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Originally Posted by martyh
i will repeat what i said earlier just for Forevers benefit .Why should women wearing a burka be excempt from removing the facial covering in sensitive areas like banks/post offices /airports ect when other people have to remove helmets /hoodies ect
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I actually agree with you (if done in a sensitive way, like they do at airport security) - I don't agree with the concept of the burqa (I think it represents an oppressive paternalistic society, which devalues women and treats them as possessions), but I also don't agree with telling people what to wear, especially when there doesn't seem to have been mass outbreaks of people wearing burqas committing crimes (one or two, yes, but not to the vast extent of people wearing crash-helmets or ski-masks).
I think Nigel is going for cheap sensationalist headlines, and as the Times put in on the 16th of this month, under the heading
"Veil of Ignorance"
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The reasons it gives for its policy are transparently disingenuous. They claim that the burka marginalises women. This is a new concern for UKIP. It is, after all, the party of Godfrey Bloom, the MEP who says that “any small businessman or woman who employs a woman of child-bearing age needs their head examined”. Perhaps Mr Bloom, who thinks that women do not clean behind the fridge enough, worries that their burkas are getting in the way.
UKIP argues further that the burka has no place in Islam and that the religion does not require it. The Times had not hitherto realised that Nigel Farage was an authority on such matters, or that the party leader Lord Pearson of Rannoch, who was visited by God when on the operating table in 1977, thereby gained not only his Christian faith but also a mastery of the Koran. This newly acquired scholarship notwithstanding, the religious insights of politicians are entirely irrelevant when judging the right of British citizens to dress as they wish.
The most offensive UKIP assertion is that wearing the burka is inconsistent with British values. Advocates of the policy then point out (without irony) that the French, whose example is rarely cited elsewhere in UKIP literature, are trying to implement a similar policy.
What is inconsistent with British values is picking on people quietly going about their business in religious garb of their own choice and banning it. If UKIP properly understood this country, it would appreciate that.
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