It's an issue that has been flaring up again in the past month, fueled by the court case of a Yorkshire teaching assistant - she refused to remove her full-face veil at work (in the presence of male teachers), was fired, took the case to court and then the British politicians weighed in on the issue (do you think they'd be half as opinionated if Tony wasn't standing down soon??).
It's an issue that I've always struggled with, since I have very strong feelings about the two main tenets involved:
As for point 2, that was something that comes very strongly from my parents. Every time we traveled they always taught me to respect the customs of the country we were in, to try new experiences, realise that different people do things in different ways and that different people have different expectations of those around them - rule 1: try not to offend.
So where do we draw the line? Especially when it comes to the issue of headscarves & veils... You need to respect the religion of the individual in question while also respecting the culture of the country at the same time - not easy when they are at opposite ends of the spectrum! But in the end, the person has the choice of where they live and in this example, there are plenty of Muslim and Muslim tolerant countries that accept people wearing veils, how can we expect a whole country to change for one person?
I know that I don't have the best writing style out there and I'm much happier communicating my thoughts via speech rather than prose, so I only ventured to comment on this issue because of an article that I found recently - Anne Applebaum writing for Slate magazine - which describes my feelings on this better than I ever could.
It's an issue that I've always struggled with, since I have very strong feelings about the two main tenets involved:
- The rights of the individual to practice their chosen religion/non-religion;
- The idea of "when in Rome" - that you should respect the customs of the country that you are in.
As for point 2, that was something that comes very strongly from my parents. Every time we traveled they always taught me to respect the customs of the country we were in, to try new experiences, realise that different people do things in different ways and that different people have different expectations of those around them - rule 1: try not to offend.
So where do we draw the line? Especially when it comes to the issue of headscarves & veils... You need to respect the religion of the individual in question while also respecting the culture of the country at the same time - not easy when they are at opposite ends of the spectrum! But in the end, the person has the choice of where they live and in this example, there are plenty of Muslim and Muslim tolerant countries that accept people wearing veils, how can we expect a whole country to change for one person?
I know that I don't have the best writing style out there and I'm much happier communicating my thoughts via speech rather than prose, so I only ventured to comment on this issue because of an article that I found recently - Anne Applebaum writing for Slate magazine - which describes my feelings on this better than I ever could.
posted by ellybabes at 11/16/2006 06:40:00 pm
1 Comments:
In my opinion, the "when in Rome" argument is weak at the best of times, and has no bearing whatsoever in this situation. The reason being, there is a _huge_ muslim population in the UK, so its not like the whole country is changing for one person. Moreover, wearing a veil doesn't even require a change from anyone else - it doesn't harm anyone, and the only people who are refusing to respect the culture of their fellow citizens are the ones who take offence to this kind of thing.
I think its shocking that people get away with all the incidents of blatant religious discrimination listed in that article you linked to. Some people still need to wake up and realise that the white Christian no longer has veto in Britain. This changed around the time when the national dish of England became chicken curry.
Even if there were only one person in the whole of the UK who wore a face veil, I would still be protecting her right to do so. The argument that the article brought up about wearing short sleeves in Bali is not logically equivalent, because our religion does not prohibit the wearing of veils.
The final argument proposed is that she cannot work in a job which requires "face to face" communication. Why not? She is still able to speak. She has ears and can hear. She still has eyes and can see. People can even see her eyes. Who says she's any less effective as a teacher, or as an office worker? How can you propose that the woman should not be allowed work in this job simply because most of her face is hidden. If we were to take that route, then we might as well start banning really ugly or deformed or burned people from teaching, since it is not pleasant to look upon their faces.
The law is there to protect us in situations like this, and if the law is not on the side of this woman then it needs to be changed.
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