There were demonstrations all over the world yesterday against the French headscarf ban. I myself am not sure the ban is wise, but I understand the reasons behind it: the headscarf is just a symbol of a constellation of Islamic laws that are at direct odds with those of a truly tolerant, secular society. The sign up above sums it up.
I am not for a coercive secularism at all, but what will happen when these marchers who are protesting the headscarf ban in the name of religious freedom begin to protest the ban on stoning adulterers and amputating thieves' hands in the name of religious freedom? If only Sarkozy had the courage to say, "All right, you can have your hijab. (And you dhimmis over there can have your kippas and crucifixes.) But to be a citizen of France you must explicitly and definitively renounce for all time the elements of Islamic law that are at variance with the idea of the equality of rights and dignity of all people: the permission for a husband to beat his wife, the subjugation of non-Muslims as inferiors, etc. Anyone attempting to spread those ideas in France will be prosecuted." I won't be holding my breath.
French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has criticised worldwide protests against plans to ban Islamic headscarves from state schools. Mr Sarkozy said the protests at the government proposals would only promote tension, misunderstandings and anger.
This from BBC News, with thanks to Nicolei.
Around 5,000 mainly Muslim marchers took part in a demonstration in Paris, which was fewer than expected.There were also rallies elsewhere in France and Europe, the Middle East and in Indian-administered Kashmir.
President Jacques Chirac announced a ban on overtly religious symbols in schools last month after an official report into state secularism.
Many of France's five million Muslims see it as an attack on their religious and human rights.
"When I came here, they told me France was the land of human rights. I found out it's the opposite," said 30-year-old Algerian-born Kawtar Fawzy at the Paris protest.
Very well, Kawtar. You want human rights? I hope then that you will join a protest soon against wife-beating in Islamic societies. Or against discrimination and harassment of Christians and Jews in Islamic societies. After all, those things are justified by the same Islamic law that mandates the headscarf. Kawtar, why don't you take up the cause of human rights in Nigeria and protest the forcing of non-Muslim women to wear the headscarf? Don't they have any human rights?
The demonstrations in Paris and other French cities were organised by a small group, the Party of French Muslims (PMF), which is regarded by many in France as a radical Islamist organisation, the BBC's Alan Little reports from Paris.An estimated 2,400 opponents of the ban rallied in London, where there was also a small counter-demonstration.
Outside the capital cities, including Brussels where about 1,000 protesters appeared, the largest demonstrations were held in the French regions. There were small rallies, too, in the Middle East.
An estimated 3,500 marched in Lille, 1,800 in Marseille, 1,500 in Mulhouse and hundreds in other French cities, police and organisers said.
Well, I expected a lot more people to come out for these demonstrations. Good they didn't. However, this could cause them to send their children to Islamic schools (medrassas) where they can teach how many lashes it is permissable to give to a recalcitrant wife, etc. Are French education authorities going to go into these schools and ask to see what is being taught there?
The small turnout means only that a large number of Muslims are prudently biding their time. For timing in their demands is everything. It does not mean that the issue has been dropped (nor would a cessation of terrorism mean that the Jihad had ended -- only that other means were now, less obtrusively, being employed). In five years, ten, or twenty, when Muslims make up a quarter or a third of the French population, the issue will arise again, much more violently.
Sarkozy and company, the French elite that has so carelessly allowed this Muslim demographic invasion, and refuses now, when something can still be done, to raise the issue and sound the alarm, are examples to all Western statesmen of what NOT to do; Hungary, Bulgaria, and the rest of Eastern Europe seem to understand this, given Ottoman memories. So, more dimly, does Italy. And Spain, the "Andaluz" recalled by Bin Laden as Muslim territory? And Germany, with its millions of Turks many of whom cling more tightly to Islam, and jettison Ataturk, when they cross into the West? And Scandinavia, so lavish with its refugee policy (including the likes of Mullah Krekar, smilingly at home in Oslo). . When they come knocking, let the children of these quislings -- such as that preening poseur Dominique de Villepin -- be last on the list of those to be accorded refuge in the United States, from the quasi-islamized France which (synchronize watches, please) should have its hour come round at last, in 20,30,40 years at the outside. Meanwhile, prepare those warehouses for the loot to be rescued from the Louvre.
What a bunch of gloom and doomers. I would suggest that the greatest danger is christian europe's dehumanization when they finally decide to put down the sharia advocates. And Europe can get plenty dehumanized in a hurry, I've noticed.
TM Lutas, I hope you are aware that as of now approximately one-third of France under the age of 16 is Islamic (and, of course, grwoing faster than the other two-thirds, which are flat-lining). Therefore when and if, as you say, secular Europe decides to overthrow Sharia, the results of the conflict are far from pre-ordained.