No doubt many conservative, or pseduo-conservative, folks will be lauding Nicolas Sarkozy’s declared that burqu’s (burkhas) have no place in France as they are a clear celebration of the subjugation of women.

The Czar is quite uneasy with this. Perhaps the Volgi can comment more authoritatively, but our understanding is that burqu’s have no basis in al-qur’ān, but are the bastard offspring of the commandment for ḥijāb, or modest dress in men and women. When considering how Pakistani women dress in a longer, simple dress, to the simple head scarves of Kosovar women, to the mostly secular dress of Turkish women, one is inclined to agree with Sarkozy that the basis of interpretation is solely made by how much freedom women have in that society, as allowed by men. If the men want women enslaved, conveniently the burqu is how we interpret hijab.

In Dinesh D’Souza’s brilliant work What’s So Great About America, he makes a brilliant argument that requiring women—from peer pressure to serious threat of death—to dress in burqus or their many flavors is in many respects a backfiring of Islam. In fact, all enforced requirements to obey Islamic principles are a fundamental misapplication; rather, the individual practitioner must voluntarily adhere to the principles for them to be a meaningful submission to Allah. Wearing the burqu, closing schools, banning music, or even strapping a bomb to a child’s chest because someone ordered you to puts the word of man before the word of God. See the problem with this? In America, offers D’Souza, women (in theory) follow their conscience about dress, rather than obey a law requiring or prohibiting a specific form of apparel. You either do it or don’t do it based on how you choose to acknowledge Allah.

In the long run, banning burqus in France may be as counter-productive as banning education in Swat. The Czar understands what Sarkozy is working toward: he is trying, in a somewhat flailing gesture, to resist the massive cultural encroachment of Islam in France. However, by attempting to legislate this, he will create more trouble than it is worth; for France is, among many things, a democracy—and if your voting Muslim population is high enough, your voting results reflect that. Pass any non-hijabic laws you wish: given time, they will simply vote to repeal them.

Rather, France must recognize that she is a changing country. The demographics are clear that in France, as in many European countries, the immigrants are growing toward majority. Mark Steyn has written about this extensively and the Czar expects you are familiar with his demographic observations. But the logic is inescapable: you cannot legislate against a fear of the future, for the future will simply repeal your laws. Instead, France must clearly demonstrate that she supports equal independence of women (which may require some work itself), and that any woman, Muslim or not, can choose for herself without fear of retribution, punishment, or penalty.

Remember the Gormogons’ faith in and warning about the Rule of Law: a vital extension of this is Precendent, and Precedent follows the Law of Unintended Consequences. You outlaw burqus, and then equally-applied-logic lawsuits appear against yarmulkes, Christian bonnets, haircuts against the Sikh kesh, and so on—and why not? You put that ball in play, Sarkozy.

The Czar strongly supports elimination of the subjugation of women, but believes the French approach—by banning a conveniently inconvenient symbol—will do more damage than simply taking a more proactive approach as we do/did here in the US.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.