The veil ban

As you can imagine, I am in favour of the ban on the niqab and burkha.  In fact, I think it should apply to all of Canada, but of course it won't because all the so-called feminists are decrying it because....well, I don't really know why? 

Margaret Wente, with whom I seem to share a brain, nails the issue in her column today.  While not as direct as I, she is definitely of the opinion that it is a retrograde step for women to cover their faces.  "It fights integration," she quotes Roksana Nazneen, a Muslim from Bangladesh, who argues that guilt-ridden feminists just don't get it.  "Canadian women do not know what the niqab means and they should not be fighting for the right of women to self-oppress.  And make no mistake, the niqab means that men do not want to hear your voice."

Well, of course it does and I wholeheartedly agree.

Frankly, I think that Canadian women who fight for it are expressing a sort of reverse feminism.  It's as if they are stamping their feet and having a tantrum for the right of women to subjugate themselves.  Really?  People come to Canada to shed these veils of male tyranny and suppression; they have no place in an open, secular society, but women are becoming hysterical about the issue.

I fought in the vanguard of the "women's movement" in the late sixties so I could come out from behind the sexist rocks, in which society had us imprisoned, and be myself.  After university, I was determined to earn my own money so I would never be beholden to a man for my livelihood.  The niqab represents a parallel society and has no place in Canada, according to Angela Merkel and other world leaders.  And as for religious freedom, in Canada it is not an absolute.  We don't tolerate polygamy and "honour killings", so why allow the niqab?  This is not a question of rejection, but rather of Canadians overwhelmingly wanting newcomers to fit in.  The niqab prevents this. 

Right on queue, Rachel Notley and Kathleen Wynne immediately jumped up and denounced the ban because they have no clue what it really means.  It is not an attempt to dictate what women can wear.  It might be a good idea for Wynne and Notley to sit down with female scholars of the Quran.  They would soon learn it is not prescribed garb in the Muslim religion in any way, shape or form.  The debates between Muslim women on both sides of the issue always end with the young "feminists" falling back on their one-note, freedom-of-dress argument, while the mature scholars tell them they are sadly uninformed.

But what a bonanza for lawyers!  So, sit back and enjoy the looming mess.