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October 2006 E-Bulletin (2)

October 18, 2006

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This extra electronic-only edition of E-journal is being issued to include a sample of the media articles that have come to my attention following Jack Straw's comments on the niqab. I am also including some articles that give a different perspective on the Pope's Regensburg lecture to those included in E-journal 12. The next issue will be distributed as planned, early next month.

Former Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw added to the feeling that there was a concerted assault on Islam, with his comments about asking members of his constituency to remove their veils when meeting him. My personal opinion is that Straw was totally wrong to make such a statement. Three years ago the French government opened the debate by outlawing religious symbols in schools, including the hijab. Now we see British Airways adding to the controversy by outlawing crucifixes.

Jack Straw has unleashed a storm of prejudice and intensified division
by Madeleine Bunting, director of the thinktank Demos, in The Guardian
It's been quite extraordinary: one man's emotional response to the niqab - the Muslim veil that covers all but the eyes - has snowballed into a perceived titanic clash of cultures in which commentators pompously pronounce on how Muslims are "rejecting the values of liberal democracy". Jack Straw feels uncomfortable and within a matter of hours, his discomfort is calibrated on news bulletins and websites in terms of an inquisitorial demand: do Muslims in this country want to integrate? Straw's comments on the niqab escalated into an utterly false implication that Muslims don't really want to integrate.

Analysis: Straw's veil comments
by BBC News Home Editor Mark Easton
Commons leader Jack Straw has suggested women wearing veils which cover the face can make relations between communities more difficult, and revealed that he asks women visiting his constituency surgery to consider removing them. This was not some reflective little observation from Jack Straw about the protocols of MP/constituent meetings in a multicultural world. This was a quite deliberate foray into what is becoming a real debate within Westminster: Does Britain's brand of multiculturalism work? "[Jack Straw] said he wanted a debate. Well, he has got one."

Comment: Good governance needs bridges not barriers in relating to Muslims
by Simon Barrow of Ekklesia
Many people will argue that Commons leader Jack Straw has been brave and comparatively sensitive in raising the question about whether the full veiling of Muslim women is an impediment to positive community relations in plural Britain. But irrespective of the view one takes about the specific issue of coverings (and it is a very complex one), Mr Straw's approach reveals, yet again, a subterranean negativity in its relations with diverse Muslim communities. What is being promoted is the policing of boundaries, rather than the positive building of bridges.

Jack Straw on the veil
BBC report
The Leader of the House of Commons, Jack Straw, has sparked controversy by saying that Muslim women should not wear veils which cover the face. He first made the comments in his weekly column in a newspaper in his constituency, Blackburn, after he had a meeting with a woman wearing a full veil. He has elaborated in further interviews.

Straw causes furore with not-so-veiled comments to Muslims
Ekklesia report
House of Commons leader Jack Straw has caused a furore - and deeply divided opinion - with his comments that Muslim women in the UK who wear full veils make "better, positive relations" between communities "more difficult". Mr Straw, the MP for Blackburn, a constituency with 30 per cent Muslim voters, told the Lancashire Evening Telegraph that concealing a face was "a visible statement of separation and of difference".

Straw words 'sparked veil attack'
BBC report
A leading Muslim has blamed Jack Straw's comments for an attack in which a woman's veil was torn from her face. The woman was attacked in Liverpool by a man shouting racist abuse, the day after the former foreign secretary criticised veils that cover the face. Mohammed Akbar Ali, ex-chairman of the Liverpool Islamic Institute, said Mr Straw should have known better.

Falkirk Islamic centre fire 'suspicious'
BBC report
A fire which caused thousands of pounds worth of damage to an Islamic centre is believed to have been started deliberately, it has emerged. Shoeb Farooqui, a member of the centre, "We are shocked by this. The vast majority of the local community are very nice and have always supported us, even during the bad times around the world." The arson attack happened the same day as Jack Straw's comments were made public.

How not to have a debate
by John Denholm, Labour MP for Southampton Itchen and chair of the home affairs select committee, in The Guardian
Ministers need to listen more to Muslims - and avoid grandstanding to the scared majority. We live in insecure times. Tough measures to challenge those we fear are popular. But ultimately government won't be thanked if we make people more scared and no safer. It's not that we shouldn't discuss these issues. But how we conduct the debate does matter.

