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All around us, in our courts, in the oppressive liberty-destroying Bills being rushed through Parliament, we see the disasters of multiculturalism, the system by which too many Muslims have been allowed to grow up in this country with no sense of loyalty to its institutions, and with a sense of complete apartness.
The Shabina Begum case never had anything to do with modesty
I don’t know whether you caught young Shabina Begum talking on the television yesterday, but, as I studied the pictures of this exceedingly good-looking and confident young woman, I was suddenly conscious of a paradox.
Here she is, at the centre of a national media storm, and one that has been very largely whipped up by her own supporters. There goes our Shabina, batting her (rather beautiful) eyes through her visor, and thereby exciting the interest of millions of otherwise apathetic viewers, who are not only infidels but very possibly male infidels at that.
This is the 17-year-old from Luton whose dress sense and physical form are now the number one subject for conversation in every household in the country; and yet for years we have been asked to believe that the reason she wanted to vindicate her right to break school rules, and wear a tent instead of shalwar kameez, was to protect - in the word of her lawyer, Cherie Blair - her “modesty”.
What total tripe. This ludicrous and lamentable case had nothing to do with “modesty”. I don’t believe she wore the jilbab to “regain control of her body” any more than I could hope to wear a smarter suit and thereby regain control of my own.
This case wasn’t even about religion, or conscience, or the dictates of faith. At least it wasn’t primarily about those things. It was about power. It was about who really runs the schools in this country, and about how far militant Islam could go in bullying the poor, cowed, gelatinous and mentally spongiform apparatus of the British state.
Until yesterday, it seemed that there was nothing to stand in the Islamists’ way, from the moment on September 3, 2002, when Shabina’s brother and another man turned up at her school, and told a harassed maths teacher called Mr Moore that their Shabina was going to wear the full jilbab in the name of her “modesty”, and that, if they didn’t jump to it, the school would be sued.
And since the school refused to knuckle under, the extremist Islamic organisation Hizb-ut-Tahrir backed a case for breach of her human rights, and soon Shabina had a starring role in the great Rocky Horror Show of British self-flagellation, featuring Cherie Blair, Matrix Chambers, assorted terrified judges and a chorus of cretinous articles by retired feminists, famous for living colourful lives in the 1970s, in which they declared that the jilbab was really rather lovely and “empowering”, and that they wished they had worn one themselves.
Of course I don’t really blame the Prime Minister’s wife for the rubbish she spouted on Shabina’s behalf. We all understand the cab rank principle for barristers. We know the size of her mortgage, and, if her firm had not trousered the £50,000 in legal aid, then someone else would have picked it up. But I do blame the Court of Appeal for its invertebrate performance, and to judge by the tremendous ruling yesterday from Lord Bingham and other Law Lords, I am not alone.
As Lord Bingham points out in his ruling, the Court of Appeal was quite wrong in its assessment of Shabina’s human rights. Yes, she has the right to freedom of religion, but she could not manifest that freedom in such a way as to prejudice the school’s ability to ensure discipline and order, and to run things in the way it wanted.
Even in Strasbourg, home of the European Court of Human Rights, there is a long-standing tradition of upholding the discretion of educational establishments in matters of dress - not least in several important cases defending the right of Turkish universities to ban headscarves.
How could the Court of Appeal have missed this? Is it really possible that British appeal court judges have less robust common sense than the judges of Strasbourg?
Or is it also that our judges suffer, like other parts of the British Establishment, from a certain leeriness and timorousness about Islam? I detect in the Appeal Court ruling in favour of Shabina, that was so ignominiously crushed yesterday, the same hand-wringing wetness that inspired some poor Welsh bishop to resign the editorship of his local church news after he was found to have printed a Danish-type cartoon of positively ovine inoffensiveness.
I am by no means a maximalist in all this. I would certainly not ban all Muslim attire, such as headscarves, from all state schools, not least because that would be discriminatory, unless we simultaneously banned Sikh turbans, Jewish yarmulkes, and so on.
I might add (before I am lynched by Hizb-ut-Tahrir) that my own Muslim great-grandfather was a passionate wearer of the fez, and much resented that his elegant red pillbox-and-tassel was deemed to be backward-looking and Islamicist, and banned by Kemal Ataturk, father of the modern secular Turkey.
But the demands of these men - the brother of Shabina and his friend - were outrageous. As the Law Lords have shown, Shabina’s rights to freedom of religion were not infringed, because she could have taken herself to neighbouring schools that did allow the full jilbab, itself a sobering thought.
More importantly, by proposing to force the jilbabbed Shabina on the school, the men were deliberately setting out to undermine the careful compromise uniform that the school had worked out, which was approved by the Muslim Council of Great Britain.
They no doubt wanted to push the girls into a terrible game of holier-than-thou in which they competed, whether under pressure from their male relatives or not, to conceal ever greater stretches of their anatomy.
They weren’t doing it for Shabina; they weren’t doing it for the other female pupils; they were doing it to show that they could, and to take another yard of territory in the kulturkampf of modern Britain.
All around us, in our courts, in the oppressive liberty-destroying Bills being rushed through Parliament, we see the disasters of multiculturalism, the system by which too many Muslims have been allowed to grow up in this country with no sense of loyalty to its institutions, and with a sense of complete apartness.
In rejecting Shabina’s case, the Law Lords have provided a small but important victory for good sense, for British cohesion, and for the right of teachers to run their own schools.
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It’s a bit odd. Fark pointed out:
British high court, which requires judges and attorneys to cover their hair and wear robes, rules that Muslim students are prohibited from covering their hair and wearing robes
I’ve said it before, and i’ll say it again:
What makes this country Great is our tradition of allowing immigrants to join our society, a tradition that stretches back at least 2000 years. We are a mongrel nation, and should be proud of that, because that is our strength.
But this strength comes from the integration of the newcomers.
If the newcomers aren’t prepared to come and join in, and be British(!), then maybe they have come to the wrong place. It’s akin to trying to play cricket with boxing gloves on. It ceases to be cricket.
Just saying.
Psi
But couldn’t you beat the pants off anyone who played cricket with boxing gloves on? One must be practical!
My sister rides a motorcycle, and when she was out here in BC visiting, it horrified her that Sikhs are allowed not to wear helmets. It means a lot to them not to take the turban off, but from my point of view I see a substantial market for specially-oversized helmets. If they fit over top, no problems. If they don’t, the gene pool is out a few bikers, just give it some time.
I remember a case, moderately recently, involving a young “hoodie” (as I believe they are called) who was allegedly a persistent petty offender. The lout went to Strasbourg to protest that his human rights had been abrogated by an interdict from a British court precluding him from wearing his “hoodie” top in public. The presiding judges found that the aforementioned prohibition would impair his ’self-development’ and called for the interdict to be revoked. The reason for the original court order was because his “hood” also impaired the capability of police officers to identify him from CCTV footage. My view on the aforementioned young man would be to say simply: “Fine sonny Jim, you can wear what you like but, if we catch you in this getup again we’ll do you for ‘going equipped for crime’!”
Many years earlier I also recall being rather nonplussed when crash helmets were made compulsory for motorcyclists although Sikhs were exempted because they wore turbans and couldn’t fit a helmet on. Surely, I thought, if the law is appropriate for one person, it’s proper for all otherwise why have it in the first place? No one (even if you are a Sikh) is put under any obligation to ride a motorbike but, if they want to, an obligation is placed on them to wear a crash helmet. Take your pick: crotch rocket or turban but not both. What’s wrong with that?
