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.

WEll then it is globalisation that has destroyed your hildhood hallowen, Kitty.

And there might well be a point.

Our traditional Dandelion and Burdock has been replaced with CocaCola and Dr Peppers, a hollowed out sede has been subsumned by pumpkins and trick or treat - and the high street is globalised from one end to the other.

I KNOW Xmas and halloween are commercialised, but that isn't the point. The ppint is that you, in an unspcified or unpinpointable way, feel you can't celebrate being british. I just don't think pc fascists exist - and if they did they couldn't stop peope expressing thier culture.

And if they could - how pathetic is that? You know, people have clutched thier identity under very serious opression - continued to worship African gods under the pretence of the masters' religion, continued religion and kept it's pilot light burning under Leninist regimes, and like MotherInferiors dad, written stories from the Koran fro his children on minute pieces of cigarrette paper smuggled out of prison.

How can some phantom 'pc fascist' stop you feeling british?

It is important to feel proud of your identity, and i'm sorry that you don't . If you find it and begin to enjoy it, you might find out what it is, and pinpoint what is blocking it.

I find the prospest of Sharia Law in the UK more worrying. And, before anyone accuses me of hysteria, I believe that it will be fully in place in areas of the UK, for Muslim UK citizens, within the next twenty years or so.

Like a lot of things, I'm sure that it's essence is good, but it can only be as good as those who interpret/apply it. And we've all seen how The Taliban chose to apply Islam in Afghanistan.

Yes, some junior official in lambeth made a fuss about 'winter lights' - it was quickly retracted...and anyway, I don't see how that sort of silliness can snatch your entire identity from under you! Everyone still has a tree and TALKS about 'christmas lights'.

well seeing as everyone else has gone wildly off topic - I will as well - each time we've been in London for Christmas, the most devout of our muslim neighbours have been round with boxes of chocolates and sweets for the children - they also buy them Easter eggs.

Bubble - what makes you think that??

I don't feel 'oppressed' out of my Britishness in the slightest. That is most definitely not my problem, and I feel extremely uneasy when these discussions start using phrases like 'PC gone mad' etc. But for me seeing women covering their faces with all the shutting off and inconvenience and discomfort and anonymity that involves, is like watching women voluntarily wear shackles in the street. I find it very upsetting. Would black people feel happy seeing other black people wearing slave-style shackles, even if they chose to wear them voluntarily? I honestly suspect not.

dino. I will fight for my right to go wildly off-topic.

Yes, this is the thing, most people of all faiths are moderate. It's just that the extremists make good press?

this thread is a perfect example of the issue here. Out of respect a person should be able to request someone does not wear a veil to communication with them. The person asked should respect that person right be asked. on the other the person wearing the veil may exercise their right to say no to the request and the person who asked should respect that decision. however this is a stalemate is it not. who should budge? this thread has many valid points for both sides of the argument and a few spurious ( to say the least)

Sorrell - I agree - it sticks in my craw and challenges my principles to the core.

The article I mentioned earlier - David Edgar in this a.m's Guardian points out that the 'crisis' for liberals is that whereas we used to feel confident in defending free speech (and by extension free choice) it was because we did so in defence of the opressed. Free speech for homosexuals, etc.

Now, sometimes, if we believe Voltaire in principle(I may not agree with what someone wears but I will defend to the death thier right to wear it') we are having to encompass someones free choice to do something we consider anti-liberal. That IS a serious challenge to liberalism, and one we perhaps aren't dealing with very well.

(I'm not talking about people who are co-erced por pressurised into wearing a veil or doing anyhting else - that is, perhaps, the dilemma for the muslim community to deal with in an honest way)

Bubble - what makes you think that the UK will have areas ruled by Sharia law within 20 years?

Blu, I think it's the 'ghetto' thing which is, and has always been a feature for all immigrants to the UK.

My FIL arrived in the uk as a Jewish immigrant in 1940. His family, like many immigrant families throughout the 50's and 60's, were desperate to 'fit in.' They changed their names etc. and tried, rightly or wrongly, to be as 'English' as possible.

The reverse seems to be true now. Immigrants are, quite rightly, proud of their heritage, encouraged by the UK's 'multi-cultural' policy.

