Swiss voters approve facial covering ban

[Picairn]

It's almost like the intent is not to solve the problems with Islam but instead make it so they're not constantly reminded that people who are different to them exist.

I am wholly convinced that face covering bans (at least in Europe) are a political stunt by center-right to far-right parties to express their thinly-veiled Islamophobia, seeing how they never bother to address the root cause of Islamic extremism afterwards. Hell if they had done so I would have fucking bowed to them in gratitude and spent a full day singing praises to their actions.

[Vassenor]

It's almost like the intent is not to solve the problems with Islam but instead make it so they're not constantly reminded that people who are different to them exist.

I am wholly convinced that face covering bans (at least in Europe) are a political stunt by center-right to far-right parties to express their thinly-veiled Islamophobia, seeing how they never bother to address the root cause of Islamic extremism afterwards. Hell if they had done so I would have fucking bowed to them in gratitude and spent a full day singing praises to their actions.

If they fixed the extremism then it wouldn't be a convenient spectre to generate panics with.

[Ifreann]

The extreme hyperbolic dystopian version of radical feminism I have in mind is the one you seem to think is, or ought to be, at work in Switzerland. This law bans the wearing of facial coverings. It is not a restriction on businesses selling niqabs and burqas or on some Muslim textile industry, it is a restriction on an individual's personal liberty to dress in certain specific ways. So the direct comparison is having women arrested for wearing white at their weddings. The individual breaks the law by wearing the forbidden garment, the individual is criminally sanctioned for their law breaking. Explain to me the feminist reasoning for arresting women if they wear white at their wedding. Tell me how it promotes the liberation of women to have their behaviour tightly controlled by the government. I would have thought that liberation for women would entail them being able to wear whatever they want, whether it is in keeping with conservative religious traditions or divergent from them, but apparently real radical feminism is when men on the internet set out for women a narrow set of approved feminist choices.

Liberation for women means liberation against structural oppression. Radical feminism recognises that the oppression of women isn't interpersonal, individual, or idiosyncratic, but rather systemic and structural, in other words, bolstered by sociocultural norms that are both pervasive and embedded within ideologies, institutions, and belief systems that promote that kind of oppression on a systemic basis. So liberation for women means liberation from that systemic and structural oppression, and in turn, liberation from the arbitrary sociocultural institutional norms that bolster and promote such oppression and allow it to persist in society. That's true liberation, because once those norms are gone, men and women alike will all be free to partake in whatever behaviours one wants, autonomously, self-determinedly, free of sociocultural pressures that constrain one's autonomy to make a free choice, without feeling the constant need to perform sexist gender roles or conform to a patriarchal ideal.

Its only someone who thinks women aren't oppressed on a systemic or structural basis who could think women's liberation can be achieved by isolated and individual choices of women, or by ignoring the simple fact that everyone's choices, men and women alike, are capable of reinforcing oppressive ideals that regress the freedoms of all women for generations to come, not just oneself in the here and now.

Liberation isn't achieved by individuals making certain choices, you tell me, that's why it's good that Switzerland is going to force individuals to make certain choices in how they dress. Fascinating.

When a mother arranges a marriage for her daughter and emotionally shames and guilts her daughter into marrying that chosen man, calling her out as unfilial and disobedient and 'betraying God' if she refuses to marry that man, I don't see an individual woman making a free, autonomous, self-directed choice to exercise her freedom of speech and expression in a particular way, consonant with her beliefs, with no societal or cultural ramifications. I recognise that her actions are reinforcing the oppression of other women, by promoting and propagating ideological beliefs that justify female oppression and the consignment of women to a particular gendered expectation that is oppressive to women as a class, and to women and girls who will come in future. If a size-zero female model were to go online and encourage fat girls to starve themselves or be anorexic so they can look petite and beautiful, again, I don't see a model empoweringly exercising her bodily sovereignty and freedom of speech to promote a particular body type that she individually wants or desires for herself, but I recognise the unhealthy societal pressures she is actively promoting that consign future women and girls to an inherently-oppressive sexist expectation of behaviour, that constrains true liberty and freedom of choice. Same for a female business owner who discriminates against women and refuses to sell women books or movies because of her own sexist beliefs. Same for a woman who actively recruits young women into a religious cult that oppresses and persecutes its female adherents in rigid gender roles.

The choices of all, men and women, have sociocultural ramifications that impact the lives of other people. True liberation and autonomy means the ability to make your own choices free of gendered expectations or sociocultural pressures to conform to a patriarchal ideal. But that end goal can't happen by magic. It can only happen with systemic and structural change. That necessarily involves the law, and it necessarily means denouncing and condemning the regressive ideologies and belief systems that are directly responsible for reifying and maintaining those same expectations and rigid gendered roles.

