But isn’t that the whole point? Whether people should be tolerant or not, an emphasis on cultural differences increases this “us vs. them” mentality in a feedback loop that ends up coming to a head in the form of internal conflict between groups. I’d rather things not be this way, but it seems to be the way things run when differences are emphasised at the expense of commonality.
Exactly.
Banning people’s cultural practices is a damn sure way to emphasize the differences.
Saying “Oh, hey you wear a headscarf? No big deal. I wear jeans and tee shirts. Now, let’s finish up writing this report” is a lot more likely to lead to people getting along, understanding each other, and eventually finding common ground (which may well be Habiba deciding she likes the feel of wind on her hair) than saying “You wear a headscarf. Ohhhh, that’s bad. Jeans and tee-shirts are better. You should change. In fact, I’m going to use the power that I yield to force you to change.”
So what? All we need to know about Sharia Law is that it is explicitly religious. In other words, 40% of young British-born Muslims think of themselves as Muslims first, and Brits second. That is extremely worrying, and speaks of a profound inability for Muslims to integrate.
The Niqab sends an extremely stark, and unfriendly message. It is this: The only men who are permitted to see my face are my father, my husband, and my brothers, and then only within the confines of my home. I will not associate with you, stranger, unless it is absolutely necessary. If you were to see me as my family sees me, you would impurify me with your lascivious thoughts. You present a danger to my body, my mind, and my soul, and as such I dress to protect myself from you.
In other words, it’s exactly the kind of thing you would wear if you were determined to make every possible effort not to integrate into your host society. If nylon stockings sent the same message, then fuck yeah! Ban the fucking things immediately. We’d be better off without them. Of course, they don’t send anything like that kind of message, so your comparison is meaningless.
As for not walking around topless? Well, I’m glad you brought that up. It actually functions as an example of Britain’s flexibility. Of course, there are laws against public nudity. Everywhere has 'em. Some places are even more liberal than Britain, with its nudist camps and topless beaches. If you could quantify Britain’s tolerance for public nudity, you could say it was perhaps, oh, I dunno…a 6 out of 10? Something like that? So if you’re born into a faith which teaches that anything over a 0.1 out of 10 (again, my apologies for the clumsy quantification) is a scandalous blasphemy, it would behoove you to either (a) leave for the good of your eternal soul, or (b) adopt a more relaxed approach to scripture. What you shouldn’t do, is quite literally cordon yourself off within a special garment specifically designed to convey your contempt for the licentiousness of your host culture. 'Cos that’s just gonna fuck people right off.
Muslims have been given every opportunity to integrate and still a great many of them simply refuse. The reason is simply because the intensity of their religious affiliation overwhelms everything else, and traditional Islam is simply incompatible with 21st century secular Britain on every point of disagreement. Something’s gotta give, and it might as well be them.
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Banning people’s cultural practices is a damn sure way to emphasize the differences.
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Indeed, but you’re talking as if the banning of headscarves is the cause of tensions and not a reaction.
Nobody has made any move to ban headscarves or anything similar in Australia, yet we’ve still had race riots, such as at Cronulla.
You mean these race riots?
Not sure what your point is. Down-Under we don’t ban head scarves, we just attack the rag heads with bats?
That’s mere hysteria.
It means that 40% are interested in some form of religious law ruling, that as ES noted can cover anything from scary to innocuous.
Your statement is ridiculous. If 70% of catholics want to have Canon Law that doesn’t mean that they are Catholic first, British 2nd.
We’ve had quite enough of this kind of religious bigotry dressed up as national protection in the past, we don’t need to start a new round.
Again, let me emphasise that I’m actually disappointed by how things have turned out. I don’t like the racism of the white mobs and I think it’s all pretty disgusting.
Here’s the cycle, AFAICT:
Some Lebanese gangs rape some women, some radical Muslim clerics make some pretty outrageous statements contrary to Australian values regarding rape, domestic violence, etc., right-wing radio stirs the white racist meatheads up. Just add water and you get stuff like the above.
