JOHN CHUCKMAN
SERIES OF POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL
Banning the niqab is one of the most foolish things France has done in my memory, exceeded perhaps only by the arrest of two women wearing it today.
You do not tell immigrants what to wear.
And you most certainly do not tell citizens in general what to wear. Not in a free society.
Telling people what to wear reflects the same values as telling them what to say. All censorship is abhorrent to a free society.
It is very easy to make fun of such customs, as a commenter called Mich Johnson has done here, but that is the purest proof of an adolescent thinking, not the basis for government policy.
All migrants eventually give up old customs. A decent society lets them do it as they choose.
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“Even non-radical muslims view the world as a map to be coloured in varying shades of green, depending on the degree of islamic implantation.”
Why not try thinking before commenting?
For hundreds of years, Christians of all types have sent out missionaries to convert the world.
And that included the ghastly Catholic ones who presented South American indigenous people with the choice of conversion or being burnt alive, indigenous people murdered by the thousands.
American society itself has fought a battle with intolerant puritanical Christians for two centuries, the Constitution being religion-blind but some Christians insisting stupidly that America was a “Christian country,” too ignorant to know that most of the Founding Fathers were either Deists or Agnostics wanting freedom from religion.
Today people like the Mormons are sending armies of missionaries all over the world – even though it could argued by outsiders that Mormonism is a religion with ridiculous beliefs and superstitions.
Missionaries of all kinds go abroad by the thousands, essentially bearing the message that the native people’s religion is inadequate, so they must have Christianity instead.
Your comment is just prejudice against Muslims dressed up as thought.
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“Now, let’s see these women fight for the freedom of other religions in the Muslim world.If they did that I might believe their commitment to religious expression.”
Have you even considered how many of our religious women fight for the freedom of other religions?
Catholic nuns? Hasidic Jews? Mennonites? Mormons?
You’re proposing a standard that’s phony, comforting yourself that you defend freedom.
Hardly a notion communicating your dedication to principle.
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“Everywhere in the world where Islam is in the majority, it has brought backwardness, bigotry, oppression, destruction and tremendous suffering.”
Oh, so you have studied the practices of more than a billion people?
Your comment is nothing more than a few news snippets strung together to try characterizing something you don’t like.
I believe that’s called prejudice.
People seem to have no idea of the blood-soaked history of Christianity when they make these kinds of assertions.
They also always conveniently ignore the savageries of Israel in our own time.
Readers may enjoy:
http://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/of-war-islam-and-israel/
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“The election’s in a year and Sarkozy’s only hope is to unite France behind him against the foreign element. How many “gypsies” did he deport en masse a few months back?’
Yes indeed. Thanks for an informed comment.
And don’t forget the National Front has shown new strength in France.
Here is Sarkozy using the National Front’s own nasty methods against them politically.
A race to the sewer.
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“Why is no one dealing with the growing use of beards and mustaches these days?
“They deface the person, and are not very hygenic.
And while we’re at it, why should people wear sunglasses, what are they trying to hide?”
Thanks for another thoughtful comment.
Yes, indeed, why not ban the huge beards and big dark hats of Hasidic Jews?
As for someone’s ridiculous comment about some terrorist dressing up in a niqab to commit a crime, I have to say his words are stunningly unthinking.
How many bank robberies, home invasions, and break-and-enters employing ski masks or rubber Halloween face masks do you think the world saw in the year alone?
Hundreds? Thousands?
Surely, by such feeble logic, all advanced states should ban ski masks and Halloween’s rubber face masks.
The comments on this subject sadly just get dumber and more unthinking as we go.
There’s a huge amount of prejudice out there, and here is prima facie evidence of it offered up voluntarily by all the haters.
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“Women wera [sic] it, because of peer pressure from relatives. Not because they chose so, period.”
Oh, you’ve conducted a study have you?
Please share your expert knowledge with the world by publishing in a journal.
Your comment is sad and dumb. Period.
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“Jesus didn’t teach any sort of “jihad”. Those who keep insisting on comparing the two need to stop. You cannot compare islam to Christianity because it is only islam that specifically condones violence as a means to an end.”
Well, here’s another fine example of the old saying about a little knowledge being a dangerous thing.
Christianity has killed more people than any other religion on earth.
Again see my published piece:
http://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/of-war-islam-and-israel/
Christians have never, never followed what Jesus said.
The famous scene in Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov called “The Grand Inquisitor” has Jesus returned to earth talking to the Inquisitor.
Jesus can make no sense of what he sees Christianity has become, and the Grand Inquisitor has no use for Jesus’ words and ends by sending him off to the Inquisition.
That fact too is an essential part of the religion’s history.
JOHN CHUCKMAN
POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL
“That piece of fabric, however, negates years and years of fighting for rights and equality for women…”
I’m sorry, but that is complete nonsense.
The writer, and others here, has no basis for judging why a woman wears the veil.
For all this writer knows, the woman behind the veil is a tigress. Indeed, I have heard one interview with a conservative Muslim woman who struck me as a very forceful person.
A few decades back, in films, the niqab was viewed by our public as alluring and fascinating. There are many scenes exhibiting these aspects in old films and serials, scenes made to appeal to our sensibilities.
Now, it has completely turned around with people attributing the most outlandish motives. It’s just the backwash from America’s insane war on terror, fed by Bush’s lame stuff about women when what he was about was killing.
The picture the Globe uses to accompany this article, perhaps a staged shot, shows that quality in spades. The eyes – the face’s greatest communicator of emotion and intelligence – are brought into focus. It is a beautiful image.
These women were admitted as immigrants to Canada with their niqab. What right do we have to say high-handedly, after they have moved their lives here, they must do away with it? None.
