The French Got It Right

Once in a while, the French do something right besides cooking and maintaining their beautiful countryside. The French President announced recently that he is sure he will be able soon to have a law prohibiting the wearing of the burqa anywhere on French territory. The burqa is any long garment covering the whole body including the face. It is worn by a small minority of Muslim women worldwide and occasionally by male terrorists (as in Pakistan, last week).

The French President went about it intelligently. First, very importantly, he consulted at length diverse Muslim religious authorities in France. A consensus soon emerged that covering was not prescribed by Islam. The Koran itself seems to recommend “modesty,” in general terms. Having thus insured that the measure did not violate freedom of religion – guaranteed by the French constitution – the President inquired whether a prohibition would create problems of adjustment for Muslim immigrants. It was discovered, to almost everyone’s surprise, that most burqa wearers are French-born. The President decided to strike hard and decisively. He ignored the opinion (only an opinion) of the French constitutional council and took the first steps toward total prohibition, with education, followed by big fines. The fines imposed on men who force their womenfolk to wear the burqa are deliberately higher.

This measure has broad support, from the President’s own center-right party to many Communist municipal governments. (The French Communist Party if finished on the national level. It’s still important at the municipal level, especially in working-class areas where most Muslims probably live.) As far as one can tell, a slim majority of French Muslims seems to support the measure. The French Socialist Party, the equivalent of our Democrat Party in my judgment, is wishy-washy on the issue: On the one hand, on the other hand, on the third hand, etc.

The law would affect only about 2,000 women in all of France, according to the daily Le Figaro (which I read every day). There used to be only 200. There is widespread belief that the contagion is spreading like a disease.

President Sarkozy’s administration has squarely stated that the reasons for this law have to do with the treatment of women. Almost everybody in France, Muslims included, believes that the same women who wear full veil are the same women most likely to be beaten, raped by their male relatives, married by force, kept ignorant, and abandoned. French liberals don’t want to admit this openly. As usual, they play intellectual games, asking for something like hard proof of such associations. In my opinion, a reversible act of government taken after broad and proper consultation and entailing no jail penalties requires no formal proof.

Sarkozy is braver than I would have been in this case. I would simply have stated that the burqa must be prohibited because of the security risks it poses in connection with violent jihadist terrorism, which it does.

One expression of self-doubt and one thought about the philosophical implications of my support:

I have taught many female Muslim students. A large number displayed cleavage with the same enthusiasm as their Christian sisters (and rivals). One Muslim MBA student who sticks to my mind though wore full Islamic attire except that her face was exposed. She was of Egyptian origin. She was one of the hardest working, energetic, and clear-headed students I have ever had. She made a lasting impression on me, not an easy achievement since I had taught thousands in my career. She told me that she was going to Pakistan with her husband for spring break. That was surely one of the oddest, least attractive spring break destination ever. I never heard from her and never saw her on campus after that.

I know that my approval of the strong repressive actions of the French government relative to the burqa is in contradiction with my usual libertarian (small “l”) positions. The same contradictions exist with respect to my belief in strong, generously funded national defense. I care less and less about ideological coherence. My observation of the relevant websites and my few discussions with Libertarian (big “L”) pundits have half convinced me that ideology is a cover for ignorance of facts and unreason. A small number of moral principles learned in kindergarten are pretty much enough to guide me.

How about you?

Repression Works

The demonstrations in Tehran are petering out without having ever really spread to other cities. Two reasons. First, people have to sleep, in the end. The most active activists, the ones who spent the most time in the street the first few days, are the first to become exhausted. Second reason, our lazy media and well-meaning young people have ignored from day one: Repression usually works.

Beating some people in the street discourages others from coming back. I don’t believe the Iranian regime ever gave the order to shoot at demonstrators. The death of a young woman was the result of a a pro-government hoodlum panicking or worse. I know this is very cynical but no one really knows who shot her and the leader of the revolt has blood on his hands from way back. The regime did not have to order shooting; it was never threatened. As I write (06/24/09), the government has not even sent its own SS into the streets, the Revolutionary Guard. All it had to do was to unleash civilian thugs on motorcycles and armed with sticks. This is normal fascist practice. (See my essay, “Fascism Explained.”)

Peaceful protest works well if you are facing a British Empire bled white by four years of war and sick of ruling India anyway. Incidentally, Gandhi was not only facing a tired Empire, he was confronting a British political class with a conscience and well-rooted habits of rationality. No such things in Iran today.

Heartbreaking call from Tehran aired by CNN today. A young woman is crying out on the phone that people’s bones are being broken by the fascist militia. “You people have to help,” she screams. That’s what happens when you present yourself as the Messiah; naïve young people come to believe you are King of the World. Of course, they expect you to save them. President Obama can’t have it both ways. He can’t claim credit for the good election in Lebanon less than two weeks ago and keep neutral on the blood-letting in Iran. If you have influence, it can’t be that country-specific.

The President’s condemnation of the Iranian government’s repression in his pretend-press conference yesterday was not much, and too late even to have a moral effect. As I have said before, there was not much he could have done. Whatever he did, he could have done earlier rather than standing at the end of the line, behind the French President, the Brit. Prime Minister, and the German Chancellor.

The President persists in treating the Iranian regime as if it were an errant democratic government instead of the totalitarian, fanatical supporter of terrorism it has always been. He fails the small tests as well as the big ones.

Intelligent in-depth article about Iran in the Weekly Standard dated 6/20 and 7/6.by R. M. Gerecht. He disagrees with me on two major points. First, he argues that “Supreme Leader” Khamenei is scared. It also asserts that the struggle in Iran is about democracy. I think he is right on the later but only as far as what’s on the minds of the protesters. Musavi is not an apostle of democracy. What’s going on in Iran more like the struggle to the death between the SS and the SA in the early years of Nazism, since, inexperienced young people playing movie extras.

Gerecht agrees with me that Ahmad the Camel would probably win if a second election were held today.

The nightmare in Iran is why we, the US, have to strangle monsters in the cradle, my isolationist Libertarian friends. There is no other decent option.

I hope some attentive Muslims somewhere are making a note that once more, Muslims are beating and killing Muslims. Muslims have hurt Muslims hundreds of times more than Israel ever has. I guess that’s OK because it’s Muslims doing it. Same logic as for domestic violence: He is beating his wife and his children to a pulp but that’s nobody’s business.

Of course, the mullahs have started claiming it’s all the CIA’s fault. If wish it were true. I have trouble believing its Director my near- neighbor, nice guy Panetta has the brass to do anything of the kind.

Tomorrow, Cap and Trade is taking a giant step. If it passes, it will be the biggest, permanent regressive tax ever. * I am not saying anything because I am demoralized. See the link on my blog face Facts Matter only) to the website of a well-credentialed meteorologist who is keeping cool tab on the global warming religious extremism. (Watts Up With That?)

* A regressive tax is one that affects the poor more than it affects the rich. That’s true of most consumption taxes. Income taxes, by contrast, are all progressive in this country. They hit the rich harder than the poor.