SERIES OF POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
Banning the niqab is one of the most foolish things France has done in my memory, exceeded perhaps only by the arrest of two women wearing it today.
You do not tell immigrants what to wear.
And you most certainly do not tell citizens in general what to wear. Not in a free society.
Telling people what to wear reflects the same values as telling them what to say. All censorship is abhorrent to a free society.
It is very easy to make fun of such customs, as a commenter called Mich Johnson has done here, but that is the purest proof of an adolescent thinking, not the basis for government policy.
All migrants eventually give up old customs. A decent society lets them do it as they choose.
___________________
"Even non-radical muslims view the world as a map to be coloured in varying shades of green, depending on the degree of islamic implantation."
Why not try thinking before commenting?
For hundreds of years, Christians of all types have sent out missionaries to convert the world.
And that included the ghastly Catholic ones who presented South American indigenous people with the choice of conversion or being burnt alive, indigenous people murdered by the thousands.
American society itself has fought a battle with intolerant puritanical Christians for two centuries, the Constitution being religion-blind but some Christians insisting stupidly that America was a "Christian country," too ignorant to know that most of the Founding Fathers were either Deists or Agnostics wanting freedom from religion.
Today people like the Mormons are sending armies of missionaries all over the world - even though it could argued by outsiders that Mormonism is a religion with ridiculous beliefs and superstitions.
Missionaries of all kinds go abroad by the thousands, essentially bearing the message that the native people’s religion is inadequate, so they must have Christianity instead.
Your comment is just prejudice against Muslims dressed up as thought.
___________________________
"Now, let's see these women fight for the freedom of other religions in the Muslim world.If they did that I might believe their commitment to religious expression."
Have you even considered how many of our religious women fight for the freedom of other religions?
Catholic nuns? Hasidic Jews? Mennonites? Mormons?
You're proposing a standard that's phony, comforting yourself that you defend freedom.
Hardly a notion communicating your dedication to principle.
___________________________
"Everywhere in the world where Islam is in the majority, it has brought backwardness, bigotry, oppression, destruction and tremendous suffering."
Oh, so you have studied the practices of more than a billion people?
Your comment is nothing more than a few news snippets strung together to try characterizing something you don't like.
I believe that's called prejudice.
People seem to have no idea of the blood-soaked history of Christianity when they make these kinds of assertions.
They also always conveniently ignore the savageries of Israel in our own time.
Readers may enjoy:
http://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/of-war-islam-and-israel/
______________________________
"The election's in a year and Sarkozy's only hope is to unite France behind him against the foreign element. How many "gypsies" did he deport en masse a few months back?'
Yes indeed. Thanks for an informed comment.
And don't forget the National Front has shown new strength in France.
Here is Sarkozy using the National Front's own nasty methods against them politically.
A race to the sewer.
_____________________________
"Why is no one dealing with the growing use of beards and mustaches these days?
"They deface the person, and are not very hygenic.
And while we're at it, why should people wear sunglasses, what are they trying to hide?"
Thanks for another thoughtful comment.
Yes, indeed, why not ban the huge beards and big dark hats of Hasidic Jews?
As for someone’s ridiculous comment about some terrorist dressing up in a niqab to commit a crime, I have to say his words are stunningly unthinking.
How many bank robberies, home invasions, and break-and-enters employing ski masks or rubber Halloween face masks do you think the world saw in the year alone?
Hundreds? Thousands?
Surely, by such feeble logic, all advanced states should ban ski masks and Halloween's rubber face masks.
The comments on this subject sadly just get dumber and more unthinking as we go.
There's a huge amount of prejudice out there, and here is prima facie evidence of it offered up voluntarily by all the haters.
___________________________
"Women wera [sic] it, because of peer pressure from relatives. Not because they chose so, period."
Oh, you've conducted a study have you?
Please share your expert knowledge with the world by publishing in a journal.
Your comment is sad and dumb. Period.
_________________________
"Jesus didn't teach any sort of "jihad". Those who keep insisting on comparing the two need to stop. You cannot compare islam to Christianity because it is only islam that specifically condones violence as a means to an end."
Well, here's another fine example of the old saying about a little knowledge being a dangerous thing.
Christianity has killed more people than any other religion on earth.
Again see my published piece:
http://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/of-war-islam-and-israel/
Christians have never, never followed what Jesus said.
The famous scene in Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov called “The Grand Inquisitor” has Jesus returned to earth talking to the Inquisitor.
Jesus can make no sense of what he sees Christianity has become, and the Grand Inquisitor has no use for Jesus' words and ends by sending him off to the Inquisition.
That fact too is an essential part of the religion's history.