So to be clear, that's a yes on arresting women for wearing white at their wedding? The systemic and structural change you are talking about ought to be pursued by criminalising women when they adhere to traditions with misogynist roots?

---

There's an exception for coverings used for a medical reason.

Then I'm with purgatio. Regardless of how much the party that proposed it sucks, I won't be sad to see the back of such a regressive, misogynist tradition.

Banning face coverings won't really do anything to undo the patriarchal control Muslim women are sometimes subjected to. Especially not in Switzerland, as only a handful of women in Switzerland wear niqabs and approximately zero wear a burqa.

[Fahran]

Banning all masks in public places are dumb and solves nothing. It is more of an infringement on freedom of expression than a concrete proposal to curb extremism. Banning "the outward expression of Islamic extremism" solves nothing, as Islamic extremism can continue to fester in thoughts and indoctrination. Instead of Islamic extremists suicide-bombing themselves with burqas, now we have Islamic extremists suicide-bombing themselves with face masks, costume masks, or gas masks. Such progress!

Except non-medical face masks, costume masks, and gas masks are likely to be banned as well, at least based on the language used to describe this proposal. The argument that banning the outward expression of Islamic extremism, and I have no idea why you put that in parentheses like that isn't what wearing a burqa is in most places, doesn't accomplish anything isn't especially convincing. It quite plainly accomplishes what it sets out to do in imposing the outward trappings of secularism on communities that have grown less secular as time has passed and forcing gradual assimilation into non-extremist society over several generations, especially when coupled with measures that suppress extremist preachers and that scatter diaspora communities in well-to-do neighborhoods instead of allowing them to concentrate. Again, I'm not in favor of these policies, but the notion that they aren't going to work in the long-term is ludicrous. The state has enjoyed marked success in imposing religious orthodoxies in the past. In fact, the wearing of the niqab in much of Saudia Arabia, despite that not having been as widespread historically, is a testament to that.

Guilt by association is not a valid argument to ban them.

Nobody is implying that women who wear burqas or niqabs are guilty of terrorism. They are extremists though. You don't wear a full body veil that obscures your eyes and face for the sake of modesty if you're not an extremist or convinced/forced to by extremists. Beyond that, I'm skeptical this argument would fly in other situations for anyone reasonable. Folks tend to get antsy if someone walks into a school or bank wearing a balaclava simply because obscuring one's identity is useful to unsavory sorts. It's a major reason bans on this outside of Europe and even in the Dar as-Salaam aren't uncommon.

If people suicide-bomb with medical masks, are the governments going to associate them with terrorism and ban them as well?

Are medical masks associated with an extremist religious denomination and have they been employed to avoid detection while carrying out a suicide bombing multiple times?

In the middle of a pandemic? Banning face coverings in public is a lazy deflection from the real problem: the prevention of such attacks from happening. If you have to ban face coverings to prevent terrorism then your intelligence agencies are really incompetent.

First, burqas and niqabs do not serve a medical function. The implication here is that banning them will increase health risks. It won't. Because medical masks haven't been banned. Second, it's not a lazy deflection. It's a policy meant to force extremists to assimilate in the long-term by taking away the trappings of extremism which serve, in many cases, the role of expressing and perpetuating their paradigm within insular communities. Beyond that, it lets intelligence agencies more easily track suspects since they can see facial features. People walking around who cannot be identified are much harder to trace and survey. That's why Klansmen wore hoods. That's why the IRA wore balaclavas. That's why operatives of Hamas often wear keffiyehs wrapped around their faces. That's why Antifa wear bandanas and glasses and hats. It can prevent identification.

Banning face coverings actually breeds more extremism in Europe.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10. ... 19.1681494

Even if you don't accept the data, this proposal doesn't in any way improve Muslim women's standing in Western societies. By instituting the burqa ban, Western nations have not helped the women who wear the veil, regardless of whether women wear the veil out of choice or oppression. Prohibiting face-covering veils in the public sphere does not get to the root of gender inequality in Islam.

Your data observes a correlation between burqa bans and terrorist activity, but it didn't prove causation. A simple counter-argument is that many of the countries that have imposed burqa bans, especially France and Belgium, have already had serious issues with Islamist extremism and that burqa bans have often been a response to Islamist extremism - as they were in places like Nigeria, Tajikistan, and Turkey up until the 2000s. It's also worthwhile to point out that extremism and terrorism, while often related, are not synonyms. A person can believe in the tenets of white supremacy and not fire-bomb black churches. That doesn't mean a bunch of people believing white supremacy is socially beneficial or that you shouldn't move to address the proliferation of those beliefs.

