Well done Belgium. Veil banned

[Nuttybear]

I fully support this. Really wish the liberals would put aside there protection of these men and free the women here. I vote for bring the same law here. I despise the veil and all it stands for. I saw a woman trip and fall because she could not see the kerb!!! Her husband/uncle/dad then had to guide her over the next kerb. I saw them again in the supermarket I so wanted to throw eggs at him but it would only make her plight worse. I know a minority want to wear the veil. Well, there are countries that support that decision. I know it might make matter worse for some but there must be a stand to free these women of this 13th century habit. Wearing of the veil is not in the Koran. All for modest dress, if you so wish but, unable to look around your world freely is wrong.

"Isnt, I may as well put the view that if enough women go waltzing through Saudi Arabia's malls in miniskirts the locals will get the hang of it and change their entire cultural norm. Would this be a good thing or a bad thing? "

No it isn't because wearing a miniskirt is I think illegal in saudi arabia, from what i have read on here.

"But there is no call for pretending that the cultural norm of the uncovered face does not exist, or is just a fashion, and should be defied, subverted, ignored, shown no respect. "

Where have i pretended that? I'm one of the people who has been arguing that the covering of faces in teh UK is culturally a total no-no.

I don't see that if I wonder out loud whether in time that cultural norm could change, or if it is too strongly embedded to be overcome, that that is pretending anything. It is simply raising what I see as an interesting question.

And still no one has expressed respect for that norm. If you are searching sincerely for what pisses people off, maybe you could start there. It's pissing me off more and more.

My post of 16.28

was a response to "Culture in the West, western culture, has come to mean an assumption that religion is essentially a private matter, separate from civil life, not something to be waved in the faces of others, its symbols constantly on view, not something that makes aggressive demands about setting up religious courts as a perfectly valid alternative to the civil courts in any given country. "

There was nothing in that post to say it applied to the single practice of covering the face, rather I read it to be a more general comment about religion and the UK.

Others certainly have pretended or claimed that ISNT, many others!

Well perhaps replace Saudi Arabia with Pakistan, then. Where it's not against the law. How about then? Would it be ok if it's not against the law?

I think that some people on here are just desperate to have an argument TBH.

Lots of people have said that they understand that it is the cultural norm in the UK - didn't we have a big conversation about just that thing a bit earlier.

I understand your post of 16:28 and agree with it, but am not sure about the comment that follows.

I've been responding to others as well as you, notably Bird on the "cultural norm as fashion".

I can see you are very thoughtful on this, and less certain than I am, though I've also given it lots of thought. I'm sorry if I seem abrasive towards you.

"Again, I have seen no acceptance, understanding or attempt at understanding of this cultural norm by veil wearers. "

That's because no veil wearers have responded. They may not even be reading the thread.

The thing is mmr did in the area you grew up in, were there many (any) veil wearers. Sincere question. In all honesty I think that's why it just doesn't seem problematic to me.

I wonder, if the children of today who are growing up around so many different cultures and expressions of culture will be so worried about it when they grow up (if people are still wearing them).

My only problem per se with the veil is I don't think school children should be wearing it (in school especially that is).

Exposure is very important with this stuff. i agree.

The veil/culture thing though is more compex though because the wearing of it is a total rejection of our society - not having male friends, not being abe to do most types of work etc all teh stuff covered much earlier on.

But then the other closed religious communities don't come in for the same concerns.

Is it that the treatment of women in afganistan is so well publicised, and people link the veils very strongly (even though a burqa is different). Or does it just simply boil down to this cultural need to see/show faces, is that really all it is?

mmr thanks for that I'm really trying to see both sides and challenge myself to see why I think as I do and it's all very interesting

No. Does that make me wrong? Er no I have lived in Asian communities. Does that make me right? Er no, again. It's nice that you don't mind it, but with not minding, you've lost consideration for those who do mind, and you've lost understanding of their point of view.

CagedBird do you have as much respect for the European cultural norm of the uncovered face, as for other cultural norms? I don't think you do. I don't think you even believe it exists. You don't see any double standards at all. That's the only explanation.

I meant people who support veil wearers on this thread. Sorry I should have spelt that out, I thought it would be obvious.

mmr ....which thread?

cariboo is worried about riven

ISNT, I had in mind the Canadian Muslim effort to install Sharia Law (I kinked earlier to a BBC report about this), as well as the veil in other western countries. I was attempting to highlight the difference between fashion and the much deeper idea of 'culture' in that post, so didn't make any specific references.

Any religiously inspired demands that caused ructions in Britain caused those ructions because they were religiously inspired demands, not because the demands would necessarily have been impositions on others or out of step in a superficial way. Resistance to religiously inspired demands comes from a deep feeling that a particular organised religion cannot impose its views or its norms on the rest of society as well as a deeply held cultural aversion to public displays of religiosity, an aversion which possibly had its roots in the British struggle for religious freedom, the struggle for the right to have in individual conscience and to worship or not as one's conscience pleased. Britain has spent hundreds of years dealing with this question, as well as the question of a woman's status in the eyes of the law, and the tide has generally flowed in the direction of religious tolerance and women's rights/equality. Islamic fundamentalism presents a challenge to the law because of the many inherent contradictions in members of one sex choosing (maybe willingly, maybe not) to wear clothing that tends to swim against the tide of British history, and so make such a point of rejecting the cultural norm and legal assumptions at which Britain has arrived.

