Is Jack Straw a racist for requesting that women remove their veils?

[magicfarawaytree]

just watching the news. didnt personally think he had done anything terrible in asking.

Caligula - many cultures in Africa wear facial tatoos, hoops round their necks, bones through their nostrils, etc, people of the Jewish faith dress in a certain way and I know for a fact that Orthodox Jewish women wear wigs and headscarves to cover their hair for the same reason that Muslim women do.

Is any one questioning the Jews for oppressing their women ? Do we need to question every single one of them WHY they do it and whether they are being oppressed ? Is Straw asking the Jewish women who visit him to remove their wigs ? Oh, sorry I forgot, it's covering the face he has a problem with !

If these questions were asked on a global scale re. ALL RELIGIONS as you suggest, I would be far less cynical. However in this country the questions are only being posed re. Muslim women. That is why I am very very cynical about the whole issue.

I have to go too to feed my son and then do my daily lecture to him of how he must never oppress the little girls in his playgroup

oh to be clear Yellowrose I have a problem with most organised religions, which seem to sepnd an inordinate amount time worrying about what women wear/do and what we all get up to in the bedroom and not enough imo worrying about violence, oppression and aggression in all forms and how to increase human happiness
The Quakers, though, I find are all jolly nice people. Buddhists too

fuzzywuzzy that would be a good idea! i would love my sons to be taught about different faiths by members of that faith not the media! good comment yellowrose about your son haha!

fuzzywuzzy I think that would be a splendid idea. I was talking at my preschool committee meeting about just that, getting someone to talk about Islam in general and Ramadan in particular.

Allhallows - agree with you that it is really difficult to communicate with someone whose face is covered. e.g. when walking down our road, I say hello to 90% of neighbours. But in order to feel comfortable doing that, I need to see their facial expression first - to see whether its open or closed to my desire to communicate with them. That is the point that JS was trying to make about community relations - its difficult to forge links with your neighbours if they are completely covered and you cannot even see their face - to read whether they are smiling at you, scowling or simply day dreaming. It just creates an extra barrier and could even isolate those people.

For example, if someone doesn't forge links with their non-muslim neighbours it does make them more vulnerable to racism. Our next door neighbours are muslim and they suffered a racial attack - the whole of our street were up in arms -neighbours supported them and made statements to the police etc. I wonder whether they would have had such support if they had isolated themselves? They are devout in their religous beliefs, the women wear headscarfs and not veils, so we know they are a smiley freindly family who want to be neighbourly.

I'm not saying women who where the veil deliberately isolate themselves BTW, but am suggesting that by veiling their facial expressions, it can make other people reticent to try and get past that veil and communicate, which may have a knock on effect of isolating them.

I'm just being honest here - I talk to all women everywhere, but do find myslef a bit shy of trying to communicate with someone whose face I cannot see.

To suggest JS is racist is entirely missing the point he's trying to make, which is about communication and community cohesion.

Think I mentioned about the Jewish woman covering their hair earlier & got told off for digressing from the thread subject whilst I find these digressions are the interesting & informative part.

I'm with the whole feminism stance, because I would want someone to stand up for me if I didn't have a voice.

Who was it who said ""I disagree with what you have to say but will fight to the death to protect your right to say it."?

Hi Hooley - sorry wasn't telling you off earlier, just didn't want JS's comments to be misinterperated as comments about covering hair, when they were only about covering the face

This thread is really interesting though.

I am a feminst too. I question oppression. However, I will not allow myself to force a woman to remove her veil nor to put her down because she does it for the men in her family. This would just be another form of oppression, would it not ?

Feminism isn't just all about burning bras. Sadly many so-called feminists, esp. those in the industrailised world who go over to poor countries to teach the poor and ignorant a thing or too, are just arrogant oppressors in sheeps'clothing. Some see themselves as doing the "oppressed women" a favour. It's a real hoot !