And it doesn't even have to be about individual women in this case. The benefit is a long-term social and cultural benefit as far as I can make out, which will, by extension, benefit future generations of Swiss, especially Swiss Muslims.

https://law.emory.edu/eilr/content/volume-25/issue-3/comments/burqa-ban-limitation-religious-freedom-restriction.html

With all due respect to Shaira Nanwani, she seems to have been incorrect about the ECHR's judgement regarding burqa bans. Mind you, the ECHR's reasoning on several points is exceedingly strange, but I'm not terribly surprised given that the Euros seem to have less regard for free speech and free expression than we Americans, whether it's white nationalist speech or Salafist speech.

Source

Appearance is more important than addressing the root cause. Got it.

It's almost like appearances and cultural regalia matter to these conversations and aren't simply artifice. That shouldn't surprise anyone given that the burqa was largely made compulsory in places like Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan as part of a broad social and cultural campaign to promote a particular brand of Islam, especially among urban-dwellers.

[Fahran]

It's almost like the intent is not to solve the problems with Islam but instead make it so they're not constantly reminded that people who are different to them exist.

That might hold a bit more water if the ban applied to hijabs, headscarves, and other religious attire as well. It bans specific religious attire associated with Salafis and Deobandis, religious attire that has historically been mandatory in some countries and regions. That said, I do think laïcité does have a lot to do with suppressing the appearance of any and all religious differences in the public sphere. Which, again, is why I'm not keen on it.

[Kowani]

Your data observes a correlation between burqa bans and terrorist activity, but it didn't prove causation.

Blah blah hate topic snark snark cynicism
Okay, that’s out of the way
This is not entirely accurate
See, at first, it looks that way-as shown here:

The results clearly show that veil bans are positively correlated with terrorist activities, irrespective of how we define the dependent variables measuring terrorism. In that Models 1 and 3 the main independent variable of interest, veil bans, is statistically significant at the 1% level of significance. In Models 2 and 4, it holds statistical significance at the 5% level. Thus, veil bans remain statistically significant across all four model specifications, supporting our hypothesis that restricting the wearing of the Muslim veil does not reduce terrorism but rather contributes to it. Among the control variables, level of insti- tutional democracy gives mixed results (without any statistical significance), while durability of a regime has a positive coefficient with statistical significance in two of the four models. The positive sign is contrary to our expectation that older regimes are less likely to experience terrorism. State fragility index has a positive coefficient but without any statistical significance across the four models. The coefficient for the log of population is signed in the positive direction in all the models and holds statistical significance, indicating, expectedly, that more populous countries are more at risk for terrorist attacks. The variable log of GDP is not found to be statistically significant in any of the models. Geographical area also shows inconsistent results across models.
Our tests for the clash of civilizations thesis find little support. The variable for the Muslim percentage of a country’s population (Muspc) is found to be positive and statistically significant only in one of the models. The geographical location of countries also lacks statistical significance.

And if you stopped reading there, it’d look like just a correlative model
But keep reading:

Given that we use negative binomial models, we analyze the incidence rate ratios (IRR) to understand the substantive effects of the models. The ratios shown in Table 4 report the predicted number of terrorism incidents and casualties owing to veil bans. The statistically significant results underscore the impact of veil bans on terrorist events. In Model 1, the IRR of 15.26 indicates that countries with such clothing bans experience almost 15 times more cases of Islamist terrorist attacks than countries without such bans. In Model 2, the IRR of 90.92 reveals that countries with veil bans could experience over 90 times more cases of victims killed or injured due to Islamist terrorism than countries without them. Similarly, in Model 3, the IRR of 17.12 tells us that countries with veil bans are likely to witness 17 times more cases of victims killed due to Islamist terrorism compared to countries without such bans. And lastly, the IRR of 60.28 in Model 4 shows that countries with veil bans may experience close to 60 times more cases of injures owing to Islamist terrorism than countries without these bans. (The predicted number of casual- ties and injuries are substantially higher than the number of attacks and fatalities, thus explaining the relatively larger substantive effects for the former two variables.)

key phrase italicized for emphasis- “owing to veil bans”

A simple counter-argument is that many of the countries that have imposed burqa bans, especially France and Belgium, have already had serious issues with Islamist extremism and that burqa bans have often been a response to Islamist extremism - as they were in places like Nigeria, Tajikistan, and Turkey up until the 2000s.