It offends my sensibilities when religious observances allow perfectly reasonable laws to be evaded on the pretext of divine authority. Did the young lady in question hand in a note? “Please Sir! I’ve got a note Sir. about my fancy dress outfit, Sir. It’s from God Sir!” It reminds me of Ali-G, when asking a drugs officer if the possession of Marijuana was permissible if it was part of your religion and: “…you had a couple of Bob Marley records…” It would be laughable if it wasn’t so close to the truth!
This contemporary love affair with human rights is becoming increasingly blurred with human convenience and certain, non-precedential, concessions. As Boris stated, there are schools in Britain which will happily allow you to do geography while you’re wrapped in bin liners; of course, the young lady’s friends probably don’t go to such a school and she might have to take two buses in the morning, i.e. terribly inconvenient for her, but not, which is really the point, impossible.
I’ve never had much time for the sort of human rights promulgated on the Strasbourg stage because I don’t think that I, personally, actually have many. If I listed the ones I think are inalienable they would probably be limited to:
1) Right of association - I can be friends with who I like
2) Right to rub myself out - no-one can stop me unless I’m sectioned or paralysed
3) Right to seek happiness - whether I’m successful is an entirely different issue
4) Right to hold my own opinions - again, no-one can stop me from doing this
Things that would be NICE would be:
1) Right to life
2) Right to liberty
3) Right not to be tortured
4) Right to a job
5) Right to housing, food, water…
But I don’t see these latter points as rights. Sure, it would be great if they were rights but a right (in my opinion) is something which CANNOT be taken away from you.
When examined in this light these, alleged, rights rather fall away. I can be murdered (probably by raincoaster) because, if someone knifes me I can’t pull out a contract and say: “Sorry mate.. right to life mate, sod off!” Similarly, if I were to contract some terminal disease, I can’t just show my physician my ‘right-to-life’ card and tell him: “Sort this out will you doc? Must be some sort of admin problem”. The right to wear some arbitrary set of togs at the whim of the currently elected pontiff (of whatever cult) seems to be more of a concession than a right and this is the view, it would appear, the Law Lords have held in this instance.
Anyway, regardless of my religious prejudices, I’m delighted that the Law Lords aren’t as vertebrally challenged as the Court of Appeal.
By the way, do this crew “Hizb-ut-Tahrir” ever dress down a bit when they’re not at school, or do they approve of casual sects?
God bless Boris for saying this.
How much respect and tolerance for her different cultural values would a 17 year old Western girl receive if her family chose to go to live in a strict Moslem country, and she wanted to go about wearing a mini skirt?
Or for that matter if she dressed modestly, but went about trying to persuade Moslems to convert to Christianity?
Unfortunately there is no point even trying to put that sort of comparison to a militant Moslem. They will never, ever recognise comparisons between justice for Moslems and justice for unbelievers.
From a Western point of view this seems to be unfair. From a Moslem point of view I assume that being ‘fair’ to unbelievers should not come into it, since all unbelievers are destined to be boiled alive for eternity, so what need do they have to understand us?
The future worries me.
I am Peter Horxxxx and was Royal Equerry to Prince Philip in the 1950´s. During this time I experienced very strange incidents at Buckingham Palace.
I would like you to come together and help me gather the factual evidence needed to help Mr. Alfayed and the Met Police force. The following information needs your support and help in finding people who can verify these claims:
1) Dr. Jack Miller, former master of Churchill college, Cambs, UK has information about the death of Princess Diana.
2) He allegedly works for the Security Services and owns an accident investigations company called RB Hawkins Cambridge.
3) In September 1997 he told colleagues at Churchill college he was suffering from Pagets Disease.
4) Dr. Miller was a council member of the Winston Churchill memorial trust http://www.wcmt.org.uk at the same time of Sir Richard Vickers.
5) General Sir Richard Vickers was also equerry to Queen Elizabeth in 1956, shortly after me. I totally distrust this man but he has very powerful friends in the British Military.
6) I also believe that Sir Richard Vickers is also in charge of the Queens Private army that was formed by Lord Louis Mountbattern.
7) The private army is funded by funds from the Winston Churchill memorial trust and was involved in monitoring Diana before her death. (note: the link to Nicholas Soames who I also distust)
General Sir Richard Vickers was the former Director of Sandhurst Military college where both Harry and William are studying.
I really need your help and you are welcome to tell your friends and anyone in the media. We need to do everything possible to help the police and bring people to justice.
Peter
Didn’t Janus have 2 faces?
:o?
Still, glad to see that thread hijacking is becoming popular! lol
Psi
What was I just saying about nutters? Splendid! Welcome, Mr. and Mr. Janus.
Joe, a theist like myself would never murder you. We’d leave you to God and chuckle knowingly behind our hands.
I agree that there are many activities we enjoy in our countries that are not compulsory, and I believe that if you wear a turban and want to ride a motorcycle you should contact helmet makers and get them to put out for you with a special helmet, just as one example. That said, if somebody’s head goes splat because they didn’t, I find it difficult to get upset about the loss.
I’m not sure, though, how this girl’s outfit can be outlawed in her school as, essentially, a menace. From an objective point of view, she’s really wearing MORE clothes than most girls; is this really all that bad, if (IF) that is what she wants to do? Now we have MAXIMUM clothing standards for girls? Given the gender disparity in government, this is just a little worrying.
Oh, and if I’ve seemed a little crankier than usual, it’s because I am. Sorry about that, it shouldn’t last. Keep your head down and your chin up.
Janus: you didn’t mention the Reptilian Issue. Are you uninformed, or just being terribly discreet?
Raincoaster: School uniforms are designed to prevent any one individual from standing out. It’s a dress code that keeps all the pupils on an even base, keeping things, well, “uniform”. It has nothing to do with how much more or less would be covered.
Its an old trick.
;o)
Psi
I agree that school uniforms are a good idea, but I didn’t see anything in any of the articles I read indicating that her school was a uniform-wearing school. Boris mentions the shalwar kameez as an option. So it seems (correct me if I’m wrong) that we have the courts telling the girls when they’re wearing too many clothes, in an environment where they usually get to choose their own outfits. God, if it’s up to the government, all the teenage girls will be in string bikinis before the year is over.
“More importantly, by proposing to force the jilbabbed Shabina on the school, the men were deliberately setting out to undermine the careful compromise uniform that the school had worked out, which was approved by the Muslim Council of Great Britain.” - Boris’ article, above.
The mention of a uniform that you missed, raincoaster.
;o)
Psi
I deplore the arrogance of such people in attempting to bring down the fabric of a school’s society by insisting on dressing in a manner heretofore prohibited.
I for one am immensely glad that the Law has , for once in such cases , NOT been an ass.. Given that each person is an individual; in a normally uniformly integrated society such as a school, an exception in that uniformity, particularly in manner of dress, stands out like a sore thumb.
This cannot be allowed.
Someone, ( I think it was Trevor Phlips), said , (and I paraphrase), “If you don’t like the food, go eat in another restaurant”.
Well said Boris!
Well judged judge!
This is where the good old British, and no doubt Canadian, tradition of compromise and pragmatism comes in. But it takes both sides to be prepared to compromise for it to work. The school had done its bit by providing an alternative acceptable apparently to most if not all of the other Muslim girls. The young woman in question had been set up by a radical Islamacist outfit.
