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October 10, 2006

UK: Muslim Veil "Sucks" Says Rushdie - Politicians Agree

On October 5, former UK foreign secretary Jack Straw initiated an intense debate when he wrote an article for a local paper in his constituency of Blackburn, Lancashire. In this, he stated that when Muslim women come to visit him wearing the Muslim veil or nikab (pictured) he asks them to remove it, as it "hindered communication". He commented that the wearing of this item had become more common recently, and was a sign of "separation".

On Friday, October 6, Straw went further, saying that he would rather Muslim women did not wear veils at all. He maintains that he has no problem with the Muslim headscarf, or hijab.

His remarks brought condemnation from many Muslims and their appeasers, who insisted on their own right to do as they pleased, without considering the thoughts of mere kaffirs.

One political appeaser, the pug-faced and pugilistic deputy prime minister, John Prescott, waddled into the debate. On Sunday October 8 he said on the BBC 1 program "Sunday AM" that: "If a woman wants to wear a veil, why shouldn't she? It's her choice."

Now the author Salman Rushdie has joined the debate, saying on BBC radio that the "veil sucks". This is reported by Sky News, the Guardian, the Independent, News 24, Metro.co.uk, and numerous other sources.

Salman Rushdie, who was given a fatwa by Ayatollah Khomeini in February 1989, demanding his death, has more reason than most to be contemptuous about the Islamification of Western societies. A revolting little man from Britain's Muslim community, Kalim Siddiqui, travelled to Tehran to meet Khomeini and demand that the death sentence remained. Even though this toad, who founded the pretentiously-titled Muslim Parliament for Britain had mobilized Muslims to call for Rushdie's death, he was never charged with incitement to murder. Kalim Siddiqui, who died in 1996, was the first public figure to show the contempt for the Western society in which he lived, now displayed by so many Muslims in Britain and the West.

59-year old Rushdie was speaking on the Today program on Radio 4 today. Commenting on Straw's comments, he said: "He was expressing an important opinion which is that veils suck - which they do. Speaking as somebody with three sisters and a very largely female Muslim family, there is not a single woman I know in my family or in their friends who would have accepted the wearing of a veil."

"The battle against the veil has been a long and continuing battle against the limitation of women so, in that sense, I am completely on his side. 'I think the veil is a way of taking power away from women."

Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain noted that it was inevitable for Jack Straw's comments to be seized upon by "extremists and bigots", though his own pro-terrorist and anti-semitic remarks would automatically place himself into the category of "extremist and bigot". Bunglawala said: "It is important to point out that if women are wearing the veil out of their own choice, then that choice ought to be respected."

And, as reported by the International Herald Tribune, Canada's Globe & Mail, the Guardian, BBC, Chancellor Gordon Brown, who has been tipped to replace Tony Blair when he steps down next year, has also given his support to Jack Straw. And Tony Blair has also supported Straw's remarks.

Brown was speaking to the BBC on its Six O'Clock News program. He had earlier in the day outlined his suggestions for a crackdown on terror at a speech to policy unit Chatham House, in which he had claimed that covert intelligence would be used for the first time to freeze the assets of those thought to be funding terror operations.

After reporting on this, an interviewer from the BBC asked Brown what he thought of the veil. Sitting in an antique chair in refined surroundings, Brown had earlier been talking with the interviewer using rather rigid body language, moving his fists in parallel motion, like someone about to engage in a playground "counting out" game. When asked whether he would "prefer it and think it better for Britain if fewer people wore veils", Brown replied by saying: "That is what Jack Straw has said and I support (it)."

He said that Jack Straw was not "not proposing new laws, he is proposing a debate about the cultural changes that might have to take place in Britain."

He concluded: "I would emphasise the importance of what we do to integrate people into our country, including the language and including history."

And early this morning, Tony Blair, posed under an umbrella and holding a mug of tea, spoke to the BBC's Breakfast Show, and said: "It's important these issues are raised and discussed, and I think it's perfectly sensible if you raise it in a measured and considered way, which he did. I think we can have these discussions without people becoming hysterical either way about it."

When asked if he would prefer a Muslim women that he encountered to remove her veil, Blair flustered slightly. He replied: "I think in the end, it's a matter of them choosing what they want to do....But I think the reason why Jack raised this is because these are issues that people do feel quite strongly about and they are trying to say how do we make sense of a different type of society in which we live, how do we make sure people integrate more, how do we make sure that people aren't sort of wanting to separate themselves out from the mainstream of society."

"It's a difficult and tricky debate to enter into, as we can see over the past few days," he said.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at October 10, 2006 11:11 PM

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