The religious garment is already banned in public spaces, but the move would extend the order to classrooms across the country.
Mette Frederiksen, the Danish prime minister who formed a new Left-leaning government in June, hopes the measure will counter “parallel societies” of non-integrated foreigners.
In Denmark, “parallel societies” refer to urban residential areas where more than 50 per cent of residents are from a non-Western immigrant background.
A ban on full-face coverings, such as the burka and the niqab, was introduced in Denmark in 2018, with those who repeatedly break the rules facing a 10,000 kroner (£1,300) fine.
Yep, you don’t know what the paradox of intolerance is. For anyone curious, the paradox of intolerance posits that if a tolerant society extends that tolerance to people who are intolerant, those people might be able to gain power and do away with that tolerance entirely. Setting aside the truth or falsity of that idea (it’s definitely pushed on the internet beyond its actual merit; to my knowledge defensive democracy and similar ideas have generally been an abject failure), applying it to Muslim dress in Western countries relies on two assumptions:
1-Muslims in insert Western country (or a significant subgroup thereof) want to force others to wear Muslim religious dress (the intolerance).
2-If tolerated, Muslims in insert Western country (or a significant subgroup thereof) will be able to gain enough power to force that intolerance on others (the results of tolerating the intolerance).
These two components are both necessary for the paradox of tolerance to make sense. There’s no shortage of bigots who will believe number 1, so let’s go to number 2: Unless you believe that there’s a real danger of a surprise Caliphate popping up in Denmark and the only way to prevent that is to prevent girls from wearing niqab or the like to school, the paradox of tolerance is completely irrelevant here (and, I daresay, essentially a racist dogwhistle). In the first place, the intended resolution of the paradox of tolerance is to forcefully prevent intolerant ideologies from spreading; it has absolutely nothing to do with something as personal as religious observance.
Also let’s not forget: The actual people who passed this law didn’t make this point. If this was part of the thought process, the people who implemented it would’ve said so. Instead their justification was preventing the emergence of “parallel societies” (another racist dogwhisle so blatant I have to wonder if it even counts as a dogwhistle at all). Given the lack of any statement implying otherwise, we can safely conclude this new ban has nothing to do with protecting liberal democracy—and therefore the paradox of tolerance—and everything to do with the Danish government being run by racist pigs—you know, the people the paradox of tolerance was actually referring to.
TL;DR: The word “intolerant” isn’t a buzzword you get to spam to override civil liberties fundamental to democracy.
the civil liberty to oppress women
Wow, some of y’all really deserve your local fascists.
Okay so even if that is how the idea was originally formulated, it’s obvious that [email protected] is correct in his re-application of it.
Then, even if you for some reason ignorantly assume super regressive Muslim groups cannot take power in sections of European society (if you need an actual example of how this would happen, please consult Rotherham, in England, where racist Pakistanis formed human trafficking groups and infiltrated social services as well as having the local police force completely subservient to them by using Epstein-style blackmail and inviting the police officers to rape kidnapped children, then utilised their positions in social care to acquire more victims to rape and pimp out) - if even then you do not believe they can take political or administrative power, therefore it’s all okay because only political and administrative power is real power (this isn’t the case), do you not think that such a group can influence other things in society with their behaviour?
I believe that if there is visible presence of highly regressive islamic practices, you might see a rise in reactionary behaviour among christian, jewish or even atheist groups - these groups might organise to oppress women in the same way having seen that Muslims can “get away with it,” they might make moves to increase the visibility of their own faith, seeing that Muslims go the extra mile to make their practices highly visible and infiltrating into daily public life.
We have seen this happening everywhere. Literally just asking Muslims to integrate better in your secular society does wonders to prevent other groups from spinning out of control in reaction. But none of you ever think to do that - your first instinct is to nanny-state them, as if Islam were some condition to be politely danced around, no other ways about it. If they’re normal people, treat them like normal people - we ask basic things of our citizens like don’t turn your wife into a second class citizen covered in thick layers of fabric whenever she leaves the house.
Don’t get me started on “women might choose it for themselves,” because there’s obviously a lot of religious corrosion in their childhood to unpack before we deal with that.
Proceeds to make an argument that has nothing to do with the paradox of tolerance.
That’s… not “how this would happen” and has no relation at all to the point you seem to be trying to make? Everything these people did they did under the noses of (and/or with the cooperation of) local police; they didn’t do anything close to “take power” in Rotherham, and the police had no issue cracking down on the perpetrators once they actually got to it. If this is what super regressive Muslim groups taking power in sections of European society looks like, then it’s clearly a non-issue as far as the paradox is concerned. There’s a reason the paradox limits itself to threats to tolerant society, not just anything vaguely intolerant.
And I believe unicorns will fall from the sky tomorrow; we can talk about this when you have evidence.
I don’t deal in hypotheticals; the only form of “spinning out of control” that has actually happened is hate crimes against European Muslims, and making society less tolerant to Muslims does nothing to stop those. Also, I think you should integrate in secular society first, because secularism as implemented in most of Europe guarantees the non-interference of religion in the state and the non-interference of the state in religion. If you reject freedom of religion, which you are, you have no business talking about secular society (unless you live in France, but Denmark doesn’t follow the French model). Maybe you have something to learn from burka-wearing Muslims in that regard.
Uh… not banning articles of clothing or the like is the default; it’s banning them that needs a solid case, since it’s an egregious violation of freedom of expression. This isn’t nanny-stating; it’s how democracy is supposed to work. It seems to me you have quite a lot of integrating into democratic society to do before you can point fingers at people.
You mean treat them like your idea of normal people. Again, a core part of liberal democracy is protecting people from what you or anyone else considers “normal;” otherwise you’ll find quite a few people in your corner of the world who think same sex or interracial relationships are very abnormal.
So women don’t get to have autonomy unless you approve of the results. So enlightened, so secular.
No…just no.
If this was a white male Christian fascist doing this, you’d be screaming that it’s oppressive. The same argument is used for the ban on abortion. Neither are good and both are abusive to women, no matter what religion is pushing this shit.
Come back when you have something more convincing than “no… just no,” because I’m not writing another wall of text just for you to ignore. Freedom of expression doesn’t become invalid when you don’t like the results. Like I said to the other person, if the majority thinking something is abnormal (or any other buzzword, “oppressive” included) is enough to ban it, then liberal democracy is meaningless.
I think the other replies have summed it up just fine. You’re ignorant or blind to oppression, and you seem to be ok with it because it’s from a minority.
The first all-muslim city council in the US was gleefully voted in by lefties. Suddenly the town of Hamtramck banned Pride flags and everyone was shocked…
Ah, yes, this (the ban of the pride flag and almost all other flags on city property) is the end of the world and to prevent it the West must do… what exactly? Surely you didn’t think “Muslims running a local government did this thing I don’t like” was enough to be relevant to the conversation, right?