Alain Badiou on the French hijab ban

Via Infinite Thought in Lenin's comments box:

In truth of fact, the Scarfed Law expresses one thing and thing alone: fear. Westerners in general, the French in particular, are but a shivering, fearful lot. What are they afraid of? Barbarians, as usual. Those from within, i.e. the “young suburbanites”; those from without, i.e. “Islamist terrorists.” Why are they frightened? Because they are guilty, but claim to be innocent. They are guilty of having renounced and attempted to annihilate-ever since the 1980s-every kind of emancipatory politics, every revolutionary form of Reason, and every true assertion of something else. Guilty of clutching at their lousy privileges. Guilty of being but old children playing with their manifold purchases. Yes, indeed, “in a long childhood, they have been made to age.” They are thus afraid of everything a little less aged. A stubborn young lady, for instance.

The rest is here. Recommended.