Well. That’s also addressed in the study:

Our first set of tests checks for reversed causal- ity. Might it be the case that we have the argument backwards – that veil bans come into effect after terrorist attacks? We address this issue in a number of ways. First, we employ structural equation modeling. We regressed the depen- dent variables (different measures of terrorism) on all control variables except the variable measuring the presence or absence of veil ban. Then we predicted the number of incidents. In stage two, we regressed veil restrictions on predicted events and other control variables and found that predicted events do not play a role in explaining veil bans. In another test of reverse causality, we invert the models. To test for an impact of terrorist events in time period t−1 on veil bans in time period t, we ran logit models with presence or absence of veil restrictions as the dependent variable while using the lag of the different terrorism variables as regressors. The coefficients were found to be positive in two models but not statistically significant. As a further check, we also lagged the terror- ist events by two time periods (t−2) to test the impact on veil bans in time period t. The coefficient is negative and statistically significant in one of the models and not significant in the others, indicating that terrorist events do not contributing to veil restrictions. Finally, descriptive statistics also show that terrorism occurs after the introduction of veil bans. Looking at the number of terrorist incidents that occurred before and after the introduction of these bans, we find that 8 attacks occurred before and 54 after. Together, these tests provide solid evidence that the direction of causality is as we theorize.

It's also worthwhile to point out that extremism and terrorism, while often related, are not synonyms. A person can believe in the tenets of white supremacy and not fire-bomb black churches. That doesn't mean a bunch of people believing white supremacy is socially beneficial or that you shouldn't move to address the proliferation of those beliefs.

And it doesn't even have to be about individual women in this case. The benefit is a long-term social and cultural benefit as far as I can make out, which will, by extension, benefit future generations of Swiss, especially Swiss Muslims.

As the study noted, banning veils only seems to serve to push women farther into radicalism, even those who were not already in those sorts of environments. You’ve noted multiple times that local Islamic cultures differentiate between hijabs, burqas, chadors, and niqabs, but the effect of the messaging of burqa banning policies don’t seem to come across that way-they’re being interpreted as an attack on Muslims.

However, available evidence suggests that veil bans have the opposite effect. Instead of encouraging integration, they result in greater isolation of Muslim women who feel as if they are not free to be themselves in public, owing to social stigmatization, scapegoating and even physical attacks (Open Society Foundation 2011). In this sense, face veils can be seen as empowering for Muslim women, while restrictions on these gar- ments compromises their psychological, emotional and even physical security. […] For example, many recruits joined the terrorist organization ISIS over the restriction of the veil by their home country. Consider Gulmuod Halimov, the former head of Tajikistan’s security forces, who left his station and joined ISIS, in part, because the Tajik state no longer permitted Muslims to ‘wear Islamic hijabs’ (RFE/RL 2015). A strikingly similar story has been told by many other men who have left their countries to fight in Syria: one of the most important motivators in their decision to join ISIS or affiliate groups involved what they perceived to be attacks on Islam, especially bans on the veil (De Féo 2018). In summary, bans and more limited restrictions on the Islamic veil are likely to engender resentment, sometimes resulting in terrorism via two pathways, one related to gender, the other to religion. First, where Muslim women cannot wear the veil in public in accordance with their religious convictions, they are likely to cling more tightly to their faith, become more isolated from society and grow resentful at repressive state policies and social discrimination and harassment, in the process becom- ing less likely to play the role of ‘veto player’ in the process of radicalization and more accepting of the use of force. Second, Muslim populations in general are likely to see such prohibitions as attacks on their culture and values and grow increasingly resentful; some might even become convinced that they have no choice but to turn to the gun.[...] the prohibitions on the veil on the grounds that it prevented women from being full participants in society and contradicted ‘French values.’ The evi- dence suggests, however, that bans on Islamic clothing ironically discourage Muslim female integration. A 2013 report by Open Society Foundations revealed that more Muslim women were staying home in France, because after the ban they felt considerably less secure, owing to harassment and vio- lence targeted at them by the general public. In other cases, some young Muslim females began to express bitterness towards French society and doubled down on head-covering as a form of defiance. ‘It’s my way of fighting, to say no to the government, who took away my liberty,’ declared one woman who began to veil herself after 2010 (Samuel 2018). Moreover, women who choose to remain veiled after the passage of full or partial veil bans reported increased incidents of Islamophobia and physical assaults. Perhaps the most disturbing of these incidents involved a veiled pregnant Muslim who was violently attacked by two men; shortly after the attack, she suffered a miscarriage (Erlanger 2013). Thus, ‘restrictions on the move- ment and security of women in the public space has had significant detrimen- tal consequences on their physical and mental health and on their relationships’ (Open Society Foundations 2013: 17).

Yeah
Really hate this topic
Culture war, melter of brains
And it always gets worse when religion gets involved

[Azabimidjan]

Instead of banning face coverings they should pass better border controls, root out Islamic extremism and make a hard effort to stop honor killings and such.