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I don’t see how the one follows the other. Do observant British Jews who want to follow dietary laws and wear yarmulkes automatically think of themselves as Jews first and Brits second? (That was supposed to be rhetorical. The answer is no.) Having much of your life dictated by religious rules only excludes you from the broader society if either you try to impose those rules on others, or the rules of the society exclude your practices.
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I wonder if there has ever been a poll asking American fundamentalist Christians if they are Christian first or American first? How many would endorse a belief that God’s Law (their religious beliefs) should take precedence over Man’s Law (the laws of their country)? I certainly have heard people claiming that and few who then conclude they are disloyal to America.
BBC’s take (as cited above):
But assume they left out some radical clerics saying some dumbass crap. So? How does that make your point?
Is your point that some individuals of these groups will do (or at least be alleged to have done) bad things and say stupid things so actions against the group are to be expected and therefore all members of these groups should pretend that they have no cultural heritage other than being members of their country of residence?
It is not a point that makes a lot of sense.
Quite, quite…
And regarding the poll, UK Secularism.org has quite a bit of nuance (and critique at its small size and shabby design) around the content.
And yet somehow 10 million people from every race, country and culture on Earth manage to exist in the same 300 square miles that is New York City.
I read the OP as “this is why I think it’s ok to be a racist xenophobe.”
You’re missing the point. I’m well aware that, if implemented, Sharia courts aren’t going to be stoning anyone to death for adultery any time soon. That’s not what worries me.
My problem is this: If Muslims really, truly want a religious ruling on anything pertaining to their private lives then they can just speak to their Imam and privately agree to abide by his mediations. There’s nothing stopping them from doing that right now. The problem, is that this isn’t enough for 40% of British Muslims! They want the British state to effectively outsource large swathes of legislation to the Imams. To accede to this would be a catastrophe. The thing about Sharia law is that it’s inherently unjust. It doesn’t matter whether the court is debating over who should get the DVD collection or whether the thief should lose his hands. A woman’s word is still worth only half that of a man’s. It’s not like there’s some liberal, enlightened branch of Sharia which places men and women on an equal footing. No, the establishment of Sharia, even as a secondary system, would carve out a niche in the British justice system inside which sexism and antidiluvian prejudices would be protected.
Of course, any unjust or discriminatory diktats issued against women by Sharia courts could be overturned by a British court. But what of those women who, having been press-ganged into taking their disputes before the Sharia court first, feel an overwhelming societal pressure to conform to the court’s decision? This is, of course, assuming they even have the English skills necessary to organise an appeal.
Here’s the bottom line. Young British Muslim enthusiasm for the implementation of Shariah, either as a parallel legal system or as one designed to actually supplant British Common Law in certain areas of the country (the poll doesn’t specify, but both are troubling), strongly implies that they have religious issues with the British justice system that are far-reaching, and bespeak a troubling inability to negotiate even the most basic axiom of secularism: Equality. They lack respect for the idea that men and women should be treated equally. They obviously think that imaginary crimes such as blasphemy warrant greater attention than they currently receive.
Well, not legally, but certainly intellectually. And that was my point.
You know what I’ve had enough of? The mere recognition that a 7th century Salafist perspective and a 21st century British secular perspective are incompatible with one another being perpetually handwaved away as bigotry. It’s just a means of dismissing the problem.
The whole thing was, in part, whipped up by talkback radio host Alan Jones, a moron who pretends to be the voice of Sydney. IIRC, he was investigated for his role in the event. He’d have callers saying things along the lines of “My grandfather would say a gun will sort things out, haha!” and Jones would laugh along like the cretin he is.
