Re: Is the UK next?

[Logan]

[quote user="Bugbear"]

My view, if you choose to live in another country, you should conform to their ways and customs. [/quote]

Conform! Do you mean not break laws? I can accept that but an obligation to conform to an alien culture is something else. People migrate for economic reasons mainly not to become part of another culture. Why should they conform to another culture? It's an impossible ask. Multiculturism is the antidote to nationalism which means only war. It also means a toleration of differences and an acceptance of cultures which may seem alien. Governments should promote it not twist it around, pandering to popular knee jerk reactions from the political right. Banning what people can or can not wear simply makes them feel more isolated than they actually are. It is an assault on their and our personal freedoms.

The example of the nazi uniform is a red herring. Anyone walking down the street dressed in such a way would be comical to most not threatening and the French law banning that is just as daft. 

[Hoddy]

“It also means a toleration of differences and an acceptance of cultures which may seem alien.”

This is a very wide statement that I cannot accept. I do not see why I should tolerate some of my fellow citizens being treated in a way that contravenes their human rights.

This is very far removed from the relatively simple question as to whether or not people may cover their faces in public. It must seem to some of the muslim women concerned that people are competing to tell them what they can and cannot do.

Hoddy

[Russethouse]

>>Multiculturism is the antidote to nationalism which means only war. It also means a toleration of differences and an acceptance of cultures which may seem alien. Governments should promote it not twist it around, pandering to popular knee jerk reactions from the political right. Banning what people can or can not wear simply makes them feel more isolated than they actually are. It is an assault on their and our personal freedoms.<<

Logan, I agree, but I feel what is missing in the debate is the voice of the moderate Muslim, they need to stand up and be counted.

[SaligoBay]

[quote user="Logan"]

The example of the nazi uniform is a red herring. Anyone walking down the street dressed in such a way would be comical to most not threatening and the French law banning that is just as daft. 

[/quote]

Actually, it's not a red herring.  A single one might indeed be comical, but if all the BNP supporters started wearing them it might not be so funny.

I still don't believe it's possible to be tolerant of everything.   Even you must have your limits, Logan, surely?

[Valleyboy]

 

Logan said:

Europe in general is fast becoming intolerant and conservatively Christian.

Is this not a reaction of our western heritage, which like it or not, is founded on "Christian" ethics, against what is perceived as agressive attitudes on the part of some followers of Islam?

And his ridiculing of the French law against Nazi uniforms, if the soldiers of the Reich had marched over "Englands green and pleasant land" for five years, committing atrocities, would UK legislation not contain a similar law?

[Bugsy]

Logan: "People migrate for economic reasons mainly not to become part of another culture".

That's a bold statement and may fit your reason for moving to France (assuming you live here). It was certainly NOT our reason for choosing to live here.

For me, rural France is pretty much how I remember the England of my youth. Simple values are still to be enjoyed, virtually no crime, or violence, no critisism or interest in how you dress, what you drive etc, etc. Do we conform, yes, do we try and live the 'French' way of life, yes, as best we can, given that we are, and will always be English.

 

[chris pp]

What about me, Gay, can I count as a moderate muslim?

Chris

[powerdesal]

Chris,

If you are Muslim and moderate why not?

[Beryl]

This isn't meant to derail the topic, but where should the line be drawn? The West may be tolerant and generally we pat ourselves on the back for being so, but as Saligo Bay said one cannot tolerate everything and some people draw the line at  different points.

Should we allow all parts of some Islamic cultures to become mainstream, well, I think there would be a resounding no to that. There is a lot that some Moslems adhere to or would like to adhere to that I could never accept. The Muslim Council of GB have stated that they would like some aspects of Sharia Law to used within 'their' communities rather than the law of our lands. By requesting this, it is doing little to demonstrate a willingness to integrate fully and some people may view this as the thin end of the wedge.

 

[chris pp]

I find it fascinating the assumptions that people sit back and make.