Prescott leads ministers disagreeing with Straw over call to remove Muslim veils
Guardian report
Jack Straw was looking increasingly isolated yesterday after the deputy prime minister, John Prescott, and other senior politicians said they disagreed with his call for Muslim women to remove their veils. Mr Straw, leader of the Commons, was praised for raising a debate about the veils worn by some Muslim women, which he described as a "visible statement of separation". The Muslim Parliament of Great Britain endorsed his move. But Mr Prescott and the health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, joined cabinet colleagues Ruth Kelly and Peter Hain in distancing themselves from Mr Straw's decision to ask women to uncover their faces.

Prescott tells Straw he is wrong over removal of veils
Daily Telegraph report
John Prescott said yesterday that Jack Straw's call for Muslim women to discard the veil could increase prejudice and damage community relations. The Deputy Prime Minister said he feared his colleague's intervention could lead to "considerable difficulties" and said he had expressed his worries in private to Mr Straw, the Leader of the Commons. Mr Prescott spoke as Cabinet ministers distanced themselves from Mr Straw and stressed that women had the right to choose whether to wear a veil. Muslim groups said they had been inundated by abusive and threatening messages. In Liverpool, a woman had her veil ripped off and was subjected to racial abuse

Intolerant Jack Straw repays his Muslim voters
by Yamin Zakaria in The Guardian
"It is perplexing that Jack Straw is more concerned about the dress code of Muslim women, rather than the welfare of the majority non-Muslim women in this country." Why, the author asks, are only the Muslims are being singled out? Surely one could argue, the Jewish code of dress, the turbans worn by the Sikhs, and the symbols of other religious and non-religious groups are equally divisive?

Pluralism and religious freedom sacrificed to preserve British secularism
by Abid Mustafa
"By pressing ahead with the forced secularisation of Muslims, Christian and Jews, western governments run the risk of alienating them. Instead, the West should re-evaluate its policy of coercive assimilation and critically address the broader question of our time - as to whether secularism can really guarantee the rights of people belonging to different faiths." Former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw again courted controversy by suggesting that Muslim women should remove the veil. Straw is not the only minister who is denigrating the Islamic character of Muslim community in Britain. Ruth Kelly, the Communities Secretary, called for a "new and honest debate" on the merits of multiculturalism. Home Secretary John Reid said that Muslims parents should spy on their children. It is obvious that the British government has embarked on a crusade to trounce its cherished principles of pluralism, and freedom of religion in a last ditch attempt to preserve secular Britain. Secularism has failed to protect the Christian sects in Northern Ireland and safeguard the lives of Jewish, Christian and Muslim people living in Palestine. India, the largest secular state in the world, is prone to religious violence where Hindus, Christians, Muslims and Sikhs are all victims of secularism.

Why I wore a veil when I met John Paul II
by Cristina Odone in the Daily Telegraph
This article describes the similarities between the black mantilla, full lace facial veil worn by a minority of Catholics and the niqab, the veil worn by some Muslim women. Both are outward signs of faith, both go against modern popular fashions of bearing almost everything, and both are long-established or even historic articles of religious clothing.

Griffiths backs Straw in row over face veils
Scotsman report
Edinburgh South MP Nigel Griffiths has backed his Westminster boss Jack Straw over Muslim women and the veil, saying the Commons leader's comments were "spot on". He waded into the row as Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt and Scotland's Communities Minister Malcolm Chisholm said it was up to Islamic women to make their own choice about wearing a full veil.

The niqab is not the only barrier to integration British citizenship does not come with a dress code
Leader article in The Observer
British citizenship does not come with a dress code. If Muslim women in Lancashire want to use the niqab to veil their faces, that is their right. But their MP is entitled to voice his concern that wearing it restricts his constituents' full participation in British society.

Jack Straw should be praised for lifting the veil on a taboo
By Henry Porter in The Observer
A virulent minority of Muslims is turning its face against the values of liberal democracy all over western Europe.

Jack Straw has unleashed a storm of prejudice and intensified division
by Madeleine Bunting in The Guardian
Singling out women who wear the niqab as an obstacle to the social integration of Muslims is absurd and dangerous.

