Author Archives: Bob Pitt

Veiled women are all victims of male oppression, Joan Smith claims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Joan Smith“… the hijab, niqab, jilbab, chador and burqa. I can’t think of a more dramatic visual symbol of oppression, the inescapable fact being that the vast majority of women who cover their hair, faces and bodies do so because they have no choice…. Muslim women in this country may [sic] be telling the truth when they say they are covering their hair and faces out of choice, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t been influenced by relatives and male clerics….

“The veil in its various forms signals that women have conditional access to public space, allowed to participate in the world outside the home only if they follow certain rules…. when women cover themselves, they are demonstrating their acceptance of an ideology that gives them fewer rights than men and an inferior place in society….

“Far from being a protection for women – it hasn’t prevented alarming levels of rape in Afghanistan and Iraq – the veil protects men from casual arousal. It also establishes women as the sexual property of individual men – fathers, husbands and sons – who are the only people allowed to see them uncovered.

“In that sense Mr Straw’s interventions, while useful in kicking off an overlong debate, do not go nearly far enough. The practice of covering women is a human rights issue in two senses, not just as a symbol of inequality, but because accusations of racism, cultural insensitivity and Islamophobia are commonly used to silence its critics. But if I loathe the niqab and the burqa when I see women wearing them in Iraq and Afghanistan, it would be hypocritical to pretend I don’t find them equally offensive on my local high street.”

Joan Smith, Independent on Sunday, 8 October 2006

‘Muslims demand respect for the veil, but won’t tolerate Western values’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Leo McKinstry writes about the experience of undergoing a search at a London airport:

“I reflected on the irony that I was being forced into this tiresome and humiliating ritual because of the murderous actions of Islamic terrorists. Yet, at the same time, Muslim community leaders were fulminating at Jack Straw for daring to suggest, in the mildest terms, that women should remove their veils when visiting his Blackburn constituency surgery.

“There could not be a more glaring example of Muslim hypocrisy and over-sensitivity. Millions of airline passengers are now being subjected to the grossest inconvenience, delays and physical intrusion as a result of the global jihad being waged in the name of Allah.

“But instead of issuing an apology for this mayhem or standing up to their violent co-religionists, Muslim representatives continually bleat about their rights, endlessly parading their grievances, justifying terrorism and demanding special treatment.

“The crisis has exposed the deepening crisis over Muslims’ reluctance to integrate properly into our modern, democratic society…. Muslims constantly demand respect for all their attitudes, no matter how repulsive, barbaric, prejudiced or superstitious, but few show any willingness to embrace the tolerant values of Western democracy.”

Daily Express, 9 October 2006

Well, of course, if we ever need a demonstration of “the tolerant values of Western democracy”, Leo McKinstry will be our first port of call.

Amis accuses British Muslims of sheltering ‘miserable bastards’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

martin amisMartin Amis has launched an attack on “miserable bastards” in the British Muslim community, accusing them of trying to destroy multicultural society by failing to “fit in” with other faiths.

Young men in late adolescence were being targeted and brainwashed by extremists into joining the “death cult” that was behind last year’s London bombings, he said.

The comments, to an audience at the Cheltenham Festival of Literature, came after Amis, 57, son of the writer Kingsley, was asked to describe his recent return to London, after two and a half years living in Uruguay, where his wife, the writer Isabel Fonseca, has family.

“When I come back to Britain I see a pretty good multicultural society,” he said. “The only element that is not fitting in is Islam. Who else isn’t fitting in?”

Independent, 9 October 2006

‘A growing number use the veil to provoke us’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The burka and the full veil go unremarked in their countries of origin. But in Britain they sharply define one section of society and deliberately exclude the rest. And what were once masks imposed by men are increasingly adopted by some women as a silent gesture towards the host nation…. Meanwhile young men are being recruited across the country at secret meetings addressed by charismatic preachers of hate…. We are well down the road towards a divided nation where some predict Palestine-style conflict between one section and another.

“Too gloomy? A world statesman alarmed by Hezbollah’s sophisticated missile attacks on Israel from Lebanon thinks not. ‘In ten years, we may see rockets like these being fired from the suburbs of Paris’, he told me. And in London? In this context, the growing tendency to adopt the veil ceases to be a fuss about nothing. Islamic extremism thrives on grievances.

“For some women the veil is a genuine expression of faith. For most, it is a form of passive aggression. It is provocative. So, when someone stupidly – but predictably – reacts by ripping off a woman’s veil, a useful grievance is up and running. By the time anyone tries to restore order, that grievance is halfway round the Muslim world, with plenty more where it came from. And it feeds the case for those preaching jihad.”