This is the attitude of the intolerant and those who do not understand what they are talking about, using flimsy excuses like women’s rights. A woman’s rights include wearing what she wishes, does it not?
The reasons for this garment are complex – social, historical, and not just religious, but for devout wearers religion is very important, more so than its secular critics can understand.
At any rate, the number of Muslim woman who wear the niqab is miniscule. I’ve never seen one on the street, although the hijab (a handsome babushka) is common. So why this inordinate outrage over it?
Almost all immigrants eventually give up their native dress. It is up to them to decide on that, not shrill accusers in a newspaper column.
Those shrill demands are the way Americans behave. It’s one of their most unpleasant qualities. Live and let live so long as people are not being hurt – that’s the Canadian way, or at least I thought it was.
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“Imagine what even this newspaper would look like if all the pictures of women had their faces all covered up.”
Sorry, but we get unthinking comment after unthinking comment.
A tiny minority of humanity wears the niqab, and a tiny fraction of them is in Canada.
You could also say, by that kind of “logic,” what if the newspaper were full of people wearing the gear of Watusi tribes people?
Please, some tolerance and intelligence are needed here.
Ridiculous.
JOHN CHUCKMAN
POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL
Gee, it would be nice if the Globe got its garments right.
At the top of an article about the niqab (a veil for the face), you have put a picture of women wearing either chador (a flowing body garment which is often worn without a veil) or a hijab (a simple head scarf, not all that different to a babushka).
It isn’t possible to see from the cropping which garments these are, but are most definitely not niqab.
It really would be nice to get a break from all this mindless, anti-Muslim hysteria.
What do I care what my neighbor wears so long as he or she is a peaceful member of society?
My experience with Muslims is simply one a sweet-tempered people who pretty much mind their own business.
I wish their critics displayed half their excellent qualities.
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“Yeah, it’s such a shame how all that hedonism led Israel to become the most prosperous nation in the middle east, with the most diverse economy…”
Pure and utter ignorance, that posting.
Israel is, in fact, the most subsidized country in the world, and it enjoys countless unfair advantages over others.
For decades the U.S. government has given it about $3 billion per year – that’s about $500 per head each year.
Oh wouldn’t Canadians, or even more the Arabs the above writer so clearly despises, like to receive a foreign government’s cheque of $500 each year? Most of Israel’s population has grown up its entire life with this benefit.
But that $500 per head subsidy is only the start of special advantages.
America shares precious intelligence and technology and access on a scale extended to no one else.
What other relatively insignificant country – Israel’s population is about that of Ecuador – gets its president into the White House every few months?
What other country of this size has a generous free-trade agreement with America?
But those are still only the beginnings of the subsidy.
America’s defense establishment enters into all kinds of huge and costly joint projects with Israel – as for the Arrow anti-missile missile – sharing valuable technology and access to the best brains plus money.
American Jewish organizations have sent literally tens of billions to Israel over 60 years, and these immense contributions have been given charitable status exempting the givers from tax.
Europe too gives Israel special status in many economic matters.
Germany of course has paid billions in reparations for the holocaust to Israel – I’m not faulting that, but only pointing out one more huge subsidy. It also supplies Israel weapons – like a small fleet of sophisticated, diesel-powered submarines – at bargain-basement prices.
Israel’s economy is often grossly inefficient, yet its privileged position allows for that. For example, Israel squanders the precious water resources of the region to grow things like tomatoes which it exports to the U.S. and Europe. If the true cost of the water were reflected in the price, Israel’s produce would rot on the docks for lack of customers.
And then at the same time, Israel builds desalination plants to create more potable water at immense cost per unit volume of water.
Israel is many things, but it is neither efficient nor is it an economic miracle. It only has that appearance if you don’t look beyond the gloss.
JOHN CHUCKMAN
POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY SHEEMA KHAN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL
Ms. Khan, there is to my mind only one made-in-Canada approach to this matter.
That is, let people do as they wish in their private lives and as they feel their religion directs them.
Anything else is state interference into private lives and religion, an abhorrent concept in which I am sorry to see France becoming involved.
I don’t like burkas, but I didn’t like nun’s heavy habits of only a few decades ago either. Some of them were godawful outfits, covering from head to toe and pinching the face in heavily starched material. I’m not too fond of the grotesquely ugly clothing strict Mennonite women wear too.
But it is all none of my business.
We had no complaints about those excesses. The complaints today reflect raw anti-Muslim prejudice, and we have no business accommodating that.
Over time, as people adjust to a new society, they or at least their children, will give up these ancient customs. It just takes time.
It was only a couple of generations ago that women from Eastern Europe, and actually many others, wore babushkas routinely. In the World War II period, it was stylish for women to wear veils on their hats. In Victorian times, women covered themselves in heavy dark clothing and wore hats with large heavy veils. All just common fashion, and all of it has disappeared.
If people out there are concerned about women’s rights, then look to the world’s many true horrors and do something about them.
Three million women a year undergo sexual mutilation in Africa. It is routine practice also in many parts of Africa for older men in a village to rape young girls.
In India, we have bride-burning and honor killing. We also have a ghastly tradition that marries off little girls to rich old men, so the family can get a little money. This horror is compounded by the fact that when the old man dies, the girl is left a widow, and there are terrible rules which apply to her for the rest of her miserable life, including never marrying again and even the clothes she must wear and the food she must eat. Tens of millions of widows in India live under this tyranny.
The world is full of genuine horrors and abuse, never mind what someone wears by custom.
CHUCKMAN'S WORDS ON WORDPRESS: COMMENTS FROM THE WORLD'S PRESS 