Have only just seen this thread and I am sure that I must have missed the reason why Jack Straw wants Muslim women to reveal their faces - is it for security at airports. Otherwise I can't see his point, why does it matter what people wear?

well yes yellowrose like the ones who went over to try and help the women in Afghanistan under the Taliban
or the organisations helping women escape forced marriages

But agree that it should be open for discussion, if women are forced to wear the veil of course I question it but many women choose to wear it and while it is not a choice I would make myself as a feminist I defend their decision to make that choice especially when it is a choice that frees them from the need to confrom to our sexually obsessed idea of how a woman should look.

harpsi - there are many many wonderful Afghan, Iraqi, Sudanese, Somali, etc women who are feminists and human rights lawyers, etc who do a bloody good job too, often they are able to understand the issues facing "oppressed" women far better than we are and somehow manage to be less patronising than my former colleagues and friends at the School of Oriental and African Studies here in London where I did my Masters ! But that is a whole new thread isn't it ?

twinsetandpearls - quite my point. As a feminst I would still protect any woman's civil right to dress as she wished her in the UK.

ks - I have never been to Turkey. What I have said here comes from a male English friend who has studied the country's history and politics and speaks the language fluently. He tells me that the vast majority of women (esp. the older generation) he met there who wear scarves do so freely. Turkey does not practice religious oppression, though it does a bloody good job of political torture !

in reponse to an earlier point of human rights, if I requested someone i was having a meeting with to remove their veil whilst we were talking and the other person refused. would I considered to be a racist if I then refused to continue the meeting? our would I merely be exercising my human rights by terminating the meeting? because I am not sure that I would want to have a meeting with someone who was covering her face. I also dont think that just because someone does not share a religion that their views are less valid. what about atheists? are should their views be less valid? its seems to me in reading these posts that being religious means that your view are more important than those who do not share your religion ( whatever the religion)

Well, let's not forget that all religions are man-made. They develop in different directions rather like languages. Would you say that, e.g., French is a less valid language than English simply because you speak English? The same should apply to religions (or non-religions if you are agnostic or atheist). They all have their good points and their bad points, but no one religion is the best, ultimate and only one (despite what its followers may believe) Perhaps I should side with the scientists here, as at least they only believe what they can prove .

yes Feckle I agree - that is the irony in this debate - they are all interpretations by man(and I dont mean in a man v women way before anyone yells sexist) and it is therefore so ludicrous to say what I believe on the basis of religion is better than what you believe and therefore should be respected more. i am imagine if we all believed in the scientific approach we would all be arguing about with animal we descended from my neandephal? is the one true neanderthal

magic - I don't personally think it would be racist to say you did not wish to continue the meeting because someone wore a veil and you objected to that.

However, it WOULD be construed as racist, anti-semitic, etc if you said that you did not wish to have a meeting with a Jew who was wearing the Star of David or a cap, or a Sikh wearing a turban, etc, would it not ?

But is this what JS is saying, is he saying it's against his human right to see a veiled face ?
If he had said that I would have a lot more respect for him.

Who said religious beliefs are more important than other kinds of beliefs ? I am an aethist and I think my views are extremely valid.

He hasn't said or implied that it's against his human rights to see a veiled face. He has simply said he would prefer to see the face of the person to whom he is speaking. As indeed would I.

I thought a scientific approach was to test a theory by trying to disprove rather than prove. mathematicians seem to be big on proofs. But hell..or heck even same difference freckle. I'm not a particularly good scientist-too emotive.

agree with you about religion being man made, think I said something about it earlier. My background is CofE where you're oppressd into having tea & cake with the vicar. Swines.

Quakers seem like a tolerant bunch though.

I haven't read the whole thread but I think the whole media have over reacted and twisted things as usual.It is becoming increasingly difficult for British people to open any sort of debate without being deemed racist or anti something or other.Gone are the halcyon days of my youth when we noisily discussed anyhting and everything in boozy debates in the union bar and never had to watch what we said
\we need to get to know these people if the situation in this country is to improve but while there are still all these obstacles it really still is them and us

YP, but you do keep making the point that a veil is a religious observance, that entering a mosque in shoes is prohibited religiously

Yes, but wearing the veil or any other religious symbol is not about science it it ? I think most people here are missing the point entirely. The point is asking one particular religious community or a subcategory of it (the women) to abide by Mr Straw's wishes.