This policy is breaking freedom of religion and is also fueling Islamic radicals.

[Salus Maior]

Instead of banning face coverings they should pass better border controls, root out Islamic extremism and make a hard effort to stop honor killings and such.

This policy is breaking freedom of religion and is also fueling Islamic radicals.

The Swiss voters already have put in immigration controls. They also banned minarets some time ago as well.

[Fahran]

Instead of banning face coverings they should pass better border controls,

I don't think border control is as big an issue in Europe as it is in the United States. The anti-immigration sorts over there generally focus on making it more difficult to gain asylum and expelling criminal aliens, which the Swiss People's Party has already legislated.

root out Islamic extremism and make a hard effort to stop honor killings and such.

This suppresses at least one expression of Islamist extremism.

This policy is breaking freedom of religion and is also fueling Islamic radicals.

Laïcité, by its intrinsic nature, is hostile to freedom of religion and religious expression because it compels all religious persons to adhere to secular conventions in the public sphere. As for fueling Islamist radicals, any measure designed to "root out Islamic extremism" is going to annoy radicals. You also can't rely on the issue to resolve itself internally at the moment because, with Salafis sponsored by the Saudis being a principle form of Islamic outreach in many places, these communities are becoming more radical when left to their own devices rather than less radical. Some of that might be down to Islamophobia, especially in the US, but I think we often understate the importance of Salafis having disproportionate influence among Muslim clergy internationally. Which is what prompted recent closures of madrassas in many places. In the long-term, cutting off those funds and providing alternatives that don't come with a theology antithetical to "muh cosmopolitan liberal fever dream" society could be a solution.

That said, I doubt Switzerland is at serious threat of being inundated with Islamist extremists on par with the especially noisy minority of radicals in France, who do not represent all French Muslims in any respect, or, worse, Saudi Arabia. But we should call a spade a spade. Burqas/niqabs are garments associated with radicals and defending religious liberty in this case is defending the religious liberty of people who have very, um, illiberal theologies. I have no problem with that since I actually don't especially care how secular society is so long as it's functional and we don't have pogroms, but I get why a lot of liberals and nationalists would have a problem with it. Really, Christians and Jews might be better served by taking a couple notes from Muslims on some things. It'd certainly make things a lot spicier in Europe.

[Chessmistress]

This is dumb and the worst possible time to do this.

Fucking anti science and anti Muslim bullshit.

Put on a mask.

Strawmen, strawmen everywhere.

Instead of banning face coverings they should pass better border controls, root out Islamic extremism and make a hard effort to stop honor killings and such.

This policy is breaking freedom of religion and is also fueling Islamic radicals.

Your solution it's not going to solve the public safety issue with motorbike helmets used by people who aren't riding a motorbike, and the likes.

[Chessmistress]

Instead of banning face coverings they should pass better border controls, root out Islamic extremism and make a hard effort to stop honor killings and such.

This policy is breaking freedom of religion and is also fueling Islamic radicals.

The Swiss voters already have put in immigration controls. They also banned minarets some time ago as well.

They also banned painting houses in certain colors and building houses in Spanish and Japanese style, well before banning the minarets.

[Fahran]

They also banned painting houses in certain colors and building houses in Spanish and Japanese style, well before banning the minarets.

The real atrocity is painting your house an ugly shade of robin egg blue. Good job Swiss government. It's like the HOA but for an entire country.

[Kowani]

The Swiss voters already have put in immigration controls. They also banned minarets some time ago as well.

They also banned painting houses in certain colors and building houses in Spanish and Japanese style, well before banning the minarets.

They didn’t deserve a tranquil carmen anyway

[Chessmistress]

They also banned painting houses in certain colors and building houses in Spanish and Japanese style, well before banning the minarets.

The real atrocity is painting your house an ugly shade of robin egg blue. Good job Swiss government. It's like the HOA but for an entire country.

Unless you do it in the right times, then it's gonna surviving and then becoming a national landmark:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundertwasserhaus

[Chessmistress]

They also banned painting houses in certain colors and building houses in Spanish and Japanese style, well before banning the minarets.

They didn’t deserve a tranquil carmen anyway

The Swiss are usually very likely to ban everything that isn't typically Swiss - unless it's a thing that it's likely to make money, of course

[Salus Maior]

They also banned painting houses in certain colors and building houses in Spanish and Japanese style, well before banning the minarets.

The real atrocity is painting your house an ugly shade of robin egg blue. Good job Swiss government. It's like the HOA but for an entire country.

Considering Switzerland, it could have been a popular initiative.

Which are basically petitions by citizens which have actual legal weight.

[Fahran]

Snip.

