Retaliation and Injustice – The Burkini Ban

Posted on by Opher

I found this article very thought provoking.
As an antitheist I am opposed to all types of organised religion. I think religion is conceived by man and used for power. It is a million miles away from spirituality and stinks of control. I believe it has done far more harm than good.
Islam is one of the worst in many ways. It is an intolerant religion that dictates a very prescriptive code of ritual and way of life that has locked the Middle East back in the seventh century and stultified the culture. It indoctrinates young children as standard and discriminates against women. There is not much about it that I find appealing. In its most fundamental form it is violent and aggressive. The barbarity of some of its sharia practices are straight out of the dark ages.
Not that it is alone in that. Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism have had their bloody pasts and many superstitious practices. Fortunately we have been through the enlightenment and have largely secularised society and removed religion from its overt claustrophobic control.
I do not oppose people’s personal beliefs or wish to curb them. If people wish to believe in a religion that is fine with me as long as that is on a personal level, doesn’t involve children and they do not seek to inflict it on others.
The Burqa and Burkini seem absurd to me. I find it ridiculous and misogynistic that women are subjected to these clothing restrictions while men are not. I find it repulsive that this dress code is imposed on women (against their will) through force and law in some countries, and through social/cultural imposition in others.
As an objective outsider I find the concept disturbing and absurd. It says a lot about what the 7th Century culture thought about women.
However, would I ban it?
One side of me says definitely. It is a symbol of misogyny and oppression. It goes against all the cultural values of a secular society. It has no place in the modern world or in a secular culture. It is a pre-Islamic relic of a patriarchal culture where women were second class citizens without rights and traded as commodities. Women were viewed as possessions and temptations. Britain is a secular society with an ethos of tolerance and equality. There is no place for medieval superstition.
The other side of me says that a secular society should be tolerant of others. That, if it is the woman’s choice and there has been no coercion or social expectation, she should be free to wear what she likes. If she choses to cover her body then it is her choice no matter what connotations that has for others, like myself. I would certainly not take kindly to anyone telling me what I can or can’t wear.
It is a dilemma.
I certainly feel that women should have equal rights in all respects – including the right not to be socially/culturally coerced or stopped from wearing what they want, or believing what they want.
I would take a hard line on anybody who forces or coerces a woman to comply with a dress code.
I would ban all face covering from public arenas, such as teaching, nursing, doctoring or anywhere that involves dealing with the public.
I would ban all religious schools that segregate children. I think it an insidious apartheid.
I would prevent any religious sect from indoctrinating children.
I would hope that education will result in integration and increasing secularisation so that we can leave all religion back in the Dark Ages where it belongs and see it as the superstition it is.
But I wouldn’t ban burqas and burkinis much as I detest all they stand for.

20 thoughts on “Retaliation and Injustice – The Burkini Ban”

  1. I’ve no objection to women wearing a burkini on a beach, simply because on occasions it assists me in determining the difference between a real actual female and a beached whale. I’ve been close to shouting to get help only to discover on closer inspection that it is in fact a tourist, Mildred from Middlesborough, who has obviously forgotten the common rules of public decency.
    In saying that, I’m all for the banning of Speedo’s. They really ought to be illegal.

  2. Good post. I’ve been meaning to ask you something, though. You cited, and rightly so, that a lot of bad stuff has been done in the name of Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism. I’m curious as to whether you think equally bad things have not been done in the name of secularism. Been meaning to ask you that. 😉

    1. That’s an interesting one, Cheryl. I think it depends what you mean by secularism. Certainly politics, which is a secular sport, has its share of power madness. Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin and Mao must have knocked up quite a few million victims between them. Visiting the killing fields was a salutary experience. Fascism and tyranny have been as bad as religion.
      There seems to be a trait for cruelty and power seeking in human beings.
      I don’t see antitheists or atheists at the head of rabid armies bent on wiping out religion. Mao persecuted religion though. He thought it was a waste of precious energy. Communism has usually tended to take that view – though I’m not sure that any regime has truly been communist. They seem to create totalitarian dictatorships.
      So depends what you mean by secularism. But religion is certainly not the only institution responsible for intolerance, psychopathy and evil. Not by a long chalk.

      1. Indeed, totalitarian dictatorships with a megalomaniac at the helm.
        I remember my father always laughing when anybody came on TV calling themselves a communist. He’d call them a balloon.

      2. That’s a good question. I’m not sure what that means. I guess I was asking because of all this talk about France being a secular society/government/whatever. I likely don’t have any idea what that means.

        And Andrew, do you mean like Trump?

      4. I think a secular society like France is merely one that does not allow religion to dictate and have power over the laws of the land.
        The US is obstensibly a secular society but the religious faction holds a lot of power and dictates a lot of the legislation. Try getting an atheist elected as President or anyone into office who doesn’t toe a religious line. The religious groups control a lot of what goes on.

  3. Right. So the Burkini was invented by women in Australia. It was also used by a female-Muslim surf life guard, and she was the poster girl for multiculturism for a while after it happened. Basically the Burkini was meant to make all Muslim women who chose to wear hijab be able to feel accepted into the beach-loving Australian culture, instead of excluding them. That’s right, the Burkini was invented in the West so that it would bring people together more. Instead, France goes and uses it to alienate people.

    1. We desperately need to include don’t we? It’s the only way to break down barriers, integrate and remove this ‘us and them’ situation.
      My hope would be that all people would discard divisive superstitions and become secularised. The whole concept of burqas and burkinis is based on pre-Islamic tribal customs from a patriarchal nomadic society from the Dark Ages. It’s time it was discarded as nonsense.
      But imposing dress codes is wrong. I believe in freedom.

  4. Thanks for sharing my article! Like I said, I believe we really need to be able to separate the waters: one thing is our personal opinion about religion (and with our personal opinion we make our personal choices , like wearing burkini or not, going to the church etc) and another completely different thing is respecting the freedom of others to have their values and live accordingly to them. As long as they aren’t doing anything harmful to others – and women in burkini aren’t – trying to dictate them is just a form of tirany. In fact, I do think the burkini invention as an amazing progressive change – it makes it possible for Muslim women to enjoy the beach and to socialize with people from outside their community like seen on the picture.

    1. I’m all for freedom and tolerance even though I find the whole business of burqa’s and burkinis utterly misogynistic. A woman should choose. But if there is coercion then that is a different matter.

      1. It’s a very basic equation: Islam = Misogyny.
        With the subject of burkinis on the bottom rung.
        By far, the worst aspect for women in Muslim society is their position. This particular subject, beach wear, is an nonentity in the grand scheme of things.

      2. It’s a symptom of the disease – and one that the West is still getting over (but we started putting it right a long time ago).

  6. A detailed and fair analysis. We have come too far down freedom road to re-introduce repression – just what the extremists want to provoke us into!

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