To think it's ironic about Niqab and face coverings

[IsntItIronicDontYouThink]

Just thought about this and how ironically, face coverings have become mandatory on public transports and it makes me think of Muslim women (Niqab wearing women specifically) who've had a hard time because of their face coverings to now find that everyone has to cover their faces (for different reasons yes but still ironic, isn't it?)

Googled to see if anyone else mentions this. Here's a piece I found about it (There's more but just picked this one).

www.google.com/amp/s/metro.co.uk/2020/06/12/face-mask-compulsory-muslim-women-12838585/amp/

A reminder of what life in Iran looked like before religion went fundamentalist.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5103795/Fascinating-photos-Iran-1979-revolution.html

and www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-47032829

@ ZoeCM

This is circular “argument” and watch out as like me you will be attacked even for asking the “wrong” obvious question. Best advice - UK is still a free democratic and diverse nation so let people who want to do their own thing be! Little girls from certain communities have no choice! Luckily we still have regular English law with discrimination and equality built in and not anything religiously restrictive!

I will again be bashed for this - but don’t give a crap as I believe I am not actually trying to be anything but nice reaching out and short of invites to everyone for a party to integrate and learn more to mutually respect each other more!

Yes, we are lucky to be a relatively free society although we need to ensure girls in religious groups where you are cut off if you leave know they can leave and have somewhere to go otherwise the legal rights become illusory.

@ Xenia

Whole heartedly with a loving motherly heart and soul I agree but how do you know they think we are right and not interfering trouble makers!?

Each child is (unless neglect) under the duty of care of the biological mother! We have decent safeguards and legal enforcement but ghettos are just that. So many schools in big UK cities would not look out if place overseas! Is that too rude to express even if factual as I know British families bullied out of these schools and areas plus they want to impose their own (only) religious teachings and cultural conditioning.

I am again going to be bash for hate even though my intention and care is equality and harmony!

@cologne4711 Yes I would too, but I was aiming my comments at what most expat Brits do, and at the other poster.

@ResIpsaLoquiturInterAlia I really don't know where to start in addressing your recent points. Rarely for me, words fail me. Or at least I cannot be confident that I can disagree with you as politely as you have been.

And as for Candice Owen, I judge her for her words and actions, nothing else.

@ BendyLikeBeckham

Let’s just agree to disagree! It’s no biggie!

I am not here to annoy anyone!

I do like Candice Owens but not necessarily her politics! I like her spirit as she to me says - it’s not who I am or where I am from - but what I have potential capabilities to achieve! As I said I am not knowledgeable on her politics (as US is evidently so messed up already) but just the way she is direct and says it like it is irrespective of background etc etc. I do like her as long as she is not evil or harmful which I cannot say without proper research background check!

@ BendyLikeBeckham

Just to politely add why do you either have to disagree or agree with anyone here on an online chat forum? Why does anyone with different views bother you? Can you not readjust your sensitivities accordingly and be open minded to diversity of views and everything else?

Everyone is different but getting on in harmony despite these differences is the mutual goal surely!

If you are looking to sharpen your attaching skills then I am not your practice target!

@ResIpsaLoquiturInterAlia

@ BendyLikeBeckham

Let’s just agree to disagree! It’s no biggie!

I am not here to annoy anyone!

I do like Candice Owens but not necessarily her politics! I like her spirit as she to me says - it’s not who I am or where I am from - but what I have potential capabilities to achieve! As I said I am not knowledgeable on her politics (as US is evidently so messed up already) but just the way she is direct and says it like it is irrespective of background etc etc. I do like her as long as she is not evil or harmful which I cannot say without proper research background check!

I would describe spreading coronavirus conspiracy theories and misinformation as harmful.

LittleMissRedHat 'they want to?'
Because they are brainwashed into thinking they want too....very different from making a choice. Any normal person would not wish to cover their face & hide their expressions, it goes against instinct & survival.

How do women know we are not interfering? They are not easy issues. If we take Islam out of it and take two girls eg an ultra orthodox girl in London and Jehovah's witness. They tend not to go to university and and former usually go to schools in their own community. They know if they leave they will not see their siblings and family again as they will effectively be cast out. The groups support that process because if someone leaves and keep coming back they will then expose the original community to wrong ideas like sex outside marriage, abortion, women not submitting to men etc.

On the one hand I support the right of all kinds of groups to live as they choose in the UK yet to do so they need to cut off children when growing up and usually to marry off girls ideally in their late teens. We could probably add a traveller girl to our list too .

