First discussion topic: Freedom and the Burkini

Hi Everyone. I'm sorry that I forgot to ask what you wanted to discuss but at least I get to choose the subject I thought I'd like you to discuss what you think about "Freedom" in France. What does it mean to you? Is it limited? Is it increasing? I'd also like you to talk about freedom with particular focus on the recent Burkini bans on some French beaches. Do you think they were reasonable? Are they divisive? Dangerous? A good safety measure? Are they sexist? Should the wearing of crosses be banned on beaches too?

Anything you want to discuss concerning Freedom (s)....

Hi,
In my opinion, the freedom refers to a state where someone is not under the pressure of someone else thanks a particular power. In France we are free to do lot of things as long as we are respecting the laws and the freedom of each of us. However, i think that we can't say "freedom is increasing or reducing" because each persons will have differents opinion according to the age, the mentality, the social class etc..
Concerning the Burkini case, it's for me just a subject for politician to gain votes for elections. Since lot of centuries, each religions have distinct habits, item of clothing etc for recognizing their appartenance, and forbid one of them will just make a new one in the future to recognize the appartenance again.
Some politicians use for example the fact that it's not hygienic to wear it for others people but do you think that the dirty dogs, the children who are without item of clothing, the rubbish etc are more hygienic ? I don't think so..
Good week !

Hi. To my mind, Freedom is really limited in France but nothing mean compared to other countries. I can't say if it's increasing or decreasing but at least it does really exist here.
Freedom is about being allowed to express ourselves, do what we want to, where we want to, when we want to. It can't be precisely defined because everything about is relative. Anyway, its limit has already been illustrated by the Burkini fact. I don't understand their exact purposes but I just have one question to worry about : Is being topless less immoral than wearing a burkini?

Tessie Randriambelo wrote:: Is being topless less immoral than wearing a burkini?

incredible isn't it?

Still you can't hide a bazooka when you're topless - apparently.

Hi,
in my view, freedom in France is nowadays, really bound to the question of security. Indeed, the debate about the state of emergency, and the possibility that it entails a limitation of the liberties is often evoke.
I have mixed feelings about that; firstly I think that our liberties (and safety) are guaranteed by this state of emergency; in fact it allow to prevent other slaughters. Nevertheless, it allows to the government, prefect,or mayors to take destructive of freedom measures (curfew, limitation of demonstratio...); even if they were never taken so far. So personaly, I think that in our country we can't complain, because even at this moment we have more freedom than most of the other country. Even if i admit, that we can make progress on certain personal freedom.
Whose burkini belong. However, this specific point, raises the question of safety. We can't see and know who wear this clothing (man or woman), and what she can hide.
So to conclude, it appears that the personal feeling about freedom in France is bound to the society safety.

Hi,

As for me, I think freedom is to exercise the right what we have. Concerning the freedom in France, it seems to me that France is more free than China. Personally, in China, we are limited for free speech. And we are also not allowed to do something which is anti-communism. But fortunately, we live in China safely relative to France because of these limits.

In France, this is true, people are really free to do what they want to. That's why there are more and more questions of security appeared in France. For example, there are always accidents when French people hold a demonstration. I saw many times the reportage say that the shooting case take place when the people marching. As long as I am concerned, the freedom is important but it should also be limited.

About the Burkini bans, on the one hand, I think it's reasonable. For the women, to be requested to wear the Burkini, it's unfair. And I always don't understand why women muslim are neglected compare to men. Women should possess the same right like the men muslim. On the other side, I think it limits the right of Muslin. Because the people who want to wear the Burkini should be free to do. Limit and punish, this behavior maybe will cause a great deal of dissatisfaction of Muslin, which will lead to the disharmony between the French and Muslim. I think the government should find a better way to treat the Burkini.

The freedom means to me is to do what you want to do, making your own choices and be your self.You don't have to ask for permission of somebody else. Most importantly, when you are free,it means you can have your own speech that you can share with other people even if they do not agree with you.For those reasons and a whole lot more,freedom is important for me that's very thing to have in my life.
For the burkini ban, although many people think that's a little bit of racial discrimination,but France banned in public show obvious religious symbols,not only for muslims.The laws and regulations such as wearing cross in public place is not conform to the laws and the objectif to eliminate these religious symbols, is also in order to eliminate racial and religious differences, brought by the enables people to live in harmony.
But why those are so much controversy?perhaps because of respect for individuals or for groups of this profound philosophic question, already worth a dispute.

