Yes, I was equivocal about the Kosova war, but that deserves a post of its own. A friend of mine was in a group which campaigned on the slogan “Stop the Bombing – Arm the Kosovars”. I’d still go with that.

Fraternal Disagreement

But I don’t think there is an unconditional right for people to wear what they want, anywhere – and I certainly don’t think that’s what is at issue here. Hijab is about telling women to cover their ‘adornments’ so that they don’t turn men on. The niqab extends this to telling women to cover their faces. I can’t see this as a point of feminist or libertarian principle.

It’s missing the big picture and not calling for an unconditional right for people to wear what they want is an ommission.

I don’t find your derision any more persuasive than Ellis’s. I understand and respect your position, although I don’t agree with it. If you genuinely don’t understand or respect mine, I think the loss is yours.

I’ll take one more crack at it. I detest the niqab and what it stands for (as I understand it): I don’t respect the arguments for it and don’t think there’s any reason to let those arguments pass unchallenged. I don’t believe there’s any reading of the Koranic injunctions on modest dress which mandates face-veiling, and I look forward to a day when those injunctions are no more binding on most Muslims than St Paul’s strictures on women’s headgear are on most Christians. However, I’m conscious that some (many? most?) women who wear the niqab do so as an outward sign of their identity as observant Muslims. As such, I don’t think niqab-wearing should be challenged at the individual level – least of all by someone in a position of power and patronage over the niqab-wearer, such as Jack Straw in his constituency surgery. Asking a Muslim woman to unveil – however politely – strikes me as akin to asking a Catholic woman to take off that silly cross, and hitch up her skirt a bit while she’s about it. In terms of the distinction I attempted to draw at the end of the post, it suggests that the requester not only doesn’t respect the veil-wearer’s observance but doesn’t intend to tolerate it.

As for Ruth Kelly, there’s really nothing to add to the Martin Bright’s excellent analysis in the current New Statesman (http://tinyurl.com/vt5dz). Like most other lefties, I suppose, I’m instinctively sceptical about the attitudes to issues with a religious dimension of committed Roman Catholics and indeed of anyone else with strongly held religious views, but in this case I think young Ms Kelly is spot on.

Brian
http://www.barder.com/ephems/

On the veiled teacher, I’d go further than you. Again, I’ve no problem with the veil per se. But I don’t think it really is a religious requirement: I heard one veil wearer on Radio 4 say she went to Morocco, where the local boys followed her about calling her names like ‘Hezbollah’ which I thought was hilarious and good for them. (I wonder if they still say that they all met Jimi Hendrix and sold carpets to Bryan Ferry and Mick Jagger or am I showing my age?) But, as I understand veil-wearing, it’s only done outside the family – someone has to persuade women like this that they have to regard colleagues as family in this instance. One can’t, quite properly, behave in one way to male colleagues and another to female colleagues; it’s discrimination. The only thing which worries me here, is that this may be a back door method of ensuring that Muslim women don’t work, just as the school dress thingy kept that girl (whose name I can’t remember and can’t be bothered to look up) out of school until she was too old to attend.

In short, I respect women’s rights – and sisterhood and solidarity – much more than I respect religion, especially one which in this case is oppressive.