muslim people

[zippadee]

i am alarmed at the amount of anti muslim rhetoric that is being bandied around. particularly by the government. what is going on?
i am a white , non muslim , what does everyone think about this?

speedymama - thanks for the advice - "I DO try it" - it is called being a liberal - a dirty word in some quarters I gather.

Oh dear! The temperature has raised a little in here.

Tell you what...here's some mud pies. OK, 1,2,3......GO!

There. Feel better now!

Blu - speedymamas point might be that it isn't just white british people that have racist opinions (something you'd be forgiven for thinking if you read most of the gutter press)

yellowrose FWIW I agree with you wrt speedymama's posts.

Iklboo - yes, that's true, but given the general context in which Speedymamma comments on muslims and quotes her friends in support of her critiicisms I assumed she was offering her friends views as an authentic and credible view. I do apologise if I was wrong.

I live in Brixton, and if I regularly commented on the behaviour of a small minority of black people who live in the area as if they represented all black people everywhere I would invite a (justified) furious response. Speedymamma is an eloquent and analytical poster on the subject of racism, but feels able to make some sweeping generalisations about muslims in a way that doesn't seem consistent to me.

I wouldn't want a friend who sounded like the BNP on any subject, no matter what race or religion he was! DP's friends - a mixture of asian pepole from the full range of cultural and religious bacjgrounds, manage to have compelete respect for each other and never sound like the BNP!

Blu - I wasn't having a go (or defending speedymama), honest. I agree that racist rants of any nature are not acceptable. I must be a sad indictment of some people that they will always find some excuse to belittle/alienate/attack others, be it race, religion, class, size, even down to what football team they support. If somebody could explain to me in a rational, logical way just exactly WHY they are better than a, b or c I might give them the time of day. Sadly, I've never been able to find anybody

Iklboo - yes, I understand what you're saying.

saadia -
Some of the comments I read hear remind me of a former secretary of mine who said that she was petrified when on a flight to Dubai she saw a veiled woman come into the plane (how suprising is that, for feck's sake, it was a flight to Dubai !!) She immediately feared for her life apparantly. She then saw the husband of the woman come in with a baby in his arms and thought to herself "Oh, that's ok then they won't blow up this plane, they have a baby".

I then asked her why she had lived in Dubai for 20 years if she was so fearful of Arabs ? She said, "Oh, it's beautiful over there, and the salaries and standard of life are excellent, bla..bla..bla..".

I remained quite speechless, which is quite unusual for me

I don't think Speedymama was generalizing at all on this thread - I can't find a post in which she hasn't qualified her comments by saying 'Some Muslims...' 'many Muslims' etc - it is clear to me she has been talking about specific circumstances and individuals rather than all Muslims, except where she is quoting someone else, and I don't think it is fair to impute to her as her own opinion any words just because she happens to quote them.

Though FWIW I do think there's a bit of a problem with the English language which tends to raise the temperature of debates like this: if someone says 'Muslims (or any other group) do x' it is not always clear whether they mean 'x is what all Muslims do' or 'there are some Muslims who do x'.

lol at your secretary yellowrose. As a Muslim myself I must admit I am not a fan of the veil but the irony is that so many people seem to fear them so much when in fact veiled Muslim women are probably the least dangerous/threatening people in society.

saadia - I don't have any friends who are veiled, but would have absolutely no problems getting to know them. I just don't meet any where I live.

Any way, the Govt. and media are doing a very good job of diversionary tacticts. Blame it on the veiled women, because we have f* up big time in Iraq and Afghanistan and don't know how or when to get out.

saadia, an honest question, and feel free to ignore if you like , why are you not a 'fan' of the veil?

Kathy - I don't have an issue with discussing some Muslims nor do Muslims like Saadia on this website from what I have gathered.

But why does the present Govt. not come up with discussions re. some Jews or some Sikhs or some Mormons or some people who belong to the Church of Latter Day Sinners or people who have purple hair or wear orange shoes for a change ?

Surely SOME people have an issue with integration and nice community chit chat wherever they live, including Britons, Europeans and Americans who live abroad.

I've been really thinking about this veil 'issue'. Where does it all stop? So the veil is preventing people from integrating properly, and everyone is too scared to approach a veiled woman to speak to.
Once the veil has been forcibly removed, I'm betting that the head covering will be an ishooo too, then long garments, then the coverign of arms and legs in summer is going to be soooo scary to everyone who has the option not to cover whatever they wish to expose.

How many of you approach random strangers on the steet and have a good old chin wag anyway??
I do admittedly get elderly ladies telling me my babies are bonny (or my goodness she's big from the less polite ones), dh often gets told he's a god strong lad, often when he's lent his arm to said old ladies in order to help them to corner shop so they can buy their cigerettes in the middle of a snow storm (has happened, dh thought the old dear was wanting to buy a pint of milk or something, he was left speechless when she lead him straight to the tabacco counter it was really snowing outside and she could hardly walk!!!).

It's really sad and terrifying for me to think I've bought my beautiful little girls into a world like this.

