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.

Had to finish post quickly so am back to clarify. Of course I am not comparing wearing the veil with wearing a balaclava in a serious way. The veil has never seemed to be equated with something threatening or intimidating before but going by the posts on here perhaps non Muslims did find it so but have never said so before. Therefore if people are now saying publicly they are intimidated by it, perhaps a few women will "mischievously" choose to wear it in order to intimidate or challenge.

re: the power balance - if someone is going to feel uncomfortable then IMO it's got to be the elected representative. When I did student politics and then worked for the city council (NOT as a councillor!) it was my job to help people and I see it as a customer services role. None of my business what their personal beliefs are. I would never have asked anyone to change what they were wearing unless I seriously felt there was a security issue and I needed to check ID. But Jack Straw did not mention security, he mentioned feeling uncomfortable.

but what about at airports? That's been in the news today, how some bloke escaped abroad by prtending he was a woman wearing a veil. It's dreadful that they don't have to take it off at airport security. Would it be ok for me to pull a wooly hat over my face and say they can't look at me for some spurious (non) religious reason.

But should we just accept that discomfort is to be a standard feature of normal social intercourse between people in our society?

One of the basic rules of good manners used to be, that you did everything possible to make people feel comfortable. Bad manners was when you made someone feel uncomfortable. (Am not saying that veiled muslim women are automatically bad-mannered btw - you could say that JS is bad-mannered for making muslim women feel uncomfortable by asking them to remove an item of clothing)

(Have just listened to Talk to the Hand by Lyn Truss so this is top of mind for me!)

I've just tried to find the story kittywits mentioned - The Times reports how a terror suspect evaded capture by dressing as a woman but it was within Britain - it doesn't say he made it abroad. Of course women wearing something over their faces should be taken aside by female security staff and their passport photos checked against them. That's not about feeling uncomfortable, that's about security risks.

weaselmum I was thinking along those exact lines today, ie that JS is the elected representative in his constituency and as such represents those constituents who wear veils and as such it is none of his business what they wear.

I take your point about discomfort SCC. Everyone should make it their aim to respect others and not cause offence - can't argue with that. Sometimes though we make up our own rules about what we do and don't like - hence - I have never found it difficult to talk to a woman in a veil - but Jack Straw does. I just think that he should be the one to extend courtesy to his constituents tbh.

Well, hey, maybe he does. Maybe he asks them to remove it, but "only if they feel comfortable doing so". It does strike me that a simple request, with attendant measures to ensure that there is no pressure on the askee, is surely something that anyone can do, even an elected representative.

It therefore seems, given the subsequent furore, that even asking in this way is something which is unacceptable to some Muslims. Why?

Freckle - second your point - all he did was ask politely - why is that so wrong?

I guess I just don't see why a citizen availing themselves of a service they are entitled to should be asked to do anything they will potentially find uncomfortable. If I were a Muslim in that position - I too would probably find it unacceptable because I would wonder what that had to do with my request for help. And in a climate of suspicion about Islam in general, you begin to wonder what people's motivations are. I don't find it racist exactly - but if you were on the receiving end of racism as part of your life, then you could easily see it as such.

An example being - mine and my partner's surnames are both extremely unusual for this country (and also very unusual in our countries of origin!) and no-one else in Britain has them. We both very often hear - "ooh that's unusual" or "ooh I'll never be able to pronounce that" or similar from people in call centres, in shops etc etc. While I know there is no malice behind it, sometimes you just think - why are you commenting on the difference between us? Why not just treat me as another customer? Maybe makes me sound a bit miserable but honestly it gets a bit wearing, it's unnecessary and when I was younger it made me self conscious.

I always had to spell my maiden name and it was a very simple word (perhaps it was so simple that everyone assumed it should have more complicated spelling). I still have to spell my married name and it's not that unusual.

I can't stand that "I'll never be able to pronounce that" thing. I say, "can you say it slowly so I can copy you and pronounce it properly?"

It's bloody rude to decide you're not going to be able to pronounce someone's name imo. My dad was never called by his real name in England because it had 2 familiar syllables in an unfamiliar order and apparantly it's far too difficult to be able to master it. If you can't be arsed, of course.

I agree with Freckle. Haven't read the whole thread, but I feel that anyone hiding their face, whether by a veil, balaclava, mask or whatever is giving a message that they don't want to interact, that they have something to hide and are generally untrustworthy. If we lived in Saudi, we'd have to wear clothes which the general population approved of, wouldn't be allowed to drive, and would be subject to their laws, however barbaric and inhumane we considered them. The muslims in the UK are already given much more freedom to do what they like here than we'd get if we were living in a Sharia country, and I feel it's time they made some concessions to our way of life. Please don't bother calling me a racist, I'm married to a black man, and this has nothing to do with race, it has everything to do with respect for other peoples' views, which doesn't always have to mean only non muslims respecting muslims, it has to go the other way sometimes as well.

Yes Caligula, that makes me angry too. It's so rude and provincial, especially since there are so many of us in Britain with 'foreign' or unusual names.

The thing is that even of JS did feel uncomfortable he still managed to get the job done ie help the woman with her problem. So the veil couldn't have been that much of a hindrance.

Part of the point of the veil is that women are not really supposed to engage with/be overly-friendly with men who are not part of the family.

