![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Those Eyes
Oct. 16th, 2006 09:39 pm♠
Salman Rushdie, whose book "The Satanic Verses" once led to death threats against him by Islamic clerics, said last week that Straw "was expressing an important opinion, which is that veils suck, which they do. I think the veil is a way of taking power away from women."
-- Thomas Wagner for The Washington Post
If Salman Rushdie can say it, then it must not be politically incorrect.
In addition to the incident of British foreign secretary Jack Straw, in which he requested women not to keep on the niqab, a head and facial covering that only leaves the eyes exposed, when having a meeting with him, Phil Woolas, Britain's faith and race minister, has ordered that a Muslim woman be fired from her position as a teaching assistant for refusing to remove her veil when at work, which case is now going through their legal system.
The issue seems to have gotten some traction over there, too. Initially, following the Straw furor, Alan Cowell reported: 'Prime Minister Tony Blair distanced himself, saying through a spokesman that Mr. Straw's decision to make the remarks "does not make it government policy."' By contrast, in today's article, Wagner writes: 'Prime Minister Tony Blair praised Straw for raising the issue "in a measured and considered way," and he urged Britons to engage the topic without "becoming hysterical."' And let's hope that there are no bombings, knifing, or nun killings.
xXx
Salman Rushdie, whose book "The Satanic Verses" once led to death threats against him by Islamic clerics, said last week that Straw "was expressing an important opinion, which is that veils suck, which they do. I think the veil is a way of taking power away from women."
-- Thomas Wagner for The Washington Post
If Salman Rushdie can say it, then it must not be politically incorrect.
In addition to the incident of British foreign secretary Jack Straw, in which he requested women not to keep on the niqab, a head and facial covering that only leaves the eyes exposed, when having a meeting with him, Phil Woolas, Britain's faith and race minister, has ordered that a Muslim woman be fired from her position as a teaching assistant for refusing to remove her veil when at work, which case is now going through their legal system.
The issue seems to have gotten some traction over there, too. Initially, following the Straw furor, Alan Cowell reported: 'Prime Minister Tony Blair distanced himself, saying through a spokesman that Mr. Straw's decision to make the remarks "does not make it government policy."' By contrast, in today's article, Wagner writes: 'Prime Minister Tony Blair praised Straw for raising the issue "in a measured and considered way," and he urged Britons to engage the topic without "becoming hysterical."' And let's hope that there are no bombings, knifing, or nun killings.
