The article by Straw, the former Labour foreign secretary and leader of the House of Commons, in the Lancashire Evening Telegraph, a local newspaper in his Blackburn constituency, was a calculated provocation. It was an appeal to prejudice intended to solidarise Straw with attempts in government circles and the media to generate Islamophobia so as to justify Britain’s warmongering and attacks on democratic rights.
There was, in fact, no need for Mr. Straw to “initiate” a debate on the veil. Amongst Muslims, including Islamic scholars, there is no agreement on the veil—known as a niqab—and many oppose it. It is generally considered a cultural preference rather than a doctrinal issue.
When the subject has previously been discussed, debate has centred on whether or not wearing the veil is a choice freely exercised by women or whether there is an element of coercion. An overriding consideration has generally been an insistence on the freedom of worship.
Straw framed his column on entirely different grounds. He opposed wearing the veil because he personally dislikes it and claims that it prevents face to face discussions that are vital to ensuring social cohesion.
There was a calculated undertone of nationalism to Straw’s argument. He described meeting a man and his wife who are constituents. She was friendly, polite, respectful, and gave off “signals which indicate common bonds—the entirely English accent, the couple’s education (wholly in the UK).”
This jarred with “the fact of the veil,” which made him feel “uncomfortable,” he wrote. He decided that in future he would ask his female constituents to remove the veil when they came to his surgery because wearing it made “better, positive relations between the two communities more difficult”
There are, of course, personal political considerations involved in the publication of this column. Straw was replaced as foreign secretary by Prime Minister Tony Blair at the insistence of the United States. His constituency is 30 percent Muslim.
In March, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Blackburn and reportedly told President Bush of her concern that Straw could not be trusted to take a hard line in the so-called “war on terror.” He had already expressed reservations on a military strike against Iran. Less than two months later, Straw was demoted from the Foreign Office to leader of the Commons.
With his column, Straw aimed to restore his political credentials in right-wing circles and to set out his stall for the upcoming Labour Party leadership contest. That he chose to do so by playing on anti-Muslim sentiments speaks volumes not only about the character of the Labour Party, but of the political climate it has created.
Straw knew that his smoke signals would be read correctly in the right quarters. His stance was immediately praised by Rupert Murdoch’s Sun.
His comments dovetail with the government’s claims to be waging a struggle for civilised values and democratic freedoms against religious extremism. Blair has described both his foreign and domestic policy as “part of a struggle between what I will call Reactionary Islam and Moderate, Mainstream Islam.” Home Secretary John Reid has lectured Muslim parents to guard against fanatics “looking to groom and brainwash your children for suicide bombing,” and at the Labour Party conference he announced to applause that he would not be “bullied” by Muslim extremists.
Straw’s decision to attack the veil, while making a point of defending the headscarf, or hijab, is in keeping with this type of propaganda His comments open the way not only for all manner of attacks on Muslims, but also for an intensification of the ongoing shift away from Britain’s traditional policy of “multiculturalism” in favour of the cultivation of a proscriptive “national identity.”
Straw’s article echoes other recent statements by government ministers that explicitly link opposition to radical Islam with pronouncements on the failure of multiculturalism. Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly has suggested that it encourages segregation, as has the Labour-appointed chair of the Commission for Racial Equality, Trevor Phillips.
There is no question that the policy of “celebrating cultural differences” has been utilised in the past to encourage divisions within the working class, and that this policy was championed above all by Labour. But the government’s sudden discovery of such problems is nothing but an attempt to justify a lurch to the right on questions of social policy and civil liberties.
It is a measure of how sweeping this attack is that the BBC gave as an example of “Britain’s brand of multiculturalism”—now being called into question—the passage of laws “to protect minority groups from religious as well as racial discrimination” It also suggested that Straw’s “debate” could be extended to include Sikhs wearing turbans and Jews wearing kippahs
Laws against religious discrimination are not examples of “British multiculturalism.” Freedom of worship is a fundamental democratic right and is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, drafted in 1948.
This states: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance.”
