Who agrees with Boris?

[bovlomov]

Outspoken bigots are rather tiring to have as friends, as they do tend to go on.

Can we reverse that, does "going on" imply something in itself?

I am sure that Liberals are frequently accused of such behaviour, along with cyclists, vegetarians and many others.

I don't think I've ever heard someone shouting their liberal opinions at strangers on a bus. Bus passengers expressing their dislike of ethnic minorities are relatively common.

[AlaninWales]

Why do posters here keep on about "the idea that we should ban the burka" ? Who said we should? Not Boris.

[meic]

Strangers on a bus are pretty much outside of what we would call our friends (even those of us who live by "strangers are friends that you havent met yet" rather than "stranger danger").

So the example you give takes us off on a completely different direction, possibly pointing towards a class divide, fortunately I have very little experience of riding London Buses.

Of course there is no shortage of Liberals* "going on" on twitter.

*notice I use Liberals, when you have used liberals. I dont mean members of the old political party but a more modern collective. Whereas with a small l, I take it as people with a generally liberal attitude (which can even be found in many old fashioned Consevatives!!!).

[bovlomov]

Why do posters here keep on about "the idea that we should ban the burka" ? Who said we should? Not Boris.

We have established that Johnson didn't say he supported a ban. Many of his supporters appear to think he did however.

Here's a typical example (from the Mail):

We must support Johnson and co. This clothing is not acceptable, if it should be outlawed now, it will save huge problems in the future, and will be one small step in returning Britain to the green and pleasant land it once was.

[Vorpal]

I don't know whether it is a significant proportion, but some women wearing the burka have mothers who don't and never did.

I believe the burqa is a tradition in Arabia. Why that spread to Muslims outside that region is an interesting question.

It is partly to do with Saudi funding of Islamic schools internationally, and its funding of violent extremism. Much of the implicit and explicit support for Saudi Arabia during that period has come from the same people who claim to be worried about the effects of Saudi's religious mission, as they are unwilling or incapable of putting two and two together.

In Pakistan, it was partly a direct response to a number of historic matters. When Pakistan and India were created, it was the British that split them on largely religious lines. A majority of residents wished to be a single country, while those who agreed with the notion to split, wanted to do so on the lines of historic kingdoms, rather than religion. The subsequent disagreements have led several Pakistani administrations to push the country to be more 'Muslim', and a couple of them were very pro Saudi, adopting Arabic language and culture. Even though English and Urdu are the official languages, Arabic must be taught in schools. Adoption of Arabic language and culture have also been influenced by Pakistanis moving to Middle Eastern countries for work.

[bovlomov]

Strangers on a bus are pretty much outside of what we would call our friends (even those of us who live by "strangers are friends that you havent met yet" rather than "stranger danger").

So the example you give takes us off on a completely different direction, possibly pointing towards a class divide, fortunately I have very little experience of riding London Buses.

Of course there is no shortage of Liberals* "going on" on twitter.

*notice I use Liberals, when you have used liberals. I dont mean members of the old political party but a more modern collective. Whereas with a small l, I take it as people with a generally liberal attitude (which can even be found in many old fashioned Consevatives!!!).

I was generally agreeing with you about associating with people considered to have those views. I suppose it was a qualification, the bit about outspoken bigots. Outspoken being the important word.

I'm not sure it is a class thing. The ones I see are on buses, but I understand the raving type of bigots can also be heard in golf clubs, provincial Conservative Associations and on park benches in Goring on Thames. I know that people identifying as 'liberal' also voice irrational disdain or disgust for other social groups, but that simply isn't liberal.

Liberal and liberal have become rather loaded terms. I'm using it in the general sense.

[pwa]

I don't know whether it is a significant proportion, but some women wearing the burka have mothers who don't and never did.

I believe the burqa is a tradition in Arabia. Why that spread to Muslims outside that region is an interesting question.

It is partly to do with Saudi funding of Islamic schools internationally, and its funding of violent extremism. Much of the implicit and explicit support for Saudi Arabia during that period has come from the same people who claim to be worried about the effects of Saudi's religious mission, as they are unwilling or incapable of putting two and two together.

In Pakistan, it was partly a direct response to a number of historic matters. When Pakistan and India were created, it was the British that split them on largely religious lines. A majority of residents wished to be a single country, while those who agreed with the notion to split, wanted to do so on the lines of historic kingdoms, rather than religion. The subsequent disagreements have led several Pakistani administrations to push the country to be more 'Muslim', and a couple of them were very pro Saudi, adopting Arabic language and culture. Even though English and Urdu are the official languages, Arabic must be taught in schools. Adoption of Arabic language and culture have also been influenced by Pakistanis moving to Middle Eastern countries for work.

