It's the old let's-have-a-national-conversation political gambit. You don't take responsibility for a proposal. You just waft the topic and see who inhales.
The Home Office official, a liberal (Jeremy Brown), maintains distance from the proposal itself:
"I think this is a good topic for national debate. People of liberal instincts will have competing notions of how to protect and promote freedom of choice. I am instinctively uneasy about restricting the freedom of individuals to observe the religion of their choice. That would apply to Christian minorities in the Middle East just as much as religious minorities here in Britain. But there is genuine debate about whether girls should feel a compulsion to wear a veil when society deems children to be unable to express personal choices about other areas like buying alcohol, smoking or getting married. We should be very cautious about imposing religious conformity on a society which has always valued freedom of expression."And Brown is not the one who started the conversation. It's already in the air because a college (Birmingham Metropolitan College) recently adopted a rule requiring "all students, staff and visitors to remove face coverings so individuals are 'easily identifiable at all times,'" then dropped it when it got attacked for discriminating against Muslims.
This genuinely is a difficult problem. I can't imagine teaching young children without being able to see their faces. How can you hope for the benefits of diversity in the classroom when one group of children constantly and vividly communicates the refusal to be seen? I understand the let's-have-a-national-conversation political gambit, but it's hard to see how this "good topic" is going to get you to a good resolution.
If it's a national debate, many of the voices will come from those who feel antagonistic toward Muslims, and even if the arguments in favor of female autonomy and equality are strong, those who experience the burden of the ban will feel unequal and oppressed.
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Is the wearing of the veil a religious observance, or a cultural observance solidified by the approval of religious leaders?
If we think of it as a cultural practice, but the practitioners think of it as a religious practice, how are things to be settled?
(I am reminded of another Englishman named Charles Napier, and his response to the cultural practices of India. While the forced wearing of veils is not as heinous as the burning of widows at the funeral of her dead husband, there must be some similar response that is possible.)
I wonder what would have been the result if we had actually had a "national debate" about abortion instead of Roe v Wade, or healthcare reform before the ACA? Almost anything can be used by politicians to avoid or push anything they want, and the infrastructure isn't in place for a "national debate" but the notion is valid. Your mileage may vary.
This genuinely is a difficult problem.
Really?
Here is how the Founding Fathers handled such things:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident . . . "
In other words, those things are so self-evident to folks like us, that we are not even going to bother further explaining ourselves - not should we have to.
If you don't like it, then this country is not for you.
Will never happen. Much too late.
Didn't the Islamic veil originate in ancient Arabia? Tribes (i.e. teenagers or 'braves' in American Indian parlance) raided each other's camps, looking for loot, especially nubile maidens and children who could be taken as slaves, wives, and hostages.
Once all a bedu tribe's females were veiled/fully covered, raiders would be unable to tell the sick, elderly women from the desert foxes, thus making raiding more difficult and less profitable.
Is this conversation about women or girls? Presumably, the students at the college are women. Other people are using the term "children."
I don't think it's common in any Muslim country for children to wear a veil, but I could be wrong.
"those who experience the burden of the ban will feel unequal and oppressed."
The rest of us will also feel a burden. Burkas are used by terrorists to hide their identity, most often to escape detection. Its a bit like using the Diplomatic Pouch to smuggle in conflict diamonds.
Is the Burka really a religious observance? Or is it a tactic of Taqiyya?
If its really so tame, how many burkas do you think we'll see in the audience next time POTUS gives a speech? Or at the Dem National Convention?
They are not veils.
They are masks or hoods.
In the western world, the traditional veil worn, for example, by grieving western woman did not completely hide the face.
Burkas have been used as disguise by male Israeli spies and by male criminals.
Having seen two totally masked people (male?) boarding an American airline at a Dulles airport I think we should outlaw them in public environments.
Multicuralism works just fine until it encounters other cultures.
Belligerent Drunk Stand-up Comic says:
I don't get this whole 'women-wearing-veils' thing, I don't: I've known some ugly women who would be better off with a paper bag over their head, but I think that's a different thing, there. Don't groan, God must've made ugly for a reason; mysterious ways, mysterious ways...
(sips drink)
I mean, we have finally got to the point where women dress like sluts and call it everyday clothing, and the veil -- now that seems like a step backward. Now, a veil with skintight yoga pants, that might be interesting, but I don't think that particular combination is going to be that common (sips drink). Kinda like a Muslim mullet: all business up top, party down below...
