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Tag(s): Al Qaeda; Iraq; Islam Muslim; Race-Racism; Religion; Religion US Govt Funded; Religious Persecution; Taliban; United Kingdom Scotland; United Kingdom; (more...) United Kingdom England; United Kingdom Northern Ireland; United Kingdom Wales; Women Discrimination; Women Equal Rights; Womens Issues (less...)
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October 10, 2006 at 17:11:41

To Veil or Not to Veil: Is that the Question?

by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed Page 3 of 3 page(s)

www.opednews.com

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According to the Campaign Against Racism and Fascism (CARF) this state of affairs is rooted in "a whole history of racism and social exclusion." CARF reports that in 1993, Oldham Borough Council was found to have been operating "an unlawful segregation policy in its housing allocation". The policy effectively "ghettoised Asians onto a rundown estate, while whites were given homes in a more desirable area." The legacy of this policy, which has gone on for decades, has continued to this day, exacerbating an informal type of apartheid between the white and Asian communities. In 1990, Oldham Council attempted to cover-up a council housing allocation report it had commissioned which exposed a "staggering catalogue of discrimination." The report found that Asians "spent longer on waiting lists, were more likely to be offered lower quality housing, and were segregated on specific estates around the town centre." A Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) investigation into private housing conducted in the same year similarly revealed that at least two estate agents were "redlining the practice of confining different racial groups to their own areas." Other problems include the fact that the Council has no race relations or quality officer; similarly, the local racial equality council was shut down two years ago.

Straw wants to blame Muslim women for the results of the racist and discriminatory social, economic, and housing policies of local authorities overseen by his own government, when it is such women who remain the principal victims of such policies. What a bitter irony indeed.

So if you're interested in genuinely tackling "Muslim ghettos" and parallel communities, you could start by writing to Home Secretary John Reid and asking what he's doing to reverse the deliberate entrenchment of "informal apartheid" between white and Asian communities dotted around the country, by corrupt local authorities.

And if you're rightly concerned about the rampant repression of women in Iraq and Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, you could start by writing to the Foreign Office and asking them to stop financing and supporting unpopular, tyrannical regimes throughout the Middle East.

And if you still think that covering the face is a danger to community relations, don't pontificate: prove it. I don't think compromising on yet more civil liberties at home is the way forward.

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www.nafeez.blogspot.com

Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed is executive director of the Institute for Policy Research & Development in London. He teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses in International Relations, Globalisation, Empire, and 20th Century History, at Brunel University in West London and the University of Sussex in Brighton. Since 9/11, he has authored a critically acclaimed trilogy of books revealing the realpolitik behind the rhetoric of the "War on Terror", The War on Freedom, Behind the War on Terror, and The War on Truth: 9/11, Disinformation and the Anatomy of Terrorism. His fourth book is ,"The London Bombings: An Independent Inquiry" (Duckworth, 2006). In summer 2005, he testified as an expert witness in US Congress about his research on international terrorism. His work has been featured in the Sunday Times, The Independent, The Observer, Sky News, and Channel 4, among other outlets.

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1 comments

A grouchy but well-informed know-all with much experience of the low-down low-life infesting and animating 'high-finance', and what to do about it, Keith P. occasionally emerges from the obscure depths of the Youreapeon forests to eye the current world, growl a few obscenities and lurch back into the darkness whence he came.
amazinA grouchy but well-informed know-all with much experience of the low-down low-life infesting and animating 'high-finance', and what to do about it, Keith P. occasionally emerges from the obscure depths of the Youreapeon forests to eye the current world, growl a few obscenities and lurch back into the darkness whence he came.

Veil what?

The trouble is that neither side of the argumentative divide should even be in the country. They invaded to free-load off that poor long-suffering nation and now their bickering at each other keeps the local population too occupied to notice what the real villains are now doing behind their backs.

The average Brit would happily dump the lot in the ocean, most merrily with the vermin who brought the rest in on the pious pretext that 'an infusion of new blood' would benefit an old and tired nation. - Tired from fighting their latest war on their behalf, maybe, but in no need of the jungle that was then imported and imposed on that formerly green and pleasant land - and is still being imported into so many other unsuspecting countries.

by amazin (34 articles, 0 quicklinks, 12 diaries, 400 comments) on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 at 12:02:00 PM