My take on this is that this kind of blatant racism can only flourish when an emphasis is placed on cultural differences as official policy. My father’s family are Russian, my uncle’s family are Maltese–I have quite a multicultural background myself. But while there were teething problems in the '50s as the children of post-WWII immigrants integrated, there wasn’t an official emphasis on “diversity” and so an overall sense of a cohesive cultural identity was maintained, even if it shifted.
I think people can cope with cultural shifts. What they can’t cope with is cultural fragmentation, where the national identity is becoming schizophrenic.
I guess my point is that isolated idiots can say or do anything, but it only becomes a problem when the government tacitly accepts such opinions as valid by adopting a policy of cultural plurality and extreme relativism. That’s when people really get resentful and mob mentality can get a foothold.
Then again, Howard went in the other direction and really emphasised differences negatively. I think the middleground is to acknowledge differences while emphasising commonality, which would be the right approach, IMHO.
Again, a melting pot, not a patchwork.
No, not really.
Yeah that’s true of Jews as well. But they still wanted arbitration councils… So?
And Jews!!!
Never-mind the poll is dodgy…
Poll says fuck all about Large Swathes.
I’m sure it would be even a catastrophe!… If Mrs Imran had say the same arbitration sources as Mrs Cohen.
Poll, again doesn’t tell us much.
So’s Canon Law, and Jewish Law.
Traditional Jewish law doesn’t allow female testimony. Where’s the hand-wringing about that? Where’s the panic and consternation(!!) about the Beth Din?
This is all quite boring.
I’ve had quite enough actually of overwrought reaction to justify religious bigotry actually. The country had enough of that in the past, and what’s being written about Muslims today smells quite like what was written about Catholics and Jews in the past. Same dark suggestions and dressed up charges.
And that goes for the idea that a Catholic with a penchant for Canon law is ‘intelectualy’ not British.
Wait, what?
Catholics, as you know, have no problem practicing their own form of family law and have a set of divorce laws, etc. that exist alongside our civil law. Are they just as bad?
Are Christian charities full of traitors? Clearly they do not show trust in our welfare system. And OMG what about Jewish law?! They have a set of laws that makes sharia law look as short and sweet as the ten commandments. Are observant Jews demonstrating how they are Jewish first and whatever second? I think I read a book about that idea once…
I rely on sunglass, headphones and my hoodie to keep some anonymity in public. I think it works out to less exposed skin than a niqab. What about other forms of privacy? Are you against tinted windows that clearly give an unfriendly message to fellow commuters? Gated communities? Agoraphobic people who just choose to hang out at home a lot? What is the level of public exposure you deem appropriate?
Oh, and you got it wrong, Niqabs are actually to protect you from your own lust. You’re not going to contaminate the girl or whatever. She’s supposably doing you a helpful favor by keeping your mind from straying to her cleavage or whatever. I agree it’s not a particularly flattering thought process, but you can at least get it right.
In any case, niqabs are incredibly rare. During the brouhaha over the burka ban in France, they found there were around 2,000 people in France who regularly wore burkas or niqabs. I think you could probably find an equal number of those crazy homeless guys who dress themselves up in trash bags, or people who like to wear fursuits. Niqabs are a non-issue. Banning them will not do a single thing to make the world better (in fact, it will only make the handful of women who do wear them either stay home or be really uncomfortable every time they go out) but will be a nice symbolic “F you” to Muslims.
[quote]
In other words, it’s exactly the kind of thing you would wear if you were determined to make every possible effort not to integrate into your host society. If nylon stockings sent the same message, then fuck yeah! Ban the fucking things immediately. We’d be better off without them. Of course, they don’t send anything like that kind of message, so your comparison is meaningless. /quote]
How do you know about her integrating or not? For all you know, that lady you saw in a niqab (which, in reality, is something you almost never see) could be a volunteer at her child’s school, spend her evenings serving food to the homeless, and work on Saturdays to put together cultural events. Even if you limit yourself to working with one gender, it’s not like women are not half of society. Maybe she runs a women’s shelter, teaches ballet to at-risk youth, and tutors girls in biology. You have no idea. You are judging her entire life on one piece of cloth. If you are going to make up life-stories of strangers based on seeing them at a distance, I guess that’s your thing. But recognize it as the baseless speculation it is.
