The Lesser of Two Evils

Alright, I've got at least one thing I know I want to hit on this time around, so let's do that, and I'll see if I come up with anything else in the meantime.

A couple days ago, the French parliament issued a statement in which it collectively supported the country's ban on women wearing a burqa in public. The official position is that the burqa runs counter to national values, including equality of the sexes (the burqa, in case you're not aware, represents subservience of women to men in the Islamic faith, among other things). I latched onto this issue due to its controversial nature, but was surprised to find that, unlike nearly everything else, I didn't have a strong feeling about it one way or another. That is to say, I have sympathies to both sides of the issue.

Clearly, I am no defender of religion. I have no personal use for it, and I consider organized religion in any form to be at best a crutch and at worst a tool to control people. Even at that, however, I believe in personal freedom. People ought to be allowed to do whatever they like, with the provision that their actions cause no undue harm to anybody else. Of course, that's exactly why the situation is a hairy one. If France wishes itself to be a paragon of equality, and places great value on this virtue, then it certainly has every right to invoke laws which help to ensure that this will be the case. If the French government believes that the burqa and all that it represents is destructive to the equality which it aspires to, then it is right to place a ban on its public appearances. There are no restrictions on its private use, which is good, because if there were, I would have some very strong feelings against such a law.

What this essentially comes down to is, does a Muslim woman wearing a burqa in public cause any harm to anybody else? Well, you wouldn't think so, but some people do have an incredible propensity to be offended by pretty much anything that doesn't align perfectly with their own worldview. Personally, I think that such people are being overly sensitive and, quite probably, are attempting to force their own beliefs onto others, which is something that I have no use or tolerance for. Having your own opinion is great, but you have to accept that not everyone will, or should, agree with it. In the course of writing this piece, I have found myself gradually leaning toward disagreeing with the burqa ban. I can see the argument in favor of the ban, but ultimately, I don't think that wearing a burqa is hurting anyone, even if I don't personally agree with what it represents.

On a brief, unrelated note, prominent historian Howard Zinn died this week. He was, I thought, enormously important and influential. Some might have called him a revisionist, but that isn't strictly true. More accurately, you could say that he focused his works on some of the more hidden aspects of history, parts that aren't covered in your typical history texts due to their sometimes unsavory nature. Zinn often revealed the darker sides of our revered American heroes, but he was not an iconoclast just for the joy of it. He realized the importance of the truth and of an honest and more objective view of historical events, and that is a philosophy that I can really get behind. He will be sorely missed.