Clothes can be designed to be intimidating. If you saw a man walking towards you on the street dressed in full Nazi regalia that would be intimidating! All the attendant historical associations would comprise to make anyone uncomfortable and threatened by such a sight - unless of course the person seeing it knew nothing of the Nazi history in which case it would just look odd and exotic.
This is true I believe of the full muslim dress of burqua -covered from head to toe with slits for eyes -the Letterbox to use the now widely disseminated Johnsonian vernacular. No one tell me that is not an intimidating sight. Pre 9/11 not so, no biggish deal. Post 9/11 you bet it is -and why the hell should we tolerate that walking down any British street? And for the record had it been Jewish people flying planes into the twin towers and then waging the warfare the Islamists have done for the last 20 years I would feel exactly the same about Jewish people wearing their traditional dress -ditto any other godamn religion. So no crap please about islamaphobia. It makes as much sense as Naziphobia.
If Isis had prevailed in the middle east and then taken over the West the letterbox would be compulsory wearing not just for muslim women in the UK but all British women. It is a symbol of oppression, dehumanization and for that reason has no place in the West -at least in public. It is a symbolic assault and affront to liberal values. It is worn to intimidate, to effectively say to hell with your liberal values, we hold them in contempt.
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