Boris Johnson's Burkha Comments

Pross

DeVlaeminck wrote:

Without knowing the origins of the Tuareg custom I really can't judge but I suspect it is very different.

Despite being a Muslim people the Tuareg are a matrilineal culture (which I believe comes from their traditions prior to Islam). Women hold a high status within clans. The 'veil' the men wear is a sign of manhood that theystart to wear when reaching maturity.

TheBigBean

I've never seen anyone wear a burqa in the UK. I've seen many niqab wearers.

TheBigBean

Pross wrote:

DeVlaeminck wrote:

Without knowing the origins of the Tuareg custom I really can't judge but I suspect it is very different.

Despite being a Muslim people the Tuareg are a matrilineal culture (which I believe comes from their traditions prior to Islam). Women hold a high status within clans. The 'veil' the men wear is a sign of manhood that theystart to wear when reaching maturity.

Women own everything (tent, animals etc.) as well. If there is a divorce, the man has to leave.

I read somewhere that Tuareg men never remove their veils, but then I'm sure I've come across ones that did to eat or talk. My memory is not that reliable though. Plus I probably met the more multi-cultural ones.

rolf_f

Rick Chasey wrote:

Rolf F wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

DeVlaeminck wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

I think "Because I feel like it" is as good a reason as you should ever need for a choice of dress. Why on earth should anyone have to justify what they wear?

Why are you wearing brogues? WHY, DAMMIT?!

It's absurd.

What is absurd is that you equate the cultural processes that lead to people wearing full body cover in public through so called choice or coercion with a decision to wear brogues!

Who are you to say they are, by sight, coerced?

And who of us are to say that they are not? On that basis we should end the thread now. And all the other threads on here where we basically don't know what we are on about which is most of them!

On the other hand, Michael Gove did tell us that we are sick of experts so maybe it is for us to say that they are coerced or not coerced........

No it’s not the same. At a glance you are in no position to assert why someone wears something.

As I said previously, depending on context the dress can be seen as an act of rebellion or a symbol of their coercion.

Generally it’s best, as in life, not to judge people by their appearance.

Why is that so difficult?

I haven't asserted why someone wears something. I haven't judged anyone by their appearance. You seem to imply that I do. Why?

Jez mon

rjsterry wrote:

Have you seen the DUP? And they're in government. What definition of extremism are we using?

I think I'd say by and large groups which seek to deny women education would count...

So ISIS's brand of what they consider to be 'Islam'.

Or those American Christian nutters who protest outside funerals of soldiers, or the ones who didn't go to hospital with their dying child because they apparently considered doctors to be part of a medical cult.

Almost definitely the loonier parts of the DUP too.

DeVlaeminck

Rick Chasey wrote:

As I said previously, depending on context the dress can be seen as an act of rebellion or a symbol of their coercion.

Generally it’s best, as in life, not to judge people by their appearance.

Why is that so difficult?

But we do have knowledge of the cultural background to this form of dress and the ideology behind it so why shouldn't we make a judgement based on that. We have personal experience, for example I used to work with inner coty community organisations many of which were Muslim, my daughter has a muslim friend who is forced to wear certain dress, I know she's forced because she takes it off when she's at our house. As someone said above nobody has a problem with other forms of oppression being questioned. You say how can we judge purely on appearance as if we are seeing someone dressed in a certain way with no context whatsoever.

rick_chasey

Yeah so forcing any dress on or off anyone is sh!t.

But it works both ways.

Just let people wear wtf they want to and let them do it in peace.

thegreatdivide

mfin wrote:

I'm not convinced Boris or most people know what a Burkha is, I think a hell of lot of people in the UK who see a woman wearing a Niqab would refer to it as a Burkha?

To be honest I think the vast majority of Brexit/Tory/Free Tommy supporters (i.e. the all same thing) think the Hijab is a Burka. To them it’s just that ‘hat' the ‘P@ki terrorists’ wear.

What do you think Stevo?

rjsterry

Jez mon wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

Have you seen the DUP? And they're in government. What definition of extremism are we using?

I think I'd say by and large groups which seek to deny women education would count...

So ISIS's brand of what they consider to be 'Islam'.

Or those American Christian nutters who protest outside funerals of soldiers, or the ones who didn't go to hospital with their dying child because they apparently considered doctors to be part of a medical cult.

Almost definitely the loonier parts of the DUP too.

We seem to be on the same page.

