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?

A nice story I wanted to add re community integration: in my part of Leicester there was some trouble with the older residents, (mostly British and Polish) who thought that the young black men (Somalis in particular) were unfriendly because they would never respond to a friendly hello. A community worker identified that it was basically a language issue so they sent someone along to some of the old people's clubs to teach them to say hello and other friendly things in Somali... after which of course the young men were apparently surprised and delighted to be greeted in their own language.

I wonder if there are similar initiatives addressing the less integrated Muslim women - it would be nice to think so, as I'm not sure that forcing people to remove veils would help anything (presumably many of them would then just stay at home).

martian - have never lived in Wales and only been there a couple of times on holiday (it is unbelievably beautiful) - so can't compare I am afraid.

Yes, Oxford can be quite snobbish, but as a smaller place than London there is more sense of community in some neighbourhoods and you are more likley to get chatting to your neighbours there.

In some parts of London you can feel totally isolated, esp. as a new mum. You have to make a real effort to make friends here, which I do, as I am not shy !

The area where I live has gone from being almost exclusively white to being very culturally mixed. We think it's brilliant because DS will be able to mix with children of all different cultures, have the opportunity to learn other languages (when I was at school my friend used to teach us some gujerati which, to my shame, I've forgotten) etc. Trouble is, I live in a chavalanche area where a lot of the population aren't ask keen and some are openly hostile. You can't get a decent explanation out of them that doesn't consist of a string of expletives joined together with "y'know"

Kathy - that is a very good example of a simple language/culture clash which had a simple solution.

why on earth anyone would feel threatened by a veiled woman is beyond me. if i have any response at all to a veiled woman in the street, its curiosity and wondering at what her life is like, if she feels cut off and how that feels for her... a veiled woman is about the least threatening person i can think of!

iklboo - lol

I feel more threatened walking past a gang of youths than veiled women

My favourite is "cos they're taking our f*cking jobs"

Er....didn't I see you collecting your unemployment benefit the other day mate?

and its my own shynees which stops me talking to people on the street - any people no matter what they look like/wear/whatever.

the whole premise for the 'debate' is bizarre if you ask me (talking about the veil like its the reason for problems in the world).

i welcome that people are talking about it all though. personally i think that communication is the key to everything. i think all probems can be solved with effective communication.

Well, it is nice. And presumably these were young men who had recently arrived from Somalia and would learn to speak English pretty quickly. But being able to say 'hello' to your neighbour does not make for integration. I'm talking about women who had lived in Britain for years and who spoke very little English. They couldn't talk to their neighbours, they couldn't talk to their children's teachers. They couldn't help with their children's homework. Difficult to organise playdates with a child if their mother doesn't speak English.

And I do get the point that soem individuals don't want to integrate into society, but when it is a large-ish number, and they are all from the same cutural group, it doesn't look like individualism. And it does cause tensions.

yellowrose. and there are places in Oxford that are friendlier than others I found Jerico great but Haddington more 'restrained'

becky, this is the probelm that my bro has with some of the families that send kids to the school where he works.

kathy - a lovely example of a simple solution brough about by effective communication.

its so crashingly obvious to me (and lots of other intelligent people as shown by this thread) it seems complete madness that its not more widely thought...

i know its simpliflying things, but why on earth cant we (humans) just stand back from any situation and sit down and talk about things without getting all het up and even going to war about stuff we could have solved if we'd just bloody TALKED about it???

becky - i know its difficult to communicate with language barriers, but its not impossible. sign language and body language get the main stuff across (smiling and nodding at the same cute things the kids do... its not really that hard to know what youre both smiling at)

and it saves making boring bloody small talk lol!

the tensions are indeed present, on both sides, so understanding that they feel just as left out and frustrated by inability to communicate effectively goes some way to relieving that tension, no?

my mum was a community midwife for years in Tower Hamlets where she had lots of ladies who didnt speak english. if she could go into peoples homes, take care of a labouring woman and help them get settled with new baby, help the family to help the woman etc, all without language, im sure we could all manage to communiacte a little better if we wanted/needed to/tried.

Nappies - cos the world in general is run by men

Kathy - I have just read your earlier post. I didn't say Speedymama was generalising, I think someone else did. I said she seems exceedingly one-sided which is another thing altogther.

