This article has been written in response to the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, Bishop of Rochester’s comments on the veil, in which he called for a ban on veils in public. What follows are comments made by the Bishop followed by refutations.
The Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, Bishop of Rochester, urged the Government to introduce legislation that would force Muslims to remove the veil when they are at work or travelling.
I thought there was a separation of church and state. Since when do Reverends urge governments to introduce legislation.
Pakistan-born Bishop Nazir-Ali said the Muslim community needed to make more effort to integrate in British society.
The Reverend is asking for assimilation not integration. Just because his dad converted to Christianity and he now finds himself in England, does not make him an authority on integration. What does he want the Muslim community to do exactly? Does he want the entire Muslim community to follow the example of his father and convert to Christianity? How can he talk about Muslim women wearing veils and integration when the Reverend walks around in a lilac robe. Not to mention the attire of Christian nuns? Surely that is not integrating into British society.
"It is fine if they want to wear the veil in private, but there are occasions in public life when it is inappropriate for them to wear it,"
This statement shows how uneducated Michael Nazir-Ali is in regards to Islam. The veil is meant to be worn in public and it is never worn in private. Dick head!
His call for new laws to control the wearing of the veil in public comes only days after it was revealed that Mustaf Jama, the Somali suspected of murdering WPc Sharon Beshenivsky, is thought to have fled the country by dressing in the niqab, which covers the whole face except the eyes.
This escape was unlikely as women are asked to remove the veil at airports to verify identity. This is usually done by a female member of staff. If Mustaf Jama did escape it is not the fault of the Muslim community or the veil, rather it is a lapse in security and the fact that they did not ask him to remove the veil.
"Given that we are facing an unprecedented security situation, legislation needs to be introduced that allows officials to remove the veil,"
What? No terrorists have blown up anything whilst dressed in veils. No legislation is required. The reverend is oblivious and fails to mention the reasons of this so called threat. Any threat is due to foreign policy not from veils.
He said that the possible failure of airline staff to challenge Jama was symptomatic of people being "too worried about offending Muslims".
Offending Muslims has never been an issue before at airports, why should it now suddenly become one. How does he know? This is just an opinion of the Reverend on an event that may never have taken place. Hypothetical or what? Maybe we should organise a trip to the airport for him so that he may learn more about airport security. We could dress him up like a Muslim and watch him get stopped and questioned by airport security. This will enable him to understand how racial profiling works, but he should already be aware of this, after all he is a ‘Paki’.
The bishop argued, however, that the introduction of new laws would not improve cohesion unless the Muslim community steps up its efforts to integrate.
I agree this will not help cohesion as pushing through legislation that dictats how people should dress, never helps the situation. This is not integration he is asking for, it is assimilation. Maybe the Reverend would be happy only when Muslim women give up the veil and leave it at home and participate in his congregation.
The Reverend is just a tool, just as we saw in America ‘uncle Tom’s’, Black people speaking out against their fellow black counterparts, we now have a Pakistani born Christian that displays his self hate for his ethnicity and Islam, and the only way he feels apart of this society is to attack Muslims and champion the cause of Islamaphobia.
By Michael Olson
