A Dark Day in Belgium.

I read today that the Belgian lower house has voted unanimously to ban the burkha in public places. Yet again I find my faith in human nature being shaken, and it makes me wonder afresh at the motivation of those responsible for the governance of so-called democracies. When a ‘democratic’ government presumes to dictate what a person can and cannot wear, it shakes the very root of the value system we are supposed to hold dear.

They say it’s because a person must be recognisable at all times in public. Recognisable by whom or what? The police? The surveillance cameras? There is more than a whiff of Orwellian nightmare about it. It smacks of the Stasi, the Gestapo and the KGB.

They say it’s necessary to counter the threat of terrorism. Is it? I’d be curious to know how many terrorists carried out their acts wearing a burkha. It’s a well known fact that governments can get away with anything these days if they can persuade the conformist masses that they’re protecting them from ‘the terrorist threat.’ It’s a classic example of rule-by-fear, a technique at least as old as the Roman Republic. People lose all sense of balance when they’re convinced there’s something to be frightened of, and values such as personal rights and freedoms are soon revealed as thin veneers. During one of the IRA bombing campaigns in Britain, I heard somebody argue that no Irish citizen should be allowed access to this country. There goes that sense of balance again.

And what of the emotional impact on the women concerned? These are women who have been conditioned to believe that showing their face in public is little better than walking around half naked. ‘Ah, but that’s just stupid,’ I hear people say (and have heard people say.) They fail to take into account that ‘standards’ vary from culture to culture and time to time. In calling the Muslim practice stupid, they are simply applying the current received attitude in the west, as well as displaying fear and suspicion of anything unfamiliar. They overlook the fact that not so long ago a woman was considered indecent in Britain if she showed her ankle, and a man was expected to don a cravat to afternoon tea if he was wearing an open neck shirt. To do otherwise was at least indecorous and verging on the indecent. It surely goes without saying that if the wearing of a particular garment is causing no harm, suffering or unwarranted inconvenience, we have no right to interfere.

So maybe this provides a second reason for the action of the Belgian Government. Maybe it’s just that they sense some level of xenophobic paranoia among the population and are simply pandering to it. Maybe it’s nothing more than thinly veiled Islamaphobia. Either way, it’s a dark day for Europe and I think Belgium should feel ashamed of itself.