If its any condolence Kaos, I agree that Steve (whose potty mouth Jesus would not appreciate) started with the personal attacks. My guess is it was a means of detracting from his rather poor debating skills. Sorry Steve, just my humble opinion you see, so please turn the other cheek.
My other guess is Busa has weighed in here due to the bike parking tax thread… I could be wrong, I often am.
My final guess is now certain people would like me to get back on my fence.
I dont think Steve would be too worried about Jesus…
the more countries that ban it the better.
if they dont like it move to a country where its not banned and we will all be happy.
but! i bet they dont, i bet they stay cos they know where its better.
I don’t see any personal insults either from me or from Kaos . . . I’ve been called names by far better than Kaos . . . perhaps I should go back and re-read what he said . . . or maybe not :hehe: I have a life.
Debating skills . . . in order to debate you need to find somebody who is at least as able as you are to debate with and with an open mind . . . debating with somebody who has declared his mind closed and who would loose a battle of wits with slightly tired Labrador isn’t worth the effort 
Anyway he said he was ignoring me so he’s pulled himself out of any debate that may have been happening.
I think there are two points here for me, mainly because of living and working in Afghanistan, where the Burkha is seen as not so much as a choice, but a matter of life and death.
The first point is that in many western countries the Burkha is viewed as a matter of choice - my right to wear what I like, in accordance with my religious beliefs. The right, or not, to wear it is debated by educated people - those whose lives have always been defined by choice and to whom the wearing of it is seen as a democratic right.
However, in Afghanistan the wearing of it or not is not a matter of choice. Yes, in Kabul most women do not wear Burkhas and in the Women’s Garden (a women only park in the capital) Afghan women will even remove their veils and head coverings. I know women from Kandahar, Jalalabad, Herat etc who remove their Burkhas on arrival to Kabul, because it is a bit of an oasis, at odds with the rest of the country, a place where it is possible to believe that some form of choice exists. However, in the rest of the country the Burkha is not a choice. In Kandahar if you do not wear one you will be killled. In Jalalabad if you do not wear one you might not be killed immediately, but you will be threatened and intimidated until you do wear one. I know this because it happened to a young Afghan woman I know, who did not really want to wear the Burkha in Jalalabad, yet she had continual death threats aimed at her family and herself and now she wears one. The threats are not confined to Burkha wearing - they extend to women working, women getting an education, yet the Burkha is part of it - a symbol here not of rights, but of oppression.
So the Afghan women, across the country, are fighting for the right not to wear the Burkha - which is difficult to see in, hard to walk in and is generally very hot in 40 degree temperatures. It is viewed as something that is imposed and when faced with the choice, in Kabul, many choose not to wear one. However, when faced with the prospect of being murdered for not wearing one outside the capital - women wear it. You don’t wear one - you die.
So, yes, we have the choice here to wear what we like. Yet what we wear may be the symbol of something darker and more repressive (remember Prince Harry and the fancy dress faux pas). We see the struggle to wear it as a democratic right, yet Afghan women do not see it like that. They see it as a lack of solidarity with their struggle, as a slap in the face. I know, because I have spoken to Afghan women, worked with them, socialised with them and they need our understanding of this, because here it is not a matter of simple choice of whether or not to wear a Burkha, but a matter of being murdered or staying alive.
It obviously went over my head, especially the bit about you making similiar comments that you appeared to be unhappy about. I just felt it was hypocritical.
Yep, you are this time.
Surely if they are trying to get the ability to choose what to wear, they should be supporting western Muslim women who choose to wear a face covering ? Freedom to choose means freedom, not the ability to choose what somebody else deems appropriate for you.
good post hels, maybe women who wear burkha in the west should have a dose of wearing in places like you mention then maybe they may rethink wearing it.
I can choose to wear what I like - but it does not take away what it represents. The Burkha is not neutral. It is not simply a face covering. In Afghanistan it is a symbol of oppression and a symbol of death. It carries with it martyrs - the blood of women who have dared to stand up against it and been shot in cold blood, or tortured for not wearing it. In the west our freedoms have been won on the backs of people who put their lives on the line - women’s freedon to vote was earned through other women who chained themselves to railings, were force fed in jail and brutalized. Those who ‘choose’ to wear the Burkha should take a trip to Afghanistan, meet some of the women who have been forced to wear it under threat of death and understand that it is not neutral and it is not Islamic- it is representative of oppression and brutality. To assume it is simply a matter of choice is not appreciative of the whole picture.
