Muslim charity run

[Thomasina79]

Has banned women and girls over the age of 12 from participating. Thoughts?

British Culture is secularism, it wasn't Christianity that led to the modern world, it was the values of the Enlightenment. British Culture is an ongoing project, it's been in a state of flux for 2000 plus years. Protecting our secular society is protecting British Culture, it was our culture that led to secularism. We don't have to give up any of the cultural imperative's that got us here today, we don't have to give up Christmas or Easter just because we are a secular country because they are part of the heritage that ended up helping to create the country we live in today. Secularism is not the enemy of faith, it is the only framework that protects diverse beliefs, but it will only work if all the people accept that the values of secularism take priority over values of any faith if they're incompatible with secularism. That's want we must insist on.

So we can agree that this particular group is not rejecting British values?

How can it even be ‘encouraging’ integration, when they are actually excluding women?!

It's an intereresting topic to dwell on. I suppose we'll still be British hundreds of years down the line even with a large wave of demographic change just now, it might just look a bit different to how it otherwise would have done, just as every historic event shaped where we are today.

All that being said though, people's concern will always be the now, and there's a feeling that a) there's been a rapid demographic shift due to high immigration levels and b) this is at a point where it's an overall negative to British culture as it is, or has been for the last few decades. Obviously not everyone feels this way, but clearly growing numbers do. In a nutshell, (some) people are perceiving the current rapid pace of change as unpleasant.

Did you not read the first sentence in my post?

Womens or mens only races are legal. However as a fun type charity run including boys this is clearly for dubious religious/cultural/patriarchal reasons and isn't acceptable.

Tower Hamlets Council should not have given permission for this event to be held in the park unless female runners were allowed.

Under the Public Sector Equality Act they have responsibility for positive action to reduce inequality. Muslim East London women are particularly less likely to meet NHS exercise recommendations.

They also often face shame from their community for exercises when they should be catering for their male partners every whim putting their family first.

It is particularly troubling that teen girl runners aren't allowed, as this is often when girls stop exercising.

I don't know if there are any feminists / feminist groups that could complain?

There really are decent Muslims out there trying to moderate the religion, at great personal expense. I wouldn’t ban Islam because scripturally it’s not too different from any other mainstream religion. But we absolutely must have firm limits on what we are willing to accept in the UK in terms of it being practiced.

And decent, progressive Muslims aren’t served by public sector bodies endorsing regressive practices

So, if I’m a white atheist woman I’m only allowed to worry about white men being shit bags? Is that only towards white women or am I allowed to be outraged at their behaviour towards Muslim women too? I presume you’ll be fine with that. Just as long as we aren’t speaking badly of the Muslim men 🙄

I don't suppose anyone actually wants to discuss women here, and routes we could use to tackle this...

Anyway bit more research.

• Tower Hamlets women have the lowest healthy living expectancy of all women in London.

• Bangladeshi women face some of the poorest life expectancy.

All suggest Tower Hamlets in breach of its Public Sector Equality Duty here. They even find events to encourage women's exercise whilst allowing events in their park that ban women!

Absolutely. Just think of all the young girls murdered in honour killings - they must be the tip of the iceberg of young ladies who, even if they don’t want to cut ties with Islam completely, would like more choice in life and the ability to decide their own future. What they wear, who they date, their job, whether they want marriage and children.

And men, too. My friend’s husband was brought up as a Muslim, he’s no longer practicing to the disappointment of his family. He hides his Western lifestyle of the odd alcoholic drink, LGBT friends and so on from his family due to the stigma and expectation. His marriage to my (white, non Muslim) friend has caused waves in his family and I think it’s fair to say she doesn’t feel accepted.

I was also very sad to see a post on here a few days ago by somebody who works in a SEN school. He/she said although Muslims only make up 20 or 30% of the local population, 90% of the children in the school are disabled through cousin marriage, to the extent they will never speak or be toilet trained and require 24 hour care around the clock. She said the fathers are never seen, and don’t see caring for these children as their role - it all falls to their exhausted wives who only sleep when the kids are at school and spend every other waking second providing care. Just imagine. And Corbyn’s party are all for this.

We’ve had years of certain groups within this country telling us how awful we are, how ashamed they are to be British and trying to shame us for valuing our customs and rules. They call us racist, ‘far right’ and ‘Islamophobic’ and behave in the same way as the trans activists that tried to remove women’s rights.

These people tend to be on the left of politics although I fully recognise that this is not reflective of views of all on the left. I’m not quite sure how to characterise these people but they tend to be ‘intellectual’ types who pride themselves on their tolerance for everyone except British people. Maybe it’s self hatred projected outwards? Who knows but their loud voices are now being challenged.

I think they’ve spent so long studying colonialism at the expense of learning about other global history, and surrounding themselves with likeminded useful idiots, that they are locked in a drama triangle whereby they exclusively feel sympathy for those who are not white British.

Look at Corbyn. I’m really suspicious of exactly what is going on with ‘Your Party’ - it is literally Corbyn and 5 or 6 Muslim bedfellows. Corbyn, and these MPs, have done absolutely nothing bar post/march about Gaza relentlessly for 2 years now. It’s an obsession, in the classic sense of the word. I’m convinced for many people it’s almost a mental illness - not because caring about the victims of conflict isn’t justified, but the sheer scale of their concern compared to other conflicts is wildly disproportionate. I don’t know why people aren’t seeing what is plainly in front of them. I truly believe given the opportunity Corbyn would welcome unlimited Islamic immigration to the UK and enjoy watching the destruction of Western civilisation as he sees us as unworthy.

Oh my god, Corbyn is obsessed.

Also, @Bigpinksweater none of those people seem to understand that colonialism isn't confined to the British, or even white nations in history . A quick read up on, say, the Medieval Islamic Empire would disabuse them of that nonsense.

Niche interest groups e.g. vegans, teetotallers, faiths, students, special needs, corporates, etc can all have their own sporting events - nothing wrong with associating with people that you have things in common with.

However, any organisation putting on a fun run that restricts participation to males of any age and females only up to aged 12 should expect to be questioned and asked to explain the reasoning.

They can't expect not to be challenged regarding this blatant discrimination against women and girls.

I hope he’s being heavily monitored. It worries me that he’s a Parliamentarian with terrorist sympathies

Oh, "our friends in Hamas"?!
FFS you couldn't make it up. This man was actually the leader of the Labour Party.

He’s an absolute disgrace and basically George Galloway.

Good grief! I'd forgotten about him. What a ghastly man.

The group is about increasing participation in 3 key sports undertaken outdoors - running cycling and hiking and is open to anyone who cares to join, not just Muslims. Its key aim is to encourage anyone from any background to get out into the outdoors but in particular anyone whose background means that they might face additional hurdles. As such it surely is a good thing for women generally to have more groups encouraging other women outside - there more there are the safer we will all be.

Jesus I didn't know he said that.

Is this labour

Yes

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/04/jeremy-corbyn-says-he-regrets-calling-hamas-and-hezbollah-friends
Let me be fair to Corbyn - he regrets saying that.

I didn't watch the video but there are 3 photos - photo one a mixture of women with their hair covered and uncovered - the woman bang in the middle of the photo has her hair clearly covered, photo two - a picture of 2 men, photo 3 another mixed group where both women have their hair covered.