(sips drink)
Yoga pants; yeah, yoga pants. Because the Ladies REALLY want the world to know what their asses looks like. And -- ladies -- us men thank you for it, we do. We used to have to imagine what your ass would look like, this kind of imagination was a skill to be carefully developed, and know we know, we don't even have to but you a drink, and when you are bent over putting something in the back seat of your Prius, well, my imagination was never even THAT good.... You've been great, even the ladies...
Traditionally non-Muslim women have been used as sex slaves. They have been forced to dressed in skimpy clothes or have been forced to go naked depending on their Muslim master's desires. Covering up was a prerogative of free Muslim women which showed their superior status.
In my studies, I have found no evidence that either face veiling or headscarves are mandated in the Koran or hadiths. If I am correct, and I'm quite certain that I am since many devout Muslim women do neither, I'm forced to the conclusion that face veils and headscarves are really a political statement by Islamists that they are superior to non-Muslims and that they are here to dominate the surrounding population.
"Is this conversation about women or girls? Presumably, the students at the college are women. Other people are using the term "children.""
The topic became current because of something a college did, but the topic as presented by Brown for conversation is focused on schoolgirls.
I think there is a big difference between young girls and adult women here, and this is part of the conversation to be had.
This is why pretending that we can have a cultural and religiously neutral secularism is nothing but a cul-de-sac.
@SomeoneHasToSayIt Your statement is so bad for so many reasons that I'm just going to ask you to write another comment demonstrating your capacity for self-criticism and insight on the topic: 5 Things That Are At Least Arguably Wrong With What I Just Wrote.
"I think there is a big difference between young girls and adult women here, and this is part of the conversation to be had"
If we're talking about Muslim culture, shouldn't we look at the girls/women distinction through their pov? Because they have different standards for girls than we do.
Althouse@9:47/
Oh Really, Ann? PLEASE pray DO list those "..so many reasons.."
Inquiring minds want guidance from our our intellectual and moral betters the better that we may repeat them out loud as moral incantations until we see the error of our ways..
"The topic became current because of something a college did, but the topic as presented by Brown for conversation is focused on schoolgirls."
There was nothing in the article suggesting "schoolgirls" were coming to school in veils, so the conversation seems be pointless.
@AA/
PS: You seem to have forgotten that most style guides dictate that proper format is to write/spell out all numbers in single digits, i.e., "FIVE" viz "5"
AA continues her spanking frenzy.
Note to @SomeoneHasToSayIt.
Time to lay low for awhile, or change your alias?
Regarding veils, make it school policy that everybody wears a mask of some kind.Include faculty and staff.
"Inquiring minds want guidance from our our intellectual and moral betters the better that we may repeat them out loud as moral incantations until we see the error of our ways."
So… your assignment is to write a comment on the topic: 5 Reasons Why This Sentence Could Be Perceived as Incoherent.
"Time to lay low for awhile, or change your alias?"
Well observed. I proceeded on this theory that SomeoneHasToSayIt had to say something.
"Regarding veils, make it school policy that everybody wears a mask of some kind.Include faculty and staff."
Makes me think of that old suicide lady whose body got thrown in a dumpster because her face looked like a mask and a million Halloween jokes where you tell somebody who's not wearing a mask to take off the mask.
AA: How can you hope for the benefits of diversity in the classroom when one group of children constantly and vividly communicates the refusal to be seen?
It isn't axiomatic that "diversity" in itself provides benefits. Real diversity means you get people who think it right and proper that some members of society "constantly and vividly communicate the refusal to be seen" in public spaces. Arguing about whether this is required by "real" Islam - aside from being fatuous and arrogant, coming from non-Muslims - is just a way to avoid having to face up to the fact that some "diversity" is flat-out incompatible.
It isn't just about interesting new food or new music or new ideas that can find a home in the existing culture. It's also people with fundamentally different, deeply held, and irreconcilable views on the basic conduct of human existence.
If it's a national debate, many of the voices will come from those who feel antagonistic toward Muslims,...
