As a companion piece to yesterday's article link and short essay, I today discovered a fairly new video circulating on the internet concerning French police arresting a woman for wearing the niqab. She is screaming and they are using a great deal of force to arrest her. I'll post further information on this as it develops and if I can find more information about this woman. The video isn't graphic, but her screams are absolutely blood curdling. Also, it's on liveleak, so avoid clicking any of the other links. You'll regret it.
The implications for this are somewhat alarming. I view this ban as being a stepping stone for further pushes to eliminate religious garb in Europe, specifically targeting Muslims. If Europe wants Muslims to integrate, super. I applaud all efforts to encourage such people to adopt European custom. However, in the case of France, if you didn't want Algerians in France you PROBABLY SHOULD NOT HAVE COLONIZED THEIR LAND AND MADE THEM DE FACTO FRENCH CITIZENS.
France, of course, has always been in denial about her colonial atrocities concerning North Africa. Alexis de Tocqueville had this to say,
"War in Africa is a science. Everyone is familiar with its rules and everyone can apply those rules with almost complete certainty of success. One of the greatest services that Field Marshal Bugeaud has rendered his country is to have spread, perfected and made everyone aware of this new science... As far as I am concerned, I came back from Africa with the pathetic notion that at present in our way of waging war we are far more barbaric than the Arabs themselves. These days, they represent civilization, we do not. This way of waging war seems to me as stupid as it is cruel. It can only be found in the head of a coarse and brutal soldier. Indeed, it was pointless to replace the Turks only to reproduce what the world rightly found so hateful in them. This, even for the sake of interest is more noxious than useful; for, as another officer was telling me, if our sole aim is to equal the Turks, in fact we shall be in a far lower position than theirs: barbarians for barbarians, the Turks will always outdo us because they are Muslim barbarians. In France, I have often heard men I respect but do not approve of, deplore that crops should be burnt and granaries emptied and finally that unarmed men, women and children should be seized. In my view these are unfortunate circumstances that any people wishing to wage war against the Arabs must accept. I think that all the means available to wreck tribes must be used, barring those that the human kind and the right of nations condemn.I personally believe that the laws of war enable us to ravage the country and that we must do so either by destroying the crops at harvest time or any time by making fast forays also known as raids the aim of which it to get hold of men or flocks. Whatever the case, we may say in a general manner that all political freedoms must be suspended in Algeria."
Today, matters might be worse. In 2005, France passed a law requiring schools to teach about the positive effects of French colonialism in North Africa. I've provided an English translation of it, courtesy of Google Translate. Essentially, France wishes to forget about colonial atrocity, forget about the way it presently treats her North African citizens and in general just try to insist that these North Africans, many of whom served loyally to France in many previous conflicts, just be "French".
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