Bad ideas don’t die. Sometimes they don’t even fade away.
Over the decade and a half since violent extremism became a dominant issue across the West and Middle East, there have been a host of policy prescriptions that, no matter how comprehensively debunked or counterproductive the results, have refused to die.
The “conveyor belt” theory of radicalism – that a tilt towards conservative religious practice is an indicator of extremism – is one. The banning of minor symbols of religion is another.
Yet here we are again, with the mayors of four French towns deciding to ban the burqini, a garment worn by very few women, not all of them Muslim. As always when laws are suggested that disproportionately target one religious or racial group, the justification is superficially objective: in the case of the burqini, the spurious suggestion of “hygiene”. Nor is it even clear how the ban could be enforced. As an (infrequent) surfer, I’ve worn wetsuits that are indistinguishable from a burqini – it is the only way to stay warm in cold water.
Yet neither the spurious justification nor the impossibility of enforcement are the real issues with the ban. The real issue is that the ban is sexist, racist and will only promote extremism.
In seeking a cheap headline, French mayors have attacked the freedoms of their female citizens, stigmatised both a racial community and the followers of a religion, separated the population into a group deserving of liberty and one that is not, and handed a recruiting gift to the state’s deadliest enemies. A lot of work for a day at the beach.
None of this should need explanation and it is profoundly tiring for those of us who write about liberal values to have to repeatedly explain liberalism to policymakers – especially when their misunderstanding makes a very real war much harder to fight.
Yet once again, policymakers have chosen to write their politics across the bodies of women, removing the ability of women to choose what they wish to wear and, in a rather gratuitous way, forcing them to uncover themselves.
Where does this endless desire of male politicians to undress women come from?
The racist aspect is similarly obvious. As much as proponents of laws targeting Muslim communities take pains to point out they are “only” targeting the religion and not the races of their majority adherents, such arguments are usually demonstrably unsound. Laws that disproportionately affect one racial group are by definition racist. Helpfully, the French have simply dispensed with the pretence and talk openly of the “Maghrebin” – citizens of North African origin – who wear the burqini.
The most dangerous aspect of this ban, however, is its impact on recruitment to ISIL and other jihadi groups.
Bans of the burqa and the burqini gift ISIL some of its greatest recruitment arguments. They allow ISIL to claim the West’s liberalism is shallow, merely a rhetorical stick with which to beat other nations. Once pressed, the mask of liberalism is cast aside.
ISIL already cast their supporters in Manichean terms. The French helpfully do that too, immediately placing anyone who wishes to wear the burqini or retain the choice to do so on the same side as ISIL. This is profoundly dangerous.
The more the state is perceived as attacking the Muslim community in France, pushing it to the margins and viewing it with suspicion, the more likely it is that impressionable young men and women will want to fight against that state in the belief they are defending the community.
Dividing communities in this way is not only bad politics, it has profound implications for global security. That is not an exaggeration: it is because the ISIL notion of a global war between Islam and the West has found so many willing recruits in western and Islamic countries that ISIL has managed to thrive and expand across Syria and Iraq.
By essentially accepting this division between French Muslim communities and other French citizens, the politicians have played right into the ISIL narrative. There will be more recruits because of this foolish ban, therefore more Syrians and Iraqis will be killed, and more refugees will strain Arab and European countries.
Already, the West and the Arab world are losing the battle of ideas against ISIL. With this foolish step, France has set the liberal order and its arguments back years.
What the war against extremism needs is unity. Politicians who endanger their own citizens and their allies through trivial policies are weak links in a chain. There is a serious war being waged against extremism. It will not be defeated by gesture politics on the beaches of France.
falyafai@thenational.ae
On Twitter: @FaisalAlYafai
