Muslim women + veils

[strictlybroadband]

You raise a different point - you're right the law allows some leeway to religious groups, that's not the same as saying Muslims don't want to obey the law.

Most states, excluding France and Turkey, allow religions leeway. Jewish people often leave work early on Fridays for example, and preventing them doing so might land an employer in trouble.

We have laws allowing religious freedom, and you could say that these laws discriminate against atheists. But the alternative is to ban religious freedom and become a worse place for it.

If banning religion would work, I'd be all for it - I deeply dislike religion, all the more so since 9/11, but it wouldn't help bring groups closer together. I'm opposed to segregation though, and faith-based schooling is one of the things I'd like to see banned.

[strictlybroadband]

Sam Slater wrote:

> So yes, I think it is bordering on discrimination.

I don't think it is - if you (well, your sister for example) decided to wear a hijab into a bank, she'll be allowed to. If you chose to become Jewish and claim Yom Kippur as a day off work, your employer would have to allow you.

Your argument is leading to a point where you couldn't allow any group any specific rights, or the majority would complain. It's better to allow freedom to religious crackpots - but retain the freedom to call them religious crackpots.

[c.j.jaxxon]

I agree! Though I don't see nothing wrong with faith based schools. We really don't have that many of them like we used to and I think the biggest so far is still catholic.

[Mysteryman]

No British culture other than trash culture? Oh boy.
I don't know how old you are or how much you have travelled around the UK and elsewhere but British culture i.e. the way people live, inter-react and the way the country looks and operates is distincly different from other countries and there are differences in culture between the regions.

The same can be said of many other countries. Even in these days of multinationals, "the global village" and mass travel each country has differences to other countries which go towards their cultures being different.

There is a vast difference between France and the UK, France and Germany, Germany and Switzerland, Canada and the USA, the UK and Ireland.

The differences between any European and Middle Eastern culture are vast. If YOU go to visit or live in a theocratic state such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and many of the less strict Muslim countries you (and far more so any female companion) will HAVE to abide by THEIR cultural and religious rules.

No choice, no argument, no exceptions YOU chose to go to THEIR country, they make and enforce the rules - that's their choice as much as your choice to go there and, in choosing to go, you accept they will not change just because you, and a few thousand other UK citizens, choose to visit or live there.

So, come on, give me a reasoned, logical, argument why the UK should not enforce its rules on people from other cultures who choose to visit and live in the country.

I'm all for religious and personal freedom but the attitude of some Muslims, wherever they were born, is totally anti British culture, British rule of law and the vast melting pot that is Britain.

Remember some of the statements telling John Reid (for whom I've no time at all) that he had no right to visit MOSLEM East London. In the countries whose values these people espouse, anyone making such a comment about their Minister of the Interior would now be incarcerated, possibly tortured or even dead.

Don't be fooled. If they ever were to establish some form of powerbase the fundamentalists would not allow your or my freedom of expression. This website would not exist. You would have to conform to their dress code. Your female family members would be restricted in so many ways.

I've no problem with anyone from the old British Empire coming to the UK. Britain used its colonies for its own devices and gave little back.
But, if people choose to live in the UK they shouls live within the norms of the country.

I moved overseas. The culture of my domicile is, at first sight, very British. Under the skin it is much less so. I respect the differences (although some things are VERY frustrating to someone used to, for instance, British punctuality and manners) and I accept that, if I want the benefits of living here I cannot impose my ideas of right and wrong on my new homeland.

The Muslim fundamentalists in the UK should have the same respect and attitude. The reason they don't and why the friction is growing, is because their aim is to convert the world - by fire and sword if necessary.

Tolerance of religious and political belief only makes sense when those beliefs work with and for the greater good. Over the last 100 years there have been many organisations which have set out to work against the state which have been proscribed. Some of these are Muslim organisations, all have had an agenda of radically changing British life.

But back to the veil.

Question. Groups of youths wearing hoodies cause certain people to feel uncomfortable at their presence. Certain people feel threatened by Muslims in traditional dress and the women wearing the veil. If hoodies are banned and Muslim dress and the veil are not, what is the difference between the youths and the Muslims that allows action against one and not the other?

Don't say, as a veiled women intervied on BBC Northwest on Friday said that no veiled Muslim would rob a bank or mug a passer by. Anyone can dress up - though the BBC interviewer was too PC to the women to mention that.