For those of you intetrested in comparative fundamentalism you might spot a basic difference between Islam and Christianity as a religion. The Koran is taken as the word of God laying out laws for all to follow or be damned. If you heard the radio report on madrassas in the last couple of days you will have heard how young Muslim boys are trained to read and memorise the Koran in Arabic. This is seen by some of our ‘liberal’ ‘intelligentsia’ as a sign of great respect for learning. If the dear old C of E suddenly started getting its candidates for confirmation to read and learn the Bible in Latin or perhaps Greek and Hebrew we would hear lots from the same ‘liberal’ ‘intelligentsia’ about how hidebound it was.
Islam has no notion of rendering unto Caesar that which is due to Caesar. When people like Locke were promulgating ideas of tolerance it could only work if the different religions at the time would consent to leave temporal matters to a relatively secular government. Yes I am aware that the CofE appoints bishops who are in the HofL, that Prince William is not allowed to marry a Catholic floosy even if he could find one silly enough to want to do so and that Christian feastdays are also state holidays. Nevertheless the British way of governement and the British state is overwhelmingly secular in practice, yet being tolerant of people’s own religious convictions or none. idlex mentionaed fundamentalism elsewhere. British Christian fundamentalists carry placards criticising gay sex and get arrested. Islamic fundamentalists are the law in many countries where they hang gay teenagers from cranes. British Christian fundamentalists protest with banners about plays and films which they find offensive. Islamic fundamentalists usually have the tacit if not open support of their governments in rioting and burning down embassies when an obscure Scandewegian paper publishes cartoons, some time after the event and with extra pigs added to the cartoons when put on leaflets.
Now I’m not a member of the BNP and - hoary old chestnut I know - I have many Muslim friends I like and respect. When we get to talk about these things they as individuals show a greater pragmatism and tolerance than do many of the representatives of Islam that are quoted by the press and courted by such friends of freedom as the Mayor of London. Some of the Muslim ladies I know wear scarves and some don’t. All wish to get along quietly in a way that makes them comfortable and are prepared to compromise to some extent. Is this a non sequiter given what I said first? I don’t think so. Christianity has become vastly more tolerant than it was because of the Enlightenment (maybe because of enlightened self interest). Islam still has to have its enlightenment experience. Many Muslims want that to happen. I think we have a duty to support them by standing up for the principles of the Enlightenment.
Incidentally I heard Mona Siddiqi on thought for the day talking about how the Naughty Old Vatican was trying to go back on its apology about the crusades. Could Mona have a word with a substantial iman or two about apologising for the unpleasantness that was only halted at the gates of Vienna in 1529 and 1683?
Come on Jack, stop messin’ around!
Call for a ban the lot of ‘em, the bloody troublemakers. As a plus, Blair would be obliged to leave the country to practise whichever curious variant of Christian orthodoxy he’s agreed with Gee Dubya.
You know it makes sense.
School uniforms are designed to prevent any one individual from standing out. (Psimon)
That was what I was told when I was handed my school uniform. In practice, it didn’t work. The same uniform, exquisitely tailored, worked wonders in making individuals stand out.
And why should we want to stop people standing out? Doesn’t this have a touch of the Levellers about it?
I can think of very few solid reasons why people should adhere to dress codes. I think it’s handy if you’re a soldier to instantly recognise one of your own side. Same when playing football. I think certain public officials should be instantly recognisable. e.g. police. And in certain trades and industries wearing hard hats and steel-tipped boots is surely essential.
But beyond that, it seems to me that it is not reason, but mere fashion - and even fear -, that dictates what people wear. And there is at present an asymmetry between the sexes: women can wear pretty well anything, while men are stuck in suits.
It would be refreshing to see Boris deliver a speech in the House of Commons wearing cycling shorts and an oversize purple vest decorated with palm trees, and emphasizing his debating points with a bicycle pump.
Fact : Zionism / Islam conflict
Fact : Islamic Militancy is destabilising world economy
Fact : Tony Blair on invasion of Iraq : ” God will judge me” (the electorate is irrelevant)
Fact : Vatican prohibition on contraception with AIDS running rampant in Africa
Do you really want the complete list? It’ll take me months!
Dear All,
Im taking A-level Politics at this moment in time and I’m currently writing a piece on the countries views of the Conservative Party these days. You all seem to be somewhat pro-tory, so if any of you have any comments for me or any useful information then please, email me at dangohon [Email address: dangohon #AT# aol.com - replace #AT# with @ ].
Cheers, and happy blogging 
< Things that would be NICE would be:
1) Right to life
2) Right to liberty
3) Right not to be tortured
4) Right to a job
5) Right to housing, food, water…
< But I don’t see these latter points as rights. Sure, it would be great if they were rights but a right (in my opinion) is something which CANNOT be taken away from you.
OK, so you’re saying that rights-protection is pointless, because the only true rights we have cannot be taken away anyway? Must say I’ve never heard that one before.
Surely a crucial purpose of civilised society is to protect those rights which can be taken away from being so. Hence the Police lock up criminals to stop you being murdered, the NHS tries to cure your ailments to stop you from dying of them, the courts give you a fair trial to maintain your liberty, the goverment refuses to use torture, etc..
It is, in my opinion, therefore incomparably important to recognise that recently the government has actively stopped doing the last two, with imprisonment without trial and extraordinary rendition, not to mention the “anomaly” stance on Guantanamo Bay.
Also, as has been shown by the Mary-Ann Lenehan case, the Police/probation service seem increasingly willing to allow criminals to walk the streets and murder people.
Which leads me conveniently to my pernultimate point, which is that criminals are geenerally punished by the removal of certain rights (2 and 4 in your list, Joe, or 1,3 and 5 as well if you happen to end up in Guantanmo!) and that this has been increasingly eroded by Blair’s government. You could even say, if you wanted to stretch the point slightly too far, that the situation is being reversed.
And that is why/how Blair has taken Britain’s once-great society, and crumbled it into self-righetous, celebrity obsessed, inarticulate dust.
Boris
Your column in today’s Telegraph was spot on. If only you’d stood for PM then perhaps we’d have had some powerful guns to defeat the islamofacists in our midst.
Islam we are told, time and time again, is a peaceful and tollerant religion. What tosh. It is as intollerant as Christianity was during the crusdades where pagans, heretics and unbelievers were slaughtered in their thousands. A man has been sentenced to death for converting to Christianity in Afghanistan. The Taliban blew up centuries old statues sacred to budhists. Home born Muslims from Bradford murdered 52 Londoners last July and only a month ago saw protests on the streets calling for a repeat performance.
There is no tollerance in Islam so we should not tollerate it here.
Militant Islam? Would a lawsuit by Hutterites (Amish-style German-speakers in the midwest) to allow their girls to wear Christian headcoverings be a sign of “militant Christianity”?
Shabina fought for the rights of Muslim girls in Britain, in the same way that President Bush fights for them in the United States. They both deserve our praise.
I’m quite taken with what the Dutch have been doing recently - putting out information videos for people wishing to relocate to their country which politely explain that Holland is a liberal place, where gay men sometimes kiss on the streets and women sometimes flaunt their sexuality and no-one really minds because the Dutch are a tolerant lot and proud of it; and if anyone thinking of applying for residency objects to these behaviours they might want to think again.
All of which COULD have been construed, in the wrong circles, as another instance of ‘Mohammed cartoon’ provocation - except that the Dutch (being a tolerant lot) quite rightly edited the rude bits from any videos that were likely to be viewed in countries that disapproved of these things.
Doncha just love that kind of clarity of thinking?
According to the BBC’s website Boris is on Question Time this evening - thought they usually put a post on to forewarn his many fans
According to the BBC’s website Boris is on Question Time this evening - thought they usually put a post on to forewarn his many fans
According to the BBC’s website Boris is on Question Time this evening - thought they usually put a post on to forewarn his many fans
According to the BBC’s website Boris is on Question Time this evening - thought they usually put a post on to forewarn his many fans
Thanks for the heads up.