I have a suspicion that essential elements of Britishness will one day trump any alleged British guilt over the colonial past or attempts to be tolerant of other cultures among British residents. Where the legal system runs up against tribal customs such as honour killing or female genital mutilation (and maybe in the future, cultural/political practices such as veiling the face of women) the legal system (which enshrines so much of British values and the lessons learned from British history) has up to now trumped PCness.

Since the place and role of women seems to be a matter of such concern to Muslim fundamentalists, I would anticipate that this will be the area where British society will have to give some thought to redefining freedoms, and maybe even what it means to be British, what exactly a British subject is.

I don't think Britain will not be able to dodge the questions that France and Belgium have posed while Islamic fundamentalists remain determined to insert a religiosity of culture that is really quite foreign now even in places like Ireland whose cultures were formerly far more dominated by religiosity. Canada was forced to deal with a demand that showed how far apart the two sides on these questions are (citizenship definition, respect for the law and the process that made the law and the place of women in wider society) and in the process it moved towards answering the question of what it means to be a Canadian citizen, a Canadian Muslim woman citizen or a Canadian Muslim man and citizen.

I would like to make it clear that I did not kink , I linked.

OK yes I see what you mean.

Where I start to lose the gist a bit is with the idea that full veil necessarily = reigious fundamentalism (as people on this thread have said that it doesn;t) and that Islam is the only religion in this country which has fundamentalist adherents that have (for want of a better way of putting it) very old fashioned views of what a woman is, how she should dress, what she is for, what rights she has.

When I see people from other sects where I know (or suspect) that women are not having too hot a time, I don't get this "gut feeling" that there is something wrong, even if they are dressed in a manner that displays their adherence to those beliefs.

The thing that is interesting in that last post is that i suspect that women may not have to too good - the fact is I don't know because they really are closed and don't publicise their beliefs.

So I keep coming back to this question of why Islam gets this reaction when others don't.

I think it really boils down to people having an idea about women being oppressed through news coverage, and this thing of covering the face which is just totally at odds with our culture. It's a powerful double-whammy.

Do you see this all kicking off in the near future, math? UK having to decide where it stands with this I mean.

Possibly the reason that Islam gets this reaction whereas other religions don't has something to do with the fact that you don't hear about Jehovah's Witnesses, Amish, Sikhs or Buddhists blowing people up.

You see again I would say that other religions are pretty keen on blowing up people who disagree with them. Both religious nations and bonkers fundamentalist individuals.

Its another thing that is not peculiar to Islam. Maybe fundamentalist muslims are just more vocal than other groups?

Well, this thread was originally specifically about the Belgian response to the full veil, so Muslims and the full veil are being debated.

The association of the full veil and the burqa with fundamentalism is the case in Wahhabi-dominated Saudi Arabia, which spends billions of pounds sponsoring schools, educating clerics, building mosques, etc., in the west every year. Wahhabism started about 200 years ago, founded by Mohammed ibn Abd al Wahhab, and based on earlier reform movements. It is characterised by severe simplicity of worship of God, among other aspects (unitary nature of God, no revering of any other people, or things, or saints, to put it very simply and possibly therefore to misstate -- apologies in advance). Wahhabis consider Wahhabism to be the only true form of Islam. It is intolerant of other forms of Islam, especially Shia Islam, and seeks to make over the Islamic in its own image. It sees the world in terms of Wahhabism vs. infidels. They are very open about this. It's not a secret.

The purpose of the Wahhabi-dominated Muslim community is to become the living embodiment of God's laws. There are various rules about the correct practice of religion and what this entails, among which is the insistence on modest clothing for both men and women. However, while men are left to their own devices with a few guidelines (for example, the ban on silk, and gold) women's clothing is subject to specific rules, including the full veil or the burqa, which are seen as the only correct expression of what it means to be a Muslim woman in terms of clothing (there are other requirements besides clothing).

They adhere to a strict and literal interpretation of the Koran. Wahhabis reject reinterpretation of religious issues (which essentially means social and political issues in both the Saudi Arabian context and, importantly, in the context of the wider world) that are considered already settled by earlier jurists; here they are in conflict with reform movements within Islam that took place in the 19th and 20th centuries that sought to reinterpret parts of the Koran to bring Islam more in step with standards prevalent in the west, notably in areas such as gender relations, family law and participatory democracy.

Full veil therefore = religious fundamentalism.

I do see it kicking off as more and more women adopt the full veil or the burqa. I think it may end up being skirted by treating the apparel of women as a security/ facial recognition issue, but fundamentalist mosques and firebrand Imams are already seen as a security problem in Britain, and since facial recognition is a security tool, maybe there's some justification for lumping the veil issue in under the heading of security. But the deeper question is British culture, as the full veil is another side of the fundamentalist coin.

