Hating on someone else's President for once.

Via Feministing, I thought this was a good article on Sarkozy's desire to ban the burqa in France.

Excerpt:

So now we have a bigger picture: Muslims as a "misbehaving" minority group, an ongoing war on terror and related distaste for all things Muslim, wide-spread discrimination against Muslims (1 in 3 Muslims in Europe have reported discrimination), desire to maintain a culturally homogeneous society, and, finally, a fascination with another man's progress. Put together, the something else is revealed: by highlighting the oppression of Muslim women Sarkozy is giving people in France more reasons to do what France is already doing pretty well - marginalizing its large Muslim minority.

Anyway, I should admit that I find the burqa a bit unsettling by sight, but I also find this sort of religious censorship suspect, and wrong-headed.

Two other quick notes: If the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in modern history is tied in part to forced secularization in the Middle East and forced secularization mixed with underclass status in European Muslim immigrant communities, then this sort of move seems counterintuitive even if you can get around it being racist. (Obviously it goes without saying that the greatest contributing factor to the rise in Islamic fundamentalism is a hatred of our freedoms that God made for the United States of America on the Sixth Day of Creation, but I guess there are also other factors.)

Second, check out those staggering numbers on Muslim incarceration in France. They looked at our numbers on African American men and started feeling competitive. Truly appalling.

Also, the "sartorial hijab" page on Wikipedia is interesting to look at if you're interested in being able to distinguish between, say the burqa and the niqab.

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