Veil issue

Perhaps the most interesting thing is that when given a (true) choice most people may choose not to wear it.
 
If it was allway's choice and it had advantages then wouldn't men be wearing them?

I guess it is often times a choice, religion in any form tell's us more about what it mean's to be human than anything i can think of. I could see the good side to believing, having intimately experienced an array of belief's in documentary work i conclude that - i forgot what i was thinking....but they hold much cultural value......good parties too.
 
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thedevilsreject said:
people who go on about personal choice really fuck me off. so should the choice of an individual go against what the vast majority want. and you use personal choice like its an excuse..i mean cmon if everything was down to personal choice there would be problems wouldnt there i mean you would get rapists in court going it was my choice or maybe prostitutes whoring themselves in the middle of a high street as its there choice
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But it's what the vast majority want for that person. A rapist want to fuck SOMEBODY ELSE. There's a big difference between a choice about yourself and somebody else. How does a veil on somebody else hurt you?
 
it helps to promote division. many people i have spoken to agree that muslims are starting to become more unpopular here in britain and its through events like this and what can only be described as a tabloid hate campaign thats its started
 
DUDE,

Why not blame the individual's involved? It shows us that we are divided. Religion does not change that fact.
 
im merely stating that muslims have to watch themselves at the moment. with the events of the last 5/6 years they have been becoming increasingly unpopular and mistrusted and individuals like these adding to it are most certainly not helping
 
thedevilsreject

people who go on about personal choice really fuck me off.
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was this statement an intended pun?


so should the choice of an individual go against what the vast majority want.
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we are talking about veils right? Or did I miss something in the numerous responses which caused the subject to change focus?


and you use personal choice like its an excuse..i mean cmon if everything was down to personal choice there would be problems wouldnt there i mean you would get rapists in court going it was my choice or maybe prostitutes whoring themselves in the middle of a high street as its there choice
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therefore you see that legislation determines the limits of a citizens freedom in terms of damage (property or social) - its not clear what are the damagin effects of wearing a veil
 
thedevilsreject said:
im merely stating that muslims have to watch themselves at the moment. with the events of the last 5/6 years they have been becoming increasingly unpopular and mistrusted and individuals like these adding to it are most certainly not helping
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I would also suggest that the persons doing the watching should also watch themselves lest they act in ways contrary to the ideals they feel are being threatened and succumb to an unconsciousness of language

thedevilsreject said:
it helps to promote division. many people i have spoken to agree that muslims are starting to become more unpopular here in britain and its through events like this and what can only be described as a tabloid hate campaign thats its started
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This very divisive stance against division is a prime example of what I mean
 
arkman said:
Why would you be so afraid of someone hiding their face?
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The reason doesn't matter. What matters is that every culture has some very basic rules and when people from other cultures visit or settle they simply must follow them or leave. This professional journalist says it better than I do.
Anne Applebaum said:
Op-ed 10/24/2006

VEILED INSULT

Quite a long time ago, having briefly joined the herd of 20-something backpackers that eternally roams Southeast Asia, I found myself in Bali. Like all of the other 20-somethings, I carefully read the Lonely Planet backpacker's guide to Indonesia and learned, among other things, that it was considered improper for women to wear shorts or trousers when entering Balinese temples. I dutifully purchased a Balinese sarong and, looking awkward and foreign, wore it while visiting temples. I didn't want to cause offense.

I thought of that long-ago incident during a visit last week to London, where a full-fledged shouting match has broken out over Muslim women who choose to wear the veil. This particular argument had begun because a teaching assistant in Yorkshire refused to remove her veil--a niqab , which covers the whole body except for the eyes--in the presence of male teachers, which was much of the time. She was fired; she went to court--and a clutch of senior British politicians entered the fray.

Jack Straw, the former foreign secretary, called the full-face veil "a visible statement of separation and of difference." Tony Blair, the prime minister, added that he could "see the reason" for the teaching assistant to be suspended.

What followed was predictable: accusations of racism, charges of discrimination... and disagreement about whether the veil was even a valid topic of discussion. If Blair and Straw were really concerned about Muslim women, shouldn't they be more interested in underage marriages, or wife beating, or something more important [like those execrable clitoridectomies--F.R.]?