Boris’ hair seems even more thatch-like than usual, as if it were the principal casualty of his collision with a large Frenchman.
What happened to him, by the way?
To anyone that is/has missed this weeks QT, its available online here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/question_time/4834410.stm
Bloomin’ marvellous, the BBC!
(Boris looking even more ruffled than usual!)
:oD
Psi
Oh, and damned good plug for the march on Westiminster with regard to the closure of local hospitals.
Well done, Boris.
(I’d be there, but i’m poorer than a bankrupt church mouse right now, and can’t get there. Quite upset about it. If anyone wants to give me a lift from Henley, maybe Melissa can put us in touch?)
SAVE TOWNLANDS HOSPITAL!
(And the other 79 the government are trying to close!)
Having read your column in the Daily Telegraph today and having seen your appearance on Q.T., I have to say: GOOD ON YOU, BORIS! My word, it’s about time that someone actually spoke a bit of blimmin’ sense! The Lords, once again, rescue common sense for the majority with their judgement on Ms. Begum and her ‘human rights’. I wish you and everyone else the best of luck for your march. Keep up the excellent work, my friend.
Psimon, I stand corrected; thanks for that. And yes, if it’s a uniform-wearing school, and she doesn’t want to wear the uniform, there have been many a legal precedent that could have told her how that would turn out. What a bloody waste of time!
Jack, Canada and the UK had similar traditions of inclusiveness until the election of Pierre Trudeau. He was both loved and hated; someone said, “in Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Canada has at last produced a leader worthy of assassination.” But Trudeau was a committed believer in multiculturalism, which is why Canada is a world leader in this new nationhood (and it really does go to the heart of a nation). Because we basically got a headstart on multiculturalism, we have managed to avoid the PC traps that many, like the US, have fallen into. We started before the Relativism Hegemony. So our policies are a lot more difficult, and take a lot more thought to figure out. They’re almost unpredictable, as well, since bashing Relativism is almost as popular as bashing Americans.
Funny you should mention the Hutterites. They only go to their own schools, although they do (or did, back in my day) accept outside students. My parents were thinking of sending me to one of their schools, but decided not to because in winter we wouldn’t have been sure of getting me there in the Manitoba weather. And Canada’s multiculturalism was fired in the crucible of the BC Doukhobors protest. Here’s a bit about it from Pete Seeger’s Smithsonian webpage:
Do as the Doukhobors Do The Doukhobors are Russian immigrants from the Sons of Freedom Sect who settled in western Canada in the 19th century. Angered by some of the teachings in the public schools, five Doukhobor women attended a speech by then Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker in British Columbia. In a time-honored Doukhobor form of protest, the five women arrived at the event without clothing. Reading this … inspired Malvina Reynolds to write this humourous song. Both Malvina Reynolds and Pete Seeger argued that a little humor is good for a song, and the syncopation of Seeger’s music adds to the whimsy. Pete Seeger included it among the songs he recorded for his Broadside recordings, but it has not been commercially released until now.
So glad to see you on Question Time last night Boris and I thought you dealt with the question regarding this issue brilliantly.
Saxmachine is right. Rights are what you are entitled to by belonging to a group which guarantees you the exercise of those rights and to which you owe the duty of upholding those rights as far as others are concerned and other obligations. If you go against the agreed rules then possible sanctions include withdrawal of one or more of those rights.
Having said that if the Aryan Brotherhood sets itself up in a territory guaranteeing the rights of blondes (no reference to our noble e-host) to be beastly to Hebrews then you don’t need to be I. Kant to see that something is wrong. As far as I can see the idea of a universal declaration of rights is that these should be enjoyed by all regardless of station, ancestry, creed or wealth. In the absence of a world government/state it seems that the widest range in which a set of rights can be supported is the nation state in which a more or less representative and large proportion of the population engages in the process of judging governments in elections from time to time.
An obligation in this country is to ensure that your children get an education. Most of us send our descendents off to the local bog standard, some pay extra to send them private and some educate at home.
Like most organisations schools have rules which, like the wider community organisation, are seen, rightly or wrongly, as importnat in the smooth running of the school. Schools do not usually have unreasonable rules - e.g. it would be unreasonable to expect children of all faiths to say the Lord’s prayer. However if we took the union of all the various requirements of religious faiths and wove the rules around that then we would find the situation unworkable. Something’s got to give. In this case since the motivation behind the young woman’s stand is pressed hard by an extreme Islamacist group I think we have reached the point of saying it’s time to cut the crap, that, despite all that Polly Toynbee et al say, Britain is possibly second only to Canada (according to my good e-friend raincoster) in tolerance as far as different ethnicities and religions are concerned, and if you don’t like it then either bear it or depart to a society where your perceived ‘rights’ are upheld. Although not a huge fan of gay culture I am very pleased to live in a society where gays feel free to have ghastly gay pride marches rather than one where they get their necks stretched on a crane. Anyone got any better ideas?
As far as I’m aware, there isn’t a nation which guarantees freedom of clothing. I’m not sure it’s an inalienable right at all.
Like the new Dutch initiative, Saudi Arabia makes it very, very clear to people entering just exactly what kind of a country they’re headed to, as is their right and a very smart policy. You have to (or had to, as of the mid-eighties) sign a contract agreeing to abide by the laws, several of which were laid out, with the punishments for breaking them. Acceptable clothing was listed and the punishment for transgressions was explained; no excuse for breaking that.
Making explicit agreements to abide by the laws of a country conditional on entry would make Customs lineups worse than they already are, but would indeed go a long way to preventing clash-of-culture incidents like this. The problem would be writing the contract; what a nightmare!
Okay, I’ve come down off the high horse and would like to say that I’m not sure Canada actually is ahead of anyone in multiculturalism, just that we’ve been wrestling with it for longer and have had some successes. Well okay, we’re ahead of America and Saudi Arabia and Israel. And (and it pains me to say so) Cuba.
I , for one, am sick and tired of listening to the Eveready chorus of the militant ” Rights” Rabble-rousers, when it comes to that single word ” Rights”. For every right, there is a responsibility: why is there no International Treaty on Human Responsibilities?
Why is there no shifty eyed representative of Human Responsibilities on Question Time, as there is for Ditto Rights.
Boris and the Lib Dem Chappie , along with the CBI Chairman, had he guts to tell the tale as it is , whilst that ancient , once ermined mastodon T.Benn would have us all in the burqa to show solidarity with that betitled pawn of Islamic extremism.
She has experienced the even handedness of British Justice; she has felt what freedom is, by being able to go the Law Lords, presumably at our expense. She should now be able to embrace what real freedom,( of choice,for all), means.
The last time I looked, this country, even if only nominally, was roughly Christian based, and pliant enough to accept other religions, providing there is no unrest fomented by their presence.
If they wish to live in peace, good luck to them, if not; goodbye our freedoms.
Look and listen, very carefully, to the gradual encroachment on; the erosion of, our rights to free speech, and worry.
If the government takes a purely Behaviourist position, legislating for or against actions alone, and officially Do Not Give A Rat’s Ass about the motivation for various actions, it does avoid this whole kind of morass. It also lowers the work load substantially, and most importantly it eliminates the government’s right to criminalize or make compulsory the expression any particular mindset.
The girl wore a particular outfit; in the current situation, if she wore it because Lagerfield told her to, it’s allowed, but because she wore it because she believes God told her to, it’s not allowed. A behaviourist government would have said: You have to wear THIS uniform at THAT school, or you can go to one of these other schools. NEXT!