So is the issue with the veil that people are genuinely SCARED of veiled women ? Well then, that makes the present Govt's attitude even more stupid if you ask me. It was not veiled women who blew themselves up on trains here in London, or veiled women who blew up the twin towers or veiled women who are "insurgents" in Iraq and Afghanistan, so where the hell does the scarey stuff arise !

I am extremely cynical and cannot see it as anything other than a means to distract. Women have been wearing veils here for decades, so why has it not been mentioned before ? Veils do not address the issue of so-called Muslim fundamentalism. The political and foreign policy decisions that this Govt. chooses to make are the root cause of discontent amongst a small number of MALE Muslim youth.

What sacres me to death is that this Govt. chooses to ignore its policies re. Muslim countries on the one hand and Israel on the other. The longer this continues, the worse the situation gets. Even high ranking Americans are saying that the number of terrorist activities and groups have multiplied by the nth degree ever since the invasion of Iraq.

It is our Govt's veiling of the truth we need to question, not the veiling of a handfull of British Muslims.

nappies, but it is hard to see a smile if it is behind a veil, and hard to read body language if it is under, say, a burka.

Not impossible, but so much harder.

Becky - yes, I agree that while a nice story it doesn't address the complexities of the situation with veiled women. (Leicester doesn't share some of the problems of places like Blackburn, too - partly because the council has generally been good at promoting integration through initiatives like this, but also historical reasons to do with the origins of the typical immigrants to the city and the employment situation.)

I had a good friend at uni who was studying Arabic and got me reading various Egyptian women writers (names escape me except for Nadia El Sadawi (sp?) ) after she came back from a year in Egypt and one of the things that was interesting about the women in those books was that they viewed not having to go out as something to aspire to - many working class women wanted to marry men who would support them so they would never have to go out on their own. I would be very interested to know if this sort of attitude has been imported to England among some of the immigrant women and if this is part of the problem - I have heard that some veiled women view it as a status symbol as it shows you don't have to work. (On the other hand, the writers were probably middle class so this may just be the way they liked to represent working class women). Interested to know what other MNers (specially Muslim ones) think about this.

Have you tried discussing a child's academic performance using a makeshift sign language? Or by nodding and smiling? What about the homework that the child brings home from school? Of course we should do the little things, but there is more to it than that. Being unable to speak the language of the country in which you live and raise your children sets you apart. Much more than the veil. And it DOES cause tensions.

Yellowrose - yes, sorry, it was Blu - I think I assumed it had been you because you responded to my post.

Of course it's daft to be scared of women just because they're wearing veils, but people are scared: for example if you look at the comments on the BBC 'Have your say' website (though it's pretty depressing) you will see precisely that, though I'm sure it's the symbolic meaning (ie people see it as standing for Islamic fundamentalism) that frightens some people as much as the cultural conditioning to be uncomfortable with people whose faces you can't see. When I said people were scared I was responding to your post about why the govt is picking on this group rather than other groups; if anything I was supporting your hypothesis about distraction from Iraq etc, though I don't think that's the whole story.

Blimey NappiesLaGore. Your mum sounds formidable

I think the language thing is a completely different issue from the veil one, chances are the fully veiled women speak perfect accentless english.

I do think that speaking the language of the country in which one resides is essential, for ones own benefit if nothing else.

Fuzzywuzzy, yes I have noticed more british born/english speaking muslim woman adopting the scarf or even the veil where I live - East London/Essex area. It is very noticeable in the playground now. I think alot of them are turning to their religion and community for a feeling of security in response to the media. I think it is making many choose not to mix with non-muslims as they are as suspicious of us as we are of them I have lived in an area where bangladeshi and pakistani muslims have lived for years but now there is a feeling of tension.

On the subject of langauge, I would be far less shocked if I met say a Bangladeshi woman in her late 70's not speaking English (many arrive here in later life to simpley with their families and do not seek work at that age !) than say a Somali man in his 20's who has arrived here to look for work.

With the first I would think it would be extremely difficult to learn a language well at an old age (though of course many manage it) and perhaps not that important as she would not be working, in the second case I would hope that he would learn English very quickly, mainly beacuse it would make life as an immigrant easier and he would be more likley to find a decent job.