Abstract
Nor, and this is the crucial point, does it seem that other civilizations evolved to such perfection the essential mechanism which made this continuous growth possible: The construction of a rhetoric of persecution capable of being turned at will from one category of victim to another, including if necessary those invented for the purpose. This is what made the victims of persecution in the west for all practical purposes freely interchangeable with one another, and persecution itself a permanent and omnipresent feature of the social fabric, continuously expanding the range and scope of its activities. (Moore 1987: 151–2) Full facial veils have been criminalized by legislatures in France and Belgium as well as being the focus of constitutional challenges: The national constitutional courts in Belgium and France have upheld the criminal ban as valid but the French law will now be challenged in the European Court of Human Rights. A large volume of academic literature is now emerging about this topic (Bowen 2011; Brems et al. 2012; Moors 2009; Open Society Foundations 2011; Tourkochoriti 2012). In this chapter, I want to undertake an exploratory discussion of these very contemporary responses within Europe through an analysis of Europe’s past. In particular, I examine whether R. I. Moore’s conception that there is a European ‘model of persecution’ (persecution understood in its wider not legal meaning) which he developed through an analysis of European history between the tenth and thirteenth centuries, is useful in understanding the legal regulation of the full facial veil in the contemporary period. My main argument is that there are aspects of R. I. Moore’s concept of Europe as a ‘persecuting society’ (or a European model of persecution) that help us to understand the contemporary political and legal responses to the full facial veil in the European public sphere. Moreover, framing the analysis in this way may also be useful because it helps us to distinguish between political and legal responses to the full facial veil that are illegitimate persecution from other forms of legal regulation which are more likely to be a legitimate and justifiable response in a liberal democracy. This chapter is an exploratory discussion of this topic rather than a comprehensive legal or social science analysis of the criminalization of the full facial veil that is now documented in the emerging academic literature on the topic.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | The Experiences of Face Veil Wearers in Europe and the Law |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| Pages | 232-250 |
| Number of pages | 19 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9781107415591 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9781107058309 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jan 2014 |
