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.

My last post was in reply to kitty.

Let's face it, what is liberated about our society if we have magazines like Nuts and Zoo as mainstream publications?

some FE collage have had issues with girls who wear the full veil and identity photos. the photos are used to make sure the right person sits the right exam.....FE collages can be very big and a positive ID has to be made.

We do this with the Adult Ed students where I work. Students have to have a positive ID before they can sit and external exam

Fuzzywuzzy - I didn't realise you were in Hackney - I'm in Hackney too!

Spidermama, I am having a lot of trouble understanding your point here. Why is fuzzy's experience of racism not relevant on this thread?

Dino 'When I was little, I hated and was frightened of clowns, but I don't think anyone would have taken that as an argument for disbanding Billy Smart's circus'.

Clowns tend to be confined to the big top. Do you really think they'd be socially accepted if they wore their outfits to go about their daily businsess in the high street?

Nobody's saying we live in a feminist paradise, but we're a long way from the sort of oppression suffered by women, say, under the Taliban.

nearly three, I don't thibk the disappearence of Englishness has anything much to do with muslims agreed, or any other culture. You are right that it is to do with a load of pc idiots in whitehall and local government.
Personaly I would feel better about alot of multiculural stuff if I was allowed to feel proud to be English. I find it hard to swallow that I must celebrate someone else's culture and culutral rights when I have to deny my own.
I think the attitude of these silly white lberals has actually done alot of damage as far as race relations is concerned.

Spidermama, this whole debate is about women choosing to wear the veil in the UK - not about Afghanistan and the Taliban.

If you want to talk about the latter, fine, but it would be better to do it on a separate thread. I really don't think there is a connection here.

Dino, where on earth do you get off attempting to tell me which thread I ought to be on?

And coming from the woman who decided to bring Billy Smart's circus into the equation. Top contribution.

I think it is perfectly natural for long threads like these to change direction, that's what normal conversation is about.
I think what Spidermama said is very much linked to a previous post.

Spidermama, I'm shocked by your intolerance, frankly.

Please explain to me why you think you are 'not allowed' to celebrate your own culture? The shops are chokker with halloween stuff, Christamas has the longest runway of any festival, MN always has really lovely lively answers when someone starts a thread asking people to 'define' Britishness, and it always has things that wepople feel proud of, little quirks, etc.

I honestly wonder whether this whole 'THEY' stop us enjoying our culture, 'THEY' won't alow this that or the other is simply a huge smokescreen for resentment. How on earth does it stop anyone excercising thier own culture if a woman wears a bit of cloth on her head of over her mouth and nose?

I am NOT an advocate of veiling, and I completely agree that I find it creates a barrier to communication (not an insurmountable one, but a barrier nevertheless) - how could it not? It's express purpose is to kee a sense of distance or separation. But if a woman chooses to adopt this, I don't feel that it affects my own identity or relationship with myself as a british person at all!

I am mindful of our colonial past, ashmamed of some of our history, agree with Dino that we kid ourselves if we live in a liberal, free world, especially as women. The 'rape' thread and the obsession with women's bodies, thin-ness etc all prove that. But I love so much else and have (I hope) adopted a perspective on more dubious aspects of western / european / british / english history that enables me to fulfill all the fantastic things about brisish history and character.

The biggest form of repression or censorship can be that which comes from inside your own head. Don't blame nameless oficals in Whitehall or jobsworths from the council - or more likely the apocraphyl stories of PC GONEMAD!!! by the daily mail - just get on and do your thing! As some of you kep saying - no-one from any other background is gping to complain - so what or who is stopping you - if you KNOW that???

i think spidermama has made some very valid points! it is getting to the point where you cant have an opinion without fear of offending someone. i recently received an email about what i suppose you could call reverse racism, ie how its offensive to use the words paki, nigger etc but some of the phrases used for white people are can also be offensive but we have to accept it respect has to work both ways at the end of the day

"Clowns tend to be confined to the big top. Do you really think they'd be socially accepted if they wore their outfits to go about their daily businsess in the high street? "

Aw, c'mon Spidermama - you know full well that if clowns WANTED to go about their daily business in their costumes you would be the first person to defend their right to do so - especially to school as an alternative to teflon trousers!!!!

Blu I was making the point that it wasn't other cultures that were stopping me from enjying my culture it was the attitude of the pc facists. As far as christmas and haloween goes that to me is just a farce. It's so purely commercial. halloween isn't traditionally celebrated in this country. It's manifestation now has come from America and is taken on with glee by the shops because of the revenue it pulls. It is the same with christmas.
I can't pin point exactly where this feeling of having to repress my Englishness comes from, but you don't hear people on the whole go an about how proud they are to be English and it's very sad.

I have never thought we lived in a particularly liberal world, more liberal than many countires but actually still pretty repressed.
But you are right in saying that i should just get on and do my thing. I think it is when I hear news reports that "they" want to change the name for christmas so as not to offend others, it's stuff like that that gets me. I fear things like this might happen, but I really hope not.

Dino, how on earth is Spidermama intolerant???

Please excuse typos

halloween is traditionaly folloed in South Wales.

It was when I was a child in the 60s, and it was when my Father was a child in the 30s!

It is very traditional in parts of the UK

She has a problem with respecting someone who is dressed in a way she doesn't agree with. That to me is intolerance. Just as much as some stuffed shirt stockbroker having a problem with dreadlocks and piercings and tattoos.

It was not celebrated the way it is now when I was a child though.

Very traditional in Northern Ireland too, hmb as I'm sure you know!

I never hear these reports about "them" wanting to change the name of Christmas. Must be my telly, I s'pose.

We used to dress up and knock on door 'begging' for money.

the wording has changed, but not the action!

Be NI, yup, us Celts have to sticj together

Dino, where did she she say or imply that she has trouble respecting people who dress in a way she doesn't "agree" with?

Dino....I did happen in Walsall....but it was *not8 driven by the Muslim, sikh or Hindu communities, but rather by the white local authority.

the local leaders of the other religions though it was totlay mad

Thanks for that MB, I was beginning to think it was all just a dream, no one else seems to have heard about it.

Yet I'm expected to respect someone covered from head to foot and if I don't then it's my fault and I should seek to get to know them better.

It happened in Walsall a fe year ago. i remember it because my Bro lives in Walsall.

They have xmas light in the Arboretum, the (prodominantly white) local council decalred that they would we called 'Winterval' Lights. the local Imams etc thought this was bonkers. they have Eid, why should'nt there be Xmas. etc