In the aftermath of the Second World War and the Nazi holocaust against the Jews, no one was in any doubt about the utterly reactionary character of attempts to impose a common national identity based on the whipping up of prejudice against religious and cultural traditions that others found objectionable.
These principles are now under sustained attack, with Muslims most often the immediate target and a convenient scapegoat to justify measures that can be later used against the entire population.
Across Europe, policies are being enacted against Muslims, such as the banning of the headscarf in France and certain German states, and even the denial of welfare benefits to veiled women in parts of Belgium Accompanying this has been the publication of cartoons portraying the Prophet Mohammed as a suicide bomber—justified as an expression of free speech—and demands by the European Union that laws be enacted to regulate what can be taught in mosques.
As in the 1930s, this attempt to poison social discourse by cultivating racism and xenophobia is bound up with a return to imperialist colonialism by the European bourgeoisie.
There are few men in the world today who have less right to initiate a debate on the rights of Muslim women or on social cohesion than Jack Straw. He should be bracketed alongside Blair, Bush and their ilk as war criminals and enemies of democratic freedoms.
Straw was home secretary from 1997 to 2001 and then foreign secretary until 2005. As home secretary he presided over the extension of anti-terror laws and restrictions to the right to trial by jury. As foreign secretary he played a crucial role in mounting the campaign of lies and disinformation used to legitimise the invasion of Iraq.
These considerations are what shapes his own intervention and animate the new-found preoccupation of a host of former liberals and social democrats with the oppression of women by Islam—figures who one must anticipate will now come forward in Straw’s defence In contrast, working people must oppose all such attempts to whip up anti-Muslim prejudice and any and all proposals to curtail religious and civil liberties. This is an essential component of the struggle against militarism and war.
See Also:
Militarism and Howard’s “Australian values” campaign
[29 September 2006]
European media publish anti-Muslim cartoons: An ugly and calculated provocation
[4 February 2006]
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Comments
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Who was pushing for Straw to lead the anti-Iran-War movement a few months ago?
07.10.2006 18:22
Every time this person posted, I tried to reply in a comment, reminding people that Straw HAD NOT BEEN DEMOTED WHEN MOVED BY BLAIR FROM THE NOW MOSTLY IRRELEVANT POSITION OF MINISTER-FOR-MURDERING-MUSLIMS. When Straw held the position of Foreign Secretary, he was responsibe for being the architect of the atrocities seen in Lebanon and the Occupied Territories by having all key muslim resistance groups declared 'terrorist' throughout the EU.
The game then moved on. Blair needed his key zionist butcher to move to a role less public (like that of all the key NEOCONS in the US, who work mostly behind the scenes) but far more influential in preparation for war with Iran. When it became apparent that dribblers were reading something into the change of role that implied a rift, Blair's intelligence experts suggested a 'Galloway play' for Straw, pushing him into a command-and-control position within the anti-Iran-war movement.
Indymedia UK, Blairwatch, iraqwar, etc, were hit hard by Blair's goons to see if this kite could be made to fly. Like most such projects, the answer came back "no" (but the intelligence service only needs one success in tens of attempts to gain all the control they need).
If you check, you will find some of the biggest supporters of Benn and Galloway were some of the biggest cheerleaders for Straw back then. Every play like this allows you to identify Blair's agents. They try to hide themselves by sometimes cheerleading people like myself, an age old, but quite effective strategy. If you wondered why I don't seem flattered when CERTAIN people seem to offer me approval (like I care anyway), this is the reason.
I don't want praise or approval. I want people to fight for their world, and restore decency and justice to humanity by defeating Blair and the evil scum that willingly work with him. To do this, you must first drop your babyish need for 'alpha male' leaders that have allowed the intelligence services to manipulate your movements for decades. Reject all cults like marxism, that use a surface message to sell you racist control mechanisms. Goodness and fairness are inherent in all of us. Great evil is not, which is why it requires organised religion, or organised politics to bring it into existence.
Understand that now Straw is playing an obvious pro-Blair role again, his actions are very carefully calculated. Blair wants his enemies backed into the corner of defending the indefensible. This is why the veil, and the issue of the freedom of women within islam, has been chosen. Blair wants you DAMNED IF YOU DO AND DAMNED IF YOU DON'T.
