Ms Begum, is young and an orphan. She's in the care of her elder brother who's very into the radical Islam thing. Her case has been backed by a radical Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir (HuT); a group banned in other European countries and in much of the Middle East, but legal in Britain. This is less a case of someone being banned from generally acceptable religious dress and more a case of radical Islamist trying to push the envelope.
As usual, notoriously shabby Boris Johnson, has brilliant commentary on the case.
This is the 17-year-old from Luton whose dress sense and physical form are now the number one subject for conversation in every household in the country; and yet for years we have been asked to believe that the reason she wanted to vindicate her right to break school rules, and wear a tent instead of shalwar kameez, was to protect - in the word of her lawyer, Cherie Blair - her "modesty".
What total tripe. This ludicrous and lamentable case had nothing to do with "modesty". I don't believe she wore the jilbab to "regain control of her body" any more than I could hope to wear a smarter suit and thereby regain control of my own.
I'm not aware of any students in mainstream schools trying to wear the niqab (face covering with ony the eyes revealed), but surely it can't be too long before someone tries. There's already a teacher who insists on her right to teach in niqab.
7 comments:
It is one thing to exaggerate, but this:
are now the number one subject for conversation in every household in the country;
is surely veering down the slippery slope at full tilt toward outright making things up.
I certainly have increased my fashion vocabulary by reading your blog this morning. I never realized how out of the mainstream L'burg is. But with our hot, humid weather, I doubt this fashion trend will catch on here.
VM
well, that Boris...he's prone to over emphasising. But I'm sure that everybody who listens to Radio 4 was talking about it.
This ruling is terrible. Religious freedom has been traditional in our anglosphere.
A common justification of uniforms is that they enforce a minimum level of modesty, but who would imagine they would force a maximum level?
I don't think anyone was stopping her from practicing her religion. Nobody was stopping her from wearing the jilbab on the street. A school was trying to enforce a dress code.
Uniforms aren't about modesty, they're about conformity. Anyway religious freedom in the Anglosphere has always had limits. It was appalling this had to go as far as the House of Lords and I applaud their ruling.
No as I said in the post - she was allowed to wear hijab and the shalwar kameez - which is deemed modest enough by most. The shalwar kameez and head scarf did have to conform to the school uniform colour code
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