Which isn’t a bad way to do things. I haven’t seen any useful criticism of the Behaviourist position, and am coming around to thinking that’s the right way to run things. Still chewing over it, though.
I recall that T Benn once wanted to invite Gerry Adams to speak to MPs at a meeting the Houses of Parliament. His (TB’s) angle was ‘Sinn Fein is different from the IRA and we should be able to listen to what they have to say’, followed by a reassuring clench of the jaw on the pipe and a glare to strike down any enemies of this freedom.
I never heard of him inviting the BNP on the same lines.
The man is a collosal fraud. look at the titles of his books. Free at Last - now out of parliament he can get on with politics - oh my! Dare to be a Daniel - heroic! He has a massive ego and found a constituency of PC right onanists to play to. He is not a national treasure. Subject all his comments to what Isaac Asimov called the Semantic Analyser. It’s all bloody rhetoric!
Sorry! Quite forgot myself! Mac it’s too bad of you to mention his name before I’ve had my medication!
One question, relating to what both Psimon and idlex have said:
Does Boris rub Persian cats and balloons on his head just before the cameras roll, or does he always look like that?
raincoster
you have a point which I think is connected to the Enlightenment idea of ‘not making windows into mens’ souls’. My thoughts and desires are my own but I must recognise that there are some I have no right, in a civilised society, to articulate or satisfy, and more widely some it is courteous not to articulate or satisfy. In fact as previous people have observed having thought is more or less what we do, we have no more right to thought than to having mass. We just do. Thoughtcrime is what totalitarians hate. I try and commit a dozen thoughtcrimes before breakfast just to keep in mental shape. Sadly it doesn’t work…
100% Mac, although I’m not sure there’s a one to one mapping between rights and responsibilities, it’s more like Mr. McKay in Porridge:
“We only have two rules here: 1) don’t write on the walls and 2) obey all the rules.”
The same is true in any community; as Jack inferred, your rights are contingent on complying with the local laws/ethos. The predicament here is that one’s rights are affected by changes in the rules. For example I, notionally, have the right to freedom and free speech, but, if I were to announce my wholehearted support for Hamas I may shortly face 30 days in the nick without having been tried and judged by a jury of my peers (the aforesaid presupposes the full provisions of the recent amendments to the terrorism act come into effect). From this we may deduce that freedom (and freedom of expression) is not, necessarily, a right; it appears to take the form of a predominant preference.
It’s also important to understand that rights (in the context discussed here) are bounded temporally and geographically. Eight hundred years ago, the discussion I had on another blog would have resulted in me being spit braaied. Similarly, shouting: “Ayatollah Khomeini is a ******” (insert expletive/complement as desired) in Iran could amount to a fairly terminal decision.
It’s for these reasons that I don’t concur with the contemporary fallacy of universal human rights (with the possible exceptions of those I noted earlier).
My view of the hierarchy of ‘rights’ (hierarchy in the sense that a ‘right’ of a lower order may never supersede a superior order) would read something like this:
1) Inalienable rights (i.e. those ‘rights’ which are, more or less impossible, to take away from us)
2) Law - which conveys certain rights upon us contingent on us obeying said laws
3) Local strictures - such as a requirement (within a time and territory) to wear a particular uniform
4) Ethos - Morals which we feel to be right and proper but not mandatory or precluded by aforementioned restrictions
On the application of this hierarchy, the case Boris has highlighted would never come to court on the basis that it fails because of the precedence of 3 over 4.
Or is this too radically simple and I’m missing the point?
Joe
I see the point as being that the state and laws are a necessary evil and liberals (small l) see it as their role to keep that necessity as small as possible.
Karl Popper opined that an example of a necessary infringement was that which makes illegal the gratuitous cry of ‘Fire’ in a crowded theatre.
The mechanism by which we come up with necessary infringements is of course far fom perfect. IMHO the recent laws of incitement to religious hatred are wrong. There are perfectly good laws against incitemnt to violence and the new ones threaten to open up economy sized cans of worms.
Isaiah Berlin noted more than once that many ‘goods’ were incompatable to some extent and at some times. The problem with the utopians is their saying X is good and Y is good and we can have as much of either as we want. When it doesn’t work out it’s usually someone else’s fault. I am very much in favour of freedom of expression though I don’t approve of all its manifestations (esp. T Benn, rap and the opera about Jerry Springer). But only in exceptional circumstances should it be curtailed - such as calling out Fire or preventing inflamatory material being broadcast at very sensitive times where peoples lives may be at stake for example. It’s sort of principle with piecemeal application.
Sorry Jack,
I see the central point as being that the young lady in question required that her personal preferences superseded the reasonable and lawful regulations imposed on her (and equally on others) to whit, the school dress code. The latter being the obligation incumbent or her for the good and valuable consideration of receiving an education.
Are there other establishments (in Britain) which would welcome her doing physics dressed up as Batman? Yes.
Did the the school go out of it’s way to accommodate her avoidance of (dotty) religious peccadilloes? Yes.
Is the school entitled to dictate dress code to their students. Apparently so.
Was she dragged kicking and screaming to the school to have these strictures enforced upon her person? No.
A further, and to my mind more serious, question would be: Can Idlex and I go into the ‘Horse and Groom’ or ‘the Angel’ and light up a cheroot? No, nor anywhere else in Britain either.
So whose rights have been more seriously prejudiced here?
Before anyone takes me to task on it,
“No, nor anywhere else in Britain either.”
Should read:
“No, nor in any other pub in Britain either.”
The pivotal point of this debate , IMHO, is the fact that the Head teacher is of the Moslem faith, and would know what is correct for someone of the same faith; and yet there had to be a stubborn, and no doubt expensive, stance taken by the girl concerned: lookomg for another possible fingerhold in climbing the religious wall which she , or her fanatic backers built.
We should emulate the Netherlands,(or Saudi Arabia), in describing to possible immigrants , precisely what the minimum requirements are, in order to qualify for permission to live and prosper here.
Observance of the laws and mores of the land must be high on the list of priorities, as it has been for generations.
The problem Mac is that there are so many flavours of these screwball religions that there isn’t a one size fits all.
A Baptist headmaster may be somewhat justified in a good old guffaw if a Catholic schoolgirl protests that without her rosary beads she’ll have to do community service in a pit of boiling sulphur for all eternity. Similarly, if this Moslem girl feels that, unless she’s bandaged up like Lon Chaney, she won’t cop to the female equivalent of the 72 virgins, it may fall on stony ground if the headmaster is less steadfastly brainwashed.
I say again, level the playing fields and ban religious observances in public (or outside the home preferably). The rationale is surely the same as for the ban on smoking.
Like most organisations schools have rules which, like the wider community organisation, are seen, rightly or wrongly, as importnat in the smooth running of the school. Schools do not usually have unreasonable rules - e.g. it would be unreasonable to expect children of all faiths to say the Lord’s prayer.
Schools don’t usually have unreasonable rules??
Not my experience. At my (last) school there were not only the unreasonable uniforms, but there multiple other arbitrary and unreasonable rules. For example, no hands in pockets, no running, no talking except during recreation periods, all teachers to be addressed as ’sir’, etc, etc. Certain books and music forbidden. Also smoking punishable by death (almost).
Contrast this with my experience a year or so later at university. No uniforms, no arbitrary silly rules about not running, not putting hands in pockets, not smoking (except during lectures).
Both universities and schools are educational establishments, and what’s good enough for universities is good enough for schools. I was right behind the libertarian guy in the audience who said schoolchildren should wear whatever they liked.
