THE NETHERLANDS

In the Name of Secular Democracy: Defending the Burqa

It is hard to find someone who is apathetic when it comes to the wearing of a burqa. Some countries, like Saudi-Arabia or Afghanistan under the Taliban, promote wearing one. Other countries, like France, Belgium and Syria ban it (it should be noted that the burqa is not the same as hijab - the latter is a headscarf; the former is is a full body, tent-like covering). Some Islamic scholars argue the burqa is compulsory, others, most notably the late head of Egypt’s al-Azhar University, Muhammad Tantawi, denounce it as un-Islamic.

Recently, the debate has flared up in the Netherlands, where the government is planning on banning the burqa, together with the niqab (full face covering), motorcycle helmets, and balaclavas in public places. Those caught breaking the law will be fined €380, or $522.

Piet Hein Donner, the government minister forced to explain the new law, presented the reasons for the law in a manner that was not only disappointing, but perhaps even treasonous. Donner explained that it was against “Dutch custom” to cover one’s face, and since so few women wore the burqa (an estimated 150 in the entire Netherlands), he reasoned that religious freedom was an insufficient reason not to ban it. In other words, any behaviour that is deemed to be against “Dutch custom” can now be marked as a criminal offense as far as this government is concerned.

Do As I Say, Not as I Do: Redefining Morality

A strange mood has gotten hold not only of the Netherlands, but of Europe at large.

Over the past decade, the world has come to know a few famous faces from the Netherlands, but the man who has gained the most infamy is one of our politicians. It is not our prime minister, nor any minister at all. He is both a de facto member of the government and the opposition simultaneously, a man who propagates a very leftist economic agenda, yet claims he despises the left and attacks them as “the elite.” He is so fond of cartoons insulting Islam - which he defends as freedom of speech - that he has received a fine for using one with such haste that he forgot to ask permission from the artist. Yet he demands cartoons insulting him be taken down from the Internet. I am talking, of course, about Geert Wilders, head of the populist anti-immigration Party of Freedom in the Netherlands.

Personally, I am not all that fond of Mr. Wilders. I am often annoyed with the amount of attention he gets and can’t help but roll my eyes whenever someone tells me how brilliant he is. But then, in a society like ours, it is inevitable that a person like Wilders would garner the attention he has gotten. In fact, I often hear people say that the media created Wilders, just as it created Sarah Palin in the U.S. There’s no doubt that the media has played its part. But the sentiments that people like Palin and Wilders have ridden to success are bigger than any one politician. They do not own a monopoly on those sentiments, try as they might.

Recently I went out camping and found myself in the midst of some stimulating conversation. I ran into a pleasant woman who, when she heard I was a student of the Middle East, asked me to explain a few things to her. She told me some ‘Middle Easterners’ in her neighbourhood, Turks in particular, had harassed her for not dressing properly. They had called her a “whore,” and had blocked her path because, as they informed her, a man could block a woman’s path if he wanted to. She asked how a culture like that could ever live harmoniously with ours.