should muslims wher the vale?

[luke.envoy]

fuck the veil i dont care

its from a place and time where men wrapped up their women like they shouldnt be seen or heard. is that a good thing to promote in any society

[elgato]

is that a good thing to promote in any society

the question is, is that a good thing to forcibly supress in a society where inter-cultural relations are so strained?

[masstronaut]

their women

Oh yeah, very progressive.



Kidding, it's a very fair point you make.

[masstronaut]

First they came for the wearers of veils and I did not speak out because I did not wear a veil.

Then they came for the smokers of the herb...hey, wait a minute!

[pk-]

jack straw said he'd prefer women who specifically came to talk to him took off their veils, but if they wanted they could keep them on and he had no objections to them wearing them outside if they wanted to.

which is completely fair enough.

this is all bollocks, another pointless concentration on an ultimately unimportant factor of the wider tensions between the various races and religions in this country that are growing by the day. they're spurred on by this sort of mindless shite clogging the media, not addressed in the way that they should be, and the more ineffectual, opportunistic MPs who jump on the bandwagon and give their two pence without thinking first the more Muslims are going to feel, for want of a better term, picked on. people wearing these veils have been living here for decades, why the fuck they and other's opinions on them should suddenly be taking up newspaper space just because a few misguided Muslims blew themselves up is beyond me

as for Ms Azmi, she should be allowed to wear her veil but not so naive to think it wouldn't cause her problems in day to day life. if i walked around with a fucking motorcycle helmet on all the time i wouldnt expect to be a particularly welcome sight to everyone i encountered.

[ramadanman]

i dont really see why women would want to wear the veil...

Although I dont know that much about why Islam says about the veil, but i do kinda find it insulting that all men are assumed to be sex-obsessed and as soon as they see a woman's face go into fits of crazy lust...it's just not the case...

dont mind just the head covering ones, but the whole full length thingy is a huge barrier for relations

i read this one guy saying stuff like "In western culture, hiding one's face is something very clandestine and suspicious" - ie masks, balaclavas etc all have negative connotations

damnit i got dragged into this

[masstronaut]

I think pk- is right that this has been a non-issue for the longest time and you have to look very carefully at political and media agendas to see why we are even discussing this now.

OT Crew - banging the world to rights!

[razer-wire]

well i think that its up to them whot theay wear like its toattaly my choice whot i wear. its other peaplices choice whot theay wher so theay should let them wear wotever theay want. its a sighn of religos belifes its like telling a soldier to burn his uniform or a like telling a jew to cut of his hair and take of his supur cool bitchin hat or like telling budda to lose some wait.

Ugetme

[shonky]

I agree it's down to choice, but then when you have religious leaders like this http://www.guardian.co.uk/australia/sto ... 71,00.html it doesn't do any favours and does make you wonder whether choices might be made in fear rather than conviction.

[elgato]

yeh i saw this this morning

very very grim

but i still come back to what i said before, i think you have to be pragmatic and i still think that tolerance is the way forward for community cohesion. i dont think that we can deal with attitudes like this, deeply embedded in certain parts of the faith/culture by obliging people to take off the veil, especially when everywhere you look its framed with so much emphasis on "what I want", "what pisses ME off", "what I find offensive"... which really undermine any case one might make for it being for the liberation of muslim women

we need to keep an eye on the bigger picture... if law was passed and the women were obliged into positive liberty, what would that do to fundamentalists? it would be a disaster, unless the broader choice is made to just war with them rather than reason! which i dont personally think is too good an idea

[luke.envoy]

well i think that its up to them whot theay wear like its toattaly my choice whot i wear. its other peaplices choice whot theay wher so theay should let them wear wotever theay want.

they dont have a choice tho, thats real

[alex bk-bk]

luke, many many people decide to wear it out of choice, many out of fashion choice. Don't jump to the conclusion that every veiled woman is being oppressed

also for many people its a question of personal comfort zones, different family values and upbringings

nobody should be telling anybody what to wear or not to wear in this country, is the inevitable bottom line we have to draw if we're going to preach tollerance within our own subculture !

[luke.envoy]

luke, many many people decide to wear it out of choice, many out of fashion choice. Don't jump to the conclusion that every veiled woman is being oppressed

also for many people its a question of personal comfort zones, different family values and upbringings

nobody should be telling anybody what to wear or not to wear in this country, is the inevitable bottom line we have to draw if we're going to preach tollerance within our own subculture !

i proper doubt that vale culture was brought about as a choice by women!

women from that culture are notoriously intimidated into silence. the qoran says for a woman to report rape she needs 4 (male) witnesses. my point is that they really dont have any rights and slapping them up in black robes is ripping them of their identity.
its completely corrosive to womens rights anywhere in the world.
i dont see why it should be accepted just cause we gotta tread sensitively around certain cultures, who cant even take criticism when u challenge their human rights records

if a woman wears it by choice, shes a walking advert for acceptance of this kind of treatment. its like a woman walking round with a chain and shackles on her ankles! if you cant see it like that, read up

http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/q ... ights.html

4:34 "Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them."

33:32-33 "O ye wives of the Prophet! Ye are not like any other women. ... Stay in your houses."

[elgato]

i dont see why it should be accepted just cause we gotta tread sensitively around certain cultures, who cant even take criticism when u challenge their human rights records

cos otherwise the very big war, and all of the hatred, will continue for a very very long time

and because it sets an obvious and dangerous precedent for state incursion on liberty... thus establishing a state with the ability/right to do what you want to avoid in the first place - i.e. repress

if a woman wears it by choice, shes a walking advert for acceptance of this kind of treatment. its like a woman walking round with a chain and shackles on her ankles! if you cant see it like that, read up

so you want to force them to be free?

do you think thats going to help integratation and harmony?

and that source is very very dubious, to say the least. i certainly wouldnt quote it as gospel (lol, sorry the pun was too easy)

[alex bk-bk]

we can all pull quotes from various times and religions to prove the huge overwhelming patriarchal legacy. But its a complicated issue. it just isnt the same for everyone. its not ours to judge. just becuase america has asserted itself as the world police doesnt give us the licence to go around deciding what's moral and immoral. Morality is a fluid culturally-specific thing. Unless your slogan is Britain for the British then you have to accept these differences brought about by moral codes different to your own

[masstronaut]

We have to be free to criticise ideas if we think they are dumb.

[elgato]

theres a distinction to be drawn between what should be our legal right, and what we feel we should reasonably do as people

i clearly think we should be legally entitled to express our opinions, but i think that pragmatically, currently its foolish to do so (if they are indeed that veils are 'dumb')

[luke.envoy]

we cant accept that women get treated this way, taking control over womens lives and keeping them subservient is worse than a domestic beating. we dont accept any kind of abuse and i think the vale is exactly that. it represents and continues centuries of mistreatment and inequality

change isnt easy and no one wants team america world policing but we need to grow some balls on some issues

[masstronaut]

theres a distinction to be drawn between what should be our legal right, and what we feel we should reasonably do as people

i clearly think we should be legally entitled to express our opinions, but i think that pragmatically, currently its foolish to do so (if they are indeed that veils are 'dumb')

The whole veil issue is not worth getting worked up about anyway.

I just mean that with all this talk of pragmatism and cultural relativism we need to remember that there might be some absolutes we can agree on and that there are some people who would like to see those rights removed.

Ideas must always be open to criticism. End of.

[metalboxproducts]

First they came for the wearers of veils and I did not speak out because I did not wear a veil.

Then they came for the smokers of the herb...hey, wait a minute!

That poem you've nicked is brilliant.....