How Britain Should Promote Assimilation

Ayn Rand Institute ^ | 10/23/06

[bruinbirdman]

Britain is embroiled in a fierce debate over British Muslim women who wear a niqab--an opaque veil that covers a woman's entire face. Many British Muslims have expressed outrage that a public schoolteacher was ordered to remove her veil--while many other Britons have defended the school, criticized the wearing of niqabs, and called for the greater assimilation of Muslims into British society.

"Britons are absolutely right to criticize the niqab," said Alex Epstein, junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute. "It is a demeaning, barbaric article of clothing that inculcates shame in women, depriving them of individuality and femininity."

"But to criticize niqabs will not go very far in making Britain a more integrated, less balkanized nation. Britons' most powerful tool of assimilation is to understand and proudly and convincingly proclaim Western ideals. They must understand that what made the West great is individualism, reason, the pursuit of happiness--and that this is objectively superior to the tribalism, superstition, and earthly deprivation that many Muslims seek to live out and bring to Europe. Britons must reject the insidious idea of multiculturalism, which holds that all cultures are of equal value. Cultures are not of equal value: prosperity is superior to poverty, happiness is superior to misery, freedom is superior to slavery, and a visible face is superior to a slit revealing two anonymous eyes."

[Wilhelm Tell]

Actually, the secret to integrating Britain is to eliminate the welfare state.

I think in a lot of countries the young Islamists are often unemployed or perpetual students and in either case on welfare. They are more radical than their parents or grandparents who often actually had to work. The young Islamists think they are entitled to everything while they sit around all day being taught jihad while collecting government checks.

[NurdlyPeon]

Do you think that the veil "is a demeaning, barbaric article of clothing that inculcates shame in women, depriving them of individuality and femininity"? It sounds to me as if he's more concerned that the women are oppressed than that they are not identifiable

Well, since you asked........objectively speaking, and considering what I believe I know about the psyche of your average Joe-Towelhead, I would say yes. The veils are designed to keep women down, to keep them as property, and to keep them from interacting with other males. This is exactly the kind of insecure behavior that one would expect from drunks, adolescents, trailer trash, and Muslim men. And yes, perhaps he was more concerned with oppression than with identification. Is there a problem with that? Maybe he is concerned with both aspects, and was just speaking/focusing on one.

However, my comment was in response to your statement of "I.E., is there a difference in modest and "different" dress if it's a minority Christian group", which I addressed, and which has nothing to do with "inculcates shame in women, depriving them of individuality and femininity". In modest, minority Christian groups, the men dress in the same modest, simple fashion as the women. The modesty and simplicity is applied equally, and is probably more a matter of demonstrating humility before God rather than keeping your neighbor from scoping out your "property".