Pross

TheBigBean wrote:

I've never seen anyone wear a burqa in the UK. I've seen many niqab wearers.

Really? I've seen quite a few and I'm not a big city dweller so I'm genuinely surprised at that although I admit that before I saw my first one a few years ago I'd have fallen into the camp that thought a niqab and burka were the same thing. I see them quite often in some parts of Cardiff and Bristol. More regularly I see something that appears to be like the burka in the image posted but without the veil piece over the eyes (certainly covering more of the face than the niqab does).

Jez mon

rjsterry wrote:

Jez mon wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

Have you seen the DUP? And they're in government. What definition of extremism are we using?

I think I'd say by and large groups which seek to deny women education would count...

So ISIS's brand of what they consider to be 'Islam'.

Or those American Christian nutters who protest outside funerals of soldiers, or the ones who didn't go to hospital with their dying child because they apparently considered doctors to be part of a medical cult.

Almost definitely the loonier parts of the DUP too.

We seem to be on the same page.

I thought we probably were!

surrey_commuter

for all those who attribute great cunning thoughts to Boris this was in today's Times from somebody who used to be his editor.

Despite everything that has unfolded — all the chaos, all the gaffes — since Boris Johnson first came to public prominence almost two decades ago, the former foreign secretary’s critics still labour under a delusion. They assume mistakenly that Boris plans things; that, despite all the evidence, his outrages are the product of a highly organised mind implementing a cunning stratagem.

What devilish Trumpian populist scheme was he hatching, ask his opponents, when he wrote in his Monday column in another newspaper that women wearing the burka resemble letterboxes or bank robbers? What, as he rattled through 1,250 words at high speed, was he thinking?

The answer, I’ll wager, is not much beyond: “Cripes, it is almost time for a gin and tonic after cricket and I forgot I had this thingy to file. Break a leg. I’ll fling in a few un-PC jokes along the way to gee this serious subject up for the older readers. Press send.”

How can I say this with confidence? Easily. I am a member of the guild of former Daily Telegraph comment editors, that is one of those who down the years, a decade ago in my case, have headed the department which oversees the putting of Boris Johnson’s words onto the page. Planning more than five minutes ahead is not how Johnson rolls.

Many was the Sunday evening when the poor sap on duty would have to wait until the final moment, with the presses ready to run, for the delivery of Johnson’s column. What arrived was usually what one fellow former member of the guild describes as a highly entertaining shaggy dog story built around a germ of a political idea with jokes attached. Great fun, and a bit flea-bitten, but hardly the work of Machiavelli.

bianchimoon

in a similar vein, opinion piece in the Guardian

For many years it struck me as amusing rather than ominous that the place where I first spent any time with Boris Johnson was a Munich beerhall. We were journalists covering a defence summit in the 1990s. We’d both filed our pieces – he to the Telegraph, me to the Guardian – and we were bored. So, along with the man from the Times, we took a taxi into the city centre and spent the rest of the afternoon drinking beer and chatting. Johnson made a lot of good jokes, and one or two rather loud and tasteless ones about Hitler and Munich beerhalls.

I didn’t then, and still don’t, know Johnson well, but I have never much altered the views I formed of him over those beers in Bavaria long ago. He is very entertaining company, if you like that sort of thing. But he is neither an intellectually thoughtful nor a morally serious person. He ridicules not just foreigners but most people other than himself. He is very bright but not very wise. He possesses both bottomless self-regard and incontinent ambition. And among the many things I would never trust him with is my country.

My guess is that Johnson didn’t give much prior thought to the jokey remarks he made in the Telegraph this week about Muslim women’s clothing. But I think he gave a lot of thought to standing by them once more sensible Tories than he belatedly woke up to the damage they were doing to the party’s image. That silence spoke volumes. And it’s that decision – the decision to dig in as the man who will not be gagged by political correctness – that is the important take-away from this week’s row.

lostboysaint

bianchimoon wrote:

in a similar vein, opinion piece in the Guardian

For many years it struck me as amusing rather than ominous that the place where I first spent any time with Boris Johnson was a Munich beerhall. We were journalists covering a defence summit in the 1990s. We’d both filed our pieces – he to the Telegraph, me to the Guardian – and we were bored. So, along with the man from the Times, we took a taxi into the city centre and spent the rest of the afternoon drinking beer and chatting. Johnson made a lot of good jokes, and one or two rather loud and tasteless ones about Hitler and Munich beerhalls.

