The way in which different European countries respond to the debate over Islamic face coverings for women is beginning to offer important insights into how well they are mentally and culturally equipped to deal with the continent’s ever expanding Muslim populations.

After the French parliament almost unanimously approved a ban on the burka on July 13, the focus of attention in Europe has now shifted to Britain where Conservative MP Philip Hollobone is introducing a bill to parliament which would forbid the wearing of the burka or the niqab in public places.

It has now emerged, however, that the deeply entrenched forces of multiculturalist political correctness in Britain have already begun to mobilise. Hollobone is being threatened with legal action under the Equality Act for refusing to hold meetings with voters in his area who insist on wearing their veils.

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Now, let’s be clear about a couple of things right from the beginning: First, all other things being equal a liberal-democratic society should have no problem accommodating a multiplicity of different cultures, and the traditions and customs that go with them; Second, in a free society, again with that proviso — all other things being equal — the way people dress in particular should be entirely their affair. As general propositions about Western society, few would disagree.

But with the French parliament’s decision to ban the burka this week in mind, it is a sign of the shallowness of much of Europe’s liberal establishment that no greater level of sophistication about such issues, and the profound implications they entail, is currently possible. The burka ban has been variously described across the continent by bien pensant opinion as “racism” “bigotry” and “Islamophobia”. So much is to be expected. But in some cases, they have truly outdone themselves.

First prize in the contest for the stupidest commentary imaginable goes to none other then Britain’s very own Guardian newspaper, whose editorial today is in parts laugh-out-loud hilarious. Consider the following, as our heroes summon up every ounce of conceivable insight to deliver what they presumably regard as the coup de grace on French and, by extension, Western, hypocrisy:

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If you want an illustration of the parallel universe inhabited by our friends in the Islamist community — the people that my country’s foreign ministry, Barack Obama, the EU and company think it is possible to have a rational conversation with — check this out from Somalia:

“Somali militants threaten World Cup TV viewers”

That’s the headline on a story from the BBC, hence the word “militants” to describe what the rest of us know to be bloodthirsty Islamist terrorists. But let’s give the BBC a pass on that this time round. The story is a gem and tells you a lot more about the mindset of Islamism than many bien pensants would like you to know:

“Somali militants have threatened football fans they will be publicly flogged - or worse - if they are caught watching the World Cup on TV,” the BBC reports.

“Gangs of Islamists are reported to be patrolling the areas they control looking for people watching games. Dedicated fans are watching matches in secret, or in the few areas controlled by government forces. On Saturday militants killed two people as they attacked a house where people were watching a game.”

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In a story almost too parodical to be true, it is being reported that Muslim groups in the United States (I repeat, “the United States”, not Europe), have issued a fatwa against body scanners now being introduced at airports to combat the threat from terrorism.

Cited by the Huffington Post, the Metro Detroit section of the freep.com website quotes The Fiqh Council of North America, a symposium comprising leading Islamic scholars, as saying:

“It is a violation of clear Islamic teachings that men or women be seen naked by other men and women…Islam highly emphasizes haya (modesty) and considers it part of faith. The Quran has commanded the believers, both men and women, to cover their private parts.”

The ruling has also been supported by The Council on American-Islamic Relations which said:

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Melanie Phillips — the outspoken and brilliant analyst of British establishment hypocrisy and denial over Islamist extremism — has once again become the target of a vicious and wholly dishonest attack for her courageous stance.

Long a hate figure among the weakest and the worst in Britain’s opinion forming classes, her prescient book Londonistan has been lambasted by a Guardian columnist who draws from a bizarre report by the University of Exeter’s European Muslim Research Centre which blames writers such as Phillips for fanning the flames of Islamophobia by having the effrontery to draw attention to Islamist extremism.

Bizarre, indeed deranged, as this line of thinking may be it is an all too familiar illustration of the mindset of a British establishment which simply cannot cope with the consequences of its decades-long love affair with multi-culturalist political correctness.

As Phillips rightly says in her blog in the Spectator (see link below): “The real agenda of this study is censorship by intimidation – to defame and smear all those who comment, however responsibly, on a matter of such intense public importance as Islamic extremism and terrorism.”

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