The Ban on the Burqa
Has, in contrast to the result of the Swiss referendum against the building of minarets, caused remarkably little fuss and bother – strange, don't you think? Now, one was the result of an act of democracy, meaning that it was automatically hated by all those who support rule of the people and oppose rule by the people (the Greek ΔΗΜΟΚΡΑΤΙΑ), the other an arbitrary state act (the state in question being Belgium) and therefore more agreeable to the same group of people, who are therefore allowed to write in newspapers instead of having to write flyers, from the outset. But the Swiss referendum, in addition to several less good motives, did have one good one, namely making a stand against the state fawning to and guaranteeing special treatment of Islam: which other religion could have allowed itself death orders against satirists, real murders of translators and also disobedient family members (“honour killings”) with no or hardly any punishment at all (as well as, for instance, impudently flaunting important planning permission when (otherwise) legally building a mosque in Berlin?)?! And didn't our newspapers, before the Taliban wriggled out of the clutches of their American foster fathers and fell into disfavour with them, for whose most abhorrent crimes of the stoning of women and enforced wearing of the veil, and arranged marriages for women, the marking of those Hindus remaining in the country in Star of David style, and the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan, churn out one whining article, dripping with understanding, in their favour after another (cf. GEO 11/1997, p158ff., for instance), until their US rulers ordered them to change course abruptly? This kind of filth can definitely turn people against Islam, and any “understanding” is more deserved by anyone who may perhaps do too much in terms of resisting it. After all, it is our European and American forces of darkness who are using the indeed sinister Islam as a mere cardboard character, in order to clear out the achievements of enlightenment, liberalism and the workers' movement, and in particular the thought of a constitutional state and the priority of reason over habit (which can also cover, and indeed frequently already has covered, the mutilation of children and pogroms – but this is culture, isn't it?!). Considering these circumstances, isn't the Belgian Burqa ban, and the secretly planned EU-wide one, to be welcomed?
By no means. Because it is a base assault on individual freedom and therefore the starting point of all rights. We have that freedom and avail ourselves of it to say that we do not like Islam (or any religion in general). But accordingly, those who do must also have the freedom to voice – and demonstrate - their opposite opinion, in disagreement with ours. We do not like it, but have to put up with it (Latin: tolerare); otherwise we would not have the right to demand from them without restriction that they put up with ours (Latin: tolerare). Conversely, there can be no act of violence (or a call to violence) that could be covered by freedom of speech or demand even the slightest mitigating circumstance because of it. Furthermore, the ban on the Burqa can only affect Islamic individuals; so it should bring individuals who have had the misfortune to have been indoctrinated with this religion against those who have been indoctrinated with another or have had the rare fortune to have avoided being brainwashed in this respect as children. This, and the fact that the ban on the burqa is wrong for the reasons stated above and can trigger feelings of martyrdom among those actually or even potentially affected by it, can only cause jealousy and spite, and this is the main reason why the Belgian government has pressed ahead for France and the rest of the EU (and the idiotic “Initiative Pro-NRW”). The second reason for this violation of religious freedom (which is still very harmless in comparison to the persecution of Scientologists and Sannyasin) by EU organs without anyone referring to them as such this time is that people are in general intended to become accustomed to state organs destroying personal rights to self-determination.
For this reason we say:
(The only valid regulations on clothing are either uniform code in service or technologically determined regulations such as a helmet on a building site or a ban on the burqa when driving a motor vehicle.)
There is one more hypocritical argument to be rebutted: are the very few women that wear burqas in this country not perhaps forced to wear them? Our counter question would be: who can force them to do so in public? Are there no police who would be duty bound to arrest any son or husband who might be violent? And as far as threats and coercion in private are concerned: there are other people in difficult situations who have to deal with this – think of the frequent - and serious - coercion to do overtime. If the state had to – and was also allowed to – sniff out any possible coercion that would be a worse evil than all these coercions put together. But it must not cover up those that are visible. That the argument presented above is hypocritical is demonstrated by the fact that the same state practically covers them up often enough: why must the most dishonourable of all thinkable murderers, the so-called “honour murderers” of their own weaker relatives, not have to serve at least twenty hard years in prison before being able to reckon with the mercy of deportation?! Why does our state (and every other one in the EU) behave in this way here while it has no inhibitions when it comes to sticking its nose in where it has no business to?! Of course the burqa, the enforced wearing of the veil etc. are symbols of the denial of the civil and sexual self-determination of women. This is why – in its extreme form, whose ban is currently being threatened in the EU – only a very small minority of women indoctrinated with Islam wear them, where they cannot be coerced into doing so by majority pressure. This minority are usually spiritually broken or seriously neurotic; if a law allows them to connect their inner compulsion with an external opponent, they will become incurable. We condemn the ban on the burqa for this reason alone. But the main reason remains the unshakeable precept of individual freedom and freedom of religion in general.
(Because this is our hard-earned money – we do not belong to them and do not want to be disadvantaged because of them.)
Let everyone demonstrate by his clothing what he (and for idiots: “she” too, of course) wants: unreason and inhumanity must have a platform too! For then, if it encounters an environment of reason, it will disqualify itself and if it encounters one of unreason it will not be any worse than it.
Freedom of speech means to say to a man what he does not want to hear. – Meinungsfreiheit bedeutet, jemandem etwas sagen zu können, was er nicht hören will. George Orwell