Considerably OT, but it has been my understanding that it was as a result of pressure from Jinnah and the Muslim League that India was split between Pakistan (East and West) and India at the time of independence, with the British hoping that could be avoided.

[bovlomov]

In Pakistan, it was partly a direct response to a number of historic matters. <snip>.

There! That's already a lot more interesting, and better informed, than anything Johnson has to offer.

[Freddie]

However, Christian and Jewish people traditionally used a veil as an act of modesty, much like some Muslim women do today. According to the bible, Paul said that women who pray with their heads uncovered, dishonor their heads. Hence nuns wear head coverings. Orthodox Jewish women still cover their hair after marriage. The Virgin Mary was often depicted as wearing a veil. The dupatta mentioned earlier in this thread was traditionally matched with other garments, and in some cases, can be nearly as covering as a burqa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dupatta

Are you in favour or against these garments? I thought you were of the school of thought that a woman should be able to wear what she wants (perhaps nothing at all?), not be the object of sexual interest or scorn because of said clothing (or lack thereof) and that tradition or standards, when imposed by western society (essentially men/patriarchy) upon women was oppression and inhibiting womens freedoms.

Why is it that western culture is, from the feminist view, the imposition of male dictates upon women, while non-western cultures and traditions, including those which prescribe what women should wear (and enforce strict penalties for disobedience), are cultures and traditions that are engaged in freely by women. If liberal western societies impose upon women, and according to feminists they do, then surely more illiberal societies are hardly likely to give women such choice that they all engage in wearing burkhas and head coverings entirely of their own volition, with no pressure whatsoever from the society (men/patriarchy) around them.

Maybe a good example would be Afghanistan in the 1960s and Afghanistan today. In the 1960s Afghan women could freely enter college; were not compelled to cover their hair; could wear short, even mini skirts - this compared with today....not so much. Have Afghan women had a complete about turn in their mentality towards tradition and rejected mixed schooling, freedom to wear what they please and not covering their hair for a more hardline, traditional lifestyle, and this completely of their own choosing, or has the rise of the Taliban (comprised of Afghani men who are not in favour of these things) got something to do with it?

https://www.boredpanda.com/afghanistan- ... hotography

The history of this sort of traditional dress is complicated by the fact that it has often been altered or banned by colonial overlords, who felt they had the right to determine what was acceptable dress.

The colonial overlords, as you put it, also felt they had the right to end sati in India. What is sati, you ask? Well, it is the immolation of widows upon their dead husband's funeral pyres:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sati_(practice)

What are your opinions on this, were these women engaged in burning themselves to death by their own free will or not? How do you ascertain this for certain one way or another? Is all colonial imposition bad or is this an exception? Perhaps there are times when western civilisation is a force for increasing womens rights around the world and traditions elsewhere should make way for womens rights?

Which brings me onto another interesting question, are womens rights universal or are they geographically and culturally specific?

Feminists often make the case that women in the non-western world adhere to their traditions and cultures purely because they want to, yet any imposition of such traditions and standards in the west is because (western) men are controlling and patriarchal. Feminism seems to shirk its responsibility for furthering the rights of women outside of the west. Western women should be free to do what they please, regardless of what western culture (patriarchy) has to say about it, but non-western women are adhering to their culture because they are completely in favour of it. Doesn't this seem a little unbalanced and furthermore unlikely? If freedom is good for western women, then it is good for all women, no? Most women around the world do not have a fraction of the freedom that western women do, yet feminists seem to think they don't need it, because they engage with all aspects of their male dominated culture (patriarchy) freely.

Feminists should be working to emancipate women worldwide, yet they defend, often times in the strongest terms, the very structures in the non-western world that when present in the west they call oppressive patriarchy. The very thing that feminism seeks to destroy in the west, it defends elsewhere, this is puzzling to me.

The idea that someone who covers their face must have something to hide is a largely recent Western concept. The idea that we should ban the burqa is at the least much newer than the type of garment.

Not really. Face coverings for women of the past and present have been imbued with the idea that there was something to hide, namely a woman's modesty and honour, which needed hiding from the male gaze.

This is something modern feminism shares with older traditions, the idea that the male gaze in itself has a tainting effect on a woman. Perhaps this is why they have teamed up to fight the male gaze, even if that means a limit to women's freedoms, it is such a menace that obscuring women's faces is what is necessary to combat the problem. But wait, nobody is advancing this for non-muslim women, just for muslim women. Again, a lack of universality affects feminism.