Scotland could teach new Labour about inter-community harmony
by Councillor Bashir Ahmad, Glasgow City Council, in The Scotsman
If the former foreign secretary, Jack Straw, is finding it uncomfortable and difficult to communicate with women who wear the veil, then the failure lies with him. Instead of blaming Muslim women, who are simply practising their faith, he should attempt to understand the reason why they choose to wear the veil. Just this summer it was revealed in a research study by academics in Glasgow University that Muslims have integrated well into Scottish society and great racial harmony exists in Scotland between communities. Perhaps the Labour Party should take a note out of Scotland's book when it comes to building and maintaining "positive relations" between communities.

Straw fundamentally wrong over veil, insists Chisholm
Herald report
The row over Jack Straw's comments on Muslim women wearing the full veil escalated when Malcolm Chisholm MSP, Scotland's Communities Minister, claimed his Labour colleague was "fundamentally wrong" on the issue. Mr Chisholm told the BBC: "I certainly disagree and regret he ever raised this issue. He added: "We're absolutely clear in Scotland and our One Scotland, Many Cultures campaign shows this: we cherish and we believe in diversity in Scotland and we should respect the different cultures that are here. Mr Chisholm said he "wouldn't say anything" if a Muslim woman came to one of his surgeries wearing a veil. Elsewhere, the Muslim Council of Britain said it had been subjected to racist e-mails from people who agreed with Mr Straw, while the Islamic Human Rights Commission suggested he had unleashed a "wave of racist xenophobia". In Liverpool, police said a Muslim woman's veil was torn from her face after she was subjected to racial abuse. Muhammad Abul Kalam, of the Muslim Safety Forum, said there had been a definite rise in attacks and threats to Muslims since Mr Straw spoke. Earlier, Phil Woolas, the English Communities Minister, argued that wearing the niqab risked provoking a climate of "fear and resentment". Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, leader of the Muslim Parliament of Great Britain, said the Commons leader was right to open the debate, noting: "This is not a religious issue but a cultural one." He claimed many people had overreacted. As Muslim groups said they had received a torrent of racist abuse since the Leader of the House of Commons made his remarks, SNP leader Alex Salmond branded the Blackburn MP a narrow-minded bigot, adding: "His remarks were an absolute disgrace."

Salmond enters the fray as Straw's veil row grows
Sunday Herald report
The political storm over Jack Straw's comments about Muslim women who choose to wear veils gathered pace as SNP leader Alex Salmond stepped into the row. SNP leader Alex Salmond has urged Tony Blair to intervene and ask Straw to apologise. Robert Davis, head of the department of religious education at the University of Glasgow, said that Straw's comments exposed a hypocrisy at the heart of Western societies which claim to support freedom of choice. "Liberal societies are constructed to support high levels of freedom and diversity - provided one set of freedoms does not impede or conflict with another. I think we have to ask why the par ticular lifestyle choice represented by the veil upsets some people so much? "In the West, after a long struggle, women have established the right to full autonomy in exercising personal freedom over what they wear, what they look like. And modern Western consumer culture is sexualised - whether you see that as an achievement or a trap, we must recognise that it represents a set of values with which non-Western cultures are frequently uneasy. "The veil invites us to engage with Muslim women in other ways."

Beyond the veil
Daily Record report
Scots Muslim Maariyah Masud wears the hijab but cannot understand Jack Straw's comments about the niqab as being a hindrance to understanding his constituents. She comments that you can't see facial expressions during a telephone call, but can still communicate by understanding tone of expression. She adds that Mr Straw should not try to make his constituents change so that he can understand them.

Why the veil is a feminist issue
by Melanie Reid in The Herald
We are on the wrong track if we believe that veils are a religious issue. They're not. Like fat, they're a feminist issue. The clothes that women wear, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, are a powerful political statement about where they're at; about the amount of freedom, self-esteem or independence they possess.

Brown backs Straw stance on Muslims
Edinburgh Evening News report
Gordon Brown has become the first Cabinet minister to throw his full weight behind Jack Straw's call for Muslim women to take off their veils. The Chancellor spoke out as author Salman Rushdie, author of the controversial book The Satanic Verses, risked a new wave of Islamic fury by saying that the tradition of covering women's faces "sucks."