As we all know, France's motto is "liberté, égalité, fraternité". That sounds very beautifull...
If we look at the dictionnary there is a lot of definitions for the word freedom. But generaly, if you are free, it means that you can make choices.
If we take the case of burkini, to me it sounds like french government doesn't realy know musulman peoples. Maybe in some other part of the world, a lot of women are treated roughly. But it doesn't mean that all french musulmans have the same problem. Moreover, France claims that she is a state country which means that she have to be tolerant with religion and not simply with christianity.

Now, if we look at the musulman woman that chooses to wear a burkini :
First, she chooses to be musulman, because she is free and she choose to follow this religion. Then, her religion doesn't permite her to show her body, so she decides to wear a burkini to have a good time during holidays.
She is free. And she doesn't mean to offense anybody. Even her god can't blame her !
But then come the french government to say : "No burkini !"
By doing this, they betray there motto, because they break the choice of this woman, she isn't free anymore. And they also betray there positions about religions.

It is not reasonable and it makes racism growing up. We should better be tolerant and preach love unstead of useless bullshit. With better behavior and less restriction, i think people should chill out, become more peacefull and help each other unstead of fearing that there neighboor is a terrorist.

Freedom can be defined as the right to act, speak and think as one wants without restraint. It may include freedom of thought, of speech, of religion, of expression, of assembly and so on.
In some ways I would say freedom is guaranteed in France. For example you often express yourselves by holding a demonstration, free from police intervention (unless you resort to violence). There are many countries in the world where people are not allowed to exercise this kind of right.

But regarding freedom of religion, it would seem that it is threatened by “Islamophobia” and that the term “laïcité” is used to discriminate particular religions. If the government seeks to guarantee religious freedom in a true sense, it should treat all religions equally, that is, let people express their religious belief freely.
This right may be limited if it is likely to incur risks to public order, but it is off the point to consider wearing burkini to be provocative.
If public displays of religious faith should be prohibited, cross necklaces, for example, should also be banned.

Hikari, nice post but what are you doing awake at 3:46am?

For national security reasons, it is important to legislate on the wearing of Burkini.
In a constitutional state like France, safety must be a priority for the maintenance of democracy.

Fighting religions is part of our secularism. We accept all religions in France and that's why we need to fight religions and condemn with the greatest firmness.

We are in a secular state and that is why we speak of religion almost weekly in newspapers and every 6 months in Parliament to find solutions to religions.

To avoid controversy, it is important to create a law on customs and practices of religion, for religion of secularism wins.

This should be a national priority in order to forget unemployment, poverty and the economy and the laws that block the activity of enterprises.

Finally for our freedom, we must increase the number of laws in France and create laws for everything. With 36,000 laws in France against 2500 laws in Germany, we can do better.
Indeed, it is important to have more than 40,000 laws. It is important for the economy of the book, and thus for GDP.

We can save France and liberty. Just make more laws, to print well over civil code.

Hi everyone,

For me, freedom is the most important thing that we must protect, particularly in France because we are the country of human rights
But today, with the terrorist attacks of Toulouse, Paris or even Nice, France wants to make safer like USA after September 11th attacks with the Patriot Act. We can see that this policy is not really effective in the USA. With this kind of program, we lose our freedom because there is no protection of our privacy.

Moreover, we have talked about the problem of secularism with the Muslim religion for many years and many more with the terrorism today. For the French (generally), the Muslims don't integrate into society and want to force us to live like them but in this way, the French exclude this population. That's when the controversy around the Burkini began, but before it was the burqa. A lot of people draw a parallel between the terrorists and the women in Burkini, but for me it's completely crazy

To my mind, in France, the secularism allow to practice any religion in accordance with the others and so you can wear what you want

Hello;
Freedom is one of the fundaments of our country, I Think it is exagerating to say that there is a backward movement bound to all the events of these last months. We are lucky, because in other countries it is not the case.
Countries where they have fewer liberties than us (freedom of speach in particular) , instead they have dictatorships or there is no freedom at all.
After everything that happend about the Burkini, is for me exaggerating to make a whole scandal about that, meanwhile there are much more important things that happen at the moment. Its since thirty years that this discussion about religious dresses exists. Yes France is a securalism country but the French people have the right to have any religion, Christian, Jew, Muslim … That is a part of their religion, they decided to follow the religion and to become a Muslim. It is as a woman that we make this choice, they choose to cover their body, it is a choice and we cannot forbid them to make it and thus to carry the burkini, they are entitled to go to the beach as they want!
The foreign press laughs about France on this subject and some might think that France is anti-Muslim. According to human rights and liberties, said in a article: "every person has right to liberty of thought, consciousness and religion". Thus it is necessary to respect that, France is the country of human rights and freedom after all.

