dialamah

I have serious doubts that has anything to do with the banning of face veils, and is more likely the secular history of Turkey. Egypt also toys with the idea of banning the niqab from time to time, but even if they did, its unlikely that the situation for women will suddenly improve, if only because a minority of women currently wear the niqab and yet Egypt is still aming the worst offenders when it comes to women's rights and equality. The issue of gender inequality goes a lot deeper than an item of clothing.

Claiming that banning face coverings in Canada and other Western countries increases security in that country or saves women from oppression in third world countries, or even in Western countries, has not been proven - I haven't seen even anecdotal support for that theory. There are, however, indications through both studies and anecdotes that the banning of face coverings makes a country more likely to be a target of terror attack and that niqab use by women may even increase rather than decrease. I invite you to find the data that even suggests banning the niqab helps women, or increases security in a country. I personally do not like the face veil. I agree it springs from a culture that views women as chattels of men. I agree that its sad that women wear it, whether they are forced or choose to do so. I most strongly disagree that trying to force it away through bans will be effective. People have to choose to leave their religious stuff behind, they cannot be forced. And keep in mind that it used to be only in countries known for oppression that governments felt justified in dictating what people, especially women, could or could not wear.

1. Yes, banks and other places of businesses request that faces be shown. Some places also ask that shirt/shoes be worn, or that backpacks be left at the door. I don't object to those sorts of policies that are taken by businesses, including asking Muslim women to unveil. I would object to government legislating that people must always wear shirt/shoes while in public, must never carry a backpack on the street and must never wear a helmet unless they are on a motorcycle. That is the basic difference you are missing. 2. I am suggesting no such thing. I am suggesting that limiting a woman's freedom to wear what she chooses because we happen to dislike an article of clothing is no less 'antitheses to everything we believe in' than is the Muslim notion that a woman must be entirely covered while in public. 3. Nothing is wrong with disliking them. In my opinion, its wrong to attempt to limit freedoms based on "not liking" an article of clothing. I don't happen to love niqabs or burkas, but I do love that in Canada, we try to allow people to believe what they will or wear what they want, barring illegal acts and public nudity (most places). 4. There is no demonstrable benefit to banning niqabs; if there was any proof it reduced female oppression in Western countries or provided more freedom for Muslim women, it would have been posted by now. There is proof that banning the niqab in Western countries does no benefit - women are forced to stay home and some women who did not wear it choose to do so as a show of solidarity to other women. There is even research demonstrating that terrorists use niqab-bans in Western countries as propaganda and recruitment tools. So far, the facts on the ground support my stand and not yours. The best argument you've ever made was that hair loss was an effect of wearing an hijab. You provided actual data which persuaded me that at the very least, banning these religious garments for young girls was justifiable as a health issue. Perhaps if you (or anyone) provided some real proof that niqab banning, in France for example, resulted in a significant number of women stopped wearing it and were no longer oppressed, I would be able to support that argument.

I find the Muslim face coverings off-putting. I also find burkas extremely off-putting, I hated them from the first time I saw them in Egypt. I don't like turbans particularly, or beards, especially the full beards sported by men from certain religions. But I fail to see how not liking these things means I should be allowed to tell these people they should not be allowed, especially given that I live in a country which purports to allow people to believe what they wish and wear what they wish, as long as those things don't break our laws. Thus, people can believe polygamy is God's will, but they'll still have to face secular consequences if they have more than one wife. Same with marrying young girls or killing gays. Yes, many Westerners dislike niqabs, and some Westerners think they should be outlawed. Maybe it will happen here too, in which case women who wear a fave veil will face secular consequences. I don't think Westerners' discomfort with it is reason enough to create a law that specifically targets a woman's apparel. Other people feel differently clearly.

"Security risk" means people fear that women with face veil are a threat. This is dislike:

I agree, that is the problem that needs addressing. And in my opinion, that problem needs to be addressed whether the woman is Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Hindu or secular. There are far too many people (men and women) who think they have the right to impose behavior on other women (and to a lesser extent, other men) for 'religious' reasons, or no reason at all.

I see. So does the 'mob' rule democracy, right or wrong, or does the government sometimes ignore the 'majority' because what the majority (say they) want isn't feasible due to money, legal or moral reasons?

You are the one who said that a democracy means that the "majority rules" regardless of the rightness/wrongness of whatever that 'ruling' is. My distilling that idea into it's basic form says nothing about how I feel about democracy, whether or not the majority agree with me.

Democracy = mob rule.

*eye roll* None the less, people can appear in public, on the street, in motorcycle helmets, balaclavas, and scarves, unlike Muslim women in France and other places, where even appearing on the street in a burka will get them a fine.

