While I don't think a ban of the burkini is necessary, isn't a burkini still a hindrance to successful integration? Even more so a hijab or burqa? Issues pertaining to a lack of integration, in particular with respect to groups of Arabian origin, can hardly be disputed. In a perfect world which some people even here on GAF dream about, a burkini would not matter; in reality it does.
And those who say a ban of pieces of clothes is stupid: It can make perfect sense in some situations. I would not want some idiots to walk around in Hitler uniforms again. So one cannot generally say that to protect public order a ban of certain clothes is not appropriate.
Anyway, these discussions are always the same. Some specific groups just follow their agenda. Reading some articles from extremist feminists reveals it again: "the burkini is a sign of the oppression by males." No, it's not. I know females who wear a hijab voluntarily. It's not always forced upon them. Seems like there cannot be a middle ground in discussions these days, only vocal minorities seem to be heard.
I don't really see it as an issue, if anything, it's sort of a positive.
You basically have to ask yourself - what's the response by someone who would've only gone to beaches wearing a burkini?
If they just keep going, it doesn't matter much to them, etc. then isn't the law effectively just banning an article of clothing from them? That's the extent of what it's doing for women in these situations. You're taking away an option for them.
If they were only going to the beaches if they could wear the burkini, then are they just not going to the beaches now? Isn't that worse? Integration happens through conversing with and interacting with different communities in the area, but you've essentially just reduced an avenue where that could have happened. Wouldn't they just stay home at that point?
I'm going to try and explain why your comparison to Nazi uniforms is a bad one: when someone goes around marching in a nazi uniform, they've freely admitted their ideology, and that they're wearing it because they believe in a hateful, racist ideology.
Someone wearing a burkini, not so much. I can take a decent guess that that person is somewhat more conservative as a Muslim, but evidently still moderate enough to go around in public, go the beaches, etc. I have 0 idea of what someone wearing a burkini is past that. I don't know if they agree to xyz ideology, I don't know if going out to the beaches in a burkini is them being more moderate, etc. Someone wearing a nazi uniform is making it pretty obvious, because being a nazi is a pretty specific thing.
On integration, I talked alot about this in another thread, but I think it bears repeaing
Speaking from the outside here, but it's always seemed ridiculous to expect complete and total assimilation.
Maybe it's the word itself, which reminds me of a hive mind or cult.
I've just never really found the version of integration brought up in these conversations as fair. The idea of a sub-community being formed that's integrated and accustomed to the culture of the host country? Yeah, that's appealing. But the way I see it described is as if immigrants should drop everything from their past and their culture to act just like the other residents of their new residence.
Ideally, integration should involve a degree of cultural exchange: the Indian-American community has many of its own unique attributes that distinguish it, but members going to India aren't suddenly up to date with everything there (this was a random example, I'm not sure how good it is). But conversations that I see come up seem to defend this pre-set notion of what being German or Dutch or Swedish or French should mean, when ideally that should be fluid. Tbh, I don't care for whatever pre-set definition of these cultures is.
The opposite of "assimilation" seems really dumb too. "Leave them alone" types of approaches, or putting immigrants in isolated communities, both seems extremely naive and lazy.
Integration should happen, but it will happen in a more welcoming and accepting environment that tries to mix things up. The existence of sub-cultures within a culture shouldn't really be frowned upon for not being like the rest of the culture. If anything, those sub-cultures can add variety and appeal to culture as a whole. Same with the act of new immigrants joining or moving into similar communities (newsflash: when you're in a strange new country you're going to be living in, you want a degree of familiarity in your surroundings both for practical purposes and homesickness). Ideally, if your country hasn't fucked up the integration and available interactions for these smaller communities, other members can act as a springboard into interacting more with the host country's culture.
But if the communities themselves are already isolated and withdrawn, then the solution needs to focus on fixing that, not trying to remove these communities entirely. That means not alienating them and not creating laws or an atmosphere that decreases the chances of interactions outside the community.
tl;dr
A. Assimilation is a terrible word to use there
B. Integration means the immigrants should get to keep or mix their previous culture, and the host culture takes some of the new one. It doesn't mean everyone that moved to France should suddenly act according to some definition of the french.
C. Sub-communities are good and can act as springboards for integration, but only if they're not isolated
D. Every time an isolated or discriminated community is alienated, it will just cause said community to be more withdrawn, and decreases chances of external interaction and integration.
EDIT: And no, cultural exchange doesn't and won't (for the paranoid ones of you out there) mean that everyone will be out wearing burqas and oppressing women, nor that that should be accepted. But if you're gonna act like everything in these immigrant cultures is reprehensible or backwards, that maybe voting far-right makes sense for you
There's a huge difference between integration and assimilation. Tbh, when I hear people talk about how these areas have higher level of crime, don't speak our language, blah blah blah, first thing I think about is the minorities in the USA, who disproportionately make up the population of our prisons, lower class, etc. English isn't even the official language of the USA, and there's a reason for that - it's stupid to care that much about a language or culture. If in 200 years the primary language of the USA is Spanish, what has the USA really lost again? Nothing.
Maybe because the USA has so many more years of obviously shitting on its minorities, but whenever people dogwhistle about likelihood to cause crime, "thugs", integrating communities, it's so much easier to recognize and call out.
I mean, I don't think many people realize how dumb certain aspects of this whole "integration" (READ: assimilate and be like our culture) thing is. Like the example of what to wear at a wedding, or when trying to look formal. The whole concept of sunday best, of wearing suits and dresses in that situation, isn't that a totally western thing? For a holiday like Eid, would people somehow take issue if the Muslims in that city went out wearing shalwar kameez and saris? And why would that really be an issue to begin with, it's such a small thing.
Integration seems to be an issue in Europe because the two main approaches seem to be
1) Assimilate and be like us
2) Just let them be, let them make their own isolated communities