Where is the inside practical experience that people have of Islam or the various forms that it takes?

What gives "you" the right to draw conclusions about the reasons why some women may choose to wear these garments, have you asked them?

Is it really that much different from some orders of Christian Nuns who cover their faces?

Some "ordinary western women" put so much make up on and colour their hair that it amounts to covering their  faces, or changing their appearance, or we have people who have chosen to cover their entire face with tattoos.

Out of interest, how many crimes have been committed in Europe by these women? I think the answer may be zero.

The whole thing is getting completely out of hand, ban this, ban that, it's really slippery slope, where would you all like it to end?

Sorry it reads like a list, Chris

 

[Logan]

Yes SB I am intolerant of stupid politicians and their followers who stir up racial conflict and suggest idiotic laws. [:(]

[Chief]

I was in Dubai recently and did not see, one of the many white (well salmon) skinned westerners wearing a veil, niqab, burqa..doo da thingy ma bob.  So much for all this when in Rome cr*p that people keep going on about.......they'll be banning shell suits next...perhaps not a bad thing though :-)) 

[SaligoBay]

Anyone who wants to see Muslims' views on this only has to do a very simple internet search.

Al-Jazeera magazine, including comments:  http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/review/article_full_story.asp?service_ID=12818   

British Muslim News, and note that the number of wearers is reported here as 50, not 100: http://www.muslimnews.co.uk/news/news.php?article=12037

Tenuous connection here in the Afghan Daily, but the kind of thing that fires the popular imagination.  http://article.wn.com/view/2006/11/13/Afghan_conference_to_focus_on_selfimmolation/

[Logan]

Well it seems Londoners have much more tolerance towards difference than others. Gives me a warm glow.[:D]

Ken Livingstone for PM I say, lets be rid of the grumpy, taciturn Scot waiting in the wings.

[hastobe]

The thing that I find difficulty in accepting / understanding are the double standards - and I'm not talking about westerners being restricted in their dress code when visiting muslim countries while muslims insist on having the freedom to dress how they choose.  Rather that the veil is a symbol of subservience and yet the women who are publically demanding the right to wear the veil are holding down employments and expressing opinions / contradicting males in positions of authority.  Its seems a rather selective approach to the muslim faith.  By all means wear the veil, but if you do then only speak when you are permitted to, remember that your place is in the home looking after your husband and children, that you walk behind your husband not alongside him, that you are not permitted to eat at the same table / time as him, That you are required to walk out of a room in which he is sitting without turning your back on him, that you have no right to an education (and neither do your female children), no right to employment or to financial freedom.  If you accept all of those - then wear the veil.

Kathie

[Pangur]

Chris, I don't think any Christian nuns cover their faces.  There is a world of difference between dressing modestly and covering your hair with a veil, as nuns and many muslim women do and covering your face with a veil, so that all people can see are your eyes.  And there is no comparasion between covering your face with make up and covering it with an inpenetrable cloth.  And a women who covers her face with tatoos is well outside the mainstream. I can completely understand the symbolism of a veil but I do find the burqa sinister.

I don't think there is any question either of those women being more likely to commit crimes. Nor do I see this issue as being connected with the "war on terror" but unfortunately there has been a backlash against the muslim community as a whole and this will be seen as a continuation of it.  That's not the issue - we live in a society where men and women are meant to be equal and to me, a woman who feels the need to cover her face is not part of that society, nor can she really be.  I would also question the freedom women who wear these garments have - a full burqa is associated with extremist cultures, like the Taliban.  The Nazi analogy is not totally out of kilter - the burqa is associated with opressive regimes that do not believe women should vote, work or drive and when I see one, that is what I think of. I have to say I am deeply saddened when I see a woman in a burqa as I cannot help but pity her and her situation in life.    I do not feel the same way at all when I see a woman with a tightly bound headscarf.  Perhaps there are independent women wearing burqas - I have never heard one speak.  Would we accept women walking around with gags across their mouths? 

