[Marxism] Re: Blair supports demand that women remove veils when talking to civilized people

[Sayan Bhattacharyya]

On 10/19/06, Tony Hartin <tony.hartin at physics.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> "It is a mark of separation, and that is why it makes other people from
> outside the community feel uncomfortable," Mr. Blair said at a regular
> news conference, echoing some of Mr. Straw's sentiments.
>
> The original NYtimes article was a bit kind to Blair in my opinion. It
> seemed clear to me that he was saying (about muslim women) that THEY do
> no fit into OUR society.



"About Muslim women"? I think it's quite clear that he's talking about women
who wear the veil (not the headscarf but not the all-face-covering veil, i.e.
the niqab), not about *all* Muslim women.

One may well  disagree with him, but to say that his comment is about
"Muslim women" in general is inaccurate.

>From statistics I've read, only about 3% of Muslim women in Britain wear the
veil (niqab).

Frankly (and I know that this will be an unpopular thing to say in this
forum) I think Blair and Straw are right about this. I oppose the French ban
on the headscarf -- that's a stupid and discriminatory law. But wearing a
face-covering-veil is something else entirely. Not to be able to see the
face of someone when talking to that person *does* make it difficult to talk
to that person. I'm not even a Westerner, but it would make it difficult for
even *me* to speak to someone who's wearing a veil.

While socialists should defend minorities, does this also mean defending
obscurantist religious practices? I don't think so. The headscarf is one
thing, but the veil does demean and degrade women (even if it's a woman
"freely" choosing to wear the veil -- and how do we differentiate between
"free" choosing and social/peer pressure in this context)?

There's also the very practical matter of  checking  someone against a photo
id.  Suppose I am a supermarket cashier and a customer, a veiled woman, pays
with a check and shows her driver's license. How can I make sure that she's
indeed the woman whose photo is on the driver's license? Wearing a veil is
simply incompatible with functioning in the modern world, and socialists
should not defend this practice.



This was commented on by Channel 4 news
> presenter Jon Snow - who imagined how fiercely Blair would have
> responded in 1997 if a Tory had said that.