Okay, so this is what I was looking for to a significant degree. It's certainly convincing given findings by other researchers and the stated grievances of Islamist intellectuals such as Qutb and Bin Laden.

"Most Muslims in Europe attribute their support for terrorism and radicalization to
the domination of Islam by the West (Zhirkov et al., 2014). When one analyses this
finding critically, dominance could be in military, economic, and even cultural spheres. Dominance could be in the form of formulation of foreign or domestic policies which project Western values and relegate to the background non-western values and way of life. These non-Western values and traditions are from civilizations such as the Islamic civilization.

The burqa ban in France may be viewed as one of such policies. I understand that
the majority (22 of 23) of this study’s participants stated that the burqa ban in France has no correlation with increased acts of Islamic terrorism. However, the same majority also stated that the burqa ban in France undermines and challenges the traditions and values of Islam. I consider this quite significant. I also consider that response as one which underscores this study’s social change implications. This is because such a finding would help Western and Muslim countries take measures that will facilitate more cordial relations between them.

A better understanding of factors that could further create what Hashemi (2014)
described as “the great Islam-West divide” would help to find ways to bridge this gap.
When this so-called divide is bridged, it would go a long way in helping to have more
integration between Muslims and the West. This type of integration would foster
cooperation and the emergence of a united front which will stand up against religious
extremism and fundamentalism. When the West and Muslims work more closely, it
would help to reduce, and perhaps eradicate Islamic terrorism. This has huge positive
social change implications."

Source

I would be a touch wary of this study given that it doesn't measure occurrences but rather the opinions of Muslims on the correlation between burqa bans and terrorism. That said, I'm a touch concerned that adequate controls may have been absent from the study cited by you above as a result, especially in light of the fact that the appearance of the West imposing on Islam may contribute to feelings of religious radicalism and burqa bans have seldom come without other measures and rhetoric that might be perceived as such an imposition.

Additionally, it's not only government actions that constitute impositions. The actions of media outlets or even individual citizens that make headlines may be taken as an imposition by the West on Islam. That's not especially surprising given some of the upticks in extremism and terrorism we've seen associated with Charlie Hebdo and Samuel Paty, these incidents of mocking Islam being ostensibly proximal causes of both extremist sentiments and violence. I'm not certain a burqa ban even becomes salient in the absence of this sort of atmosphere.

While the data presented is compelling, especially as it relates to the short-term impacts of burqa bans on the observed Muslim communities, I wouldn't take it as definitive for the above mentioned reasons. There's also the problem that Muslim populations in countries like France and Belgium, as well as many countries that do not have burqa bans, have been in the process of radicalizing for at least two decades, largely driven by a combination of factors ranging from Salafi-influence online and in madrassas, the ongoing War on Terror, feelings of alienation and listlessness in the West, feelings that the West is imposing on Islam, and, often, negative attitudes about the social values of the West and neoliberalism. This is at least what we can discern based on remarks of Islamist radicals themselves and the function of Islamism post-Qutb as an aspiring alternative to neoliberal hegemony.

This study does make me feel a lot better about muh free religion as a principle, though I'm inclined to wonder if this isn't somewhat like addressing white supremacy - with people getting angry when you kick their hornets' nest. And also the long-term impacts which, for obvious reasons, can't be discerned at this time.

Imagine not liking culture wars.

[Fahran]

Considering Switzerland, it could have been a popular initiative.

Which are basically petitions by citizens which have actual legal weight.

Feels a lot like governance by Karens.

[Kowani]

The real atrocity is painting your house an ugly shade of robin egg blue. Good job Swiss government. It's like the HOA but for an entire country.

Considering Switzerland, it could have been a popular initiative.

Which are basically petitions by citizens which have actual legal weight.

a quick glace through wikipediasuggests no: "The successful initiatives date to the following years: 1893, 1908 (absinthe), 1918, 1920 (gambling), 1921, 1928 (gambling), 1949, 1982, 1987 (protection of wetlands), 1990 (nuclear power moratorium), 1993 (National Day), 1994 (protection of alpine ecosystems), 2002 (UN membership), 2004, 2005, 2008, 2009 (minaret ban), 2010, 2012, 2013 (executive pay), 2014 (immigration), 2014 (paedophile work ban)."

Snip.

Okay, so this is what I was looking for to a significant degree. It's certainly convincing given findings by other researchers and the stated grievances of Islamist intellectuals such as Qutb and Bin Laden.

"Most Muslims in Europe attribute their support for terrorism and radicalization to
the domination of Islam by the West (Zhirkov et al., 2014). When one analyses this
finding critically, dominance could be in military, economic, and even cultural spheres. Dominance could be in the form of formulation of foreign or domestic policies which project Western values and relegate to the background non-western values and way of life. These non-Western values and traditions are from civilizations such as the Islamic civilization.

