Building mosques, burning the Koran or flags, and wearing the Niquab

[Donald Ian Rankin]

I don't support doing any of these things for their own sake, but they're all important rights that are coming under threat (more than that, in the case of wearing veils in France) and thus need to be defended.

I don't like the idea of building a mosque near Ground Zero (because I don't like the idea of people building mosques, because I don't like the idea of people practicing the religion of Islam, because I don't like the idea of people practicing religion), but enough people have tried not merely to persuade the builders to stop but to have them stop that at this stage I think it is important not merely to defend their right to build a mosque there but to encourage them to do so.

I think that burning a book is an awful way of commenting on its content, but I think that since doing so is met with harrassement and threats of violence, burning the Koran is probably necessary at this point.

The only thing that's ever made me feel like burning the US flag was the proposed flag-burning ammendment. It seems to have passed off for now, but I think that in the face of such a proposal the most patriotic thing one can do with an American flag is douse it in petrol and set a match to it.

I think that demanding that women cover their faces but not making a similar demand of men is evidence of a deeply sexist culture, but that the French ban on the wearing of veils creates a moral imperative to do so (although not one strong enough to persuade me to go to France and get arrested, because a) I'm lazy, and b) I'd look silly in a niquab).



"We'll agree not to ban you from doing X, if you'll agree not to do X" is not an approach that works. If a right comes under threat, it becomes necessary to exercise it. There is only one place on earth that I support the building of an Islamic centre, and that's Cordoba house.

[mjane]

1. Great post

I agree