The desire for a Caliphate (sp?) is often dismissed as the ramblings of extremists, but I think that via a 'drip drip' effect it will become a reality in someareas of the UK.

just as an aside, Muslims in Canada asked for Sharia law to be recoognised recently. the request was refused

I think it would be an ENORMOUS shift of parliament to allow rules which actually break the UK law to be in place in this country! There would have to be, in effect, a coup, with radical Islamists decalring UDI and becoming a separate country within a country...no....and I think you do the vast majority of British muslims a disservice by suggesting it.

oh, \I'm not sugesting that they would. I'm just posting that this did happen in canada, and in the end it came to nothing.

Blu. If you read my post of 10.55pm you'll see that I think that the vast majority of UK Muslims are moderate.

Please don't jump on me for expressing an opinion. It does nothing for a good debate.

I'm not jumping...I really am interested in why you think it is likely...because i don't!

on the subject of moderate had a mum here today who felt like she needed to say that she was not a bad muslim. felt a bit sorry for her really. no she was not wearing a veil

The whole veil thing has got me thinking, Blu.

I work with a convert (revert) to Islam who, unlike the three other 'born and bred' Muslim women that I work with, wears a hijab.

She wears this, in her own words, as a 'sign of her faith.'

I worry that, the many women who have inevitably, been 'sound-bited' by the media over the past few days are not wearing a full-veil of their own free-will.

I realise that there will be women who do freely make the choice, but according to the Muslim women that I work with, there has been a growing 'I'm more of a Muslim than you are' thing going on. And, again according to informed Muslim women, this is often instigated by men.

Sharia mortgages are a fact. In practice the impact is minor. It, as far as I can tell, changes the wording on loan contracts. But I think, and although you obviously disagree, Sharia will be allowed to be implemented in some areas of the UK, for British Muslims, in the name of 'multi-culturalism.'

Yes, it is now possible to get a loan which complies with sharia laws on charging or paying interest - but it hasn't been, afaik, to the detriment of any UK law, or required any illegal activity, has it? I think that extending bureacratic ways of doing things to make them possible for a wider diversity of people is quite different to completely reversing the law for certain citizens and not others.

Message withdrawn

Can the law be changed for different, albeit smaller, areas within the UK? In the same way that Scotland (even prior to devolution) had/has different laws on many things?

I realise that Scotland has a distinct 'border.' But can a border be established around a certain area and different laws applied?

Spidermama, I was making the point that other people's negative experience of muslim men, is not just confined to muslim male behaviour. As MB said 'in the end arseholes are arseholes'. ie that kind of behaviour is not at all typical.

Bubble99. I seriously honestly think that you are worrying needlessly about this country becoming Muslim. The Shariah compliant mortgages were bought in because there was a market for such a service (and money was to be made from it). Very few banks offer them, but that does not mean that the banks have stopped all activity involving interest.
There's an area in Golders Green that's been marked round to allow Jewish people to continue working during their Sabbath. My knowledge of what the boundary is called is sketchy, but it doesn't automatically mean that England is going to be taken over by Jewish rule any time soon.

Seriously bubble99 and spidermama, and everyone else. I'm defending the right for the average woman to walk down the street in a veil, I don't relate it to shackles or chains or whatever (am quite shocked that others on here do). Of course everyone should comply with rules pertaining to security.

MB out of interest are there many fully veiled women who attend community colleges?? My experience of fully veiled women is mostly confined to seeing them pass by on the way to drop their children off to school (unveiled to the last child everyone should be happy to hear).

This thread has really made me think. I had no idea how terrified people are that this country is becoming muslim!!!

Fuzzy, re the numbers, I simply don't know. The area I work in has none that I am aware of, but then I work in the whitest county in the UK

This was posted as a serios concern on the Times Ed discussion boards when the court case regarding Hijab etc came up a year or so ago.

lisalisa my comment about being treated like dirt came from experience i am ex cabin crew having worked for an arab airline very briefly as i hated it and for airlines in this country having to regularly do haj trips and trips to israel

i currently work in an area that has a high population of muslims and seeing women in full veils is a common sight here and having muslim friends i do know that some of them are not doing it through their own choice

Blu, I love you, but "I just don't think pc fascists exist..."

You evidently have never worked in the Civil Service then