Backward, Ho!

Walking down the street in Montreal, I saw this Islamic couple, the lady(?) wearing one of those full-face veils. Slits for the eyes, that's it.
We're not in Kandahar here.
Amazing how we can be so stupid. We think we can encourage people to come over here and think they'll just sort of blend in. That the women will throw away the veil and kiss the ground upon their arrival. And yet, here they were, husband pushing the baby stroller, the lady holding her husband's arm. No obvious "slavery" here, just a cultural thing. And so bloody scary.
Why? Is it the usual fear of the unknown? Is it because of their apparent disregard for the ways of the (New) World? Is it because their religion entertwines with their lives while we relegated much of that religious nonsense to the trashbin of history?
Or because we fear that they feel so right about their world and disregard our ways, knowing that, in the long run, theirs will prevail.
If the full-face veils are here, fanaticism cannot be far behind. That's that scary part.