Having said all that, that is my personal view and I'm with Saligo - it is a very hard decision to make.  I understand the slippery slope of losing rights, but I'm not sure if this is not in the same bracket as something like FMG - just because it is a cultural practice doesn't make it ok. 

 

 

[WJT]

I really didn't want to get involved in this discussion but Pangur makes a very good point. There have been many so called cultural practises that have been done away with and many that should be in my opinion. The examples of woman being stoned to death for adultery is one,woman not having the right to education or the right to work or vote. Teenage girls having to go through the excruciating pain of female circumcision and being denied  pleasure of normal sex life for the rest of their lives. Young girls having their feet bound, I could go on and on.

The Burka and covering the face falls into this category as far as I am concerned. And as with Pangur I am very saddened when I see these woman and the men that accompanying  them walking the streets in the UK.

[Tresco]

I'm putting into groups the reasons people are giving in favour of the proposed law:

1) 'When in Rome'.

The Two-Way Street (or tit-for-tat);

Anyone who says they conform to customs/norms/laws when in another country aren't telling the whole story, really. No single person gives up every aspect of their culture when moving abroad. Just the ones they can't get away with (in public). And as Logan has pointed out, coforming isn't the same as being compelled by the law.

2) 'The World has Changed' - closely associated with 'What Might They Have Under There? and 'We Can't Identify Them'.

Comparing making Burkas illegal is not the same as banning 'hoodies' from shopping centres. Hoods are not against the law of the land, and no one has ever suggested they should be. Until now. The proposed law will make them illegal too. Hoodless duffel-coats. Interesting notion. Anybody could have anything taped under their clothes. the London Bombers simply put their bombs into rucksacks. No disguise was attempted.  Chris asked for an example of Burkah wearers in the west doing anyone any serious harm? No one has come up with anything.

3) 'They are a bar to communication' We can't see the non-verbals' 'it's disconcerting' 'makes us feel uneasy or uncomfortable', 'threatening 'rude' and even 'insulting'.

Are we all not communicating?. Don't we do so on the phone? How do blind/partially sighted people get on? Look at all the other social/sub cultural groups that people say similar things about. Goths, Punks, people with multiple piercings, people wearing mirrored sunglasses. Will mirrored sunglasses be illegal too?

In answer to Chris' question earlier in the thread, about how many of us have actually talked with women wearing a Burka - I had some very limited conversation recently in England when I went with a friend to pick children up from school. Small talk like 'oh, you live in France. wow, what's it like there then?' and yes, it was a bit disconcerting at first but that I see as my problem, just as I know it's my problem if speaking to someone with a significant birthmark on their face - you know, your eyes stray to the 'mark'...

It's not anything like a persuasive reason to make someones/anyones choice of dress illegal.

4) 'Those Women are Oppressed' 'Whether they profess to wear it by choice or not, one way or another they are forced to wear it. They are subservient and we don't want women in the west to be that way, or for our daughters to see that example'.

Whatever my personal feelings about the Burka - and I really don't like it, I see no difference in ordering someone to remove the clothing they want to wear, to forcing them to wear something. You're advocating criminalising women who are already at the bottom of the barrel. Those women who are forced to wear it will be trapped inside their homes.

5) The 'Shifting Sands of Tolerance'.

The line is drawn at harming other people. At FGM, at Stoning; at so called Honour Killings. None of these are tolerable wherever they take place.

 

 

 

 

 

[Logan]

[quote user="WJT"]

I really didn't want to get involved in this discussion but Pangur makes a very good point. There have been many so called cultural practises that have been done away with and many that should be in my opinion. The examples of woman being stoned to death for adultery is one,woman not having the right to education or the right to work or vote. Teenage girls having to go through the excruciating pain of female circumcision and being denied  pleasure of normal sex life for the rest of their lives. Young girls having their feet bound, I could go on and on.

The Burka and covering the face falls into this category as far as I am concerned. And as with Pangur I am very saddened when I see these woman and the men that accompanying  them walking the streets in the UK.

