Retaliation and Injustice – The Burkini Ban

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.