In my view, this whole thing is a storm in a teacup involving the collision of two arbitrary and irrational dress codes - the Muslim code and the school code. If the school allowed children to wear whatever they liked, the storm would never have blown up in the first place.
What’s sitting behind all this isn’t dress codes anyway, but the absorption or non-absorption of other cultures (notably Islam) within Britain. There have been muslims quietly living in Britain for hundreds of years. Why is this becoming an issue now? It has only become an issue since Britain and America unjustifiably attacked Iraq, and created numerous Muslim enemies, and caused a split in the loyalties of British muslims (were they to support Britain in the war, or support their Iraqi co-religionists.)
Idlex: you are obviously not au fait with the realities of living in areas which became , long before Iraq, predominantly Moslim. If your laissez faire attitude were reciprocated , I would agree with at least some of what you say.In re. this subject , I agree with nothing you say.
I would like to see a Shawar Kaweez for myself, does anyone know if the are available in Millets or Blacks?
I have to disagree about school children being allowed to wear what they like.
Having worked in a secondary school, i was very aware of the enormous gap between the “haves” and “have nots”. A uniform levels the field, and helps stop the irrational jealousies that hormone-fueled teenagers react so badly too.
Idlex: you are obviously not au fait with the realities of living in areas which became , long before Iraq, predominantly Moslim.
For your information, Mac, I have lived in Eritrea, Libya, Gambia, Brazil, and Barbados. Some of those countries have been predominantly Muslim for centuries, but at the time I lived there, were somehow able to tolerate Christian churches. I have lived entirely surrounded by very large numbers of black and brown peoples with any number of religious beliefs, without being subject to the slightest prejudice, never mind living in fear of my life.
I do not have a single shadow of doubt that if we have a ‘Muslim problem’, it is entirely one of our own creation. We British have spent the past century or more trampling all over the Middle East, and now we have topped this with the entirely unwarranted invasion of Iraq (a country which a serviceman on Quesion Time who had served there 6 months said that we has ‘destroyed’). We treat these people and their religion like dirt. And then we have the gall to complain when they fail to to adhere to our ‘values’.
It is we who are at fault, not them.
A further, and to my mind more serious, question would be: Can Idlex and I go into the ‘Horse and Groom’ or ‘the Angel’ and light up a cheroot? No, nor in any other pub in Britain either. (Joe M)
I say again, level the playing fields and ban religious observances in public (or outside the home preferably). The rationale is surely the same as for the ban on smoking. (Joe M)
I’m sorry, Joe, but which is it? Are you happy to ban religious observance in public along with smoking in public places? Or do you resent the fact that in a year or so you and I will not be able to enjoy a cheroot together in any pub in the land?
Look and listen, very carefully, to the gradual encroachment on; the erosion of, our rights to free speech, and worry. (Mac)
I do look and listen , and I do worry very greatly. In respect of the smoking ban, however, you appear almost entirely indifferent. We now have a medical establishment with the powers of a Papacy, but your eyes are fixed on the insubordination of a few browbeaten and demonized Muslims.
Idlex : I don’t doubt; not for one moment; your worldliness as far as your having lived and presumably worked in the midst of Moslim people in their homelands. To infer ignorance on your part, was not my point at all: it was rather concerning those areas, predominantly in the North West , where what appears to be racial no-go areas ,are proliferating year on year.
The presence of Foreigners; infidels if you will, whether or not uninvited, in Iraq at this time, cannot be blamed as the origin of the “us and them ” culture which has grown there.
US/ UK presence there might now be blamed for the further exacerbation of the breakdown in racial / religious relations, but it most certainly was not originated by the illegal Bush/Poodle combo fiasco, it has long been in foment.
Idlex : merely becaues I don’t share your taste fot the saffron weed (since 14 years now), does not detract from my gall against the Nanny State’s ban on pleasure . This Government are akin to that of Cromwell, in its quest to grub out the little havens of pleasure.Until at least today , thought is not subject to this killjoy shower.
No idlex,
I’m saying that the arguments used to justify the banning of smoking (i.e. smoking is harmful and it’s unpleasant to those who don’t partake to be exposed to it) seem to be equally applicable to overt manifestations of religious belief.
It seems I must accept this apparent contradiction with equanimity.
Are there actually racial no-go areas in Britain, or am I misinterpreting something?
I begin to think, some days, that the exclusionary, hostile impulse will express itself no matter what. There are gated white communities in BC’s interior that are completely surrounded by nothing but miles of wilderness and, on the edges of that, small towns with other white people in them. White people are building walled settlements to keep out other white people. The problem is never difference; the problem is bigotry, and unfortunately it seems to be a basic human impulse.
In autocratic terms, the basic human impulse if fear and the basic human motivation is greed.
Just add ‘intelligent’ tool-making ape for instant gated community.
idlex says Islam has become an issue only since the military action in Iraq. I seem to recall that the robust school of Islamic literary criticism was in action more than 10 years ago - ask Salman Rushdie. I also recall a lot of Islamic spokemen at the time ‘explaining’ how we had to allow this censorship. Even then you could see sections of our ‘liberal’ ‘intelligentsia’ working hard at squaring circles. The mainstream interpretation of the Koran by imans and Islamic scholars is that the Caliphate must be established over all humanity, those kafirs that resist should be killed to burn in eternal torment. Now I don’t say that most Muslims would endorse this but their priesthood isn’t into having cosy little chats with infidels in quite the same was as the Bishop of Oxford is with Richard Dawkins.
Christians had their time for barbarism too, and nobody can say Israel is the most peaceful of nations. There are plenty of nations in Africa that are neither primarily Muslim nor primarily Christian who are indulging in brutality, and the point has been made repeatedly that the Soviet Union and China, officialy athiestic states, did not hesitate to slaughter people. So I don’t see much point in singling out any particular religion; it’s a human thing and nobody has a lock on it.
That said, perhaps it’s time to come clean about why I’ve been so cranky lately.
I really don’t want to go over the details again, so I’ll sum up very briefly and stick a link here if you want to know more. Basically, I just found out that someone in my circle was in a meeting with village elders in Afghanistan a couple of months ago, and was attacked. He’s not expected to regain consciousness, ever.
This is the link, if you want more information. Unfortunately, it’s hardly a unique story.
https://raincoaster.wordpress.com/2006/03/22/its-a-small-world-after-all/
Marvellous quote from The Simpsons I heard today:
“God has no place in schools as facts have no place in religion.”
Marvellous!
:oD
idlex says Islam has become an issue only since the military action in Iraq. (Jack R)
Actually, I said we’ve been kicking them around for most of the past century, with the Iraq war merely being the latest example.
In the words of the ex-serviceman on Question Time last night, we have ‘destroyed’ Iraq. From everything I’ve read, that pretty much sums it up exactly. And it’s a crime. A terrible crime.
As far as I’m concerned, our claim to being some sort of advanced civilisation has been thoroughly undermined by what has been done in Iraq. We, the Coalition, have wrecked the country, destroyed whole cities, killed tens of thousands of its citizens, and abducted, indefinitely detained, and tortured hundreds more. And we dare to claim we are ‘bringing democracy’. We should be ashamed, utterly ashamed.
I read Raincoaster’s sad story. As she herself said, it’s not unique. If I was an Aghani or an Iraqi, I’d probably want to sink an axe into the head of every single self-righteous meddling foreigner I met.
As for the Caliphate, it’s history, and it’s not coming back. And anyway the Roman Catholic Church has pretty much the same aspirations, so what’s new?