The burqa ban in France may be viewed as one of such policies. I understand that
the majority (22 of 23) of this study’s participants stated that the burqa ban in France has no correlation with increased acts of Islamic terrorism. However, the same majority also stated that the burqa ban in France undermines and challenges the traditions and values of Islam. I consider this quite significant. I also consider that response as one which underscores this study’s social change implications. This is because such a finding would help Western and Muslim countries take measures that will facilitate more cordial relations between them.

A better understanding of factors that could further create what Hashemi (2014)
described as “the great Islam-West divide” would help to find ways to bridge this gap.
When this so-called divide is bridged, it would go a long way in helping to have more
integration between Muslims and the West. This type of integration would foster
cooperation and the emergence of a united front which will stand up against religious
extremism and fundamentalism. When the West and Muslims work more closely, it
would help to reduce, and perhaps eradicate Islamic terrorism. This has huge positive
social change implications."

Source

I would be a touch wary of this study given that it doesn't measure occurrences but rather the opinions of Muslims on the correlation between burqa bans and terrorism. That said, I'm a touch concerned that adequate controls may have been absent from the study cited by you above as a result, especially in light of the fact that the appearance of the West imposing on Islam may contribute to feelings of religious radicalism and burqa bans have seldom come without other measures and rhetoric that might be perceived as such an imposition.

Additionally, it's not only government actions that constitute impositions. The actions of media outlets or even individual citizens that make headlines may be taken as an imposition by the West on Islam. That's not especially surprising given some of the upticks in extremism and terrorism we've seen associated with Charlie Hebdo and Samuel Paty, these incidents of mocking Islam being ostensibly proximal causes of both extremist sentiments and violence. I'm not certain a burqa ban even becomes salient in the absence of this sort of atmosphere.

While the data presented is compelling, especially as it relates to the short-term impacts of burqa bans on the observed Muslim communities, I wouldn't take it as definitive for the above mentioned reasons. There's also the problem that Muslim populations in countries like France and Belgium, as well as many countries that do not have burqa bans, have been in the process of radicalizing for at least two decades, largely driven by a combination of factors ranging from Salafi-influence online and in madrassas, the ongoing War on Terror, feelings of alienation and listlessness in the West, feelings that the West is imposing on Islam, and, often, negative attitudes about the social values of the West and neoliberalism. This is at least what we can discern based on remarks of Islamist radicals themselves and the function of Islamism post-Qutb as an aspiring alternative to neoliberal hegemony.

This study does make me feel a lot better about muh free religion as a principle, though I'm inclined to wonder if this isn't somewhat like addressing white supremacy - with people getting angry when you kick their hornets' nest. And also the long-term impacts which, for obvious reasons, can't be discerned at this time.

Imagine not liking culture wars.

oh my god this is nearly 200 pages why
okay
i'll read
and then
i don't know
complain or something
rapidly coming to hate you as much as the culture wars themselves

[Fahran]

oh my god this is nearly 200 pages why
okay
i'll read
and then
i don't know
complain or something
rapidly coming to hate you as much as the culture wars themselves

I wouldn't read the entire thing given that, as I mentioned, the study itself is somewhat flawed compared to the one you cited. It mostly serves supplemental purposes in my mind. If you want to look at all my research, I'm going to have to send you a bunch of books by Osama Bin Laden and Sayyid Qutb, and then we'll both wind up on a watchlist. I'd mostly focus on reading the methodology, the conclusion, and the closing pages since a lot of the other stuff is more akin to background knowledge.

You shouldn't hate me. I read your hellish deluge of articles after all, even if I tend to nitpick them for really petty reasons because of my compulsive need to be difficult, contrarian, and quirky.

[Kowani]

oh my god this is nearly 200 pages why
okay
i'll read
and then
i don't know
complain or something
rapidly coming to hate you as much as the culture wars themselves

I wouldn't read the entire thing given that, as I mentioned, the study itself is somewhat flawed compared to the one you cited. It mostly serves supplemental purposes in my mind. If you want to look at all my research, I'm going to have to send you a bunch of books by Osama Bin Laden and Sayyid Qutb, and then we'll both wind up on a watchlist. I'd mostly focus on reading the methodology, the conclusion, and the closing pages since a lot of the other stuff is more akin to background knowledge.

my knowledge of ME culture is extremely lacking regardless, and i need to fill it somehow
some of the more consequential actors in the modern day seem like a decent place to start, responsibilities for atrocities aside

You shouldn't hate me. I read your hellish deluge of articles after all, even if I tend to nitpick them for really petty reasons because of my compulsive need to be difficult, contrarian, and quirky.

