Why we should not ban the burqa.

last updated 8 January 2015

Netherlands

Gerry van der List

It’s hard to believe we’re even considering banning an item of women’s clothing, said Gerry van der List in Amsterdam’s Elsevier. Yet the first major issue the new Dutch government plans to take up next week is whether to go ahead with the previous government’s recommendation to ban the burqa, the black gown and veil that conservative Muslim women wear to cover every inch of themselves. It’s true that a burqa-clad woman is rejecting “both the openness and secularity of Western society.” But so what? The essence of an open society is that you do what you want, as long as it hurts no one else. “Surely the Netherlands is freer than Tunisia,” a country that in the name of fighting Islamic extremism arrests women for wearing head scarves and men for wearing long beards. Dutch employers are already free to stipulate what uniform is appropriate for the workplace. Dutch transport services can demand to examine passengers’ faces for security reasons. And the Dutch government can refuse to pay unemployment benefits “to anyone whose choice of attire renders her unemployable.” These very few devout women are doing no harm to society. Let them “sail about under their black tents.”