Has everyone seen the photo of the Archbishop of Canterbury presenting an award to Hafiz Muhammad Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi? If not, please have a look

[TheStateWeAreIn]

I don’t know what to say really, I just want as many women on MN as possible to see this picture.

Particularly Hafiz Muhammad Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi‘s wife.

There’s so much going on there.

(I know there’s another thread about the award and it’s subsequent withdrawal, I just wanted to start a thread to focus on the photo)

Exactly.

We all look at each other. I look at men, I look at other women. I’m not looking with any intent or any challenge. It’s natural curiosity. If we’re all honest, most of us enjoy people watching too.

Men look at women - fact. Even though some religions would like to, we haven’t yet got to the stage where inner thoughts are policed. If a man comes up to a woman and is obviously leery and revolting, that’s a clear offence, but how often does that honestly happen on our streets? Ironically, in my younger days I attracted far more unwelcome male attention in countries that had stricter expectations of their own women, than in any western nation so I get pretty exasperated by UK females bleating about welcoming a burka!

Perhaps we need to face the unpleasant truth that much of this stems from certain societies that have little real respect for women and just want to transplant those dogmas and prejudices here rather than accommodate to western culture? If that makes me racist, so be it.

But if a Muslim man refuses to shake the hand of a western woman when he is shaking the hands of her male colleagues in a western country, it shows disrespect, both to the woman and to the country.

However, we're going to see a lot more of this as time goes on, with demographic change and the cowardly normalisation of this kind of behaviour by clueless individuals like the Archbishop.

And they are demeaning themselves. Why would they do that?😰

To signal their virtue as good-thinkers. They're the very same people who would protest if anyone suggested that Muslim women should show respect to western countries by NOT covering themselves. These people are lost to all common sense.

BBC journalists are the main offenders.

If I'm in another country though, I think it's important to respect the country you're in and their values. Isn't that what people always say? If you're in our country, abide by our rules?
So she did correctly in my opinion.
Which is why I wouldn't want to go to a country that would make me cover up head to toe or hide away just for being female.
I don't think it's any better saying "ah but you don't have to as a tourist" because that's just as bad - it's alright to make your own countries women cover up but make allowances for others as you want their custom/ tourism or whatever? No.

As long as it works both ways. But this OP shows that it doesn’t.

Yes, it's all about consistency. Why is it that we don't require people to respect our values in the west, especially in Britain?

I’m the same @WinterGold . The sexual harassment I have received in this country is negligible compared to what I endured growing up in a Muslim country. And most of what I got came from men who did not look European but Asian/ Middle Eastern. This is an inconvenient truth which would probably have me filled under “ racist” in many quarters but it has very much been my experience.

Sadly and regrettably true - and proof that it’s a bigger issue than just niqabs/burkhas. It’s how women are viewed as a whole by some cultures and the value placed on them. Females are still viewed as unequal and of less value. Their only use is procreation and the use of these garments isn’t for the woman’s protection from unwelcome male attention - however much some liberal western females view it - it’s to ensure that the men can be sure that any children are definitely his. How misogynistic and medieval are these attitudes?

I would urge anyone to read Not Without My Daughter by Betty Mahmood or Princess by Jean P Sasson to understand what it is truly like to live within these restrictive practices.

First we need concensus on that.
I've seen many discussions on mn on whether UK should ban face covering ( including niqab & burqa) in public. Currently police powers allow them as an exemption I think.
Has there ever been an AIBU vote on it?

I also look at majority Muslim countries like Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan where not only is niquab/ burka banned but the hijab is banned in schools and government buildings. Because they don't want extremists.

Interesting. Apparently the Saudis don't want their children coming to the UK to study because they fear they'll be radicalised. Time for Britain to take a tougher stance. But while we're governed by the likes of the Archbishop, that will never happen.

https://siepr.stanford.edu/publications/working-paper/migration-household-employment-europes-public-finances

The cost to Britain is far too high.

Europe increasingly receives migrants from Central Asia, South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa (CASAMENA), where female employment is extremely low. A wealth of research suggests this is because male honour depends on female seclusion; we call these “seclusion-origin” countries

Using a common calibration informed by seclusion-origin employment profiles, with earned-and-credited UK NI pensions, our model projects that a male entrant with an economically inactive wife and two children needs entry pay between p68.6 and p80.3 on the national full-time pay distribution for the family to break even. Even if his wife works at the calibrated pay, he must still earn above median national pay for the family to break even. Below that, the specified family scenarios generate projected net fiscal costs. In brief, we show that if a government taxes low earners lightly and provides these groups with generous benefits, and a woman is economically inactive, then her male partner needs to earn a very high salary for their family to make a positive fiscal contribution.

(P is percentile )

Saudi too? I know UAE have banned finding for students to come here due to the radicalisation fear. I actually think this is quite worrying. I think something needs to be done at the highest level. Because this is organised and there is money backing it coming from somewhere. Why are we allowing British universities to be hijacked like this. Where British Jewish students are now bearing the brunt. The tent camps set up on universities campuses here were a disgrace and should have been dealt with a lot sooner than they were.

On reflection I think it is just UAE who have said they fear radicalisation in the UK. Either way it's a sorry state of affairs. If we carry on like this, UK will become Jihadi central with the most fundamentalist version of Islam being bankrolled by hostile states and the covering of women becoming normalised.

I wish people like the Archbishop would look into the future and see what could befall us if we continue to act like doormats.

Totally agree with you OP. It is a revolting image. It makes me so angry.

Because this is organised and there is money backing it coming from somewhere.
Quite probably Iran and their friends in Russia

This is such a bizarre comment. Dehumanising and abusing women in the name of religion is never ok. And even if this woman somehow claimed it was her ‘choice’ - bollocks. We wouldn’t say that about someone woman standing there with bound feet or queueing up for FGM. And it’s interesting that her inadequate fat fuck of a husband stands there beaming - not even an iota of shame.

Also interesting that women cover their hair when going into Muslim places of worship. But this woman, dressed like a black condom, doesn’t remove her medieval garb to respect others’ sensibilities

I think there’s a pretty clear consensus that women should have full and equal human rights

I agree. I've seen the meme of Afghanistan & Iran in the 70's vs now, I've noticed the change happening around me in the UK. None of my muslim friends at Uni in London wore hijab let alone covering their faces. It's a very backwards step in my view.

I've seen people trying to compare Burqas to nun's' wearing habits but its not the same at all.

Nuns choose to take vows and choose to dress like that- plus they're not going to be harmed if they take it off.

This is a very striking image. It reinforces people's negative views about Muslim men and their attitude towards women. It makes the church of England look a bit spineless sucking up to someone whose wife is dressed in a symbol of oppression. It makes him and his wife look like uncompromising religious extremists because most Muslim women in the UK don't actually go for full face covering, but there they are promoting it.

Yes, unfortunately the leadership of the church of England have become spineless and clueless in their sucking up to other religions, especially Islam. I doubt if most in the congregation have that view.

Why can't the Archbishop see how bad the optics are? I'm glad she and the others in her committee are getting push back on this.

Obviously in this case the Archbishop is a woman, but from what I’ve seen of some of these inter-faith things at more local levels, it’s always a group of men getting together. No women involved.

Is anyone in the public sphere actually speaking out against this? I know Boris J made a flippant remark about full body veiling and was trailed for it.