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Comment by marcod | Hacker News Reader

Well, that same system also voted on banning Muslim face coverings ("Experts estimate that at most a few dozen Muslim women wear full-face coverings in the country of 8.5 million people."), while a pandemic is going on and face coverings for protection are recommended.

https://apnews.com/article/health-legislation-coronavirus-pa...

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You seem to be expressing an opinion about banning Muslim face coverings.

I am not responding to your expression of opinion - just clarifying how the Swiss electoral system is structured.

That vote was a referendum, which is another component of the Swiss system, separate and complimentary to the Executive Council.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_Switzerland

My bad, I thought the anti electronic ID vote was also a referendum.

Populist ideas, can easily thrive in a direct democracy.

It was. And the face covering ban was spinned to be against the customs of a minority. It is still allowed indoors.

Every country has some clothing requirements. Some mandate headscarfs (for women only), some mandate the face remains visible. No laws were needed for this in Swiss because no people were covering up. But now this has changed, so laws come. I dont find any problem with it, and hope that the "custom" of genital mutilation done to children is next to be forbidden. You can still do it, at 18, but yr parents should not be able to decide for you. Not against jews/muslims, just in favor of childrens rights. Scandinavia is front running on this one.

"But now this has changed, so laws come."

A few dozen women in a country of 8.5 million do not need a law, especially one that doesn't really do anything for the victims, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26380029

Also, look at that image https://storage.googleapis.com/afs-prod/media/1aad669348cc4c...

Burqua isn't islamic to begin with anyway.

Yep it's definitely a cultural thing. I think it really is mostly to suppress women and not as a way one shows their religion which one does by living and not by clothing.

Historically, the veil was considered a huge step forward for women's rights/freedoms as it allowed them to leave the house more than three times in their life. Before that, they left the house to marry and move from their father's home to their husband's and when they died....and maybe I am misremembering that number of "three times" or maybe I just can't remember the third instance.

(I'm a woman. I've had a college class in Women's History. FWIW.)

Point is, islam was a progressive religion. But many countries took it in as a regressive one since they were also taking in customs from the culture which islam was supposed to progress.

Which totally misses the point. You shouldn't have been importing burqua if women were already were allowed to go outside without it.

The reality is that progress tends to be a case of two steps forward and one step back. It's also reality that this is true in part because people come up with these theoretical ideals of equality or something and they sometimes don't work in practical reality.

Additionally, one way to spread religion is to be tolerant of the existing culture of the people you are hoping to spread the religion to. This is Christianity is associated with a lot of holidays that have seemingly inane and random traditions, such as Easter and Easter Bunnies and hiding Easter eggs.

What on earth do bunnies and hiding eggs have to do with each other, much less the risen Christ? Not much, but it's some pagan set of traditions that got tolerated by the Christian church and that's how you have bunnies and hidden eggs all wrapped up with the risen Christ.

https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/history-of-easter

Yes, I'm mainly complaining about the reverse happening with islam's spread (due to it being spread by wars). Instead of islam progressively adapting to each country's culture, it brought regressive practices with it.

Well, now they'll have to stay at home again...which is what the fascists who brought that in actually wanted. They just don't want to see them on the streets.

It's kinda sad that so many supported this and I'm happy that this wide ban would (probably...) be unconstitutional in Germany.

Someone not letting their wife out because burqua is banned is outright abuse, and should be dealt with that way. It isn't even a common piece of clothing in the majority of muslim countries. (+1 point to horseshoe theory: apparently islam forbids women to go out without burquas according to both extreme leftists and rightists, bu noone else)

How should you deal with it when you're not even seeing it and can't even prove that the woman is being held in her home against her will if her will is already so weak that she'd wear a burka? This is what I meant: you just make the problem disappear from the public with that measure. You don't solve anything and make it actually worse for the women.

I don't even know how you get the leftists in there but at this point I'm too afraid to ask...