and i do appreciate that you are the only person who actually reads those
well
you and gallo
nitpicking is welcomed
it allows me to fill in holes and notice limitations in the research

[Fahran]

my knowledge of ME culture is extremely lacking regardless, and i need to fill it somehow
some of the more consequential actors in the modern day seem like a decent place to start, responsibilities for atrocities aside

I'd definitely recommend beginning with Sayyid Qutb's Milestones if you want to gain insight into the paradigm that underpins Islamic fundamentalism. Qutb himself was a fascinating person and thinker, and I think he presents a nice counter-argument for anyone who wants to characterize Islamic fundamentalists as un-thinking brutes. I'd argue he presents a pretty formidable right-wing critique of neoliberalism as well across his collective works, though they're squarely rooted in modernist Islamic thought.

and i do appreciate that you are the only person who actually reads those
well
you and gallo
nitpicking is welcomed
it allows me to fill in holes and notice limitations in the research

You can poke holes in most research with enough time and effort. I think your source actually had a very strong argument regarding the short-term effects of burqa bans, but, like most research in the social sciences, adequate controls are next to impossible to get without serious ethical problems.

[Kowani]

my knowledge of ME culture is extremely lacking regardless, and i need to fill it somehow
some of the more consequential actors in the modern day seem like a decent place to start, responsibilities for atrocities aside

I'd definitely recommend beginning with Sayyid Qutb's Milestones if you want to gain insight into the paradigm that underpins Islamic fundamentalism. Qutb himself was a fascinating person and thinker, and I think he presents a nice counter-argument for anyone who wants to characterize Islamic fundamentalists as un-thinking brutes. I'd argue he presents a pretty formidable right-wing critique of neoliberalism as well across his collective works, though they're squarely rooted in modernist Islamic thought.

i'll add that to the reading list, thank you
...though i don't think anyone characterizing fundamentalists that way is going to be convinced by me going "read the works of Sayyid Qutb"
the reception would be as well as zaheer ranting about Guru Lahima-

and i do appreciate that you are the only person who actually reads those
well
you and gallo
nitpicking is welcomed
it allows me to fill in holes and notice limitations in the research

You can poke holes in most research with enough time and effort.

hence my effort to provide a compendium of sources!
...i need more meta-analyses ;_;

I think your source actually had a very strong argument regarding the short-term effects of burqa bans, but, like most research in the social sciences, adequate controls are next to impossible to get without serious ethical problems.

this is true, yes
annoying
but necessary

[Fahran]

i'll add that to the reading list, thank you
...though i don't think anyone characterizing fundamentalists that way is going to be convinced by me going "read the works of Sayyid Qutb"
the reception would be as well as zaheer ranting about Guru Lahima-

Importantly, I do think we have to consider education and class dynamics. Sayyid Qutb and Osama Bin Laden were social elites, and, in the case of Qutb, he was an important religious scholar and thinker among the Muslim Brotherhood. They likely articulated things differently from your average angry Islamist from Belgium or Saudi Arabia. With the Taliban, a lot of the early members were students in Pakistani madrassas. These people likely aren't any dumber than anyone else on average. That said, it's likely bad form to simply tell people to go read in a debate.

hence my effort to provide a compendium of sources!
...i need more meta-analyses ;_;

Your meta-analyses will fall to paradigm shifts one day. :^)

this is true, yes
annoying
but necessary

Yeppers.

[Kowani]

i'll add that to the reading list, thank you
...though i don't think anyone characterizing fundamentalists that way is going to be convinced by me going "read the works of Sayyid Qutb"
the reception would be as well as zaheer ranting about Guru Lahima-

Importantly, I do think we have to consider education and class dynamics. Sayyid Qutb and Osama Bin Laden were social elites, and, in the case of Qutb, he was an important religious scholar and thinker among the Muslim Brotherhood. They likely articulated things differently from your average angry Islamist from Belgium or Saudi Arabia.

based on what i've seen from conservative elites here in the US and in Europe, the average ones tend to just be more honest and less eloquent about their beliefs
perhaps that will not hold everywhere, but i am skeptical

With the Taliban, a lot of the early members were students in Pakistani madrassas. These people likely aren't any dumber than anyone else on average. That said, it's likely bad form to simply tell people to go read in a debate.

you just gave me a 200-page dissertation
the only reason i'm not reading it is because i've gone through a shitton of data today and my mind is tired

hence my effort to provide a compendium of sources!
...i need more meta-analyses ;_;

Your meta-analyses will fall to paradigm shifts one day. :^)

assuming for a moment that society does not entirely collapse
trends indicate that if anything, the paradigm will only shift further "left"
demographics is not necessarily destiny, but it is a substantial component