This is one of consequences to exercise a free will of not wearing Burka. I listed quite few and I'm sure the list could be even longer. Did you consider that not everybody is strongly ideological like you and I to sacrifice a lot for our believes, to stand up and say no in face of harsh consequences, to express our thoughts in coherent way, to be brave, etc? Most people will comply when enough pressure is exerted for a piece of mind. Some will start even believing that this is right thing to do for a piece, for family love, or to be accepted in community.
It still baffles me where you see a free choice in it?
Freedom never means freedom from consequences, for anybody. A lot of people from conservative Christian communities, for example, make the difficult decision to remove themselves from the communities, get shunned, and have to find themselves new support groups. I'm absolutely comfortable with such support groups, which are becoming easier and easier with the Internet. They're an effective, voluntary way to break the social pressure you speak of. Why do you think that a ban on a type of clothing will be effective in the same way at all? Imagine that you're in such a situation, on the brink of making the decision to escape from it. Voluntary support groups would, as you probably agree, be the first place you would look. But how could the clothing police help you at all?
How about a consequences of choices? A slave was "always free" to make a choice not to go to work today, not to serve the master, use their own legs to walk out off property, or their mouth to say no. Did they chose to do that? Hardly. We know some examples of slaves exercising their free will with dire consequences for their health and life. Majority complied with master's will every day to avoid these harsh consequences, right?
Same with saying no to Burka.
No, it's still not a valid analogy. Slaves were
necessarily threatened by force and had no rights. When slavery was abolished, none fought to keep it. Burka wearers have rights to wear or not wear them. There may be social pressure, but not necessarily force (and when there is force, the force is the problem, not the garment). Banning them would face resistance from the burka wearers themselves.
You missed my point completely. Argument was that if western women (the most free in the world) don't want to wear Burka, therefore Burka is a very unnatural, undesirable, ugly, piece of wardrobe for women. Western women know that burka exist and they can buy it and wear it any time. And it never happened! I say, it never ever happened! Women only wear it if they are forced to, period.
There is no free choice being exercised here. Your argument for a freedom of free choice is a moot point.
"If western women don't want to wear Burka, therefore... Women only wear it if they are forced to." Is that what your argument boils down to? So if western men don't wear Buddhist monk robes, therefore Buddhist monks are being forced to wear them? The fashions of a particular cultural group has very little to say about whether or not people of another group are being forced to wear clothing that has value in their own culture, especially if, as I suggested, the clothing has religious implications.
Don't get me wrong, I agree that Islam has a problem with overbearing censorship, oppressiveness, and even violence. These are problems which must be addressed, but not with a burka ban. One of my suggestions to combat it is to open the free speech floodgates--so that young Muslims can see exactly how their religion, especially conservative forms of it, fare in the open marketplace of ideas.