As for Rushdie, I couldn’t care. That man helped stoked the flames of a conflict we didn’t need. Much like the recent cartoons. How many more stupid and irresponsible things are we going to do? When are we going to stop pointing fingers at what they do, and start facing up to what we have done?
Idlex - WHy do you say the Caliphate is not coming back.
If you have your way and the Coalition withdraws from Iraq, who will stop Al Queda seizing central Iraq and creating a Caliphate base there (As it previously did in Afghanistan - OBL recognised the Afghan leader as the Caliph).
From central Iraq, Al Queda can menace Jordan and from there Saudi Arabia also.
Al QUeda in control of Mecca = a de facto revived Caliphate.
If people like you had been in charge in June 1940, the Swastika woudl have been flying over Downing Street.
You;ve swallowed whole the lies of the BBC. Not all of Iraq is in flames or in meltdown. Other societies have survived death rates of 10,000 a year. The Northern Ireland equivalent was around 6,000 per annum if you scale up from their population to the Iraq population. In all that time life went on pretty much unaffected.
Please remember hardly any of those deaths you mention have been caused by the coalition. And please remember we HAVE broguht democracy to Iraq - they’ve had elections and elected representatives. That’s precisely what Al Queda hate.
I find it a little difficult to accept that Al Queda is what they claim it is…or even if it actually exists outside of CIA propoganda.
Do you think that Osama Bin Laden has a secret volcano lair and strokes a white cat?
;o)
Psi
Idlex - WHy do you say the Caliphate is not coming back.
Because it’s no more going to come back than the Roman Empire, or the Holy Roman Empire, or the Knights Templar, or Jesus Christ are going to come back. It’s an Islamic fantasy. But I think they are entitled to their fantasies.
You;ve swallowed whole the lies of the BBC.
Ha. Ha! Ha!! I almost never watch or listen to the BBC. I entirely distrust them.
I read the Independent (increasingly wondering why), watch Channel 4 news, and ’surf the web’. If you ever want to know what stories are about to break, or have not broken, you’ll find them all on the internet long before they grace our newspapers and TV sets. But you do have to search.
And my view of Al Qaeda and OBL is almost exactly the same as Psimon’s. You may or may not recall, in the run-up to the Afghan war, Donald Rumsfeld in front of a cross-section through some mountain in Afghanistan, with
Al Qaeda command posts and arsenals and interconnecting tunnels. They never found this subterranean OsamaBunker. It didn’t exist. There are a few caves in the Afghan mountains, but nothing like what Rumsfeld described. And anyway Bush isn’t interested in OBL. He said so a year or two back.
And also, in case you didn’t notice, the Afghan war started out as an assault upon Al Qaeda’s (non-existent) underground mountain redoubts, but metamorphosed into an overthrow of an Afghan Taliban who had offered to deliver OBL before an Islamic court. What started out as a hunt for Osama ended up as regime change in Kabul. How strange, to change the entire purpose of a war, half way through it!
And please remember we HAVE broguht democracy to Iraq
No, we haven’t. And furthermore, if there is anything like a vague semblance of democracy in Iraq (and there is not even that), it’s not thanks to the Americans or the British, but to bleeding Ayatollah Sistani who started demanding elections after about a year of inaction after the invasion. And, last I heard, they still hadn’t managed to form a government in that ungovernable land.
Sorry, but the whole thing has gone to hell. You’re quite right that there are places of Iraq in which there is relative calm - just like there are places in the world where there aren’t volcanoes erupting.
P.S. It’s true that I did watch BBC Question Time last night. But only because Boris was on it. I never watch it otherwise.
For what it’s worth, idlex, I agree with every word you say.
You are probably aware that “field” describes himself here as “Islamophobic”. But worse, he seems to be of the ilk that accepts the words of GW F*ckw*t as coming direct from God. Especially when quoting “success in Iraq”. Any fool with an internet connection can see otherwise - irrespective of what the BBC or any other mainstream channel produces.
field says: “hardly any of those deaths you mention have been caused by the coalition”
field: As you well know, the Lancet study said exactly the opposite. The Lancet study so cleverly discredited (by questioning methodology) by those who didn’t want the figures overly publicised. But as you can read here:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10914.htm
that same methodology was apparently fine in other scenarios.
“As Medialens has pointed out, it was the same lead author, using the same techniques, who reported that 1.7 million people had died as a result of conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). That finding has been cited by Tony Blair, Colin Powell and almost every major newspaper on both sides of the Atlantic, and none has challenged either the method or the result. Using the Congo study as justification, the UN security council called for all foreign armies to leave the DRC and doubled the country’s UN aid budget.”
For what it’s worth, idlex, I agree with every word you say. (fiddlesticks)
This is a record.
Incidentally, my problem with the Beeb is that I never quite know who is running it, and determining its editorial policy, from one day to the next.
Some days it seems to being run by a riotous bunch of leftie firebrands. Other days I get the feeling that it is simply repeating the guvmint’s view, under a three line whip.
I’ve just scanned this whole thread. I know: get a life. But here’s a couple of observations:
1/ A lot of us are talking about Shabina Begum as if she were a Muslim immigrant. I suspect she’s actually a British citizen, which makes the whole issue slightly more complicated. I still agree with Boris, but can anyone advise me on this?
2/ I know exactly how Boris gets his hair like that. Just before he walks onto the set, he reaches up and gives himself a quick tousle.
3/ It was a good Question Time. But with the exception of the Shabina Begum issue, Tony Benn and that bright girl from Liberty pretty much aced it. Boris: you need to get to the point quicker, old mate.
This whole thread , interesting as it is in its diversity, could be suumed up in that ancient , hoary old joke about the Scotsman. he knocked on the pearly gates, St Peter answered the summons , and asked what the man wanted , The Scot said he wanted to come in to Heaven ; to which St Peter replied , ” Bugger off! We are not creating a precedence : we are not making porridge for one “.
“how does it STAY that way?”
It’s all in the cut.
If you do it at home with a nail scissors, it’ll stick up and stand out in all directions without the help of static or even Trésommé.
The way in which the hair was sticking up on Thursday last , it looked as though it was dressed with consommé, never mind Trésommé.
Either way , a work of art.
In my day, any pupil coming to school with hair like that would probably have been expelled.
Why would he have been expelled? I’ve no idea. School rules were almost entirely arbitrary, then as now. For if rules are not accompanied by some explanation for them, they are necessarily arbitrary.
How can a wish for uniformity be arbitrary?
Uniformity of dress , particularly in schools ,is a worthwhile goal, insofar as it provides a level playing field upon which the students from different backgrounds can play, without discrimination; and it should instil a sense of belonging to all.
I was at the literary festival today and I can inform readers that Boris fluffs his hair. He applies both paws to his fringe runs these horizontally through it and repeats when greater volume might better emphasize a point. It’s actually fairly sexy.
With regard to Shabina it’s difficult for me to even begin to think rationally about Muslim dress for women. I hate it instinctually, completely and entirely. Nothing says ‘I’m totally and completely different to you and –by the way I so would ditch this infidel hell hole if it wasn’t for the economic advantages’ like head to toe black crepe with a eye slit a la Ned Kelly.
If dress is a method of communication and I really don’t like what the burqa is saying.
Uniformity of dress , particularly in schools ,is a worthwhile goal, as it provides a level playing field
By that logic, if it be logic at all, uniformity of dress across the entire population would be a worthwhile goal.
Perhaps it will be in the next New Labour manifesto.
It occurs to me that Boris has wonderfully non-conformist hair. From memory, everybody else on Question Time had sleek, well-combed locks. Not Boris.
