Opinion

Austrian clowns

October 02, 2017

HERE’S a good joke. Clown make-up is now banned in Austria. And if you are a surgeon or someone vulnerable to airborne diseases or who just fears pollution, as do so many citizens in Japan and China, do not make the mistake of going outside wearing a facemask. Apparently, you will be subject to arrest. That is now the law in Austria.

Oh, and if a woman is a Muslim who wants to wear a full-face veil, as of Sunday, that too will constitute a criminal offense.

Who are Austrian legislators trying to kid? This new law is aimed squarely at those Muslim women who choose to wear the niqab, which leaves only their eyes showing. Chucking in clowns with funny red noses, silly wigs and painted-on grins does not fool anybody. Indeed the transparently Islamophobic motive behind this new law is underlined by this pathetic banning of clown make-up. Unless a person lives in a city as horrifically polluted as Beijing or Mexico City, the health-obsessed who try to screen out germs by wearing a full face-mask over their nose and mouth are also an object of fun and ridicule, much like the clowns.

But is it also the intention of the Austrian authorities to hold up to mockery women who for religious and cultural reasons choose to protect their modesty by wearing a full-face veil? They are of course claiming this is not the case. In the multiculturalist world European liberals have established to their immense but dubious satisfaction, they protest there is no inherent objection to the niqab. It has nothing to do with aggression toward Islam. It is simply a question of security. There is no prejudice involved here whatsoever. No racism at all.

And yet six months ago, a flight from Vienna to Cairo was delayed because at the final boarding gate, a security man would not let a Muslim couple pass through after the wife refused to remove her niqab for a final identification. When going through passport control, a female official had been on hand to take the woman aside and compare her face with that on her passport. And yet at the final boarding check for a flight that was going to a Muslim country, there was no female official on hand to carry out the final examination. In the end, the couple were thrown off the flight because the woman refused to be checked by a male official. The departure was delayed almost an hour by the finding and removal of their hold baggage.

The rudeness and brusqueness with which Austrian security officials treated this couple, even though they spoke little German and limited English, caused considerable embarrassment, not to say anger among other passengers. This small incident now seems to encapsulate the wider racist attitude of the Austrian authorities toward Muslims.

The Austrian government has been bounced into this deplorable move ahead of the election later this month in which the Islamophobic Freedom Party is campaigning on a message of hate. It has been estimated that in all of Austria, only 150 women wear the niqab. It does not matter how it is presented, this legislation is vicious and discriminatory. It actually makes clowns of a government that claims to support values of personal freedom and democracy.


October 02, 2017
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