I thought that last night’s debate, which supposedly concentrated on foreign affairs, was pathetically limited. As I predicted, our place in the world was discussed almost entirely through the prisms of our relationships with the US and with the European Union.
Given that, a little more examination of those relationships would have been welcome. Take the EU. Whatever you think about our membership, it is an institution that does matter — not least because its laws supersede ours.
So why was there no mention of the unbelievable race that France and Belgium are engaged in — the prize for winning which is to be the first country in Europe to ban the full face veil?
Belgium’s parliament was due to vote on the legislation yesterday, until the government coalition collapsed after one party withdrew. This, despite the fact that according to the BBC’s estimate, only 30 women in the country regularly wear the burqa or niqab. (The link above also provides a
handy guide to different kinds of face veils, incidentally.)
The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has ordered his government to put a bill with similar effect to parliament next month. The dignity of all women, apparently, is threatened by the under 2000 who are recorded as wearing the full veil in France.
I am no fan of either the niqab or the burqa. (I expressed my approval in October when the Dean of Al Azhar University called full face veiling “a custom that had nothing to do with the Islamic faith”.) Mehdi Hasan has also discussed the subject on this site before.
But were these extraordinary moves on the part of two of our closest European neighbours not worth a mention in last night’s debate? After all, what does it say about the continent’s great traditions of tolerance and liberty that two countries wish to legislate specifically to tell a tiny number of women how they should dress?
It’s understandable that our attention is concentrated inwards during an election. But I still find the deafening silence on this astonishing. Or are we happy for some minorities to be less equal than others?
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