France’s troubling burkini bans

“The French have a right to ban the burkini,” Aug. 23 Froma Harrop column.

I was embarrassed to see such an ignorant column in your paper, a paper I have read and respected my entire life. As an undergraduate at Princeton, I dedicated a majority of my studies to Islam and counterterrorism, and I found Froma Harrop’s analysis underwhelming. To dismiss arguments linking the burkini ban to a possible rise in Islamic extremism as “implied threats” is dangerous and demonstrates a limited understanding of the complexity of Islamic extremism in the French context. While Islamic extremism is always a puzzle, Harrop barely acknowledges the challenges of the French case: there is no discussion of France’s colonial past, limited discussion of other French veiling bans, etc.

Further, Harrop’s dismissive tone can contribute to Islamophobia and isolation that can help to drive radicalization. To refer to a burqa as “jarring” has obvious negative connotations.