Alan Badiou On The Burqa Ban: Behind The Scarfed Law There Is Fear

A friend of mine shared this brilliant essay by Alan Badiou (translated from French to English) on the French law banning the burqa. It’s pretty accessible and short so you should read it in its entirety. Below I’ve shared some bits that I found very interesting:

• While we’re on the subject, isn’t business the real mass religion? Compared to which Muslims look like an ascetic minority? Isn’t the conspicuous symbol of this degrading religion what we can read on pants, sneakers and t-shirts: Nike, Chevignon, Lacoste… Isn’t it cheaper yet to be a fashion victim at school than God’s faithful servant? If I were to aim at hitting a bull’s eye here-aiming big-I’d say everyone knows what’s needed: a law against brand names. Get to work, Chirac. Let’s ban the conspicuous symbols of Capital, with no compromises.

• Clear something up for me, please. What exactly characterizes Republican and feminist rationality on what is to be shown of the body in different spaces and at different times, and on what is not? As far as I understand, nowadays still, and not only at school, neither nipples are shown, nor pubic hair, nor the male member. Do I have to get angry that these parts are “withdrawn from the sight of others”? Must I suspect husbands, lovers and eldest brothers? Not that long ago in our own countryside-and still to this day in Sicily as elsewhere-widows wore black scarves, dark stockings and mantillas. You don’t have to be an Islamic terrorist’s widow to do so.

• It used to be taken for granted that an intangible female right is to only have to get undressed in front of the person of her choosing. But no. It is vital to hint at undressing at every instant. Whoever covers up what she puts on the market is not a loyal merchant.

15. Let’s argue the following, then, a pretty strange point: the law on the hijab is a pure capitalist law. It orders femininity to be exposed. In other words, having the female body circulate according to the market paradigm is obligatory.

• It is said virtually everywhere that the “veil” is an intolerable symbol of control over female sexuality. Do you really believe female sexuality to not be controlled in our society these days? This naiveté would have made Foucault laugh. Never has so much care been given to female sexuality, so much attention to detail, so much informed advice, so much distinguishing between its good and bad uses. Enjoyment has become a sinister obligation. The universal exposure of supposedly exciting parts is a duty more rigid than Kant’s moral imperative. In passing, between our tabloids’ “Enjoy it, women!” and our great-grandmothers’ dictate “Don’t enjoy it!” Lacan long ago established an isomorphism. Commercial control is more constant, more certain, more massive than patriarchal control could ever be.

• Notice well how the hijab girl’s father and eldest brother are not your mere parental associates. It has often been insinuated, sometimes even declared, that the father is an idiotic worker, a loser “right out from the country” and working the assembly line at Renault. An archaic guy, but stupid. The eldest brother deals hash. A modern guy, but corrupt. Sinister suburbs. Dangerous classes.

• The Muslim religion adds the following very serious taint to other religions: in France, it is the religion of the poor.

• All of the society jargon about “communities,” and the as metaphysical as furious combat pitting “the Republic” against “communitarianisms,” all of that is utter nonsense. Let people live the way they want to, or can, eat what they are used to eating, wear turbans, dresses, hijabs, miniskirts or tap-dancing shoes, to bow low at any time [...] to take low-bow pictures of each other or speak in colorful jargons. These kinds of “differences” do not have the slightest universal scope. They neither hinder thought, nor uphold it. Nor is there a reason to either respect or vilipend them. That the “Other” lives a little bit differently-as admirers of discreet theology and portable morality are wont to say after Lévinas-is so obvious an observation as to be meaningless.

• But especially, Westerners in general and the French in particular are afraid of death. They are no longer able to imagine how an Idea might be something for which risks are worth taking. “Zero death” is their most important desire. They see millions of people around the world who, for their part, have no reason to be afraid of death. And among them, many die in the name of an Idea almost daily. For the “civilized” this is the source of a most intimate sense of terror.

• We get the wars we deserve. In this world that is numbed with fear, the big gangsters mercilessly bomb countries drained of blood. Medium gangsters practice targeted assassinations of those who bother them. It’s the really small crooks who draft laws against hijab.