First off, the vast majority of Muslim women do not cover their face, and a healthy percentage do not cover their hair. I was at an Egyptian party today and I’d say it was about 50/50.
As for the rest of this statement, that’s quite a lot of extrapolating there. Could you imagine, for a moment, that it’s not all about you? That perhaps people see some value to Islamic dress that is deeply personal and has nothing to do with you at all?
There are many places that practice relaxed and accepting strains of islam that are perfectly compatible. I lived for two years in a town that was 40% Muslim, 40% Catholic, and 20% pagan and there was very little religious tension at all.
Where you get communities that do not want to integrate is when you have communities that are pushed out or derided.
Robert Putman has some interesting research on this. It is also exacerbated when you get ethnic inequality as happens in France & the UK. Unfortunately, this is also partly inevitable due to human genetic diversity.
Anyway, here is Jason Richwine’s article mentioning the Putman findings and how to ameliorate them:
http://www.american.com/archive/2009/august/dealing-with-diversity-the-smart-way
If it’s a question of wearing different clothes, eating different foods, living in neighborhoods with different decorations and storefronts and practicing different religions to non-fundamentalist levels, having different cultures coexist is not a problem. You seem to agree with JS Mill’s self-regarding act principle and use it as the basic rule to be applied in interactions between individuals.
This very liberal attitude, however, does not seem to be widespread worldwide. An unintended effect of multicultural policies could be to reinforce/protect some very illiberal attitudes and behaviors.
For example, should the State subsidize conservative Muslim schools as it would other schools? Should the State try to change attitudes concerning gender equality? If we preserve traditional Chinese culture in Chinatown, will we not also be preserving the attitude that having a female child is inferior to having a male child?
If Alessan sees this, I hope he comments to tell me if I’m wrong: An informative example may be the haredim in Israel. They get government support and exemptions to live according to their culture, live in their own neighborhoods (most famously, Mea Shearim) and have their own schools. Yet they certainly do not agree with you that " if protecting your culture means keeping people from doing what they want to do, then too bad". Should the State enable the preservation of the haredim’s culture?
It’s possible that there is a way to enable the preservation of illiberal cultures in a way that makes it shed their illiberal elements while preserving all the rest. Maybe it’s been done and I just don’t know it.
And here we come to the difference in the perspectives between many of us in America, weaned at the teat of a a pluralistic society, and those in Europe.
No, the state has piss all to do with preserving traditional cultures or subsidizing them. It has everything to do with preventing discrimination against those who do.
Public schools can and should respect the diversity of their student body and attempt to not impose a majority religious view on a minority. They should not promote any subculture and should encourage all subcultures to participate in the national shared cultural values. These include basic human rights and freedoms of religion and expression. Not all dressing or eating alike. “You eat different foods? Cool, can I try some? How’s your part of the project coming?”
Oh, I’d like to emphasize our commonality here.
Acknowledge, respect, and perhaps even utilize our differences as a resource of different ideas and approaches that can occasionally be recombined into creative new concepts, while emphasizing the shared values and mutual goals. Differences that violate the basic values (human rights or forcing your values upon others, as examples) cannot be tolerated, but otherwise let people enjoy their heritage in the manner that they so choose without the state getting in their way.
Sorry for the multipost but this pollis of note. In comparison to the highly publicized survey of 1003 individuals performed by a conservative thinktank, this was a Gallup poll of 50,000 interviews.
Another factoid out of the oft quoted smaller poll that found 40% of Muslim youth stating that given a choice they would prefer Sharia law is that it was less among the first generation and higher among those born in Britain - giving some support to the concept that it is a reaction to being given the message that they are not welcome as members of the culture.