Prior to Blair's genocide of Chechnya, Afghanistan, and Iraq (none of which would have happened if Blair had not been in power), there was a clear model for the experience of women in modern muslim nations. However, a people under attack will seek out 'core values', a process that all too often leads to 'extremism' or 'fundamentalism'.
Blair's psychological experts have a LITERAL budget of billions. It is their job to anticipate the consequences of various strategies available to Blair, and to advise on likely outcomes. More useful is their near daily advice allowing an operation under execution to be modified on the fly.
Afghanistan was prepped for genocide partially by focusing on the rights of women there. What few of you read is that since Blair's invasion, laws massively restricting the rights of females have been introduced into even the formally most advanced cities dating from soviet rule (where women, of course, were full legal equals). The bad laws of the taliban would have passed when they did naturally with time. Blair's new anti-female laws are baked into the constitution, and will be vastly more difficult to remove.
The greatest blow against women's rights in the muslim world came with Blair's genocide of Iraq. Iraq, like Afghanistan, was invaded with full assistance and co-operation of Iran. Now Iran is far from the worst offender over female rights, but was positively medieval compared to Iraq. Blair's deal with Iran gave Iran full rights to model most of Iraq (using the tool of death squads, and the tyranny of the majority) on extermist religious lines.
Iran was happy because it got to grow its empire, a strategy calculated to lessen the likelyhood of successful action by the US against Iran. Blair was happy because he gained a whole new method of demonising muslims, and a massive increasing of the stakes, so that US action against Iran, when it comes, will be of an magnitude greater than anything seen so far.
Muslim women MUST be free to wear whatever they choose, and must be free to influence their own culture so that in the end, they wear only those things that their heart would truly choose (which would NEVER include the veil). There is NOT a paradox, but sopistication in the way things work.
Headscarves and the veil are adopted by many as a political symbol, an active sign of the fight against Blair and zionist evil. Of course, such action has the effect of drawing up battlelines, just as Blair desires. Blair wants the muslim people and the religion of islam to become the same thing, just as Hitler wanted the same with jews and judaism. This is NOT a natural state for modern people, for whom organised religion will naturally depreciate, and become a mere background cultural thing.
What can muslims, at this time, do to defeat Blair? NOTHING- NOTHING AT ALL. Just like was the case for the jews, when Hitler's power had reached a certain level. Any choice the muslims make today just makes the situation for them worse. The answer lies with the rest of humanity, the people currently empowering Blair and the rest of the monsters.
SO WE HAVE TO BECOME AS SOPHISTICATED AS WE CAN. Break the paradox by realising that when analysed, there is no paradox. Understand both why muslim women would genuinely want to wear a veil or headscarf today, but at the same time look forward to a future where such nonsense was buried in the past.
Let me make a comparison. You are a women fighting in the French Resistance (yes, I know such events are largely a myth to cover up the truth of willing co-operation between the French and the nazis, but lets pretend). As such, you learn and participate in all kinds of murder and mayhem. BUT YOU DO THIS TO CREATE A TIME WHEN WAR IS LONG GONE, AND YOU WILL NEVER EVER HAVE TO HURT ANOTHER HUMAN AGAIN. Is that a paradox. I don't think so.
The veil and the headscarf are now frequently an act of resistance against Blair's evil. If YOU don't like the act of resistance, perhaps YOU should be thinking about your part in allowing Blair to do the things he does. If, on the other hand, you think that free women would, in an ideal world, really want to live under a bag, you really really really need to grow up.
