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France's Proposed Burqa Ban A Great Start
By Brenda Walker

One of the more interesting battlegrounds on the cultural front is French President Sarkozy’s stated intention to outlaw the burqa from the streets of France.

Mr. Sarkozy calls the all-encompassing female Muslim garment "a sign of subservience, a sign of debasement" that deprives the women of their identity. Indeed, when the face is totally masked, it could be anybody under the black or blue sack.

This issue is not a low-rent culture clash about a minor religious custom: it is all about individual freedom and the survival of Western values under the Islamic immigration onslaught.

Misguided persons (often of a leftist persuasion) argue unconvincingly that the women attired in fabric prisons do so entirely of their own free will—see the curiously titled New York Times piece, My Burqa Is None of Your Business, by Ronald Sokol [email him] (July 2, 2009) for a liberal male view. Certainly some women willingly hide their faces and everything else based on religious belief, but the social pressure to conform to traditional oppression within many Muslim households is intense. There may be little choice involved for many.

No, the burqa is not just an expression of Muslim female modesty, but it is also a highly effective territorial marking device, showing Islam's expansion into Europe and beyond in a personal and daily manner. It is an obtrusive political statement of demographic jihad: "We're here, we're not changing, and we're not leaving."

On cue, some top terrorists piped up with threats against France for having the grit to stand up for its own cultural values:

"Now leaders of Al Qaeda's North African network have called on French Muslims to react 'with the utmost hostility'.

“One Islamic extremist website carried the message: 'We will seek dreadful revenge on France by all means at our disposal, for the honour of our daughters and sisters.

“'Our Mujahadin followers must not remain silent in the face of such provocation and such injustice.' "[Al Qaeda vows 'dreadful revenge' on France over plans to ban the burqa, Daily Mail, July 1, 2009]

The increase in burqas on French streets must be pretty bad—even the commies are complaining:

" ‘Today, in many city neighborhoods, we see several Muslim women wearing the burka, which covers and fully envelops the body and the head, like a moving prison, or the nijab which allows only the eyes to be shown,’ said Communist MP Andre Gerin, a legislator and one of the leaders of the drive for the parliamentary commission.â€