It took the Dutch government fourteen years to implement the ‘Burqa Ban.’ First passed in 2005 by a majority in the Lower House, it then failed to pass constitutional muster. Multiple revisions and multiple governing coalitions later, it finally was confirmed by both houses of parliament. Now it has come into force.
Western Europe has been accumulating prohibitions. Most recently, Denmark completely banned the Islamic facial veil, as have France, Belgium and Austria before it. Germany has banned it for motorists and is moving to eradicate it in as many public areas as possible. The Dutch ban applies to some public spaces but not others: government buildings, schools, hospitals and public transportation. Many Dutch, however, have the mistaken impression that the law applies to all public space.
This repression is part of a European-wide surge in Islamophobic symbolic politics with brutally real effects.