I don't agree that it's necessarily a continuum in the way you describe fuzzywuzzy, that doesn't make logical sense to me. The veil covers the face, obscuring the facial expression and in particular the mouth, muffling the speech and preventing others from truly engaging in reciprocal communication. Head coverings/arms and legs covered up are completely different and do not pose the same problems of communication. Lots of people cover up for all sorts of reasons and nobody complains.

The veil is attracting complaints for the very valid reasons given - the fact that it impedes communication and is thus antisocial and a hindrance to integration, not because of some insidious plot to wipe out all evidence of Muslim culture. Your post is a bit hysterical IMO.

Fuzzy, re talking to stangers, happens all the time in S Wales (of at least it does in the valley I grew up in). Happens a lot in Scotlamd too. Not so common in some parts of England, but does happen in the east Midlands where I now live.

A vast generalisation, but I have found that it is more common in predominantly working class areas....but does happen elsewhere.

I am quite used to going for a walk and have people say 'nice day' or 'shame about the rain' or whatever. Chats with people in shops etc, while waiting in queues. I would find it a cold old world without these casual pleasentaries

mb I am not a fan of the veil because according to my understanding and interpretation of Islamic teachings, it is not a requirement. But I fully accept that I do not have perfect knowledge and that those women who do wear the veil have a different understanding of their faith which is why I fully support their right to wear it. And I would second fuzzywuzzy's suggestion that attacking the veil is really the thin end of the wedge.

martian - you make a very good point about areas and regions and how friendly people are. I remember being quite shocked as a Londoner, when I first moved to Oxford, walking around the canals there people walking their dogs smiled and said hello, this never happens in London !

Without wishing to generalise about London and Londoners, I live in a rather upmarket part of London (not because I am rich, but because I am a snob !!) and funnily enough the women most likley to come and chat/play with my toddler in playgroups/playgrounds are the immigrants, not the local English ladies. This is particularly true of the Greeks, Turks (Muslims), Asians (many Muslims and some wearing scarves) and Latinos I meet who are always very friendly and chatty. I think community integration where I live is excellent.

saadia - I think you give a very logical and intelligent reason for why you do not wear the veil yourself.

Yellowrose - I didn't say you did; I just don't see where you get that Speedymama was generalizing. I may have missed something (it's a longish thread!) - if so please feel free to put me right.

As to why the govt. doesn't come up with issues about other groups of people - well, if your theory is right and it's all about distraction from Iraq (and I'm sure there is something in that) I can only assume it wouldn't work as well because ATM people aren't scared of Jews, Mormons, people with purple hair etc. (I suspect I have missed the import of your question to be honest.)

Fuzzy - re chinwags with random people on the street - depends where I am. In rural East Yorkshire - all the time; it's something I like about living here. In Essex (where I grew up), never. In Leicester, specifically the mainly Muslim area where I lived for most of the last 4 years, sometimes, though in the corner shop rather than the street, and often with Muslim women wearing hijab or other head covering and never with ones wearing the veil, though as it was an area full of recent immigrants this might have had more to do with language than with anything else - also the veiled women I saw were generally with men rather than just with kids which is when the chat normally happens IME.

Yellowrose, funny, I found Oxford to be less friendly than wales

Saadia, I know (from your posts and fuzzy's ) that many muslims do see it as a religious obligation, but do you meed you don't see the need, or you activly dislike it?

I would read 'Not a fan' as being mildly opposed to something, but I might well be misreading your meaning. So I would say' I am not a fan of people dressing their kids in tee shirts with slogans on', because I activly dislike it, not becaise I don't see the need to do so IYSWIM.

Greensleeves the thing is that many people from all walks of life for whatever reason do not want to "integrate" into society. The way this govt has created this "debate" it's really like taking a heavy blunt DIY instrument to perform keyhole surgery.

If there are veiled women who wear the veil purely to separate themselves, then removing the veil will not change their frame of mind. And tbh I'm not quite sure what kind of "integration" is being asked for. Is the govt and those supporting it saying that Muslims should dress like European people - I mean is the shalwar-kameez also divisive, what about the sari?

The suggestion that the veil impedes communication baffles me. I mean how many veiled women are there in the UK anyway.

I don';t think the governmant has said that, have they? If so it has passed me by.

All JS ever said was that he asked women to remove the veil, not the hejab. Not demanded, asked and only the veil.

We used to live in Frizinghall in Bradford, and a much bigger bar to communication there was language. I was amazed how many of the women had little or no English. TBH, they didn't need it, because Urdu was spoken very widely, but they were living in Bradford, raising their children there, and they couldn't speak English. And these were not women who had recently arrived in the country. They had been there some years. I know that there were a lot of concerns about the language abilities of some children starting school, even if they had been born in Britain. For me, that is MUCH more divisive than a veil. But yet again, it is women.
Of course, it's not ALL women in the area, but it was very noticeable, and definitely stopped pleasant chats on the doorstep in our street.

mb I wouldn't say that I actively dislike it but I see it as unnecessary.