The left flotilla sinks

Forget Mariana Mortágua and Sofia Aparício on that bizarre sea voyage to Gaza where they never wanted to go and look at Rui Tavares during the parliamentary debate on the bill that prohibits the concealment of faces in public spaces in Portugal.

Rui Tavares, in an exalted tone (he sounded like a pint-sized Pedro Pinto), shouts that he's against burkas and more. He's also, he vociferously says, "against the guys who are pro-burkas." Seeing the uproar, one wonders: the leader of Livre has finally realized the trap into which leftist Islamism has led Western societies in general and the left in particular. Or perhaps he's sleepless about the future of Livre, a party that exists for the Socialist Party, but the Socialist Party isn't quite sure what its function is, which is clearly enough to keep anyone awake at night. But then the same man who shouted that he was against burkas and “against the guys who are in favor of the burka” voted shortly after against the bill that would prohibit the concealment of faces in public spaces, which applies to the burka as well as to balaclavas, helmets and other rags and artifacts to cover the face (calling it the burka law is therefore a mistake, but it is in this defocusing of the problems that we live!)

So let's return to Rui Tavares shouting that he's against burqas and then immediately voting for them, a contradiction that, it should be emphasized, is far from limited to a niche party like Livre: last Friday, from the Left Bloc to the Socialist Party (PS), the left overwhelmingly voted against the bill banning face coverings in public spaces. Why? Because the law "is made with their own feet" (Livre); "it violates the constitutional principle of freedom of conscience and religion" and "In a free country, the State should not impose lifestyles" (BE); because the debate on the "use of the burqa" "is not a debate about an emerging problem in our society," and issues like the precariousness of women in the labor market are what matter (PCP).

All these arguments ring false because they are false: if the law is poorly drafted (and I admit it is), it can be improved in detail, as has happened with so many other laws that were perhaps even worse designed. As for the violation of religious freedom underlying the burqa ban alleged by the Left Bloc, this is a fallacy and a mistake. A fallacy because what tolerance for the use of the burqa reveals is, rather, an exceptional concession to a certain group. Indeed, we cannot tolerate someone hiding their face in the street for allegedly religious reasons, for the same reason we would not tolerate someone invoking their religious beliefs to walk around naked or to have their polygamous marriages recognized. This argument also stems from a politically dangerous error (or is it a conscious choice?) because by tolerating the use of the burqa and niqab, we are privileging the most fundamentalist sectors of Islam. Then we have the old far-left technique of questioning rights and duties: "In a free country, the State should not impose ways of life," says the Left Bloc deputy who is replacing Mariana Mortágua . This is an argument of absolute bad faith, because not only is the State precisely the institution that organizes and frames the way of life of its citizens within a set of common rules, but what tolerance of Islamic fundamentalism has led to is precisely the imposition by radicals of rules that undermine the freedom and ways of life of states. For example, when the Spanish state excluded, as happened this year, pork from the menus of public school cafeterias in Ceuta and also requires that meat from other animals consumed in these Spanish schools be halal —and it should be emphasized that they are Spanish—it is not only failing to defend the way of life of its citizens (and among them there are certainly those who eat pork and those who do not), but also allowing others to impose their ways of life.

As for the PCP's argument that the use of the burqa "is not a debate about an emerging problem in our society" it is not even worth writing, but I would add that if the PCP wants to understand the reason for its current irrelevance it can start by surveying everything that it considered non-emergent in Portuguese society and then we can talk.

And so we come to the Socialist Party. Pedro Delgado Alves declared his conviction that no one in Parliament "feels comfortable wearing a burqa," only to vote against the law banning it in public spaces. Pedro Delgado Alves, therefore, "has gone to town": he is so against the burqa that he can't vote to ban it! In this case, not because the law is poorly drafted, but because "the debate fueled by Chega only aims to 'attack foreigners.'" If Delgado Alves wanted to prevent Chega from fueling the debate, he could have led his party to present a bill on this topic. Why didn't he?

But let's look at Delgado Alves' other observation. For the Socialist parliamentarian, this law could have the opposite effect, with "the few women who are forced to wear the burqa in Portugal" being locked up at home. Yes, there's a risk that some women will avoid going out (or wear masks as if they were eternally sick with COVID), but it's a lesser risk than allowing them to wear burqas. Why? Because we can't let Portuguese public services become a battlefield with women who don't identify themselves, accompanied by men who demand to act as intermediaries. We must be absolutely clear on this matter, or we risk seeing the same thing happening in our hospitals, schools, parish councils, courts... as in several parts of France. In Portuguese public services, there can be no room for burqas, nor for all-female teams to provide care, nor for men to speak for women. As for the political argument of the vice-president of the Socialist parliamentary group—the debate catapulted by Chega only aims to "attack foreigners"—it misses the mark. Yes, the debate was catapulted by Chega, not so much to attack foreigners but above all to exploit the weaknesses of the left. After all, this Islamo-leftist contraption will tear the left apart, and Ventura not only ignores it but exploits it.

Just as the shamelessness of the so-called humanitarian flotilla was exposed when images of the barbarity rampaging through the streets of Gaza arrived after the withdrawal of Israeli troops, with those the flotilla called resistance fighters displaying their criminal splendor , the political disaster of this flotilla that has now docked in parliament stands out in the irreconcilable contradiction between the freedom its words defend and the oppression its votes legitimize. It is the so-called sinking flotilla of the left.