Yes, of course, the important point in any of these debates on cultural incompatibilities is to wank on interminably about the hostiles and the haters and the bigots in our midst, who might, deep in their hearts, have wrong, racist reasons for say, objecting to niqabs, or FGM being performed on girls in Britain. After exhausting ourselves in these ritual decontaminations, we'll have forgotten what we were talking about in the first place, but that's OK, because, having dissolved our own culture in the vapid sea of "multiculturalism" and "non-discrimination", we no longer have any coherent grounds on which to object to any of these things, anyway.
...and even if the arguments in favor of female autonomy and equality are strong,...
You want diversity, you're going to have to realize that "female autonomy and equality" or anybody's "equality and autonomy", for that matter, simply do not have the same moral weight in some people's world views that they have in ours.
...those who experience the burden of the ban will feel unequal and oppressed.
What is the point of bringing in all this "diversity" if you intend to transform them, temperamentally and philosophically, if not sartorially or gastronomically, into late-modern Westerners? If you want diversity, real diversity, you're going to have accept that other people don't think like you. They really, truly, deeply don't share your order of values, or sometimes your values at all.
If you want to choose and limit the type of diversity you want (with the right to define what is "beneficial" reserved by the host culture), you have to be willing to say, "look, you can keep these aspects of your culture, but you may not continue to practice those aspects of your culture here. If you refuse to change on the latter, then, sorry mate, you're going to have to piss off out of this country".
Our values aren't universal. Civic life isn't an abstraction into which we can shoehorn any kind of "diversity" if only we can come up with enough legalistic epicycles and deferents and equants. The attempt to fit everyone in and make them universal will just result in the loss of those values. If you have a rooted tradition of tolerance you can fit quite a bit in. But there is a limit.
Because of the separation of church and state, the Ten Commandments cannot be posted in schools. Cannot veils be banned on the same grounds? In America, there was one school that was in the news because it banned the wearing of the American flag on Cinco de Mayo. The wearing of a veil in a secular society is a microaggression against that society.
A good looking woman has a bargaining edge in most of the transactions that she has to negotiate in life. A veil takes this advantage away from her. Does the veil discriminate against good looking women or in favor of plain women?.....Perhaps good looking women are the shock troops of feminism. They're the one who change hearts and minds. Guys are more inclined to be sensitive to women's issues when such issues are presented by a cute girl. Maybe that's why Islamic states are so backward. Women can't use sex appeal as leverage against sexism.
And that's Britain's Conservative Party? No wonder the country's in such bad shape that Scotland wants out.
Alright, wise guys . . . you tell me : what does the phrase "we hold these truths to be self-evident" mean, in the context they used them?
Because those 'truths' are, in fact NOT self-evident.
The phrase "all Men are created equal", is false. But one could say, clumsily, that "all Men are equally created", meaning that the same process of biology creates a human being in all cases. And I guess THAT is self-evident, at least until Science can do it in the lab, but I don't think that is what they meant. And the unequalness of humans is all around us.
They were, of course, trying to ground the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness on a plain where Man could not get at it, and thus man could not take it away. So they did two things. They claimed it was set so by a purported deity, beyond reach and impeachment, and they also simply proclaimed that those phrases were so true that it was either beneath them to have to explain themselves, or were just letting the rest of us know that they were those who would not be giving an account of their reasons, and if you didn't like that, there was nothing more they could do for you.
Btw, there is some proof that all commentators are not created equal, however, in that our host has called-out-for-embarrassment a safe straight White guy like me, who must now account for his statement, as she never would dare to for, say, a much more deserving Black or female or gay poster.
And you all know that is true.
I can handle it, of course. Fish in a barrel. Just pointing out the 500 lb gorilla.
I have always thought that sunglasses, worn indoors, present a boundary case of what is debated here: the privileged gaze. Eyes reveal a lot, faces much more so; and we read each others' faces and eyes constantly. When one party in the exchange can read but not be read, a tension arises. It is like a one-way mirror. A sense of being surveilled. Power is no longer distributed as evenly as before.
I don't know if that helps the analysis here but I think proponents of facial covering need to work extra hard on the cost-benefit analysis here, including whether the costs and benefits are equitably distributed. Why should the host culture carry the burden of the alienation and hostility implicitly communicated by such coverings?
Just a bit more . . .
Identical twins, by the way, ARE created equal (to each other), so by that fact we know that those of us without an identical twin, are all unequally created.