A religion is only a gang of people with common aims and ideals - aims and ideals which are often as against the majority view as those of a gang of hooded youths.

[Officer Dibble]

?if you ask me they are all brainwashed by their blokes?

Not brainwashed, Louise ? dictated to. In many instances it is the father or the brothers of Moslem girls who choose whether they should wear a veil or not. It is an extremely patriarchal community and women have very little say in what they do or don?t do. How many Moslem girls do you see in lipstick and miniskirts boogying down at the disco? Hardly any I?ll wager. But you can?t tell me that at least a sizable portion would not love to go and have some of that kind of fun? But they can?t, can they? Of course there is nothing visible to stop them, it?s just the unseen (to us) leaden weight of community and cultural pressure.

It seems paradoxical that the poncy middleclass public sector sorts who are forever bagging on about ?wimmin?s? rights are strangely silent on the issue of Moslem women?s rights. The right to go to a disco, the right to wear lipstick and the right not to have to marry a minngin' peasant geezer from a three hut village in Kashmir so that him and his relatives can come over here.


?if they wanna wear that stuff that's fine - do it in your country!?

Hey, I love that sentiment!



Officer Dibble

[Sam Slater]

I apologize for not being clearer on 'Muslims not wanting to live under UK law'. I was including the laws of certain public schools, banks, public transport, customs and etiquette as well. I should have been clearer but got caught up in the point I was trying to make.

I agree that tolerance is important, and though I'm pretty much an athiest myself, I do find beauty in religion. It's more the history, romance and faith that I like, rather than taking the religious teachings as to be true.

Back on to tolerance....

I think we're too tolerant sometimes. I'm not condemning traditional Muslim dress in public, this is a free country after all, and people wear whatever they feel comfortable wearing, but most people accept that in certain places, at certain times, we are required to dress and act in a certain way. It's part of 'our' culture and customs, and 'our' culture and customs seem to be the least important things in life these days. All through the 60's, 70's, 80's and early 90's, British Muslims were integrating pretty well I thought. They still wore traditional dress, they had Mosques and their own shops & communities, but on the whole they respected our customs and way of life. The young girls wen't to school in trousers instead of skirts, but once that rule was past, they let the white girls wear trousers too (at least in the school I went to). They never had a problem speaking English either like they do now. They didn't demand to go into banks wearing the hijab, nor try and wear them in school, or catch a bus with a monthly pass that had your picture on. In fact, to say I've lived in an asian community for 22 years, I only ever saw the hijab on special occasions where there was a Muslim wedding nearby. Over the last 5 years there's been a big increase in it's appearances, along with the demands and intolerance of British custom. Why the sudden change after 45-50 years? Is it because they knew that in the 60's & 70's no one would have stood for it?

Keith Rasputin -further down the thread- thinks that Britain has no culture at all, or if we have, it's a watered down 'trash' culture. Does this mean that Islamic culture is now more important than British culture then? Because a few people think that British culture has watered down, does it mean we have to ignore and forget it completely? Just because you're an athiest, it means you have no customs, culture, traditions or belief? An athiest may not believe in God, but they do believe in etiquette, politeness and civility. They still live life according to certain customs passed down from parents & grandparents. They still know that if they want their sons & daughters to attend a certain school, then one of the requirements may be a certain dress code.

I still stand by the my belief that as a whole, the Muslim community is ignorant of British culture & customs. That as a whole, compared to other international redidents, that they're the most intolerant of Blacks, Whites, and Oriental customs.

I also stand by the fact that allowing one person to wear a head dress while preventing another because of religion is to treat the latter unfavourably; and according to the Oxford English Dictionary, to treat someone unfavourably is discrimination.

(at least we still have the Oxford English Dictionary..............right?)

[crofter]

I had to laugh at one Muslim chap on the news yesterday:
"Why should muslims have to adapt to British culture, when OUR culture and faith is so much superior"
Now if that had been turned around and I had criticised/ridiculed the muslim beliefs and way of life and said our way of living was superior, I would have been shot down in flames as being racist and not understanding ... go figure it seems that Muslims can say what they want about our culture being so wrong but as soon as the smallest hint of anything they don't like appears it is all blown out of all proportions.
Please remember Jack Straw only asked for the veil to be removed and nobody refused his request to do so ... so what's the major argument here??