True, it is not authoritative. Even so, it has more data demonstrating that a burka ban is not effective in its stated goals than any argument I've seen claiming that it's in women's best interest to ban burkas. Further, there is research showing that things like burka bans correlate to more terror attacks in that country. (For example, France's burka ban has been used in ISIS propaganda as proof that Western nations seek to oppress Muslims and destroy Islam and Muslims must fight back). Repression and Terrorism: A Cross-National Empirical Analysis of Types of Repression and Domestic Terrorism Ethnic Groups, Political Exclusion and Domestic Terrorism The Propaganda of the Deed: Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Mobilization While it's true that correlation is not causation, there isn't even this much evidence that banning the burka adds to security or even helps the women it's proponents claim it will.

Are you sure? This article notes that burka banning results in more women wearing the veil, more women staying home, and increases attacks on Muslim women.

How does banning the burka increase the freedom of those who either want to wear it or are forced to wear it? If a woman, by family decree or religious belief, must wear a burka in order to leave the house, but the government disallows burkas on the street, where is her freedom increased exactly?

Sure, fringe views can be wrong. The only point I am trying to make is that the popularity of an idea doesn't automatically make it right. If it's wrong to infringe on personal freedoms, than it's wrong. Even if 99% of the people think it's the right thing to do this time. It was wrong when we removed the first freedom from Japanese Canadians, it was wrong for every freedom removed thereafter and it was wrong to intern them based on nothing more than fear and propaganda. Banning burkas, inasmuch as it removes a personal freedom, is wrong, regardless of how many countries have done it or how many people support it. There is no credible security threat from burka-clad women, there is only fear and dislike. The same was true of Japanese Canadians: fear and dislike led to the government enacting freedom-limiting laws. Decades later, we apologized and compensated them. Do we want to follow the same path with Muslims? I don't.

When we interrned Japanese Canadians, and took their peoperty during the war, it wasn't "fringe views" that led politicians to take this step; it was Canadians who responded to propaganda about how alien and dangerous Japanese were. We started small, removing a right here and there, and ended big - tossing them into camps, separating families, disallowing them freedom to work or go to school. Later we apologized and paid something like $12,000,000.00 to Japanese Canadians because we were wrong. When Canada imposed a head tax on the Chinese, the result of anti-immigrant sentiment, that was not a "fringe view" either. None the less, we ended up apologizing and paying money - because we were wrong. We've apologized to Sikhs and Jews because of widespread racism that led governments to discriminate against them, not because of "fringe views". If anything, it was "fringe views" that advocated not interning the Japanese, not putting a head tax on the Chinese, and for accepting the Sikhs and Jews. If "fringe views" had been leading the way, Canada would not have had to make apologies, pay money or have these black marks against our country. Just because an idea is "mainstream" doesn't mean it's right and governments should act.

1. Culture changes; heck, in the 80s, we in Canada made it illegal for husbands to rape wives. After decades of activism, we managed to persuade law encorcement that domestic abuse needs to taken seriously and they began to do in the 70s, though it took another couple of decades for this change in attitude to be normalized. The me-too movement just this year shows how far we've come in understanding that men should be held accountable for sexual assault, rather than women. So culture does change. 2. Some people have suggested that Christians should be preferred over Muslim immigrants, even though Christians from the region hold similar cultural attitudes as Muslims. Honor killings, FGM, domestic abuse, patriarchy and homophobia are common among Christians from North Africa and the ME. If "cultural backwardness" was really their concern, they'd object to any immigration from that region and not just Muslim immigration. 3. You are right in that apostasy in Islam can be punished by death, and this is not true in Christianity. Nonetheless, social and religious change is happening in those regions, albeit slowly, just as it happened slowly, over centuries, for Christianity and our Western society. Assumptions by anyone that Islam can't or won't change, that Muslims are stuck with certain behaviors or beliefs and will never change are short-sighted, to say the least. Lurid news stories about extremists, murderers, assaults etc are much preferred over stories about Muslims creating progressive communities in Western countries, or stories about progressive activists in Muslim majority countries. Even the thousands of non-activist Muslims who never even come close to breaking the law are ignored in favor of taking those who do break the law as representative of all Muslims. In the case of Ibrahim Idi, he's being portrayed as the confirmation of Islamic misogyny, but the Syrian Refugees who are holding a "vigil of condemnation" are ignored. What other group finds it necessary to publically demonstrate their disapproval when one of their own commits a crime? When was the last time a bunch of Christians felt it necessary to gather outside a courthouse as a show of condemnation against a Christian accused of a crime? These Muslim demonstrators always outnumber the Muslim criminal, but still the narrative remains that Muslims generally are more like the criminal than the demonstrators. Does that seem right to you?

