Deborah OrrNext week I'm going to the cinema. Definitely.
Without the required escort? Stone her.
But this Thursday evening saw me sitting on a panel of five women in Whitechapel, and taking part in a "Dialogue With Islam" about whether the veil is "a mark of separation" or "a statement of identity".
That there was a 'debate' indicates that we still have a problem.
Quite how these two categories are mutually exclusive, I'm afraid, was not resolved during the debate. Neither was anything else.
They're quite the same, actually, and that's the point.
The more I try to get to grips with this issue, the more puzzling I find it all. I learned during the course of some full and frank exchanges, though, that the veiling of women has got nothing whatsoever to do with female sexuality, protection from the gaze of strangers, or anything else at all. The reason why Muslim women adopt total face and body shrouding is because Allah tells them to. There is, apparently, no other explanation that is either relevant or necessary, whether you believe in Allah or you don't.
There is a difference, however: if you wear a shroud because you believe that Allan demands it, fine and dandy. If you wear a shroud because you're afraid that if you don't, the local hard boyz from the Committee for the Protection of Virtue and Elimination of Vice will beat you half to death, then we have a serious problem. It's hard to be a good, progressive feminist when you're scared of being killed if you violate some arcane rule. Allan's commands aren't the central issue here (for many of us), it's the demands of his more fanatical, male adherents.
I learned too, more forcefully than I've heard it expressed before, that the idea that this "dress code" oppresses women is ridiculous.
Sure Deb, seems rather silly: dressing women like sacks of potatoes shouldn't be considered oppressive in the least. After all, it's the woman's responsibility to control the desires of the men around her.
The reason why there has never been a concerted Muslim feminist movement (I'm told) is that Muslim women have always had all of the equalities that Western women are still struggling with the vile British patriarchy to achieve. Quite where this splendid state of affairs can be seen working in an actual society remains somewhat elusive though. Which is a shame, because I'd be off there like a shot if only I could locate the place.
Pay attention, Deb: Saoodi-controlled Arabia. Iran. Mauritania. Great place, that Mauritania.
Here though, Muslims are constantly and invariably demonised (the audience started jeering when I questioned this entirely negative view), it's all the Government's fault, everything, and since Islamic terrorism is a contradiction in terms, ...
Not a contradiction, but increasingly redundant.
... it doesn't exist and therefore can hardly be cited as an influence, rightly or wrongly, on the current woeful state of misunderstanding and distrust.
I actually understand the people who advocate my death or forced conversion to their religion, and I always distrust them.
People never go on about Christian terrorists, apparently, which proves something --
That there aren't too many. Remember Eric Rudolph? You know him, the fellow who murdered a couple of abortion doctors. Remember the end to his story? A Department of Justice headed by a Bush appointee and an FBI headed by a Bush appointee prosecuted him in a courtroom headed by a Bush appointee, and he's now incarcerated in a federal prison run by a Bush appointee.
And he's about the only one I can think of here in the States.
-- although I do vaguely remember the days when you only appeared to get two kinds of terrorist anyway - Catholic and Protestant.
You haven't travelled much, else you'd have encountered Coptic, Orthodox and Chaldian terrorists.
(In an unfortunate cultural echo, they wore black face coverings that showed only their eyes as well.) It was totally grim, of course, back in the days when any Irish person was viewed as a potential terrorist, and much injustice resulted from such assumptions.
Remember those days? Remember how few IRA hard boyz it took to bring an entire population under suspicion? And how the moderate Irish government, and moderate Northern Irish government, and brave moderate Irish men and women, went to great lengths in blood and sacrifice to bring it to an end? We're still waiting for the moderate Muslim community and moderate Muslim governments to do the same.
I hate the British government's demands that the Muslim community should take on collective guilt for Islamic terror, ...
Wrong. They don't demand guilt. They demand responsibility. The Muslim community has to help police itself, and good, loyal Brits of Muslim faith need to rat out the terrorists and terrorist supporters in their midst. There's a difference.
... and I do consider myself to have a great deal in common with the Muslim people I was discussing these matters with.
In that case, you're on my list.
I didn't support the attack on Afghanistan.
Why the hell not? Did you support the Taliban? Or is it that they were too far away and the evil they were committing, from blowing up Buddhas to executing their women in soccer stadiums to enabling terrorist attacks halfway around the world, was too distant for you to care? Remind me, aren't liberals supposed to care about the oppression of ordinary people? Here was the Taliban lopping heads and beating people for the slightest of infractions. Other than issuing statements, what would you do about it? Poseur.
I didn't support the war in Iraq.
The best face you can put on that position is that you simply didn't (and don't) give a rat's ass about the ordinary people of Iraq. Screw 'em, you got yours. That they were starved and beaten and used cynically for Saddam's own ends, well, that's their tough luck. If they care enough they can revolt on their own, and if Saddam crushes them too bad. And the sanctions were evil because babies were dying; after all the BBC told you so.
The people who were so firm about doing away with (for example) apartheid melted away when confronted with the genuine evil of Saddam. What does that say about your morality?
I think the "war on terror" and the "axis of evil" are stupid and divisive pieces of dumb propaganda.
Until more of your citizens are blown up in the Tube. Then you might gain an appreciation that terror is real, that law enforcement alone as the single arrow in your quiver is an inadequate response, and that there is indeed collusion of evil people to generate and spread terror.
I'm troubled by the social exclusion of many Muslims, just as I am by that of other British minorities.
Britain is one of the most inclusive countries in the world today. Go ahead and be troubled by the 'social exclusion' of many Muslims; just be mindful as to why, and the extent to which it's generated by Muslims themselves who consider you to be unclean and an infidel.
I agree with many of the criticism that the people in Mile End made of British society.
Of course you do. Can't possibly imagine that you or they would have anything good to say about your society. That's part of being a good progressive: all cultures are equal except your own which is inferior. Even we at Rantburg have better things to say about Britain than you do, and you live there.
But I'm seen by many of the people I spoke with on Thursday as Islamophobic, just because I have some criticisms of Islam - and indeed of revealed religion generally.
You might expect that Muslims who care greatly about their faith will consider atheistic critics of said faith to be evil and unworthy of respect. Christians also tend to get a little riled when confronted by such people, especially when their critics are both strident and stupid.
Except a Christian won't behead you.
That they seem entirely anti-Western, on the other hand, is it be honoured, respected and genially tolerated, if we are to prove ourselves as liberally democratic as we like to say we are. It's quite a trick - having to accept opposing values in order to be seen to uphold your own.
And remember, your own society is e-e-e-evil and inferior. Who says so? You do. Why would you expect your opponents to disagree?
Turning up before a bunch of people who have nothing positive to say about Britain or its culture is depressing.
For you as a good progressive it should have been exhilerating.
I'm all for meeting people half way, and so are many British Muslims. But this audience, at least, appeared to want to hear nothing except a fulsome surrender to the idea that the West is always terrible and Islam is always best. No can do.
Why not? You seem most of the way there already. Remember to have yourself fitted for a black burqa -- Seafarious, our own fashion consultant, points out that blue will make your ankles look fat.