[/quote]

Why please do you assume that women are less happy or content just because they share a culture different to your own? You may be sad, but are they? Peoples lives are different what's acceptable to you is a horror story for them.

[hastobe]

My sister's closest friend was from a family who held  these beliefs  - where the men of the family required her to dress and behave in that way.  Hence the list of do's and don't - they were just some of the protocols she had to follow.  She and her sister were never allowed anything - freedoms, possessions or opinions.  Her sister tried to break with tradition and went to University and then to London to follow her chosen career and - sin above all sins - married a white westerner.  Her sister was shunned by the community.  My sisters friend, who loved her sister dearly, was not permitted to contact her in any way and her father had a contract taken out on her for 'dishonouring the family name'. 

We watched first hand the life that these women led - for them it was not their choice to live like that but imposed on them by male members of the family, their community and their religious leaders - they obeyed out of fear.  This is what the burqa symbolises to me - fear, oppression and loss of freedom. 

This freedom to live your life without oppression, the right to free speech, to education and employment should be a basic right of every UK citizen.  How can you purport to support these freedoms and then condone the practice of a culture that removes the most basic of  human rights.

Kathie

[Logan]

I am not supporting a culture which oppresses women or anyone else. I am supporting the rights of freedom of choice, tolerance of difference and resistance to stupid laws. Your post is simplistic. The subject of female oppression is another subject entirely which you link to the wearing of clothing. I accept in some western eyes wearing symbols of faith represents female oppression but it's much more complicate than that. 

[The Riff-Raff Element]

I find it very difficult to add anything to Tresco's perfect post other

than agreement. Tolerance has to end where harm begins, but where there

is no harm there is no need to forbid something.

Kathy, it would be really nice to think that banning an item of

clothing could change attitudes, but let's face it, it won't. I can't

be the only person on this board who has known nice, middle class,

white, university educated women who found themselves in abusive

relationships from which they found it nigh on impossible to escape.

And they could wear what they like, though generally I remember it

having long sleaves.

[hastobe]

Sorry but I will never tolerate the right of one to oppress another - however it is dressed up.  There is no freedom of choice in Sharia - the only freedoms are for those who profit from it - the men.  As an aside, John, I don't support the abuse of white women in western relationships - but I think the pressures on muslim women are greater.  Accepting the burqa is public recognition and acceptance of all that Sharia / the burqa represents

As others have said - meet and talk to some real people affected by this - then ask the question again.

Kathie

[Russethouse]

Kathy, you are assuming that the men force it on the women, these days it seems it is not always the case, some women chose to wear the burqa sometimes even persuading their husbands.

Another concern is what lies behind our reactions, for years it has only been concern that women were being forced to live in a way that they didn't wish. Now the subtext is our own fear of terrorism, if we go down that road its like not going to London or using the tube, we are just playing into the hands of those who seek to divide and rule.

[hastobe]

As I alluded to before there are two scenarios here.  Firstly the oppression of women such as Kamaljit - this is unacceptable and acknowledgement of any symbol or system that is instrumental in such oppression is unacceptable - period.  Secondly I have concerns about the motives of the current rush of women who are vocally and publically supporting the wearing of the burqa - in particular the schoolteacher in Dewsbury (coincidentally a close friend and work colleague of one of the London tube bombers) and the Stoke-on-Trent solicitor who was recently dismissed by the judge because he couldn't hear what she was saying (and she refused to remove her veil).  These latter two women are very selective in their choice of which bits of the koran they choose to follow and very vocal about their rights - neither of which would be an option for those women genuinely following very strict muslim teachings / Sharia law.  This suggests to me a political agenda and one designed to engender the sort of comments made on this forum.

My point is simply - the wearing of the burqa is symbolic - it represents a suppressive system which is inconsistent with the rights and freedoms that should be available to all UK citizens and  I, personnally, find that unacceptable - as unacceptable as the wearing of a swastika.

Kathie