The women on here who wear a full veil/support the people who want to wear it have been pretty clear that they reject fundamentalism and are upset that anyone would accuse them of that.

So there is a problem there, a difference i cannot see a resolution to.

So (sorry being thick) taliban = wahhabi?

I should probably ask DH or google (as the form on MN in debates like these is "show no weakness" ) but actually its just as we to say that for me, full veil = taliban = scary which is a facet to my discomfort. not full veil = saudi etc IYSWIM

i would think most people in teh UK would think of the taliban before the saudis wouldn't they? I mean people who don't know much apart from watching the news.

Have been googling to try and learn more.

I think I probably need to read some books...

What I don't understand about the women who wear the full veil is how they can be categorically sure that they were not influenced by fundamentalism in their decision to adopt the veil.

There are many elements of my own attire that I chose without giving them much thought. There are some aspects of my own religious practice that I participate in without knowing why I don't just forget about them on any given day. Why do I go to Mass every Sunday when many don't? It would be much easier to sleep in and have brunch. Why do I wear so many blue clothes? Why do I think I cant wear yellow? There are many, many aspects of my child-rearing practices and assumptions that I do because they are somehow second nature to me, just like my religious practices. I simply can't be as categorical as the women who have chosen the veil seem to be about all the choices, both everyday and relating to religion, that I have made.

I am, however, aware of what those choices reveal about me and what they say about me to everyone I come in contact with. I know that I would never go around wearing a T-shirt with a racist or misogynist slogan on it. I am RC, and I would never adopt the strict dress of the Archbishop Lefevre wing of the Catholic Church (plain skirts or dresses and very plain shoes, and no makeup for women, AFAICS) because that would say something about my support of that wing (maybe they were all excommunicated, so maybe not even a wing) and that I repudiated the reforms of Vatican II. I don't go to the Latin Masses that were given the OK by Pope Benedict.

What you wear and how you behave says something about your attitudes -- a fully veiled woman who thinks her choice has nothing to do with fundamentalism either in its origins or in the message it sends, needs a reality check, imo.

Taliban and Wahhabi are cut from exactly the same cloth.

"Resistance to religiously inspired demands comes from a deep feeling that a particular organised religion cannot impose its views or its norms on the rest of society as well as a deeply held cultural aversion to public displays of religiosity, an aversion which possibly had its roots in the British struggle for religious freedom, the struggle for the right to have in individual conscience and to worship or not as one's conscience pleased. Britain has spent hundreds of years dealing with this question, as well as the question of a woman's status in the eyes of the law, and the tide has generally flowed in the direction of religious tolerance and women's rights/equality. Islamic fundamentalism presents a challenge to the law because of the many inherent contradictions in members of one sex choosing (maybe willingly, maybe not) to wear clothing that tends to swim against the tide of British history, and so make such a point of rejecting the cultural norm and legal assumptions at which Britain has arrived."

Math I think your posts have added much to the debate. I don't think it occured to me that the strong aversion to Islam would have something to do with the history of religion in Britain. The fact that there has been a huge fight (together with weakening the power of the monarchy) to dilute the power that organised religion has on the masses.

There does seem to be a fear regarding the "Islamification" of Britain and a general fear of Terrorists who claim to be fighting in the name of Islam, specifically prominent after 9/11 as mumble's post shows (swiftly moving on). And more importantly, the veil can denote that. I think being fearful of someone's face covering hasn't always been such an issue. I don't think it's fair to compare a balaclava to a veil although it must be said there was a time where it was fine to wear balaclava's I remember our neighbour used to wear a bright red one (tbf he was only 6) but I do remember that not that long ago (say the 80's and back some) people wore balaclava's to keep warm. About 10 years ago I bought a neck warmer that comes just up to your nose (by Nike, bought it from JD Sports) and I used to wear it in winter to keep warm and with my hat pulled low you couldn't identify me unless you knew my clothing. However, I would remove them when going inside anywhere and therein the problem lies as it is likely a veiled woman wouldn't. Again however, I don't think this would apply to places where identification is necessary such as the bank, police station, airport.

I guess the question is, when a woman in a veil approaches you, do you a) think terrorist, b) think poor oppressed woman c)barely pay attention? OK that's VERY crude, but I can't help wonder. I get that it's against the grain, but I just don't understand WHY it engender's such a strong reaction from some.

The thing is the veil does not equal terrorism and/or extremism, but I am realising more and more through this thread that that is what many people are thinking.

ISNT the Taliban do follow the wahabi teachings but i think they are more extreme. Wahabi's at least allow schooling for girls (and I guess that's something at least).

They do though expect a lot from men also. They have strict rulings on the beard, clothing and music (you are not allowed to listen to/play any musical instrument according to the Wahabi's, amongst other things. But they are very backwards when coming to women.

"What I don't understand about the women who wear the full veil is how they can be categorically sure that they were not influenced by fundamentalism in their decision to adopt the veil."

hmmmmm I'm going to ponder on that whilst I put the kids to bed.