Trevor Kavanagh in The Sun, 9 October 2006

The politics of choice

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Individuals and groups are entitled to decide how they wish to live, what they wish to eat, drink and wear, even if we strongly disapprove of their choices, as long as they cause no harm to others. Moreover, the state cannot intervene to impose a uniform way of life or way of thinking on its citizens. If it did, it would be sliding into totalitarianism. That is precisely what communism did in the name of cultural revolution, what Saudi Arabia is doing in the name of religion, what France is doing in the name of secularism, and what some sections of the media and political class would have us do in the name of integration and security.”

Soumaya Ghannoushi at the Guardian’s Comment is Free, 9 October 2006

Jack Straw should be praised for lifting the veil on a taboo

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Jack Straw was right to make the simple human point that it is rather hard to conduct a conversation with someone wearing the full veil. He was also right to make the further point that the full veil does not help relations between different communities.

“He didn’t quite say that the veil has no place in a liberal secular society, but if that was his intention I agree with it. This is not to persecute Muslims for their beliefs or deny them rights: it is simply to say that the veil, like it or not, has become increasingly regarded as a symbol of separatist aspiration and of female subservience. Many wear it voluntarily, but it does not stop this being a symbol of women’s oppression which stretches back to the times of classical Greece.

Henry Porter in the Observer, 8 October 2006

Government gives ‘preferential treatment’ to Muslims, Church report claims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Church of England has launched an astonishing attack on the Government’s drive to turn Britain into a multi-faith society.

It claims that divisions between communities have been deepened by the Government’s “schizophrenic” approach to tackling multiculturalism. While trying to encourage interfaith relations, it has actually given “privileged attention” to the Islamic faith and Muslim communities.

Written by Guy Wilkinson, the interfaith adviser to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, the paper says that the Church of England has been sidelined. Instead, “preferential” treatment has been afforded to the Muslim community despite the fact that it makes up only three per cent of the population. Britain remains overwhelmingly a Christian country at heart and moves to label it as a multi-faith society suggest a hidden agenda, it says.

The report lists a number of moves made by the Government since the London bombings in July last year to win favour with Muslim communities. These include “using public funds” to fly Muslim scholars to Britain, shelving legislation on forced marriage and encouraging financial arrangements to comply with Islamic requirements. These efforts have undermined its interfaith agenda and produced no “noticeable positive impact on community cohesion”, the Church document says.

“Indeed, one might argue that disaffection and separation is now greater than ever, with Muslim communities withdrawing further into a sense of victimhood, and other faith communities seriously concerned that the Government has given signals that appear to encourage the notion of a privileged relationship with sections of the Muslim community.”

Sunday Telegraph, 8 October 2006

Mad Mel enthusiastically welcomes the news: “This is a seismic reversal, in a Church that for decades has been on its inter-faith knees before multiculturalism and abandoned the defence of Britain’s Christian identity.”

Melanie Phillips’s Diary, 8 October 2006

Women who wear the veil can be ‘frightening and intimidating’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Phil WoolasMuslim women who cover their faces with veils can be “frightening and intimidating”, says Britain’s Race Minister Phil Woolas. Mr Woolas has raised the stakes with a warning that Muslim veils could increase racial tensions in Britain.

The minister, who has a large Muslim population in his Oldham constituency, backs Mr Straw for starting a national debate. But he warns Muslims must do more to avoid alienating people of other races and faiths.

Writing in the Sunday Mirror today, he says: “Muslim women have every right to wear a veil covering their face. But they must realise that other people who don’t understand their culture can find it frightening and intimidating.”

Sunday Mirror, 8 October 2006

See also BBC News, 7 October 2006

Offended by Straw’s comments on the veil? Go back where you came from

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Simon Jenkins“When Straw asks his women constituents if they might remove their veils during interviews – he does not insist – he was reacting like any normal person to conversing with someone in a mask. To a westerner such conversation is rude. If Muslim women, and it is a tiny number, cannot understand this, it is reasonable to ask why they want to live in Britain…..

“What to a Londoner is an exotic sight on the other side of the street, in the Midlands or northwest is a declaration of apartheid. It announces a group of newcomers who will integrate legally but not culturally, commercially but not socially…. Those who claim such hospitality owe some duty of respect to their hosts, or at the very least cannot complain if the hosts object.”

Simon Jenkins in the Sunday Times, 8 October 2006

Jenkins is, of course, such an expert on the subect that he can’t tell a burqa from a niqab.