What's wrong with banning a backwards custom that limits women's rights?

Because the presumption is that the women in question are being forced to do this and don't want to.

But your solution is to implement a law which punishes the victim, rather then doing anything about their presumed victimizer.

If the women who didn't want to wear the covering didn't want to wear it, what is stopping them from simply not doing it to start with? The answer of course is husband's, brothers, family etc. and probably that they'd be recognized in their community.

But this is someone's religion - a fair bit more important to them then the laws of the state in a lot of cases. So you haven't answered how you're going to protect those women from being targeted and forced to simply never leave the house, if they are being targeted by people who are forcing them to do something they don't want to.

Your law offers no solution to this - and again - implements itself by targeting the apparent victims it proposes to protect with punishment.

Setting aside that the government can stay the hell out of what I choose to wear, this is just a monumentally stupid approach to anything.

The laws of religion should not override those of the state. To do so would lead to a theocracy and that has been shown to be almost universally bad on any large scale.

The laws of the state shouldn't go out of their way to get in the way of the laws of religion, doing so for no real reason other than spite.

To do so creates conflict where there should be none, which is against the very purpose of a state.

I imagine the women are not physically forced (or maybe only some are) but instead are “educated” from childhood that this is the way. How would you solve it then?

Massive public education campaign, as is routinely done for many other topics found objectionable by various religions but acceptable in secular society? From birth control to blood transfusions to interest on loans?

At minimum, show the non-religious benefits of doing (or not doing) a thing and why it is relevant for the individual. Don’t punish the victim for doing the thing; if someone must be punished, make it the person imposing the action.

> Massive public education campaign

That's only slightly better than getting a fine. If gov would run a ad campaign / school program with "making women wear burka is bad" then the victims would still be the ones to suffer because it's still directed at the way of life as they know it.

Let's stop a backwards custom that is practiced by 30 people with a backwards law that limit's clothing choices for seven Million people.

I'm friends with a few Muslim women and can assure you that it has nothing to do with choice.

I knew hundreds of muslim woman and many do it by choice. So what now?

i think your point is valid but still shouldn't enter the fray.

This is about swiss nationality and customs. Not about women's rights.

Just like you don't go to your greek neighbor's dinner party wearing a turkish flag, there are things you don't do when you are the guest at someone else's party.

The burka represents a lot of very nasty things, in countries that the overwhelming majority (60%) believe 911 was totally OK and beheading or stoning minorities is OK.

The fact is, you don't frown on people because they are spitting on some ideal of freedom. You frown of them because they don't get the basic rules of decency.

My house. My rules.

> The burka represents a lot of very nasty things, in countries that the overwhelming majority (60%) believe 911 was totally OK and beheading or stoning minorities is OK.

There are countries in Europe that are majority Muslim (Bosnia, Kosovo, Albania) where nobody thinks that, and where any kind of face cover is totally up to the choice. Turkey isn't that extreme either. Neither is Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nigeria, etc etc.

Why don't people ever think of those and jump straight to the Middle East? There are just as many Muslims living in India as there are in the Middle East.

So much for "a woman's right to choose"

In what way does it limit women's rights?

Have you ever been to the beach? Have you noticed that in many western countries, all the men have bare chests and all the women are covering their breasts? Does this custom limit women's rights? Providing that women have the same legal right as men to go bare chested, as far as I can tell no rights are being infringed.

But maybe you disagree, do you think a law banning the wearing of bikinis by women would be a victory for women's rights?

I don't know, countering an authoritative practice that affects women's choice with another authoritative practice that affects women's choice kinda just seems dumb.

Because it is a complex cultural issue and banning it probably harms woman further from an already oppressed state. In some cases basically imprisoning them into their homes or forcing them to relocate. No one bothered asking those woman about their thoughts or circumstances.

Is it not more of an expression of how the general public of (native) Europeans want to keep their country for their people and culture

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