ByMyReckoning

The Leader of the House of Commons Mr Jack Straw triggered anger last week when he revealed he asked Muslim women visiting his constituency surgery to remove their veils or hijabs. Some of his statements on the issue can be found at the BBC website. In Britain this is what we refer to as a "storm in a teacup". It has already been noted that Jack Straw is a wiley old politician, who far from backing down after being criticised by some within the Muslim community, has forged ahead, reinforcing his argument.

Straw is being an opportunist since he's noticed that the voters will be more impressed (when/if he runs for Labour leadership) if he does the 'hard-line according to Jack' thang over Muslims. That said, I'm equally bored of some Muslims overreacting to anyone questioning any aspect of their faith. It's become a scared cow, oops sorry wrong religion! It's fuss over nothing.

It seems to me that lots of people are (possibly deliberately) confusing a request with a directive. He's entitled to asked them to remove the veil and they're entitled to refuse. However he does have a point. If you've ever had to deal with a woman whose face is covered, its very disconcerting. Life is a two way street. If such a person wants to play a full part in society they have to remove some of these barriers to normal human interaction and the fact is that the veil was designed to stop exactly that, normal human interaction. I wonder what percentage of communication between two human beings takes place through facial expression? I think you'd be surprised at how much information is gleaned from facial expression alone. Also consider his position. He is a Member of Parliament and therefore holds regular meetings with his constituents in which they come to him with problems or grievances for which they often request his intervention. Think about that for a moment. He often has to decide on the veracity or reasonableness of his constituents' story/explanation of a particular situation. A situation in which they will want him to act on their behalf. How would you like to agree to intervening on someone's behalf when you haven't had the opportunity to look them in the eye so to speak and really make the gut assessment that they are being honest and straight forward with you? If that's too big a leap for you imagine appearing as a witness in court and giving an effective testimony with a balaclava on your head and you'll get a feel for what I mean.

What's even worse is that some of his political opponents, within (The Home Secretary and possible leadership contender John Reid) and outside the Labour party have sided with the more unreasonable elements within the Muslim population in order to "score points" against Jack Straw.

Like most political debates involving Islam nowadays, reasonable argument has been set aside in favour of invective and absurdity.

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Jack Straw, Muslim women, hijab, veil, islam, muslim