I suppose the law in the UK provides some protection in that children are supposed to get some kind of education although with the FLDS group in the US which were so cut off the children thought their prophet Warren Jeffs was president of the US.

it is a difficult balance to get right. We certainly should seek to enforce basic abuse laws in all communities - no marriage under 16, no incest, no beating of children and some basic education.

I do not particularly want a UK where everyone is a left wing clone in a socialist utopia. I would rather have all the differences we have but within the law.

Imagine you emigrated to a country overseas. You would naturally seek out the British expat community there to make friends, still want to eat baked beans and HP sauce, converse in English, have a Sunday Roast and watch the BBC

If this was your attitude, why even leave England? I left my home country to experience the world, not experience my world in a different country.

@HelloToMyKitty This isn't how I think, I was trying to use an analogy to a PP to explain why people who migrate to Britain often wish to keep their home customs because she was criticising it and calling it 'reverse discrimination' .

And British people emigrating abroad mainly do so for very different reasons than most people who migrate to Britain, I would think. I've never heard any immigrant say they came here to experience British culture!

It must be an amazing adventure to live somewhere completely different to where you were brought up, OP. My hat off to you. I could never live in the Gulf though. I just wouldn't be able to cope with the sex inequality. I'd be rebellious and probably get arrested!

Sorry, I typed OP when I meant HelloToMyKitty there.

@Pepperwort my friend showed me photos of Egypt like that. It’s such a shame what fundamentalists have done to those countries.

@Muslimah2020 you were so vocal on this thread yet when I asked you if you decided that your choice was to wear no covering and what your husband and imman response would be no reply?

Yes, the countries went backwards from what they had achieved by the 1970s but I think they will gain their freedom again.

@ Xenia

Just want to say I fully appreciate what you have posted here. Makes sense to me but basically as you would have gathered from my rambles posted above I tried to reach out (yes including a bit of boundary pushing to test the water) but I now understand why these communities will continue to perpetuate and will never integrate with the main local society.

What we now see as in parts of inner cities etc are enclaves where the average Brit would look out of place and from my experience not particularly welcomed. The shops and food outlets cater only to these communities and I rarerly see any “outsiders” involved. I suspect they have their own in local authorities and government too and so to the rest of the 80% (or whatever the latest immigration figures are) we are effectively ignored! Now is that reserve discrimination? People within these tight communities do not see or even let their new generations see the world outside - again is that social conditioning or would it be interfering to suggest it actually may be borderline reverse discrimination? This will not stop as perhaps it is not right to judge using the eyes of the common Brit. We rightfully have freedoms as supported by an evolving legal landscape (eg sexism and sex orientation hate crimes now illegal etc) but are these communities taking advantage of our system and instead not only doing their own thing but also annoyingly telling us common (but actually concerned types) to piss off and mind your own business as if I want to wrap my little girl head to toe then that is my business and not yours. Your little girl can play and jump into the water fountain (as little girls do in a UK heat wave) but mine will be held back so she does not need to play with yours so bugger off! Honestly this has happened on more than one occasion. Yes little girls playing in the sun in the water might be just wearing their panties and nothing to cover their uncomfortable upper bodies but boy this innocent childhood experience is so offensive to some even if their little girl do not understand the fuss and just wants to play and join together! I just feel a bit uneasy with this so when I see this scenario I take my daughter elsewhere just in case it gets uncomfortable for these people! Not saying they are all like that but a few are from my experience. I have seen their schools as it maybe called St whatever but everyone involved is far from following the learnings of the original purpose of that faith school which to me seems like a paradox or contradictory. Islamic fundamentals at CE or RC schools sounds like a surreal concept especially when they (some) are attempting to neutralise some events including Christmas traditional meaning. Probably Easter will be for the chop next! Who knows as grooming gangs in Yorkshire etc (more probably yet to be infiltrated and exposed) what this once proud UK will be soon. Not Iran I hope!

@ Moveslikejagger1

I would say don’t argue and let them be. Free country free choice. No mixing but continued divisions as long as they understand we are not the ones wearing a full barrier and dividing them from the rest of us. They may as well have their laws in their areas (which they probably do anyway) but not officially permitted under English law.

@ BendyLikeBeckham

Just to ensure you get my point - I am all about equality and levelling up. You can come here and so your own thing BUT you must also at least acknowledge that others ie most of the original local population are Brits and do not necessarily understand fundamental Islamic behaviours etc. So what I am saying is - yes that is acceptable BUT why not also take the opportunity to reach out and integrate too but still maintaining your original beliefs and customs ie be more flexible and hybrid and be a bit of both? But no instead - go away you are rude/discriminatory and we don’t care about you lot!