Right. How many of the Muslims we import are "extreme misogynists"? Can you quantify them in some way? If you truly aren't intending to broadbrush Muslim men as 'extreme misogynists', then I am sure you'll be able to specify just how many Muslim men are 'extreme misogynists'. Right? I understand that in your expert opinion, the only reason he punched her was because he's an 'extreme misogynist"; young, male and drunk had nothing at all to do with it. Because young, drunk, males never ever get drunk and punch women - unless they are Muslim, I guess. By the way, this guy is not a Canadian Citizen, or even a permanent resident. He's a Saudi - from one of the most extremely misogynistic countries in the world, I agree. And since he's being deported - guess we're not importing that 'extreme misogynist'. Which is fine by me, by the way. Even if he's the nicest guy imaginable when sober, and only a misogynistic asshole drunk, I'm ok with not keeping him around. (There are only about 8,000 Saudi-Canadians, we don't import many of them at all). By the way, weren't you just recently criticizing JT for supporting Freeland in her stand against Saudi Arabia's terrible human rights record? What I have said, and what I will continue to say, is that just like all religions, Islam easily lends itself to misogyny. Generally speaking, Middle Eastern and African cultures are patriarchal, regardless of whether one is Christian, Muslim or "other". Misogynistic practices in the Middle East and in Northern Africa are widespread, whether one is Christian, Muslim or "other". I think I read it just fine, and I think you are now backtracking. However, I think this bears repeating:

Wow, that brush you have there is so broad, it appears to be covering every Muslim man in Canada. Given this brush, don't you find it amazing that there are any women left alive in Canada, especially the ones I personally know who say "No" to Muslim men regularly.

1. All Americans are imported from somewhere, just like all Canadians. Perhaps you are even descended from the hated and feared Irish or Catholics. If xenophobes of the day had had their way, Irish and Catholics would be exceedingly rare in America today. 2. I have nothing against Syrian Muslims. I am not enamored of killers, whether they are Syrian, Canadian, Muslim, Christian, Aetheist or Agnostic. But it seems we can't deport Canadians.

I suppose you could be right. Perhaps I am just confused because of the history amongst some people of pointing out how dangerous Muslims are every time a Muslim name is in the news. Maybe its due to their claims of "government\media" hiding the truth if the Muslim name isn't immediately confirmed to be involved in terrorism or of being a sexual predator or cheating the system. Maybe my confusion over motivation arises from the way in which positive news stories with Muslim names is, again, claimed to be government/media propaganda and so unusual as to be unbelievable. And sometimes even spun to cast a negative sheen over a success story. Could it be the reliance of some posters on news sources that have a known anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant agenda, that have been known to run falsehoods, that are deeply and irretrievably linked with White Supemacists? Could all that be why I am confused over the motivations of some of the posters here?

When a male person kills a person of any nationality, do you carefully enumerate that, Dog, and then beat yourself up for being such a criminal? And you, BC2004: when an American kills a bunch of schoolkids, churchgoers or theatregoers, do you look in the mirror and acknowledge that because you are an American, you are just as guilty as those American killers? The Syrian refugee should stand trial and if convicted of killing of Marina Chen, serve his sentence and be sent back to Syria. We have to keep enough white-born-in-Canada convicted killers here, so convicted killers born elsewhere can go back. Pointing out the double standard of the anti-Islam crew is not the same as defending crimes committed by Muslims.

24,999 Syrian refugees have not been accused of killing anyone after being here for almost two years. 24,995 have not been reported engaging in any criminal activity at all. 5 Syrian refugees in the news for criminal behavior, over two years, means that Canada's security is lax, and that we are under threat. A half dozen stories of Syrian refugees doing well is merely leftist propaganda. Is that about right?

What was he in the pokey for? My gut response to those comments is that it's unacceptable and perhaps deportation should be an option. But then I remember that in many people's opinion, freedom of speech should include expressing ideas that people might generally find extremely objectionable. So how much of a following does he gave in the UK? Is it more than followers of White Supremacy ideology in the UK or US? Regardless, I expect authorities are keeping a pretty close eye on him.

Does public anger mean that people should have their personal rights limited?

If you don't think it is, then avoid phrasing things as if you are singling them out as different. Its up to the communicator to be clear, not up to readers to guess what you might be saying. Maybe, maybe not. But if they are, perhaps its because Conservatives are more prone to attempting legislation that attempts to limit individual rights or freedoms.