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October 15, 2006
UK: "Sack Muslim Veil Woman" Says Race Minister
I am taking my lead from BBC's "Breakfast" Show, who say their top stories come from the Sunday Mirror and the front page of the Sunday Telegraph. In the former, race relations minister Phil Woolas (pictured, above left) has said that the Muslim teacher of small children who refuses to remove her veil should be sacked. In the Telegraph, the shadow home secretary David Davis says that Muslims are creating their own self-imposed apartheid.
Since October 5, when former home secretary Jack Straw first made his comments that he found it hard communicating with Muslim women wearing the full face-veil or nikab/niqab, the issue of veils has refused to go away. And while the issue is in the public eye, other stories have appeared, such as the Christian woman who has been told to take off a crucifix by her British Airways Bosses, who allow Sikh bracelets, and Muslim headscarves (hijabs). In addition, British media has also covered issues of Muslim women having their veils removed by force, a Muslim chemist who refuses to hand out post-coitus contraceptives (the "morning after" pill) and the stories are being given prominence. And all these stories happen against the background of a continuous whining in the media by Britain's Muslim "spokespeople", who are given enough attention to give a publicity junkie an overdose.
Firstly, let us examine the case of language teacher Aisha Azmi, who refuses to remove her veil. She has been getting her publicity fix at regular intervals on the BBC's News24 program, and other BBC News Reports, so it should be mentioned here that the sad bint has either extremely poor diction or a speech impediment. It is a natural response when a person cannot speak clearly to look at the speaker's lips. But in the case of Azmi, a tarpaulin exists where lips should be.
She teaches "bilingually" to children at Headfield Church of England Junior School in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. The children she teaches are young, aged under 7 years, and English is not their first language. And, as is natural, children were finding it difficult to make out shat she was saying. Anyone who has heard her nasal whinings and slurred elocution on the BBC would understand the plight of these poor children.
The mother of two, who is 24, did not wear her veil when she was interviewed for the post at the school, because, she whines on the BBC, she did not know a man was going to be present. Currently she is taking her case to Kirklees Council, and is saying she is being discriminated against. The school had asked her to remove the veil but she had refused, and she was suspended.
So on page four of the print edition of the Sunday Mirror, Phil Woolas, the government's "race and faith" minister, has said that she is discriminating against men, and has announced: "She should be sacked. She has put herself in a position where she can't do her job."
Azmi whines that her religion "forbids" her from removing her veil in front of male colleagues. Apart from being total bullshit, as women wearing veils are FORBIDDEN from going on pilgrimage to Mecca, when visiting Mecca is one of the most important duties for a Muslim, she herself seems to be making a political statement with her veil, not a religious one.
Woolas said: "She cannot teach a classroom of children wearing a veil. You cannot have a teacher who wears a veil simply because there are men in the room. She is denying the right of children to a full education by insisting that she wears the veil. If she is saying that she won't work with men, she is taking away the right of men to work in schools."
"By insisting that she will wear the veil if men are there, she's saying: 'I'll work with women, but not men'. That's sexual discrimination. No head-teacher could agree to that."
"There are limits in a liberal democracy. There are boundaries in a democracy and this is one of them. It's a boundary we can't cross," Woolas concluded.
Even though my ancestry comes from Wales, I have to admit that the Cardiff accent is not the most easy to understand at the best of times. And Azmi, who comes from Cardiff, has one of the worst accents to emerge from Wales' capital city. Her diction is terrible.
Azmi whines: "The veil does not create a problem and students can talk to me." The speech-impaired bint does not seem to understand that her students have complained, not that they are unable to talk to her, but that when she talks to them, they can not understand. They cannot watch her lips move to make sense of her slurred words and whininess.
And her job is to teach the students to the best of her ability, not to go around worrying that men might see her face. Top marks to Phil Woolas, for not buying her bullshit.
On an edit here - I have been referred to this video from YouTube. Listen to what she says. When asked if her job interview had a man present, and if she wore a veil to this interview, see how she responds. Imagine you are a child, not able to speak English. Would you understand a word she is saying.
YouTube video of Aishah Azmi whining.
And so to the second lead story, and a second politician, from the other side of the spectrum of British politics. The Telegraph's quoting of David Davis (pictured, right), shadow home secretary, is a sign that when politicians from both sides of the House of Commons are united on the same issue, the issue is of some seriousness.
On the front page, Patrick Hennessy and Melissa Kite discuss Davis' comments, and reaction to it. Davis comments are made in an op-ed piece in the Telegraph comments section, entitled: Do Muslims really want apartheid here?.
David Davis defends Jack Straw in his commentary (as a side note - yesterday there was a small demonstration of protest at Straw's Blackburn constituency yesterday, where 30 veiled Muslimahs joined 70 other individuals demanding that the former foreign secretary should be arrested - yes! arrested! - for his comments. The veiled women chanted "The veil is our freedom.")
Davis states: "His (Straw's) comments were perfectly proper and he highlighted an issue that is both important and difficult: the question of the very unity of our nation."
Davis states that we may be creating conditions which foster home-grown terrorism by allowing such divisions to continue. He states: "At its very least, there is a growing feeling that the Muslim community is excessively sensitive to criticism, unwilling to engage in substantive debate. Much worse is the feeling of some Muslim leaders that as a community they should be protected from criticism, argument, parody, satire and all the other challenges that happen in a society that has free speech as its highest value."
He highlights the Cantle Report, which analyzed the riots of Bradford, Burnley and Oldham in 2001, and said that communities are living parallel lives, where people of ethnic difference never meet or engage, and says the government's attitude to this is confused.
