My Thoughts On The French Ban

Courtesy http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/

Last Monday, it officially became law in France that any woman who wears full face veil has contravened the constitution and is liable to a fine and a mandatory instruction on French society secularist dictates.

There are many sides to this law which the few lines I intend to dedicate to it will not do proper justice to.

As such, I wish to restrict myself to the issue of tolerance and social justice.

In order to get a proper perspective, let's look at two different scenarios:

First, despite the fact that the French parliament has passed the bill into law, ample time was given before its implementation. Yet, some women went out of their way to flout that law, claiming that they are French citizens and that the French government should respect their views. 

Second, the government of Pakistan goes ahead to enact blasphemy laws in spite of the fact that there are Christians who are citizens of the country. The government ministers who try to speak up against the law are brutally murdered. It is also instructive that there were protests in Pakistan against the ban in France. What a paradox?

These are examples of extreme actions taken in recent times which show that as even as we globalise, we have become less tolerant. And this paradox is the bane of the prosperity of many nations of the world like Nigeria.

I was at once surprised and pleased that the recent senseless Q’uran burning in the US did not turn into another excuse to perpetrate mass murder in certain quarters within the country. Coupled with the manner Nigerians have voted so far, it is obvious that people are gradually moving away from the past. We will all be better off if we accept the fact that economic problems in certain countries are not perpetrated on the basis of religion but on that of class.

Back to France, I always make the comparison that full face veil ban in France is the same as the un-legislated, but very forceful, restrictions on westerners baring their skins in the Gulf states especially Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, et al. If a westerner wears bikini beside the swimming pool of a luxurious hotel in Saudi Arabia, how acceptable will that be to the majority of the people there?

I also liken the situation to the ban on smoking in public within the EU (though I am not sure of which is more public: smoking in open spaces or smoking in secluded places). There are so many smokers in Europe yet the ban is still in force and nobody has gone out of his/her way to flout that rule because they understand that their right to smoke is limited by the rights of others who do not smoke.

In the same vein, we all have to weigh our convictions against the rights of others and this goes both for the French government and for the victims of that ban. Efforts should also be made by these “victims” to ensure that the liberties they seek in their adopted countries are also extended to foreigners and minorities within their native lands.

We seem to be biologically and psychologically wired to deny others the same privileges we seek. But we have to know that for the good of humanity, we need to work against this natural instinct! As we agitate for our rights, we should look around us critically to make sure that we give those who are around us the privileges that they deserve. To me, that is what tolerance and social justice mean.