The short answer is, yes, probably. But the curious fact is that the veil, as a political issue, won't go away. The French have banned not only the full veil but head scarves in state schools. Some German regions have banned the head scarf for civil servants too, and they are not permitted in Turkish universities at all. Slowly, the issue is coming to the United States: Just this month a Michigan judge dismissed a small-claims court case filed by a Muslim woman because she refused to remove her full-face veil while testifying. [It is a fundamental principle of American law that one must be given the right to "confront one's accuser." You cannot confront someone who is hiding behind a mask like a bandit.--F.R.]

Critics call the veil a symbol of female oppression or rejection of Western values. Defenders say that it is a symbol of religious faith and that it allows women to be "free" in a different sense--free from cosmetics, from fashion and from unwanted male attention. Debate about the veil inevitably leads to discussions of female emancipation, religious freedom and the assimilation, or lack thereof, of Muslim communities in the West.

And yet, at a much simpler level, surely it is also true that the full-faced veil--the niqab, burqa or chador--causes such deep reactions in the West not so much because of its political or religious symbolism but because it is extremely impolite. Just as it is considered rude, in Bali, to enter temple wearing shorts, so, too, is it considered rude, in America, to hide one's face. We wear masks when we want to frighten, when we are in mourning (and these days only the widow and only at the funeral), or when we want to conceal our identities in order to commit a crime and leave no eyewitnesses. To a Western adult a woman clad from head to toe in black looks like a ghost. To a modern child familiar with stories from other cultures, she looks like a ninja and is no less scary. Thieves and actors hide their faces in the West; honest people look you straight in the eye. "Face to face" has become an everyday phrase in our language because face to face communication is the foundation of our society. Americans will not willingly migrate our commerce to the internet until every computer has video.

Given that polite behavior is required in other facets of their jobs, it doesn't seem to me in the least offensive to require schoolteachers or civil servants to show their faces when dealing with children or the public. If Western tourists can wear sarongs in Balinese temples to show respect for the locals, so too can religious Muslim women show respect for the children they teach and the customers they serve by leaving their head scarves on if they must but removing their full-faced veils.

It would, of course, be outrageous if Tony Blair or the French government were to ban veils altogether--just as it is outrageous that Saudi Arabia bans churches and even forbids priests from entering the country. But just because authorities persecute Christians and Jews in some parts of the Muslim world, that doesn't mean we need to emulate them. In their private lives, Muslim women living in the West should be free to use veils or head scarves as they wish. But freedom to practice religion in the West shouldn't imply freedom to hold jobs that impinge on that practice. An Orthodox Jew should not have an absolute right to work in a restaurant that is open only on Saturdays. A Quaker cannot join the Army and then state that his religion prohibits him from fighting. By the same token, a Muslim woman who wants to cover her face has no absolute right to work in a school or an office where face-to-face conversations are part of the job.

It isn't religious discrimination or anti-Muslim bias to tell her that she must be polite to the natives, respect the local customs, try to speak some of the local patois--and uncover her face like all of the people she wants to live among.
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terryoh said:
The choice of wearing a veil should be given to an individual. I don't know if Britain has any Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but Canada does and it violates the rights of the individual to not allow them to wear a veil.

I think we're making an issue out of nothing. Anyone should be allowed to wear anything, as long as it's not a weapon. Veils should be 100% allowed anywhere. Not allowing it shows intolerance, no matter what you say.
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Do you suppost people that want to wear nothing? Or, say similar to men, women should be able to walk around topless :)

Fair enough?
 
Yes, why not? We're born naked. And isn't the idea that it's not decent for women to walk around topless simply a display of the man being superior to the woman?
 
Oniw17 said:
Yes, why not? We're born naked. And isn't the idea that it's not decent for women to walk around topless simply a display of the man being superior to the woman?
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I agree! :)

BUT, the fact is society determines what is and is not acceptable and based on that decides what is and what is not legal. That's basically the way it works. drugs, prostitution, indecency, gambling, etc... are all regulated by one law or another.
 
Do these veils pose a threat to anyone surrounding them, unless explosives are being hidden. But this is with all clothes. Why are cross dressers wearing such flamming clothing and noone bats an eye. Why can't people who follow their religion not wear clothes which symbolize their religion? You aren't having a debate with veils, you're questioning the constitution.
 
I wonder if the Islamophobes would have government step in to force the American Amish to shed their weird headgear for women? If one hates veils, DON'T LOOK AT EM fer christ's sakes!
 
Islamaphobes, theophobes, atheiphobes: Let's all meet in real life and settle it on ability.

Or are you a Darwiphobe?

As if life ain't happenin' real time already.
 
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