The Burkha Ban and the Tyranny of the Majority

And so it's raising its ugly head again - the talk of a ban on the burka.

Regular readers will know my stance on this; I'm not for any ban on full-face veils. That's not to say that I like the concept of the burka, or the niqab - however I feel the same way about them as I do most religious symbols. They are pointless, but not threatening. I think they are silly, but not offensive. If anything, I think a t-shirt with Che Guevara on it is more offensive than a Muslim veil. And no, I'm not calling for a ban on crass t-shirts. I don't think the state has any right to decide on what its citizens wear - if it starts to, then it may as well give Cabinet positions to those nauseating judgmental gits Trinny and Susannah.

And I also don't believe that the burka is synonymous with misogyny and sexism. I'm sure that some women are forced to wear the burka against their will, but that it doesn't then follow that all women who wear the veil are forced to do so. Some might choose to wear them. To believe that all women are forced into wearing the garment is like arguing that all western women who wear a short skirt are forced to do so by abusive and/or domineering men. That isn't the case; it maybe true in some scenarios, but by no means all. Besides, I think there is something very odd about trying to make the banning of the burka into a feminist crusade - effectively, this is saying that we're going to make women more free by removing the choice of whether or not they can wear the burka.

However, a couple of new arguments have come up from the pro-ban brigade. Firstly, we have the assertion that we should do it because the French have also done it. Sorry, but no dice. The French have done many things throughout their history that we have not done; the fact that another country has chosen to do something does not make it (a) right or (b) something we have to do as well.

Perhaps the better new argument from the pro-ban brigade, though, comes in the shape of the results from a recent poll mentioned in this Daily Telegraph article:

A YouGov survey last week found that 67 per cent of voters wanted the wearing of full-face veils to be made illegal.

And so, the argument goes, if 67% of the people want it, surely we should go for it, given we are a democracy?

Well, first up, polls are notoriously unreliable. According to the polls, Thomas Dewey won the 1948 US Presidential election, and Neil Kinnock won the 1992 UK General Election. Part of the problem with polls is that they don't actually ask the voters - they actually ask a tiny group of voters that they believe is representative of the people as a whole. This then allows for all sorts of distortion, including in how these things are reported. The line from the Telegraph article above should read "67% of the small group of potential voters approached as part of the survery want it" rather than claiming that "67 per cent of voters want it".

The other problem with polls is about the question(s) being asked. You might get 67% of those asked claiming that they want a ban if you ask something like this: "In order to combat the ever-present threat of international terrorism, do you believe the oppressive burka should be banned?" However, if you change the question to something like "do you believe that as an open, tolerant and non-racist country Britain should continue to allow women to chose whether they wish to wear the burka", you might find 67% against the ban. And neither question would test just how much people care about the issue of a burka ban. There is much truth in the idea that you can make polls say pretty much anything you like.

But even if over 50% of the British population were demanding the ban of the burka right now as a matter of absolute top priority, it still wouldn't make it right. Indeed, many liberal theorists committed to democracy were deeply worried about the tyranny of the majority - which is exactly what this would be. 51% of the population can be wrong, and they can be wrong and oppressive...

Ultimately, we won't solve the problem of religious fundamentalism or sexism/misogyny by banning the burka. However, the ban would make Britain a little less liberal and a little less free. And it will also perpetuate the patronising and repugnant myth that all women from ethnic minorities are not capable of making their own decisions, and require others to make them "free" - whether they want this ersatz enforced freedom or not.