With a short back and sides, and brown hair dye, he would lose half his charm, and become indistinguishable from any other cloned MP.
Perhaps this will be in the next New Labour manifesto as well.
“By that logic, if it be logic at all, uniformity of dress across the entire population would be a worthwhile goal”
True, and uniformity of house and car size, price and colour.
idlex, I agree; Boris was the only one on that program who didn’t look slightly prefab. That Liberal Democrat: ew. Looks like Stephen Harper, which is just never good, the plastic Ken doll thing.
Boris’s performance would have been improved to the point of hallucinatory goodness if he’d merely slammed about four espressos before going on air. If you go to Starbucks I can recommend a caramel quad macchiatto: caramel syrup on the bottom of the cup, four ounces of espresso, splash of foam, caramel on top. It got me through a Marathon, it’ll get you through Question Time.
“People love you, but you talk too much.” Brilliant.
Although I agreed with virtually nothing he said, Digby Jones was the best presenter, I thought. Shami Chakrabarti was also very good, but she had a little trouble cutting off the interruptions. I find backhanding people quite effective, but then I haven’t been on a panel in a long time; nobody will sit near me.
I went to a hippie school, and I can say without the shadow of a doubt that anyone who came to school with his hair sticking up because he’d put porridge in it would not have been expelled, but would have been considered quite the trend-starter.
Oh god, three in a row. I should go post on my own blog.
BUT
I have to reply to this:
By that logic, if it be logic at all, uniformity of dress across the entire population would be a worthwhile goal
Uniformity of dress IS the goal of a particular group; radical Muslims. The logic is that covering the seductive female figure just lets people forget about sex and get on with life, which sounds just as reasonable as any other justification for visual conformity.
Again I must make the point that the problem is never the fact that a person is different. The problem is bigotry, the resentment of another person for being different. We are all different; the extent to which we are different, unique, is the extent to which we are individuals, and to that extent we are human beings, rather than carbon storage units.
Schools and workplaces are not places devoted to the development of the individual, and they impose uniforms to reinforce in all directions the sense of belonging or conformity, the temporary subjugation of the individual. Just try wearing a really different outfit to work at a bank and see what happens. Institutions like schools and corporations can’t possibly deal with thousands of individuals, so they try to de-individuate them just enough that they can be predicted and managed. Any middle-manager’s worst nightmare is a work group full of geniuses, because he’s got to produce a plan to build eighty widgets by October, and they’re off working on cyclotrons in their back yards.
There’s no question that nobody could express their full potential as an individual all the time without having a breakdown (and causing a few in the people around him). So it’s almost restful when schools and workplaces impose these restrictions; one of the greatest complaints by working women is that they have too much choice about what to wear. I kid you not, it’s in studies.
We couldn’t live in our large, complex societies if there weren’t both respect for individual choices and a degree of delegating decisions like to others; that’s what government is FOR. By dressing like an extreme Muslim, the girl is showing her difference. It’s up to you if her being different is by definition wrong. In the school, it is because it breaks the pre-existing rule, and she can go to another school that allows that. Out on the street, different question. She’s just as different from most people, and the dress does point that up. Is that wrong? Should we force someone to dress to the general standard? Then you’d better hope that Britain never falls under Muslim influence, or you’ll have no leg to stand on when you want to fight the burqa.
idlex
By that logic, if it be logic at all, uniformity of dress across the entire population would be a worthwhile goal
Sorry mate, but I don’t see logically why if X is good applied to a subsystem Y of Z then X is good for all Z. Without going into the gory details I apply some sort of lotion to the hard skin on my soles for good reason but I don’t feel I should apply it all over my body. Is that illogical?
I had to rewrite raincoaster’s last paragraph to make any sense of it.
======= raincoaster’s last paragraph ================
Poster March 27, 2006 03:16 AM
Given the enormity and complexity of contemporary society, our lives would be intolerable without both respect for individual choices and, to some degree, instruction in how we should conduct ourselves; the balance of these requirements is the fundamental purpose of government.
In adopting the dress of a Moslem fundamentalist, Shabina Begum is accentuating her differences from other members of society. It is you, the reader, who must decide if Shabina’s decision in this regard is reasonable or not.
Given the situation at her school and the findings of the Law Lords, we are obliged to conclude that her behaviour is inappropriate because it violates the existing (apparently lawful) regulations set down by the school. One must also consider that it is not unreasonable for her to attend another school where her preferred dress code would be welcomed.
In general society, however, she is manifestly as different from other (non fundamentalist Moslem) members of the community as she is from other (non fundamentalist Moslem) pupils in her school and, it would seem, her desired mode of dress is calculated to emphasize this difference rather than reduce it. Is this wrong?
To consolidate this debate, the fundamental question we must pose is whether it is reasonable to force someone to wear clothes which conform to society’s sensibilities, or not? If the answer to this question is yes, then Britain must use the same criteria in the event that Britain ever comes under the domination of a Moslem majority. If one does not, non-Moslem’s won’t have a leg to stand on to prevent the subsequent invasion of the burqa.
I don’t quite understand the reference to modesty. Four months ago, I was in a Muslim country where the full length dress is by no means universal. I saw one woman wearing it, and it was transparent enough to display her knickers.
I think idlex agrees with you Jack. He was extrapolating Mac’s comment about uniformity in schools being desirable.
By the same token, I don’t think Mac was suggesting uniformity everywhere I think he was emphasizing the importance in the school system.
‘Particularly’ is a dangerous word because it implies ‘everywhere’ as well as ‘more of’.
Evil Twin,
I was just on the verge of launching into another acerbic attack on raincoaster’s liberalism but, ‘thanks’ to your little translation, another one of life’s little avenues of pleasure has been closed to me.
Joe
I stand corrected I think but the statement in isolation was what I was referring to.
Having said that I recall that when I was in 6th form at grammar school many years ago the first signs of revolt were shaking the power structres and a 6th form council of chosen pupils was convened by the ruling class to discuss the vexed question of uniform. I can’t remember the quote or the poet but that stuff about pure heaven to be young and revolting springs to mind. We waited for our ‘representatives’ to return. They look pleased with themselves and then said “What do you think the new uniform should be?”. I said “what new uniform?”. They said “Oh come on you have to be reasonable..”. Maybe an early sell out stimulated the latent Trot. Anyway the Who’s cry of “meet the new boss, same as the old boss!” resonated with me. I suppose it still does.
We have a new establishment of rock stars, journalists and celebrities who despise the ordinary punter as much as the old establishment ever did.
The only refinement of my view in old age is to see the possibility and necessity of holding the elected bosses to account somehow, however imperfectly.
Regarding your point on keeping the head honchos honest, I think one of the most consistently amusing aspects of the early 21st century (that I have a wry chuckle about occasionally) is that, given the price and availability of digital communications and associated terminals, Britain still doesn’t have a real democracy!
I mean, I don’t know anyone (under 5) who doesn’t have a mobile phone OR internet access (or at least the capability to get access). So what precludes online electronic voting on certain (not necessarily all) major parliamentary issues/bills?
A general referendum has, historically, been hideously expensive but surely that’s no longer the case? Even if it isn’t feasible now, I cannot believe that it couldn’t be in the next few years; esp
Boris is quite right again.
A few weeks ago the same sort of ‘people’ were kicking up fuss at Newcastle University about shifting timetables in order to go to prayers on Fridays.
Interestingly, when asked for his view, the Archbishop of York refreshingly remarked that such ethnic groups should follow the long-standing traditions of educational institutions that had permitted them to study there.
Another all-too-rare common sense viewpoint.