Britain's Straw Says Muslim Veils Cause `Separation'

[sabra]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601102&sid=aELX_9EnOTOE&refer=uk

Britain's Straw Says Muslim Veils Cause `Separation' (Update1)

Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) -- British Cabinet minister Jack Straw said he would rather Muslim women not wear full veils because the garment causes ``separation.''

``It's about the face. It's about how we relate to strangers,'' Straw said on BBC Radio 4 today. While not questioning Muslim women's right to wear veils, Straw said he's ``concerned about the implications of separation.''

...

``I felt uncomfortable about talking to someone face-to-face who I could not see,'' Straw wrote. ``The value of a meeting, as opposed to a letter or a phone call, is so that you can, almost literally, see what the other person means.''

...

Muslim groups rejected the idea that veils impair communication or separate Muslims from others in Britain.

``His solution is laughable,'' Asghar Bukhari, a spokesman for the Muslim Public Affairs Committee of the U.K. said yesterday. Veils ``don't have anything to do'' with tensions between Muslims and other groups, he said.

[Tom Joad]

1. The wearing of any clothing in public should be banned.

It reflects personal cultural norms, and therefore seperation. A naked country would be a happy country. and everyone would be equal.

[Deep13]

3. "A naked country would be a happy country"

Guess you are not from Minnesota.

[Tom Joad]

5. yeah. There may be drawbacks to this naked plan. But i think my

idea is no less preposterous than what warmaker Jack "Bush's other poodle" Straw is saying. He seems to be serious. I am not. He has a major problem.

[Deep13]

2. The purpose of the veil is seperation.

That's what veil means when speaking figuratively. Britain has no tradition of keeping women seperate and anonymous. It is unreasonable to expect UK officials to talk to someone who is hiding behind a mask. Whatever Middle-East Muslims think about it, in western Europe it is rude.

[Warpy]

4. Straw needs to get a grip

Any man who tells any woman what to wear is asking for trouble.

Women from a tradition that has them wearing the most restrictive veils feel like we'd feel if the gummint decreed all women go topless. Those of us who are less than perfect would never leave the house. Women who have been veiled all their lives feel the same way, naked without the veil.

I used to see elderly women in Boston in all sorts of native dress, from abayas to saris to chengosams. It was just more evidence of a vibrant and cosmopolitan community.

Perhaps Straw is the one who needs to be restricted to his home so that he will never again be offended by any woman's dress.

[Tom Joad]

6. What do you expect of a Bush boy? wisdom?

[damntexdem]

7. They apparently caused separation of ...

his mouth from his brain.

[Hoping4Change]

8. I agree with Straw. I wonder how Muslims would feel if gangs

of non-Muslim youths decided to roam around Muslim nieghbourhoods wearing ski masks. I think masking faces disturb a sense of comfort and security. Furthermore I would like Muslims to accept the presence of Hindu holy men in their nieghbourhoods who opt for spiritual reasons to roam naked.

[pampango]

9. Haaa...The Ol' "How much should immigrants adapt to the culture?"

Good luck finding any new ground on this one. Most immigrants adapt quickly, not because of any law, but because they realize that it helps them be more successful in their new country. Sometimes it takes until the second generation for the acculturation to be complete, but few immigrants fight learning the culture. They may, hopefully do, have fond memories of their home culture, but there is a reason that they immigrated.

When I lived in the Philippines, I expected to learn to learn to speak the language (at least Tagalog, the one spoken around Manila) and learned to adjust to all kinds of cultural norms. It was not a big deal. I figured it was their country not mine. I either play by their rules or go home.

Now that I am older (and wiser?), I realize that Western societies are expected to be more tolerant and respectful of the cultures and sensibilities of immigrants. (I am not saying that they always live up to this norm, but it is disappointing when they don't.) Other countries have ancient cultures filled with tradition, but are not accustomed to absorbing waves of immigration or just value social conformity more than Western societies tend to do. Does that mean they are worse? No, just different.

Is that fair? No, but so what. If I decide to immigrate to China, Japan, Pakistan, or any number of other countries that value social conformity, I had better be prepared conform or get my return ticket out of my pocket. If a Pakistani immigrates here, he will probably adapt to the culture quite quickly, because he or she will believe that it will benefit them and their family. If they choose to retain the old culture, we should give him or her the space to do that.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. If idiots don't make a big deal of it, the veil will disappear on its own

in a generation or two.

When I was tutoring Somali refugees, most of the women wore a head covering at all times, especially outside the house, but one teen-age girl, in the States only a few months, had already interpreted "head covering" to mean a baseball cap!