I wonder what the Brixton Covid rate?

This isn't how I think, I was trying to use an analogy to a PP to explain why people who migrate to Britain often wish to keep their home customs

Yes, but should they? You do need to be respectful of your host culture and fit in as best you can. Just a small example, but in Japan, you shouldn’t wear shoes indoors. So if you go to a local’s home or even to some restaurants or businesses, you need to be prepared to take your shoes off, or cause offense.

I feel the same about niqab. If you aren’t prepared to show your face in public as a basic courtesy, perhaps the West is simply not a good place for you.

And British people emigrating abroad mainly do so for very different reasons than most people who migrate to Britain, I would think

I am not British but I am guessing that a lot of British came to the Middle East for the same reason I did: higher salaries and more work opportunities, definitely not for the oppressive heat or repressive culture ....

But we have to do our best to fit in. Of course, here there’s more of a legal compulsion to do so.

It depends if people stick to the law or not. Eg I am not happy about the 22 police officers hurt in Brixton last night and I could not care less whether the people who committed those crimes are male, female blue pink or black it is not to be permitted. Whereas if we take the jews who have been here some of the longest most have assimilated to a huge extent (and the European jews were like us anyway - listen to the Bach I love and the like) and others have lived apart but in the UK and without much trouble most of the time even if they impose a very unfair and different life on many girls who know no better and indeed on the poor boys studying day in day out who might well say they choose i. I see no reason to stop that freedom to be apart in the UK just as many of the Northumbrian hill farmers near where I am from might not be that friendly to newcomers in the hills until they know someone is not a threat.

I suspect I prefer the fact so many little girls of 6 come out of our nearest primary school here in outer London in a headscarf as if they were kept at home with no education or only sent to fundamentalist schools . At least they see all day other secular girls and have more chance of making active choices which girls kept only at home or educated in ultra religious schools do not.

cologne4711
"I bloody well wouldn't. British ex-pats are a pain! I would learn the local language (assuming I didn't already know it), eat the local food and make local friends."

I couldn't agree more. When my DW and I go on holiday, we actively seek out places where you can immerse yourself in the local culture, get away from the every day things.
I cannot understand how anyone would want a holiday to be like a little slice of England with a sunny beach thrown in.

Could not agree more with above posts!

As a Brit - actually it does not materially matter what I am as perhaps more technically to just politely say - as a foreigner when overseas I love to explore because I want to show myself and more importantly educate the little ones about places and people who are not like us. I love the fact that as a tourist in exotic places we are welcome to immerse and sample a commercial export version of their culture. I wear what is required in particularly religious areas but always need to let the little one know that both parents can’t be together in certain settings. This legal sexism is more rare these days but even more long ago in Dubai some of us have to use junior male colleagues for representation at certain client C suite meetings etc.

In the respectful international corporate world yes we expats have certain values and lifestyles but I always insist to be inclusive and cater accordingly! I am there for financial gain and offer a service of value to the locals. It is simply world business supply and demand. It is simply not right to be colonial about things anymore! That was so last century!

What happen in Brixton will happen again and again despite a certain senior Royal thanking a particular overseas generation who ventured here years ago! These events as with religious hate terrorism will never end if all members of society do not just reach some sort of acceptable middle ground. Will underage girls still not join ISIS and run away from parts of the UK to the war zones - who knows as apparently now after the main killing is done they want to return even though they are indirectly involved in killing. Do I feel sorry for these little girls - well difficult one as yes as a fellow human being but no if it is just their way of life, choice or no choice. Not sure I would say it is modern slavery but I do not think it would be a free unforced conscious decision. I think without too much knowledge that sexism is fine for Islamic men!

If the BLM actually want to make a difference then perhaps be more like a certain Mandela (not the criminal rubber necking terrorist part) but the bit when released from imprisonment and reaching out for peace and reconciliation. Therefore why can’t it really be lives matter stay safe and beat the virus but not each other?!

Good grief. I've just come back to this thread, and seriously, it's like an episode of Little Britain.

The 'othering' of people in the guise of accusing them of not integrating enough. Can't you see that the 'them and us' rhetoric is complete anathema to tolerance and understanding?

I don't think any minds can be changed here, or enlightenment achieved (you know who I'm speaking about). So for the reason that I think any further contribution by me would be pointless (and frustrating), I will bow out.

Thanks to everyone else who informed an interesting debate, especially those with open minds and insight to offer.

Apologies if this seems like a flounce. Really not, I just can't deal with such ignorance.