We should not create an anti-Muslim environment by banning burkas

The argument

It is no coincidence that both France and Canada saw an increase in hate crimes against Muslim women once their burka bans had been introduced. The pattern is the point: the harm did not arrive alongside the bans by accident, and it is not confined to the women who are fined or turned away. The French evidence is direct. In one study that interviewed 35 French Muslims who wore the burka prior to the ban, all 35 reported that the ban had had "significant negative effects" on their lives — a unanimous result, from women who had every reason to describe their experience carefully. More seriously, 26 of the 35 also reported physical abuse and violence, with assailants pushing them, pulling off their veil, or spitting on them. These are assaults committed by private individuals, not by the state, which is precisely what makes them evidence about the ban's effect on public attitudes rather than about its enforcement. A similar pattern was recorded in Quebec, where dozens of assaults against Muslim women are reported at women's centres meetings across the province every time they convene. That two jurisdictions with different populations and different politics produced the same outcome suggests the mechanism lies in the legislation rather than in local conditions. The mechanism is one of licence. A law that singles out a garment worn almost exclusively by Muslim women announces that their dress is a legitimate object of public objection, and people who were already hostile hear it as permission. A burka ban therefore fosters an anti-Muslim environment and legitimises the abuse and harassment of Muslim women — delivering, in practice, the opposite of the protection its supporters claim for it. For that reason the policy must be avoided at all costs. The cost of a ban is not borne by the abstraction it targets but by the women who are assaulted in the street afterwards.

Context

There is a strong correlation between the introduction of burka bans and an increase in publicly held anti-Islamic beliefs. Members of the public who harbour anti-Muslim sentiment inevitably feel emboldened by the ban and anti-Muslim rhetoric and violence begin to creep into public life.

Premises

Counter-arguments

A burka ban doesn't create an anti-Islamic environment. Public opinion brings about legislation, not the other way around. Our elected officials act according to public opinion. They do not set public opinion. Without the support for a burka ban in the first place, it would not become legislation. In Britain, there is already public support for a burka ban. In a national poll, 57% of Brits said they would back a burka ban.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] Legislation does not create the environment, the environment creates the legislation.