The Curmudgeon

YOU'LL COME FOR THE CURSES. YOU'LL STAY FOR THE MUDGEONRY.

Friday, October 06, 2006

Bare-Faced in Blackburn

An empty suit has expressed some concern over the way some people dress. A woman with "a broad Lancashire accent" came to the empty suit's constituency advice bureau wearing a veil. The suit was discomfited by "apparent incongruity between the signals which indicate common bonds - the entirely English accent, the couple's education (wholly in the UK) - and the fact of the veil". The suit was also discomfited "about talking to someone 'face-to-face' who I could not see". This was because "the value of a meeting ... is so that you can - almost literally - see what the other person means ... So many of the judgments we all make about other people come from seeing their faces."

Muslim women who wear veils in the empty suit's presence are now informed, since they may have forgotten, that "this is a country built on freedoms". They are informed that the suit "defends absolutely" the right of any woman to wear headgear which does not unsettle the suit personally. "As for the full veil, wearing it breaks no laws", as yet. The suit then requests the woman to lift her veil, and "can't recall a single occasion when the lady concerned refused". Nevertheless, "there is an issue here". What could that be? "It became absolutely clear ... that the husband had played no part in her decision" to wear the veil. Muslim women being what they are, the suit was surprised at this, but apparently not particularly worried. "She ... had read some books and thought about the issue"; again, this was surprising, but not excessively unsettling. "She felt more comfortable wearing the veil when out." This, it appears, was the crux of the matter.

OK, said the suit, but "did she think that veil wearing was required by the Qur'an?" After all, if it is not required by the Qur'an, the act of wearing a veil in the presence of an empty suit could be considered frivolous, and even provocative. The suit explained that "many Muslim scholars said the full veil was not obligatory at all", no matter how comfortable it might be. "And women as well as men went head uncovered the whole time when in their hajj - pilgrimage - in Mecca". In short, the suit did its best to make clear that, since the Qur'an does not command it, there is simply no excuse for Muslim women to go about wearing the veil. Such gratuitous eccentricity of dress is "bound to make better, positive relations between the two communities more difficult", since not everyone is as willing as the suit to make accommodations. Perhaps the empty suit has spent too much time in the callow atmosphere of Westminster, where everybody's face is visible, and where the Vicar of Downing Street's visage, floating radiant with sincerity above another suit, has come to symbolise all that is honest and virtuous among those of us who have entirely English accents and were educated wholly in the UK.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home