The Swiss finally did it.
After decades of being famous for being neutral (ever since avoiding involvement in some pretty costly wars that the rest of the world found irresistible), 57 percent of the voting Swiss decided to ban the construction of minarets (mosque towers from which calls to prayer are sung).
Global anti-Islam efforts received another boost this Christmas season as the infamously secular Nicolas Sarkozy government of France prepares a bill to ban all burqas from public areas (as in, anywhere but one’s house or private clubs or businesses).
These actions appear to be irrational reactions to the Islamocentric terror threat (please don’t send letters ““ one must call terrorism that is fueled by perversions of faith purporting to be Islamic something) and reveal a lack of moral fiber in their respective nations’ leaders. Governments must stop exploiting fears about national security for baseless acts of culturally ignorant legislation.
In the latter case, French officials characterize their plans to ban the burqa as both eliminating a pathway to extremism and protecting French secularism, a principle that Sarkozy’s center-right Union for Popular Movement party holds to be a founding principle of the Republic.
But since when is an individual’s religious inclination a threat to national secularism? To say that one’s nation’s identity will crumble if a small minority of Muslim women wear a veil is to give in to far too much insecurity.
In fact, all reports seem to indicate that only “a few hundred” women in the entire nation wear burqas, obviously comprising a “tiny minority,” according to Reuters and The Associated Press, respectively.
This is not the first time France has specifically moved against Muslim women. In 2004, a ban on Muslim head garb in public classrooms sparked controversy. According to the AP, the bill also banned “ostentatious” religious symbols but “targeted headscarves.”
It is the striking specificity of these laws that offend ““ a minaret is somehow threatening while a church tower is not. A crucifix necklace is passable (so long as it is not large enough to qualify as “ostentatious”) but even the simplest or most elegant headscarf is not.
In an op-ed piece for The New York Times, columnist Ross Douthat notes that anti-Islamism has swept the Continent. England “elected two representatives of the fascistic, anti-Islamic British National Party” and a bill introduced in Italy “would ban mosque construction and restrict the Islamic call to prayer.”
In this context, it is difficult to have much faith in UMP parliamentary leader Jean Françoise Copé and his claims of protecting women’s rights and fighting terror.
The only legal justification for the ban comes in the form of France’s law of “laïcité” (an oversimplified translation is “the idea of a secular society”), but prioritizing the supposed values of a nation over seemingly basic human rights like one’s ability to dress oneself perverts nationalism as separate and more important than freedom.
That transition ““ from liberty to uniformity ““ is arguably the first step of any tyrannical state.
Sarkozy politically glad-handed the Swiss for their minaret referendum, citing their decision as one that mirrors his own to start a campaign to examine French “identity.” His words on the matter are interesting, to say the least. The Swiss decision, he argued, “has nothing to do with the freedom of religious practise, or freedom of conscience.”
The French president went on to say that “the peoples of Europe are welcoming and tolerant: It’s in their nature and in their culture. But they don’t want their way of life, their mode of thinking and their social relations distorted.”
They don’t want their way of life “distorted?” One is left to wonder why Sarkozy did not just come out and say that he believes “the peoples of Europe” are afraid that any visible Muslims within their countries will pervert their culture.
Perhaps even Sarkozy understands that his opinion smacks of xenophobic, racist and prejudiced sentiments unfit for the leader of any nation.
This is precisely the problem with government mandates such as the minaret ban and the excoriation of headscarves and burqas. When governments attempt to protect and define culture, they can only turn to the detestable tools of vilifying the other and legally debasing their humanity.
In turn, these tools become the tools of the likes of al-Qaeda, as it becomes far too easy to paint the Western world as the enemy of the entire world’s second-largest religion.
Constructing your Westwood minaret in solidarity with Swiss Muslims?
E-mail Makarechi at kmakarechi@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.