Interesting comments from many of you.

Do you think that the French are as free or more or less free than the English?

Hello, sorry for the delate but I couldn't connect before, thank internet...
From my point of view, we have to respect the religion of each. It is true that to see a woman on the beach covered with her religious clothing can be surprising or sometimes shocking for some people. But if it's the choice of this woman and not another person who requires her, why not.
The freedom is a fundamental principe of our country but you should not forget the secularism!
I think however that at first sight, the burkini is not dangerous for our society, what is dangerous it is the debate which created all around, resulting from politics but also from journalists who are sometimes the first ones who create a previously non-existent conflict.

To answer then the second question about France and England, I think that you, English you have a very open spirit but also a very traditional side. But your country is so cosmopolitan (especially the city of London) that may be you are more open minded on this subject..

The problem in this debate is the fact that the burkini case touch big notions ,the freedom and the secularism. Moreover , we can not define perfectly the  secularism or to a lesser extent the freedom and the lines between them are so often blurred.
Our prime minister tried to define the secularism, "it is the freedom to believe or not to believe. But it is the requirement, also, to never impose its faiths or his practices to the other one". I'm not sure this definition is clear. We can ask ourselves if the burkini is just a mean for his women to impose his faiths or just a religious choice.

Hi,in my opinion,politics and high graded peoples use the freedom problem when it comes in handy for them, knowing that it's directly related to the problem of security. I mean the burkini problem came right after the terrorist attack in Nice and every one is aware that this is not a coincidence, and the shocking part is that they want us to believe that a wowen in burkini is less dressed than a wowen in bikini ? You know you got a problem when other countries are looking at you like: "Really ?". I don't believe we can talk about freedom when people can't "at least" be free to express their faith in their religion or dress as they want. Of course they are many more countries worse or better than France in dealing with this subject but we are actually walking in a dangerous path.

Hello everybody!
To my mind, we can't accept the burkini because of the national situation, it's just a question of national security, and moreover, the relationship between Islam and french people is very difficult for the moment so, people don't feel safe and if you don't feel safe, you're not free.
But on the over hand if you negate the authorization to wear a burkini on the beach, it's an attempt to the freedom. "One person's freedom ends where another's begins"

Ah! and I don't want to feed the rivalry between France and England

Hi,
Before discuss about "Freedom", it's important to define the word. Fredoom is the possibility to speak, to make choices without restrictions. In France, the motto "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité" is one of the pillar of our country.
Today, some people forget these values. In case of burkini, some people decided to make the choice to practise the muslim religion. In this religion, the burkini is the item of clothing for musulman women who want to take advantages of the beach or the bathing in a dress in accordance with their values.
Make free choices, practice freely and peacefully his religion, isn't it the values of France ?

Hi,
For me, freedom is : do what you want, without obligation, but stay in respect. When someone said " Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité" it's not just a beautifull sentence, no it's France mentality. Since summer, we have a argument in France : Burkini, it's clothing created to allow the muslim wooman to to the beach, ! Keep or delete this clothing. On this subject i'm torn.
Muslimwomen can wear the burkini on french beaches if they do of their own sandstone. But i see a lot of situations where the woman is obliged because her husband forces. And it's no liberty sprit. Maybe the government need to create a organization for defend the rights of the muslim woomen. A Big orgnization, listened and recognized ! Bring men to let theirs wives choose.

Hi !
To my mind, Everybody wear what they want. To me, it's not a debate.

Hi everybody,
to my mind, it's a complicated political history, which affects both the freedom and secularism. Concerning the freedom, Muslim women are normally free to wear what they want, but from a strictly secular standpoint, to show a public religious sign can be seen as unacceptable in France.

Adrian Vinatier wrote:Hi !
To my mind, Everybody wear what they want. To me, it's not a debate.

Nah! It's an English exercise.

ronanroquet wrote:Hi everybody,
to my mind, it's a complicated political history, which affects both the freedom and secularism. Concerning the freedom, Muslim women are normally free to wear what they want, but from a strictly secular standpoint, to show a public religious sign can be seen as unacceptable in France.

Why and by whom?