I didn’t then, and still don’t, know Johnson well, but I have never much altered the views I formed of him over those beers in Bavaria long ago. He is very entertaining company, if you like that sort of thing. But he is neither an intellectually thoughtful nor a morally serious person. He ridicules not just foreigners but most people other than himself. He is very bright but not very wise. He possesses both bottomless self-regard and incontinent ambition. And among the many things I would never trust him with is my country.

My guess is that Johnson didn’t give much prior thought to the jokey remarks he made in the Telegraph this week about Muslim women’s clothing. But I think he gave a lot of thought to standing by them once more sensible Tories than he belatedly woke up to the damage they were doing to the party’s image. That silence spoke volumes. And it’s that decision – the decision to dig in as the man who will not be gagged by political correctness – that is the important take-away from this week’s row.

Both of those pieces need wider audience. This is the idiot that could be leading the country.

TheBigBean

Pross wrote:

TheBigBean wrote:

I've never seen anyone wear a burqa in the UK. I've seen many niqab wearers.

Really? I've seen quite a few and I'm not a big city dweller so I'm genuinely surprised at that although I admit that before I saw my first one a few years ago I'd have fallen into the camp that thought a niqab and burka were the same thing. I see them quite often in some parts of Cardiff and Bristol. More regularly I see something that appears to be like the burka in the image posted but without the veil piece over the eyes (certainly covering more of the face than the niqab does).

Perhaps there is a large Afghani community in Cardiff and Bristol. It is not worn in the middle-east. I probably should have said "I can't recall..." as perhaps I have seen someone wearing one and forgotten about it.

lostboysaint

TheBigBean wrote:

Pross wrote:

TheBigBean wrote:

I've never seen anyone wear a burqa in the UK. I've seen many niqab wearers.

Really? I've seen quite a few and I'm not a big city dweller so I'm genuinely surprised at that although I admit that before I saw my first one a few years ago I'd have fallen into the camp that thought a niqab and burka were the same thing. I see them quite often in some parts of Cardiff and Bristol. More regularly I see something that appears to be like the burka in the image posted but without the veil piece over the eyes (certainly covering more of the face than the niqab does).

Perhaps there is a large Afghani community in Cardiff and Bristol. It is not worn in the middle-east. I probably should have said "I can't recall..." as perhaps I have seen someone wearing one and forgotten about it.

Not sure where you've been in the middle east but they certainly do in Qatar. Again it appears not to be a hard and fast rule but it's much more prevalent than I was expecting.

Stevo_666

thegreatdivide wrote:

mfin wrote:

I'm not convinced Boris or most people know what a Burkha is, I think a hell of lot of people in the UK who see a woman wearing a Niqab would refer to it as a Burkha?

To be honest I think the vast majority of Brexit/Tory/Free Tommy supporters (i.e. the all same thing) think the Hijab is a Burka. To them it’s just that ‘hat' the ‘P@ki terrorists’ wear.

What do you think Stevo?

Explain why this is aimed at me then I'll probably need to explain to you why assumption is the mother of all **** ups and why 'right on' generalisations usually back fire

mfin

It's funny how some people always level cultural intolerance like this at Tories. There are millions of working class Labour voters that think similarly on these issues. I'd be surprised if these attitudes towards muslim dress are any more prevalent in Tory voters than they are in Labour voters.

People seem to mix up their perceptions of Labour voters with some kind of tolerance and liberal attitudes. Weird.

rick_chasey

mfin wrote:

It's funny how some people always level cultural intolerance like this at Tories. There are millions of working class Labour voters that think similarly on these issues. I'd be surprised if these attitudes towards muslim dress are any more prevalent in Tory voters than they are in Labour voters.

People seem to mix up their perceptions of Labour voters with some kind of tolerance and liberal attitudes. Weird.

Fairly sure Johnson isn't a Labour MP.

mfin

Rick Chasey wrote:

Fairly sure Johnson isn't a Labour MP.

Well done clever clogs.

I was referring to the discussion being levelled at Tory types being the intolerant ones in this regard as if Labour types aren't so much, cos that's not true.

rick_chasey

mfin wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Fairly sure Johnson isn't a Labour MP.

Well done clever clogs.

I was referring to the discussion being levelled at Tory types being the intolerant ones in this regard as if Labour types aren't so much, cos that's not true.

I think elsewhere on the forum you’ll see similar opprobrium directed at Labour for their anti-semitism.

