There have been literally thousands of messages posted to the General Politics message board following from Jack Straw's comments about the Muslim veil.
Personally I think he makes a valid point - such veils do act as a barrier between Muslim women and the broader society and they mark their wearers out as intentionally choosing to be viewed as separate from the rest of us. Such views as Straw's - if it is his view rather than a bid for red top popularity and some of Reid's limelight - should be publicly and politely expressed, otherwise how can Britain come together as a nation with shared social understandings? The Leader of the British Council of Muslims agrees with Straw on this, and says that the veil is a topic of dissension within British Islam.
The problem is, and always has been, that any comment made about Muslim lifestyles from people in the public eye elicit an outpouring of racial intolerance of the basest sort. On the message board there are (truly) countless messages saying that the veil should be legally banned and wearers forcibly deported. There is also a distressing amount of people who apparently believe that Muslim women are forced to veil by Muslim men, and/or that they wear veils to hide the fact that they're all too ugly to be seen in the streets. This is the sort of thing which prevents decent people from having the courage to speak their minds, raises what are little more than trivial differences to become major shibboleths, and allows minor irritations to develop into weird racist theories.
1 comment:
I may be very old fashioned ,we were always taught to look the person you are talking to in the eye! and thats a custom here ,Yes Iagree with Jack ,and you ,.,.,Jan xx
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