The crux of the argument from my point of view is that some people think Muslim women should remove the veil because it aids communication. I feel that in many jobs - medicine, counselling etc this may be true but in everyday life, while it is nice to communicate with people, it is not something that can be forced. Most strangers on the street do not communicate with each other, shop transactions can require minimal interaction.

In other contexts, employment-wise, I'm sure that a veiled person would not be employed if the veil in any way compromised their ability to do their job.

The other argument, that immigrants to this country should conform to English traditions is based on one of two assumptions - either that English traditions are better and English people are superior, or that we were here first and that's why you should do things as we do - an argument which does not carry much logical merit.

Yellowrose you keep saying that this is not to do with facial expressions and that anyone who believes it is must be naive.

Jack Straw may have had some other motive for opening the debate, but for me and most of the other people with whom I've been debating on the issue it is about facial expressions and the central role they play in communication.

Another point to be considered is that even when you can see facial expressions, they can be misinterpreted. For example, in Turkey, a woman's friendly smile means something very different to the way we understand it here, which is why they usually remain serious and formal in everyday interactions. A formal,serious expression, as some customs dictate, could be misinterpreted as aloofness, or even rudeness. My point is that JS needs to be capable of taking much more into consideration than just the presence or absence of a veil. In this situation, the catholic confessional box springs to mind - no need for facial interfacing there. I'm all for us having the debate, but I think that JS needs to listen more carefully to what people are saying when they are asking him for help - it's hardly a conversation between equals anyway, as he is a powerful man and his constituents are coming to him for help.

I havent read this thread AT ALL. I dont really want to. But, my Mum told me that she feels strongly about this. She is incredibly hard of hearing and she just couldnt hold a conversation with someone who didnt remove their veil because she lip reads.

I dont think it racist - or anything else - if she asked someone to remove their veil to communicate with them.

I also understand that JAck Straw has some hearing difficulties too.

VVVQ I am absolutely sure that no veiled woman would mind removing their veil to communicate with your mother, or with any other person who is hard of hearing.

Perhaps. But, my mum wouldnt know if anyone with a veil was communicating with her in the first place unless they came right up to her face, or tapped her on the shoulder.

This would be quite frightening for her. Because

a) she wouldnt know what was going on until she could explain that she was hard of hearing and that probably wouldnt be first thing on her mind at the time because
b) she would be frightened by being approached so closely by someone whose features she couldnt distinguish/are apparently disguised and this is if
c) they could actually be bothered to approach her after making eye contact and talking to her and her not acknowledgeing them because she wouldnt know they were talking to her and they would just think her rude/racist

This is what goes through her mind. If you dont hear you rely on other senses very much. Its quite frightening at the best of times.

Are there many Muslim people where your mother lives?

"The muslims in the UK are already given much more freedom to do what they like here than we'd get if we were living in a Sharia country"

I'm sorry so now a Muslim person is supposed to be grateful, for being afforded the exact same rights as every other person in the UK???

I have no idea what the laws in some place like Saudi have to do with social niceties of England, or in fact what anything in Saudi Arabia has to do with the average british muslim who has never expended any kind of resource in Saudi Arabia but has spent many years working and payig taxes in England.

And for that matter how many veiled Muslim women has anyone come across in a professional capacity, or is everyone merely saying that the veiled woman walking down the street should not do so as a few sensibilities are offended by it???

Yes, saadia, there are.

VVV I do sympathise with your mother's worries. Is there really much likelihood that a random veiled woman will come up and speak to her?

Also, there are Muslim deaf people too, and they may also find themselves in a situation such as your mother fears. But really as I have said beore Muslim veiled women are probably among the least dangerous/threatening people in society - perhaps you could reassure your mother of that.

My cousin, who is profoundly deaf was beaten up very badly in a park once when some racist youths playing football asked him to pass them a ball, which he obviously didn't hear.

Saadia - I'm not in any great support of JS, but am interested in the wider complexities of this.

You say 'Part of the point of the veil is that women are not really supposed to engage with/be overly-friendly with men who are not part of the family. '. Fair enough: the whole point of the veil is to create a distance between the woman and non-family men. But then, how can that be compatible with veiled women having full access and opportunity in a mixed workplace, or in jobs where contact - engagement - is required in a mixed society?

afaik, the countries where the full veil is customary, and / or women are required by law to cover up, are also the countries where women are not expected to operate in a mixed sphere, to have professions, or to go out and about independently...Saudi, Afghanistan, increasingly Iran, etc.

I have a problem in seeing it both ways - that the veil is adopted for religious reasons to do with not engaging with men, and then expecting full engagement....

I think it is utterly wretched that this whole thing has come to focus on Muslim women, and at this point, if the whole damn population started telling me how and how not I should behave, I would feel very fed-up, and would probably immediately adopt a full veil. Apparantly muslim women are the most economoically disadvantaged group in the entire country, and now they have everyone from 16 year-old muslim fundamentalist boys to middle-aged white men telling them what they should and ought to do to sort out everyone else's problems! Nice one , JS.

Two good comments from the Guardian letters page over the w/e:
One from a man respectfully requesting that JS wear a veil when he visits him in his constituency, and another complaining that certain extremist radical scots were starting to adopt the kilt, and he was anxious about what might be underneath...