France’s right wing leader Le Pen had made a statement in light of recent events, that shows all the difficulties that come with support for the European political right and its own issues with itself. In order to balance the equation about the burqa (Islamic veil) banning in France Le Pen suggests that France bans the Jewish yarmulka as well.
But these are two different things, first the yarmulka is never big enough to cover a mans face (and is exclusively male), and it applies to all religious Jews wherever you go, when the burqa is not a 100% accepted things across the Islamic world. You can easily see a few different versions of head gear for women in the Islamic nation, some of which only cover hair and ears (like many Iranians).
Besides the (very) French custom of clearing the equation by discriminating another minority in order to please another, bigger minority, this shows us the real face of the French right wing, who has complete lack of understanding why we oppose the burqa, this is not a small thing since motives are important here, and if you are motivated only by xenophobia and hate you’re probably not in the Atheist camp.
We are against the burqa because it locks women behind a wall of fabric, because it assumes that any women who shows her face of her figure is trying to seduce men and therefore is responsible for her own potential future rape. We object the burqa because it is a sign of the male dominance over women and the submission of women to men in the Islamic world, it symbolizes a world that ignores and imprisons half its population and we can not and will not be a part of it.
On the democratic and civilized side we are opposed to the burqa because it is completely contrary to western normal standards of dress and being, we expect to see the full faces of those we are dealing with , we expect to have clear knowledge of the full facial expressions of that person and we expect all our civilizations populace to be responsible for their actions and be accountable for them – which in the burqa case is impossible because you can never identify a person based on how they look with a black sheet over their face and body.
Unfortunately this last statement by Le Pen shows that the French right wing leader is more interested in hurting non Christian French minorities than promoting humanism and progress, lets hope she is not a direct reflection of her voters.
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