Pross

Rick Chasey wrote:

mfin wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Fairly sure Johnson isn't a Labour MP.

Well done clever clogs.

I was referring to the discussion being levelled at Tory types being the intolerant ones in this regard as if Labour types aren't so much, cos that's not true.

I think elsewhere on the forum you’ll see similar opprobrium directed at Labour for their anti-semitism.

But that seems to be very much focussed on a single issue. Surely the point mfin is making is that very many Labour voters hold similar views on issues such as immigration and other cultures to those that are typically classed as 'right wing'? Living pretty much my entire life in Labour heartlands I would certainly agree that there is a definite prejudice against foreigners / immigration and attitudes towards 'political correctness' aren't great. I don't think it's a coincidence that these areas tended to vote for Brexit despite often being the beneficiaries of EU funding so trying to characterise such attitudes as right wing is possibly unhelpful. I would suggest generational and geographical issues are often a bigger factor than political affiliation.

mfin

Pross wrote:

Surely the point mfin is making is that very many Labour voters hold similar views on issues such as immigration and other cultures to those that are typically classed as 'right wing'?

Yes, bang on.

"Right wing" attitudes to immigration and 'issues' like this Burkha stuff are spread through the "political left" just as much as they are the right. For example, go to the England flag draped council estates this summer, on many of which you'll be really hard pressed to find a tory voter, and there do you think you will find everyone is refreshingly void of prejudice when it comes to cultural differences? Will you hell.

rick_chasey

I don't know what the argument is?

Only most Labour MPs aren't espousing that kind of language.

Just because you're working class and vote labour doesn't mean you hold left wing liberal views or that you're even left wing.

It usually means you live in a ABT constituency.

mfin

Rick Chasey wrote:

I don't know what the argument is?

It's been mentioned to balance out the focus of these kind of comments on the Burkha to not being the preserve of the political right wing. It's just discussion.

Rick Chasey wrote:

Just because you're working class and vote labour doesn't mean you hold left wing liberal views or that you're even left wing.

Yep.

mfin

Rick Chasey wrote:

Only most Labour MPs aren't espousing that kind of language.

Nor are most MPs of the Conservative party.

rjsterry

mfin wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Only most Labour MPs aren't espousing that kind of language.

Nor are most MPs of the Conservative party.

Indeed, as pointed out to our InfoWars correspondent, it was Conservative MPs that called out Johnson on this first of all.

lostboysaint

Pross wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

mfin wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Fairly sure Johnson isn't a Labour MP.

Well done clever clogs.

I was referring to the discussion being levelled at Tory types being the intolerant ones in this regard as if Labour types aren't so much, cos that's not true.

I think elsewhere on the forum you’ll see similar opprobrium directed at Labour for their anti-semitism.

But that seems to be very much focussed on a single issue. Surely the point mfin is making is that very many Labour voters hold similar views on issues such as immigration and other cultures to those that are typically classed as 'right wing'? Living pretty much my entire life in Labour heartlands I would certainly agree that there is a definite prejudice against foreigners / immigration and attitudes towards 'political correctness' aren't great. I don't think it's a coincidence that these areas tended to vote for Brexit despite often being the beneficiaries of EU funding so trying to characterise such attitudes as right wing is possibly unhelpful. I would suggest generational and geographical issues are often a bigger factor than political affiliation.

And that's the class that Johnson (using his surname is somehow better given how appropriate it is) is aiming at to swing enough votes his way. Worked for Trump, courtesy of ideals and strategy from Bannon. Manipulation is what it's all about.

dstev55

Rick Chasey wrote:

Yeah so forcing any dress on or off anyone is sh!t.

But it works both ways.

Just let people wear wtf they want to and let them do it in peace.

That doesn't exactly work in practice though does it?

For example I am a store manager in a supermarket and I am not comfortable with people entering my shop with a full face covering. Whether that be a Niqab, a motorcycle helmet, a balaclava, whatever. If it was a motorcycle helmet we'd ask the customer to remove it, if it was a balaclava we'd probably hand over the cash. A Niqab? Not a lot we can do is there? And in the interests of security and safety of my staff, I think it needs to be addressed. In fact, in the interests of UK security I think the government need to grow a pair and follow the Scandinavian way.

As for Boris's comments? All a bit childish really isn't it?

rick_chasey

Not comfortable with a woman in a niqab?

And then you go on to say the govt needs to grow some balls?


Ahahaha ok mate.