Perhaps I should clarify again. It's a symbol that they won't immediately assimilate. Like I've said, we see time and time again that assimilation as a process takes a few generations. Give it time. Generally with the greater affluence and education available to people in countries like France, (with a few exceptions) Muslim immigrants will become more moderate and eventually abandon more extreme practices of Islam. In the meantime, people who have successfully immigrated should be protected by the rights in the constitution of their adopted country.

Just because niqab wearers come from non-moderate Muslim countries, doesn't mean that they themselves are extremists. That's not a very good argument at all. It's not entire countries immigrating. It's individual people, or more often families.

Lots of countries don't have legislation about Niqabs. Canada and the US and the UK all spring to mind. Are they inundated with hordes of Radical Islamic women wearing veils?

Look, at any rate, I think this is all beside the point. I don't honestly believe that the law banning niqabs really has anything to do with what we've discussed here.
The reason it exists is simple. All across Europe, among right-wing circles, there is an increasing concern that high levels of immigration to Europe from Muslim countries will lead to an Islamisization of Europe, and these right-wingers are concerned about keeping their countries white, and vaguely/unobtrusively christian. France having the largest Muslim population in Europe is more prone to this. And this law is simply a way of pandering to that segment. Don't pretend it's some great defense of high moral values. It's just a way for Sarkozy to try and poach some of Jean-Marie Le Pen's support.

"Lots of countries don't have legislation about Niqabs. Canada and the US and the UK all spring to mind. Are they inundated with hordes of Radical Islamic women wearing veils?"
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Yes they are, you myopic faggot.

You must live in a different part of Canada than I do maple.

Thank God for that.

Agreed.

doubt you live in an old person's home mafia so you are probably right

I live in the beach, Clausowitz. Great neighbourhood. Great history. There used to be signs on the Toronto beaches that read : No Dogs or Jews.

Needless repetition, if you ask me.

I LOVE it here.

You would want to consider Dogs and Jews synaonymous, after all it is currently legal to have sex with a Jew right?

There's no point responding to slurs he uses. It just encourages him to use them more.

I'll encourage the gieser all I want, I find it endearing that our older generations can find entertainment in such activities

".... after all it is currently legal to have sex with a Jew right?"
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Jewish foreplay = two hours of begging.

I heard it was 4? Maple must be only half-Jewish.

Mapleleaf foreplay= Woman begging him stop

Well anyway.

I thought the burqa issue was more of a religious freedom kind of thing?

Is one not allowed to wear a yarmulke or a cross in public in France?

Oh wait... they are... hmmm..

seems like the law targets Islam. I understand the *principle* behind it, but if they want to be fair about their laïcité they need to make it apply to everyone across the board. If you can't wear religious imagery in public, then you can't. Doesn't matter what kind.

They already have these laws for schools etc why the difference when it comes to regular public space?

Oh I think I know why: the French have lurched to the right in recent years, and their politics increasingly reflect that.

Put even more simplistically: they are becoming xenophobic.

"they are becoming xenophobic."

Becoming? The French are one of the most proudly xenophobic nations in world history.

Heh, so then that must be a core French cultural value! Doesn't the French government have the right to protect that xenophobia?

"All across Europe, among right-wing circles, there is an increasing concern that high levels of immigration to Europe from Muslim countries will lead to an Islamisization of Europe, and these right-wingers are concerned about keeping their countries white, and vaguely/unobtrusively christian."

This point is weakened by the fact that the legislator who initiated the legislation to ban the public wearing of the niqab was not a member of the UMP, or even the PS, it was Andre Gerin, a French Communist. Furthermore, the move has broad support across the French population, not just among the French right. Anyway, I don't get what niqabs have to do with race. Do you have to wear a niqab to be black or Arab? The fact is that this issue hasn't just cropped up recently. Authorities in Britain, France and elsewhere originally thought the veil issue was marginal, but it has grown by leaps and bounds.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/22/world/europe/22veil.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

"seems like the law targets Islam. I understand the *principle* behind it, but if they want to be fair about their laïcité they need to make it apply to everyone across the board. If you can't wear religious imagery in public, then you can't. Doesn't matter what kind."

Crosses and yarmulkes don't threaten security, basic safety, and signify fundamentalism the way the full veil does. It's not as if Muslim countries don't also ban or restrict the wearing of the veil for the same reasons.

"Becoming? The French are one of the most proudly xenophobic nations in world history."

Name a country that isn't xenophobic.

"Name a country that isn't xenophobic." That makes it OK?

Well it must be put in comparative perspective. To say that France is more xenophobic than say Japan, who doesn't even allow non-Japanese ethnics to become citizens, even if they're born and bred in Japan for generations, is nonsense. There are plenty of other jus sanguinis countries that by default make them more "xenophobic" than France. Say what you will about France, but people can go to the country and become a citizen much easier than many places. The condition is that you embrace France, which apparently is too much of a condition (xenophobia) to some. But I believe it's a justifiable condition.

But that's not the only measure by which a country can be xenophobic, the ease of immigrating. It has as much to do with the attitudes of the people living there.

Which attitudes would those be and how do you measure them?

Islamophobic attitudes, and with an islamophobometer. Obviously.

But what is Islamophobia? Unwillingness to cater to Muslim demands for special treatment?

"Unwillingness to cater to Muslim demands for special treatment?" - Allowing people to dress as they see fit is demanding special treatment now? Really? Bullshit.

THE BIG PICTURE

THE DOTS

LAY IT ON US METAL

SANTACLAUSOWITZ!

WRONG THREAD!

TRY AGAIN!

actually right thread, wrong page, but i stand by my statement

I want to hear the big picture from verymetal, and I want it now

If you can't connect the dots and see that banning niqabs is secretly a way for the US to capture Libyan oil interests so that the new world order can come to power then you're just a stupid tool who doesn't deserve to have the real truth spelled out for him.