Davis is right. When Ruth Kelly at one hand says there should be more hijabs on TV, yet seems shocked when Muslims demand sharia law, there is an element of hypocrisy and double standard, not just from her individually, but from the government. Jack Straw, backed up by the chancellor and the prime minister, says that face-veils are a sign of "separateness", and then John Prescott, the deputy prime minister, says he fully endorses them.
This is a confused attitude, reflected in our society and workplaces. The hijab, a blatant sign of Muslim identity, is seen as acceptable at British Airways for its workers, yet a Christian crucifix, smaller than a 10 pence piece is something that has to be hidden or removed. Are we not, as evidenced by the 2001 census and a poll from 2005, a nation that still sees itself as predominantly Christian? If so, why should Christianity be so persecuted? Why should there be no Christians represented in Ruth Kelly's Commission on Integration and Cohesion?
In his commentary, David Davis speaks of the protests against the Danish cartoons, where "demonstrations in Britain appeared to incite violence or even murder of 'infidels'." He notes that only after Tories called for prosecutions did the government say it would uphold the law.
Davis writes of the same dithering when it led to Muslim preachers of hate, such as Abu Hamza, being allowed to incite murder (for which Hamza was convicted on February 7). Yet this had gone on for years, while Hamza openly flouted the law. We wrote on this, and how US and French intelligence officials could not believe the laissez-faire approach of Britain's authorities towards Hamza.
He also highlights how last year, the government colluded with the Muslim Council of Britain in attempts to introduce a bill which would have made criticism of Islam a crime.
He says more, and I advise you to read his commentary. Davis speaks for a need for a genuine debate about rights and freedoms, and concludes: "What we should do, now, is to ensure that the debate moves on to territory that allows all British citizens to take full part in a society that has delivered, through its freedoms, one of the greatest nations on earth. And make sure it continues to be just that, for everyone."
Reactions to the comments in Davis' piece about the excessive sensitivity of Muslims to criticism or debate were voiced by David Blunkett, former home secretary under Labour, who said: "We should not go out of our way to avoid saying things that we want to say because we might actually cause a rumpus."
Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: "No group in modern Britain has been as systematically vilified in recent years in the media as British Muslims. To say this is to state a clear fact, it is not to be 'excessively sensitive' as Mr Davis suggests. We all as a society ought to uphold the right to free speech. However, that includes the right to protest peacefully against vilification and abuse."
But this becomes a perpetual argument. Whenever one criticizes Muslim "sensitivity" and ongoing grievances about victimhood, Muslims complain about being made victims. While Muslims have this attitude, there will never be any real debate. Muslims have whined and threatened like spoiled children, even though they have rights here that no Christian would have in any Muslim country. And for too long, the nanny state has pandered to their rages and their moanings, and given them more indulgence.
As citizens of Britain, if that is what they choose to be, Muslims should learn to behave as responsible citizens, not as whining brats or fifth columnists. And then we can discuss what citizenship really entails, and the responsibilities which come with citizenship.
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at October 15, 2006 3:48 AM
Comments
If I may share another perspective as to why someone like Jack Straw might feel called upon to address the subject of the veiling of females in British society: There is another reason why this is a problem. It has nothing to do with Islam or Muslims. It has nothing to do with conforming, fashion, or racism. It has nothing to do with freedom of expression. It has nothing to do with the individual wishing to live separately from the prevailing customs in observation of their religious beliefs - for example, the Amish in America are deeply respected, though they deliberately reject dress norms, electricity, telephones, modernity. Here's what the problem
REALLY is:
It is deeply offensive to the most fundamental feeling of people in free societies to see other people openly oppressed. Though we know it happens in various ways to many people in many places, including our own, but when it happens it upsets us. To see degradation of another human being worn publicly and held up as a virtue of some sort is simply sickening to us.
It may be a cultural norm elsewhere to mutilate the genitals of little girls, and considered a virtue; that is not the case here. The custom must be observed elsewhere, not in this society. It may be a cultural virtue to sell off daughters in marriage to strangers, but that is not the case here, and it becomes something that people must do in private -not on the street. It may be a cultural norm for men to have four wives - but polygamy is unlawful here, and disgusting to the majority of citizens. People may freely engage in this sort of arrangement elsewhere. It may be perfectly acceptable to beat one's wife (wives) or kill one's daughters ("Honor" killing, I believe the term is) but here these things are crimes - assault and murder. They may not be practised, accepted and excused here.
Imagine if you will some reversal of experience regarding the veiling of females: what if people, for religious reasons, wore men?s clothing designed to expose the testicles, that women's clothing bare the breasts? Would we not all find this appalling? If you were forced to see it on the streets or in public transportation or to know your children were exposed to it in schoolrooms from their teachers, would you not, finally, no matter how much you wish to be sympathetic and tolerant, say something?
The dehumanization of women is obscene to us. To deliberately throw it in the faces of one's neighbors does more than separate - it's offensive. If you are in our countries, you are free to act as you wish in your homes - something that is not the case, I believe, in many of the countries that promote the subjugation of women as a virtue. If people are going to emigrate to free societies, they must understand that they are guests and conduct themselves accordingly, at least in shared public life. Or, live elsewhere. I cannot help but wonder what it is that attracts immigrants to places for which they have such contempt. Please, be happy, perhaps somewhere else.
Jack Straw finally said something. It's worth listening to. If it is unacceptable, perhaps it would be better, and people would be happier, occupying some country whose customs towards females are more in keeping with their comfort zone.
Posted by: Motherdox ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.westernresistance.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at October 20, 2006 7:02 AM
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