"A woman should wear what she wants, unless she is from a non-western culture then she should wear what men want, which is OK because the women of that culture only ever want to wear what men want them to, and that is fine. They don't need liberty, that is only for western, non-muslim women, because muslim women already agree with everything their men say and do it entirely of their own choosing with no coercion whatsoever. Only non-muslim, western men employ coercion of women, though women from these cultures are far freer than those in the muslim world..."

It can't be made sense of because it is not supposed to make sense. Feminism is all about emancipating women and giving them the freedom to choose, until it decides that isn't important for some subsection of the world's women...

[meic]

Somebody writing for the Huffpost has managed to link it to cycling!
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/ ... ccounter=1

[661-Pete]

Somebody writing for the Huffpost has managed to link it to cycling!
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/ ... ccounter=1

Indeed?! From the article:

...for my personal safety and the safety of other cyclists, including those with little or no peddling experience...

I have to state, despite having been a regular cyclist for 60 years, I have absolutely no 'peddling' experience. Not even of 'soft' drugs.....

And lower down:

I’ve lost count of the number of car windows I have had to bang on as I’ve been regularly carved up and nearly careered into by a careless motorist.

If this guy has a habit of banging on car windows, he's not the sort of 'cyclist' I identify with. If I have a bad encounter on the road, it doesn't help to pick a fight....

[Vorpal]

Considerably OT, but it has been my understanding that it was as a result of pressure from Jinnah and the Muslim League that India was split between Pakistan (East and West) and India at the time of independence, with the British hoping that could be avoided.

The pressure from the Muslim League was response to a situation encouraged by the British in the first place. They began supporting Hindu princes on the subcontinent who took power from the waning (Islamic) Mogul Empire. They encouraged religious friction to establish their own political power. The British deliberately recruited high caste Hindus to the army, and the Indian units recognised Hindu festivals.

After years of developing festering resentment among Muslims and Sikhs, the police were conveniently given holiday when the Muslim League planned large demonstrations, in the only district where they held a majority in the provincial governments. The result was war on the streets of Kolkata (Calcutta). Read about 'Direct Action Day'.

I had an uncle (now dead) who was Punjabi. His family migrated from the Pakistani part of the Punjab to the Indian part because they were Hindu. My Punjabi uncle was convinced that if the British had not used the religious differences to their own financial and political advantage; and if they had not left in such haste, Pakistan and India would, today, be a single country. It was the British who began to define communities along religious lines, and attach political representation to them. Both Jinnah and Gandhi were British educated.

[Vorpal]

Freddie, I am not going to quote and dissect your post. I will just say that I believe women should be allowed to wear what they want. I neither support nor oppose the wearing of the burqa. To my mind, the solution is free and accessible universal education.

It is of course difficult to discuss such things when to many, the burqa represents a oppression. But the solution to oppression should never be more oppression.

As for sati, I am familiar with the concept and say it has no bearing on the matter at hand. The burqa harms no one. The harm comes from oppression, which will not end with the banning of a garment.

[Freddie]

How do you ascertain something is not done under coercion? My example of Afghani female dress in the 1960s compared to now is a good point. There is strong coercion to dress "modestly" and severe penalties (perhaps involving stones) for not doing so. Whilst the burkha is not mandatory in Islam, not covering ones head is seen as immodest at best and evidence of 'not being a muslim' at worst (I have heard this from the more fundamental to the to more liberal). Is this not coercion?

As for education, I suppose it depends what you are educating people in. In a multicultural society you cannot assert (without facing claims of bigotry) that one cultural practice is better than another, so I doubt that many muslim girls will be afforded the kind of education where they are encouraged to make their own mind up about head and face coverings. I presume you want universal education in liberal values (and this is what you mean by education), which some on the left might argue is a form of cultural supremacy. If you teach girls they can do something that goes against their culture, then is this not cultural colonialism, by sowing dissent and seeking to undermine their culture?

As I say, an education is not an education is not an education. There are different types of education and you haven't been explicit in how an education alone will increase women's emancipation, unless that education suggests freedom to choose is paramount. Islam means submission to Allah, so I don't think freedom to express oneself any way you please is considered paramount.

With respect to the burkha harming no one, have you tried telling that to Afghani women who remember what it was like pre-Taliban? It is a hollow assertion. It is an impingement of women's rights and to suggest that it harms no one is to dismiss the topic at hand and close your eyes to oppression because it is a difficult topic to broach involving, as it does, non-western cultural norms. Is this you agreeing, in a roundabout fashion, that women's rights are not universal to all women?

I didn't suggest the burkha should be banned, neither did Boris.

[bovlomov]

How do you ascertain something is not done under coercion?

How indeed? Coercion comes in many forms, from violence and threats of violence to social ostracisation. It could be about miniskirts as much as about burqas - and about much else besides. I suppose it needs to be judged case by case.