political scientism | there goes the neighborhoodie

I hate controversy. Really, really hate it. I don’t want to think about how many illegitimate children I’ve brought into this world simply to avoid an uncomfortable conversation about taking a relationship to the “next step.”

I say this only so that you will understand the dread with which I am approaching this week’s theme at theavantguardian.org: hats. Hats, as in headscarves, veils and burqas. So if you’re anything like me, hold your nose, we’re about to go in … and this is bound to get controversial.

Let’s start with the headlines, like this one, from England: “Jewellers robbed by thief in burka.” (Query whether the Brits’ inability to spell is charming, like their accents, or off-putting, like their teeth?) Or this one, from Australia, which is like England, except it started as a penal colony — and has only gotten worse since: “Armed robbery in burqa leads to call for ban.”

To the unenlightened reader of such headlines, it might seem like the burqa is little more than a glorified ski mask. When considered in this light, I’d no more oppose a ban on burqas than I would oppose a ban on live rattlesnakes in mattresses.

Problem is, there are all sorts of masks that can obscure people’s faces and facilitate the commission of crimes, from the definitively un-sexy masquarade masks favored by the adulturous, orgiastic lechers in Eyes Wide Shut;

to the rad aviators featured in the Unabomber sketches;

to these “go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200″ masks.

It is easy to understand the ire directed at French politicans who banned the burqa in all public places, even though the average American high school student’s weekend typically incorporates the three arguably less wholesome accessories pictured above.

Unsurprisingly for a culture that has spent the last couple hundred years perfecting the art of creating cheese that smells like someone who ate only feet for a week and then threw up and then refused to brush his teeth for yet another week, the French missed the point because the controversy doesn’t lie at the extremes.

The real question is not whether burqas should be allowed in public at all — of course they should — it is what to do in those narrow, specific cases when wearing a burqa poses a reasonable risk of infringing on the security or rights of others.

What to make of this headline? “Burka-clad woman unchecked at airport.” Or this one? “Australian woman refuses to testify without burqa?” Short of an outright ban, is there a place for legislation that ensures that we are screened before boarding a plane and permits a jury to weigh the credibility of all witnesses by judging their facial expressions?

It’s really our (the non-burqa wearing contingent) fault. We did build an entire culture around recognizing people by their faces. There’s nothing that says my passport should have to include a picture of my face, when it could instead contain my DNA code, which could then be matched by a quick blood test at the airport. Same for a recognizing distress by interpreting facial signals. Bees and dogs have been known to detect fear and anxiety by smell, so why not a human juror?

I don’t mean to be flip, but rather to illustrate the complexity of the problem, because, after all, the whole idea behind enshrining religious liberty as a bulwark of advanced society is that one person’s right to freely exercise their religion creates inconveniences that the rest of us are obligated to tolerate. I tolerate the sound of motorcycles in my neighborhood (barely), and God didn’t even tell them to be jerks — they just do it on their own.

True to form, I’ve reached my word limit without weighing in on either side of a live controversy. At best, I’ve alienated both camps. Hats off (or on) to all of you that got this far without the satisfaction of a stirring conclusion. At least no one got pregnant, and that’s why blogging beats real life.

Image Credits: Wikimedia Commons

Tags: burqas, controversy, hats, hoodies