The Right to Bare Arms (Knees Too!)
Much ado about burkini bans in recent days. On one hand, that sounds a bit silly — women and men should be able to wear what they want, and be comfortable — on the other hand, there are good reasons to oppose burkinis on western beaches and at public pools. Here’s the best commentary I’ve read on the burkini ban thus far — Allison Pearson for the Telegraph, Burkinis: Here’s Why We Should Fight Them On The Beaches.
The burkini represents an ideology that is hostile to and incompatible with western ideas of freedom. While some Muslim women may choose to wear them, many women are forced to wear Islamic dress regardless of whether they want to or not. Wearing what you want is fine to an extent; but there are limits to what’s socially acceptable. How many would support the right of robed KKK clansmen to attend a Black Lives Matter rally, or someone walking into a synagogue wearing a Hitler costume? (Can you imagine the howling from clueless PC types, who remain bizarrely silent and blissfully ignorant on the issue of human rights when it comes to Islam?)
Women’s Islamic dress codes apparently have health consequences, too: https://wikiislam.net/wiki/Health_Effects_of_Islamic_Dress — vitamin D deficiencies, unsurprisingly. Besides, Muslim women have to be awfully uncomfortable going out in hot weather. Vin and I live in the desert; I can’t even go out in a black T-shirt in the summer without feeling as if my shoulders are burning. And it only gets to about 115 degrees, unlike some Muslim countries where the temperature might soar even higher. So I can only imagine what wearing a heavy black burka must be like.
I wonder if the ladies in this photo would expect Muslims in Saudi Arabia or Iran to stand up for THEIR rights to “wear what you want” in Muslim countries? — the sad part is, they probably do think exactly that way, if that can be called ‘thinking.’
Lots of Muslims feel entitled to come to our countries, and tell US how to dress, even what we can eat, and expect us to be tolerant of them when they aren’t willing to return the favor. Good grief . . . 🙁
It feels appropriate to end this post with a quote from Milo’s The London we’ve Lost: “If you are scared of being called a racist for speaking out against Islam, think about what people will call you in a generation if you don’t take a stand now.”