Burka Ban: Civil Rights or Authoritarianism?

BLOG POST about Gender posted on November 23, 2011 by Felipe

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I am not going to give my personal opinion regarding the french burka ban in the context of what can be done to better acomplish the capitalist liberal dream of absolute, universal, freedom and democracy. We think we finally woke up from a stalinist authoritarian nightmare, but like the poem read in class earlier ("Tracks" by Friedrich Hölderlin), the dream has only shifted edges. We are allowed to function without feeling guilt of presuposing what's best behind our political correctivity, while the real process of freedom and democracy takes place "out there". We opionate in favor of intervention over muslim women, because our very liberal fear is that muslim women will intervene for themselves, and they will probably encompass much more than just the issue of the burka, which is a very real issue, but has unfortunately been obscured by ideology: "I also know that racial profiling has something to do with it, but I'll act like I don't know behind my political correctivity and only address security issues". You can also look at the issue of fair trade for example, we advocate and speak in favor of it, but deep inside, are we not aware that it's really a liberal pebble in the shoe to avoid agrarian land reform? Going back to the burka ban, when it comes down to it being an issue of the protection of french identity, I think it should be pointed out that french identity has been protected not just in France, but in Algeria and Haiti as well, forms of oppression much worse than muslim women coming over to "avoid our civil rights". To wrap up, I think progressive liberal ideals of freedom and democracy are cute, but when I hear them 24 hours a day I start to feel like i'm in George Orwell's 1984 or Animal Farm. This may not look like very academic writting, but to me it's because the discussion is out of context.