Dutch courage?

The government in the Netherlands is considering a ban on the burqa in public places, a move that will inconvenience no more than around 100 Dutch Muslim women, but no doubt seriously piss off a good deal more disaffected Muslim men.

In the Sunday Times today Ian Buruma urges caution on those that would roll back multiculturalism, at least when it comes to its outward symbols like dress codes:

"The women who choose to wear burqas, and most followers of Islamic neo-orthodoxy, do so in a spirit of defiance not just against the country in which they grew up, but also against their parents and their village ways. Far from being the products of some backward cultural community, the new believers are mostly loners who download their ideological extremism from the internet...Let people wear headscarves if they wish. Islam as such is not incompatible with citizenship of a liberal democracy. The violent imposition of a revolutionary faith is, but it will only be contained only if mainstream Muslims feel accepted as fellow citizens."

Over in Pakistan Blair and Musharraf are trying to popularise a new name for the broader problem, Talibanisation, by which they appear to mean the intent to use religion to close down society, or at least pockets within it. I'm not as convinced as Buruma that headscarves are entirely innocent parties in this, but it is clear that we need to address the ways people think more urgently than we need to constrain the ways they dress. Burqa bans won't bring us that much closer to an open, rational society.