I understand that in other countries there may be other symbolism associated with a particular garment, I’m sure that’s the case in many Eastern countries but it’s still not a reason to dictate to people in the West, what they can and can not wear. You can’t restrict one person’s freedom in order to help make another free.
Really interesting posts Hels. Maybe the headlines should say that the French were ‘boycotting’ the use of the Burhka rather than ‘banning’ it?
Sadly not - the lower assembly of the French National Assembly have banned it following Sarkozy’s rather fundamentalist stance on the hijab and the burka (not just one or the other), subject to a September review by the French Senate.
It’s not law yet.
I like Hels’ view: it is distinctly informed, rather than being westa-centric or Islamophobic; it accounts for the cultural problems reified through the symbol of the burka: the vacuousness of the French lower assembly to abolish the symbol is too simpliste.
What Hels described is interesting (as usual from Hels) but is another issue completely.
Have a rad of this: Burka ban: Why must I cast off the veil?
" I would never permanently cover my face in the UK, but by the same token nor would I wear a mini-skirt in Dubai. Most people, men and women, self-regulate and dress in a way to conform to convention. To legislate against the extremes would be a highly intrusive extension of authority. To mobilise the mechanism of the state to tackle Islamic fundamentalism via cracking down on the face veil is not the answer. ** To force a female to remove her veil is just as subjugating as forcing her to cover** ."
Of course you can. All of our freedoms are restricted on a daily basis to help facilitate freedom for everyone.
don’t think he meant it quite so concretely Kaos.
Freedom in its socio-political sense, is a function of responsibility within the worldview which Rousseau gave us as ‘citizenship’.
What does it mean to be a French citizen, and to wear a burka?
The French Lower Assembly argue concretely, that the latter, impinges on the former.
However you’ll recall the French motif: liberté, égalité, fraternité.
How does that motif work, if the burka is banned? Is there truly equality, in forbidding the freedom to wear a burka, and where does sorority fit into a fraternité, when the French recognise that the burka is a symbol of oppression … yet ban it, not in solidarity with the oppressed Muslim womens’ cause, but because the symbol itself - that of the burka - is offensive?
I think the real issue here, aside for the religion aspect which is foisted upon the debate by those wishing to change it, is this.
Should those who have the freedom to wear the burka have that choice removed for the protection of those who are forced to wear the burka without choice.
My answer is yes.
… but but BUT!!
burka wearers contribute to less crime in society than gun ownership! :crazy:
(scarper for cover! :D)
I would!!!
Now, please stop me if I am wrong but religion ( not the faith of it but it’s practice ruling) have been created by men for men…
Feel free to believe what you will but last time I check all religious practice can be traced back to cultural and very often health issue
This is why religions (mostly Judaism and Islam) coming from hot countries forbid the consumtion of pork as it cannot be kept safely without being kept cold. Now, since we have electricity and fridges, maybe this is only a cultural reason for not eating pork if you follow either of those religion… Same thing for seafood (ie sea product without a central bone), sanguination of animals when killed for food consumption, not mixing meat and milk (this one is base on an even more stupid reason that most others)
Short of Rabbi keeping those traditions alive because they are big big business for them, can you actually tell me that they have still a reason to be followed blindly in a 21st modern society? If so please give me a call, I got some great timeshare for sale and Santa will be refunding any purchase cost with interest
You have the freedom to wear whatever you want, have whatever hair style you like, eat whatever you like, travel anywhere in the UK and most of Europe at any time without notification and have the freedom to criticise any Govt, even our own, even Govt ministers, whenever you like providing what you say is not untrue. You can choose what job to do, where to work and even in the UK, which country to work in.
My family, like many in the UK, lost members to war in the past, shot, blown up etc, There are still members of our forces being killed overseas for our freedoms.
They didn’t and are not doing that so we can give up freedom because a culture in a few countries in the world still have an issue with certain types of clothing. That’s an issue for them to resolve - we can help but not by surrendering freedoms and adopting fundamentalist policies akin to those we claim to find abhorrent.
If you’ve got a problem with the police then get over it . . . if you really want to help Afgan women then use the freedoms the deaths of millions past have given you and go to their country and work with them. But don’t whine about our freedoms being restricted when you obviously don’t have a clue.
