procedure to not upset his porecious slvery worldviews. I say we should not giv episs for whether he is upset or not. He complies with our rules, gives up slave holding, or he gets the boot kicked into you know where and flies back to where he cam eform in no time.

This, and nothing else.

---

No helmets in German banks for sure.

All of the above would be fine if people were robots, but we both know better than that. Besides, we also know the dangers of a completely subservient population who will comply with any rule or law that their government imposes on them without protest.
Now neither of us conflict on our belief that there should be no problem for 'Mrs Burqa' to be searched by a woman police officer, as mentioned by example in mapucs post, however where we clash is codifying this in Islamic law. Truth be told there would most likely be a high number of Salafists and Wahabists who would object to anyone but the husband of Mrs Burqa seeing her without the clothing on, but that's because there are conservatives and puritanists on both sides of the divide here, and quite honestly the last thing we in Europe should think of doing is pushing more people towards hardline Salafists, Wahabists and even Khawarijs.
I think you expect Islam to do in a few weeks what it took Christianity a few hundred years and God alone knows how many wars to do.

[mapuc]

Some years ago I read a Danish or was it a Swedish article about Nigeria planning on banning people wearing Niqab in public areas, It had something to do with several suicide bombings where the perpetrator had such clothes on them when they blew them self up and thereby killing many innocent.

Markus

[eddie]

Originally Posted by Vendor

^It looks like scuba diving without oxygen tanks.

That's what I thought too! Hard to believe a woman can swim in a bikini even in Tunisia where the picture was taken.

[Gerald]

Germany is being urged to ban the burqa

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Oberon

I think you expect Islam to do in a few weeks what it took Christianity a few hundred years and God alone knows how many wars to do.

I am free of the illusion to expect Islam doing something to change itself. It won't, and it excels in that. Because as far as Western territories are concerned, thanks to endless Western relativisation and reality denying, it does not have to change. Since over two generations huge numbers, and ever growing numbers, of Muslim colonists are present in Europe. And things grew worse and worse and worse and worse with them. Other migrants groups usually do not give us troubles. Only these. Whereever you look, the integration of Muslim influx-communities has failed. In Britain. In France. In Netherlands. In Germany. In Sweden. Everywhere. And that has something to do with Islamic self-understanding, and oriental patriarchalism.

The question is not how much time we should give Islam. The question is how little time we have left to remain who we are and what we are. Altready now we are no longer the full owners of our house anymore. Already now we accept compromsies that we shouldn't, not at all.

Foreigner comes to us - he follows our rules, our laws, and respects our values. What time is needed to understand that, eh? If you are guest in somebody elses house, you do not just go to the refrigerator and take and eat what you want - you ask, and you say "please". You do not demand, and you do not command, and you do not claim property rights.

As long as you do not think that it is your house.

You break a law? Needs none of your usual rhetoric strikes, Oberon, killerrobots and other pointless exaggerations: you break the law, you bear the consequences, like any other citizen must and should. If foreigners have a problem with that, they have to leave. What is so difficult in that? Its the most reasonable thing one could think. If that means trouble for them, then that may serve as an example for others to better respect our right to set the rules, and their need to integrate. They cam eto us, we did not come to them. If somebody comes here and misb ehaves or refuses to integrate, I send him bakc, and if he gets greeted in his real home by torture ore persuction or whatver, I do not care, I simply refuse to care - he should have thought about that before abusing the hospitality of mine.

I don't care. These people do not interest me one bit. They could drop dead right now, right in place - I don't care. I'm sick of being expected and demanded to always care for them. They are not mine, their demands and wishes must not be my command and not my responsibility, I do not belong to them, I am not their servant.

Its one and a half millenia that Muhammad haunted planet Earth. And since then, Islamic world got its head stuck in the azz of history, 15 centuries deep. No, the chiurches did not hold out their tyranny that long, and did not resist to the "onslaught" of reason and liberalism and humanism. It does not cpomoare, althogznb this copmarison always is tried again and again in an attenpt to relatise and make the West feel guilty and responsible for Islamic world'S ways and goings. Was Napoleon'S expeditionary corps in Egypt responsible for the primitive, impotent world they found and that had wasted the past many centuries before in stagnation all due to Islamic dogma that had brought all former Arab superiority in invention and knowledge to a grindign halt? Hardly. Blame that on Muhammad - and on him alone.

More time you want to give it for reform. Good luck with that. Beg your children (or children to be) for pardon. I rather expect a cactus starting to speak, than seeing Islam stopping to be Islam. Ands that is what "reformation" would need to be about.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Skybird

You break a law? Needs none of your usual rhetoric strikes, Oberon, killerrobots and other pointless exaggerations: you break the law, you bear the consequences, like any other citizen must and should.

And where have I said that they should be exempt from it?