The Founder's genius was in proclaiming that we are all equally deserving of a 'right to' our lives, our liberty, and the pursuit of our happiness.
No divine right of kings here, though I would venture to say that the divine right of kings was considered 'self-evident' to many in Europe and other places.
The Founders were establishing a place where a different set of values were considered 'self evident'.
And they knew our actual unequalness , and the unequalness of our particular surroundings, would soon enough lead to unequal outcomes, hence the use of the phrase 'pursuit of happiness' rather than just 'happiness'.
So my original comment on this thread stands, and I have, in fact doubled down on it.
So there you go. Have at me.
"@AA/PS: You seem to have forgotten that most style guides dictate that proper format is to write/spell out all numbers in single digits, i.e., "FIVE" viz "5""
My blog, my style guide.
The 'national conversation' Brown was referring to is focused on the social ritual known as an election that will occur in the UK on May 22. Nigel Farage and UKIP are leading in the polls, a reality that the Tories and Lib-Dems are desperate to reverse. This election is for municipal offices and UK reps in the European Parliament, with immigration and its impact on traditional British life being one of the most divisive issues.
In its way, this is the British version of the gay marriage issue in the US, except that it hasn't hit its year of amnesty yet. Farage debated the leader of the Lib-Dems in two BBC sponsored debates, in which immigration and its impact on British life were main topics. The polls afterwards showed that Farage was seen as the winner by a 3 to 1 margin. In that political environment, the pro EU, pro immigration, pro multiculti party would much prefer a 'national conversation' than have to say anything specific.
The phrase "all Men are created equal", is false.
You'll need to support that. That it's false is certainly not self-evident, and in fact I believe it to be true (along with the founders). Why do you say it's false? Do you believe the converse (some men are more equal than others) to be self-evidently true?
I don't think it's common in any Muslim country for children to wear a veil, but I could be wrong.
It depends on your definition of "children". In general, girls are required to abide by the strictures of modesty [whatever that means for their family and subculture] once they reach marriagable age. This varies, but there are well-accepted schools of Islamic jurisprudence where girls are marriagable at six or nine years. (According to a hadith, Muhammed married Aisha when she was six and consummated the marriage when she was nine, and her age can be used to establish the legal marriage age for girls.) Googling "child abaya" will turn up various images of chldren, as well as abayas sized for children for sale.
Of course, under western norms this is far too young, but norms may vary. Under western norms it's rude to wear a mask in public, too.
Althouse,
"This genuinely is a difficult problem."
That depends. More specifically, it's only a problem if you swallow the (post-)modernist notions of multiculturalism.
Anyone having Sir Charles Napier's outlook finds the solution quite easy.
"If it's a national debate, many of the voices will come from those who feel antagonistic toward Muslims, and even if the arguments in favor of female autonomy and equality are strong, those who experience the burden of the ban will feel unequal and oppressed"
The insanity of contemporary "feminism" revealed.
Google "grooming gangs" and wallow in the wonderful diversity islam has brought, the "respect" they have for women, especially infidel women.
For example, I came to a comment from a mother with four daughters living near Bradford. Being sexual harassed during their school days was just a fact of live for them. The mother even wrote that they were solicited when she and her daughters were all together on the street (after all, they are just infidel sluts, aren't they).
She also wrote that it was even worse for the muslim women themselves (They are only "protected" when they are "good" muslim women, otherwise bad things happens to them and they have nowhere to run, feminist and authorities having better things to do like being PC-fascists and make hate-crime laws and things like that).
Another story was of a 12 year old girl who was raped for several hours by different men and then brought home by her rapist. He then asked for her telephone number as if he had done her a favour.
Thing is, islam itself justifies this behavior. The left has really gone full quisling with islam. I can only see the left as a vile murder/suicide cult.
(Fun fact, the grooming gangs have been busy since a long time (end of the '80s in the UK) but especially after 2002, the time when every self-righteous prick began tut-tutting the scandals of the CC. And yet, the gangs have been covered up for years and the number of victims they made in those few years absolutely dwarfs the numbers made by renegade, mainly homosexual, priests and their enablers in the CC since say forever AND the coverups happen(s)(ed) in an overwhelming atheist/agnostic society. It's only a scandal if it has anything to do with the cc, else it's, well I suppose, cultural enrichment or something).
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