I have this sinking feeling

You know that scene from The Godfather after they've gone to the mattresses and Michael's exiled to Sicily, the one that's like a time lapse of the mob war where there's the kind of ragtimey piano music playing, and the newspaper keeps spinning out into the foreground with headlines like "POLICE HUNT COP-KILLER" and "CITY CRACKS DOWN" and "THIRD MONTH OF GANGLAND VIOLENCE" and whatnot? You see the same device used in like the Time-Life documentary series about THE RISE OF THE THIRD REICH, this foreshadowing with "HITLER ELECTED TO LEAD GERMANY" and "JEWS FORCED TO REGISTER WITH GOVERNMENT" and "WEHRMACHT ROLLS INTO SUDETENLAND" to build your sense of drama and anxiety about events you already know took place.

Am I the only one with the weird sense that we'll one day see this same sort of documentary montage, replete with headlines like "Sarkozy Says Burka 'Not Welcome' in France" and "Belgian MPs Vote to Ban Islamic Burqa in Public" and "French Parliament Codemns Full Islamic Veil" in the buildup of Time-Life's 2050 offering "THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS: the European Tinderbox in the Great West-v-Islam Culture War"?

Oh, I am? Well, don't mind me.

(So long as we're on the subject, I should link to this interview in Globalia Magazine with the brilliant Olivier Roy. His first answer, which I'll reproduce here in full, deals with precisely this subject.)

The debate in Europe has shifted in some 25 years (a whole generation) between immigration and the visible symbols of Islam. Which creates a paradox: even people who were opposed to immigration acknowledge now that the second and third generation of migrants are here to stay and that Islam has rooted itself within Europe. So now the debate is about the status of Islam. And here we have a strange phenomenon: while anti-immigration feeling is mainly associated with the conservative right, anti-Islamic sentiment is to be found on both the left and the right, but for two very different reasons. For the right, Europe is Christian and Islam should be treated as a tolerated, albeit inferior religion. There is (unfortunately) no way to ban it (because of the principle of “freedom of religion”, inscribed in our constitutions, international treaties and UN charter), but there are means to limit its visibility without necessarily going against the principle of freedom of religion (for instance the European Court of Human Rights did not condemn the banning of the scarf in French schools). For the left, the issue is more generally secularism, women’s rights and fundamentalism: it opposes the veil, not so much because it is Islamic, rather because it seems to contradict women’s rights. Hence the debate on Islam
disguises a far more complicated issue: what is a European identity, and what is the role of religions in Europe; and of course, on these two issues the left and the right take very different positions. But we are witnessing the rise of new populist movements (like Geert Wilder’s In Holland) mixing both approaches, basically siding with the right but using leftist arguments.

Take a look.

Belgium bans the burqa (UPDATED)

Only in Europe can legislation restricting your freedom to make your own choices be construed as granting you more freedom.

A top committee of Belgian lawmakers voted Wednesday to impose a nationwide ban on wearing the Islamic burqa in public, paving the way for the first clampdown of its kind in Europe.

The federal parliament's home affairs committee voted unanimously to endorse a proposal from liberal members to ban any clothes or veils that do not allow the wearer to be fully identified, including the full-face niqab and burqa.

Officials say the draft law will probably be put to a vote of the full house on April 22.

"This is a very strong signal that is being sent to Islamists," French-speaking liberal deputy Denis Ducarme told the assembly in Brussels.

He said he was "proud that Belgium would be the first country in Europe which dares to legislate on this sensitive matter."

"We have to free women of this burden," said his colleague Corinne De Parmentier.

Next up: a law requiring Belgians to eat meat and drink alcohol. (So long as they're saving Muslims from their limiting, retrograde cultural practices, why not Hindus too?)

Good luck with all that, d-bags.

UPDATE: Lil usefully notes that this hasn't actually been passed into law (yet), but rather just validated by the parliament's home affairs committee.