Crossing the line?
by Neil Mackay in The Sunday Herald
First was the furore over the Muslim veil, now the Christian crucifix has become embroiled in the debate over freedom of religious expression. A new front has opened up in Britain's religion-fuelled culture wars. Last week, it was the full-face veil worn by a minority of Muslim women in the UK which was in the vanguard of the increasingly heated debate; this weekend, it's Christians and their crucifixes.

Muslims under attack, says peer
BBC report
The Labour peer, Lord Nazir Ahmed, has criticised the way the government treats Muslims in the UK. There was "a constant theme of demonisation of the Muslim community", he told the BBC's Sunday programme. Lord Ahmed said politicians and journalists were jumping on a bandwagon because "it is fashionable these days to have a go at the Muslims".

MPs condemned for 'scoring points' in veils controversy
Scotsman report
Muslim leaders have accused MPs of trying to make political capital out of the ongoing debate over the wearing of veils. The Muslim Council of Britain made the claim after the local government minister, Phil Woolas, and the shadow home secretary, David Davis, stepped into the debate over the suspension of a Muslim teaching assistant who refused to remove her veil at work. As the row widened to take in other religious attire, the Muslim Council also gave its support to a Christian check-in worker who was banned by her employer, British Airways, from wearing a cross at work. Debate raged after Jack Straw, the Leader of the Commons, said he asked female Muslim constituents to take off their veils during meetings.

Intruder challenged cleric over religion three months before attack
Herald report
An imam who was beaten up in his mosque said yesterday the intruder had tried to pick a theological argument with him three months ago. Mohammed Shamsuddin was recovering after being punched, kicked and struck by a box of bananas at the Dawatul Islam centre in Hillhead, Glasgow. The attack is not thought to be linked to Jack Straw's comments on veils.

Further reactions to the Regensburg lecture

In the last issue of E-journal, I published some of the reactions to Pope Benedict XVI's speech. Inter faith dialogue should be about the promotion of mutual trust and understanding. I apologise to any readers who feel that last month's issue was unhelpful in such a process. I now add to the discussion a number of different articles, which provide alternative perspectives on the issue.

We cannot afford to maintain these ancient prejudices against Islam
by Karen Armstrong, former nun and the author of Islam: A Short History, writing in The Guardian
The Pope's remarks were dangerous, and will convince many more Muslims that the west is incurably Islamophobic. In the 12th century, Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny, initiated a dialogue with the Islamic world. "I approach you not with arms, but with words," he wrote to the Muslims whom he imagined reading his book, "not with force, but with reason, not with hatred, but with love." In contrast, Pope Benedict XVI quoted, without qualification and with apparent approval, the words of the 14th-century Byzantine emperor Manuel II.

Muhammad's Sword
by Uri Avnery, journalist, peace activist, former member of the Knesset, and leader of Gush Shalom
The story about "spreading the faith by the sword" is an evil legend, one of the myths that grew up in Europe during the great wars against the Muslims - the reconquista of Spain by the Christians, the Crusades and the repulsion of the Turks, who almost conquered Vienna. I suspect that the German Pope, too, honestly believes in these fables. That means that the leader of the Catholic world, who is a Christian theologian in his own right, did not make the effort to study the history of other religions."

Responding to the Pope's remarks
by Idris Tawfiq, former Catholic priest, now Muslim writer and speaker
There is no doubt that Islam is receiving a concerted battering. The fallout from the Danish cartoons episode is hardly over, and now the remarks of Pope Benedict XVI have managed to erupt and destabilize the Muslim world, causing hurt to Muslims worldwide and once more raising the spectre of Islam as violent and uncompromising in the minds of those who know nothing about its sweet and gentle message. That this new affront to the dignity of Islam should come from a religious man, the leader of the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics is all the more sad. The coming years will no doubt see more and more incidents in which Islam is slandered and its followers hurt by the offensive remarks of those who would seek to provoke a dramatic response. It is right to respond quickly and firmly in such cases, using diplomacy and the very powerful weapon of boycotting goods and services. Muslims' response, though, should never be such that it will fuel the misconceptions even more. Islam is strong and does not need to prove anything. The response of Muslims has the potential to draw others to Islam.