Organised religions STINK, all of them. The cultural pressures that they use to define the religion, and thus maintain its control, are EVIL, but sometimes there exist much greater evils, whose defeat takes priority. In a Blair free, NeoCon free, zionist free world, I would have almost nothing good to say about islam. However, today it is the religious background of the culture of more than one billion people facing the immediate prospect of genocide. Blair has a power millions of times greater than Adolf Hitler to see through his inhuman plan. Hitler had potential (and then real) enemies with far greater power than his empire. Blair is tens of times more powerful than the strongest of his potential enemies. So all Blair has to do is turn to us and ask "is it safe?" (because we are the ones that empower him). As we squeal in pain and wonder what the hell he is on about, Blair ponders, and is so very close to concluding "yes, it is safe". When that moment comes, it is 'game over' for all of us.
twilight
hold on a minute
08.10.2006 09:28
Jack Straw only expressed his personal opinion. He clearly said he does not want laws to ban hijabs, niqabs etc, but only is uncomfortable with them. So what??? Most non moslems are, and many moslems also are uncomfortable about these kinds of headress. Why? Because to not see the face of someone you have to converse with is a little strange. I'm sorry. This certainly does not mean that i support the war on Afghanistan, Iraq or the possible on on Iran. Certainly not. But this is making an issue out of nothing.
krs
Truth and Justice
08.10.2006 23:35
When you see a woman wearing that veil you look at a woman who is declaring her support for burying women who do not follow that dictate up to their necks in the ground and then throwing stones at them, sometimes small stones so they are buried alive.
That is what they sometimes do to your friends.
Stoner
muslimwoman
09.10.2006 10:01
Perhaps the women of this liberal society wear short skirts or revealing tops because of the pressures they face from their men or by their fundamentalist liberal society/religion? I accept not all women do but I haven't heard one voice yet saying that the ones who do should cover themselves up or that somehow their dress sense makes me feel uncomfortable and intimidated?
Maybe a nudist would feel far more comfortable talking to you if you took all your clothes off?
It is bad enough having to listen to the likes of Jack Straw but even worse when the fundamentlist liberals tell us that we are oppressed. We wear the scarf out of modesty - look at any picture of women in Britain in the early part of the 20th century and surprise surprise most of them are wearing headscarfs - but then they got the vote eventually didn't they?
In this century the rise of sexual assaults on women and related crimes is a measure of what is happening with this fundamentalist liberal viewpoint. Please try to think out of your box and the conditioning you so readily recognise in others. If you are true anti-globalists then recognise what other belief systems have said for centuries on issues such as economics and governance - the answers are out there - and it may take you being able to accept a woman wearing a headscarf to see them.
khadija
Muslims Under Attack
09.10.2006 10:20
Be in no doubt, a ban on the veil will become law, Straw is only sowing the seeds.
soon come
anothermuslim
09.10.2006 12:48
I can't see that I am protected respected and treated as a human being for what I am and not because of what people think I should be
One quarter of the planet has got it wrong? But yet you in this bourgeois west know for certain you have got it right??
Ah but maybe that's why we've got global warming and climate change and child kidnappings and abuse and debt enslavement and poverty and we invade helpless nations and watch as we slaughter their children talking all the while about resolutions and no ceasefires and .....women wearing a piece of cloth on their heads..........
I am reacting to the post-ers who have nothing good to say about Islam and see this Straw issue as trivial or equate it in an ignorant manner with muslim women wearing veils endorsing the stoning to death of women.
Be careful be very careful you are on a slippery slope to liberal fascism.
I am a muslim woman
I am not oppressed
I freely choose the scarf rather than be veiled in the way you are
Condemn me?
samia
"Islamophobia" is itself an anti-Islamic, anti-Muslim word. Think!
09.10.2006 20:13
The appropriate word or phrase would have the component of 'hostility' at the core. Not fear.
Fear of Islam denotes and connotes Islam as being the aggressor!
Hatred of Muslims, hostility to Islam denotes and connotes the opposites to that.
So, please drop the word 'Islamophobia'.
On Twilight's point about 'organised religions', what does he think Marxism is? Or the so-called atheism and its equivalents are?
Twilight has ruined an otherwise valid essay by diluting what should have been a solid exposé of the evil of Blair and Bush and their controllers.
I noticed in the past that Twilight thinks it’s tenuous to argue that Blair and Bush are frontmen for heinous evil. Twilight argues that Blair and Bush are themselves the controllers.
We disagree on this and the matter must await the verdict of time.
However, the onslaught on Islam is not a sudden phenomenon.
Please, all of the genuine people who do do the posts on this subject look at the objectively verifiable summary of the past 1400 years.
There is nothing remotely comparable in the history of the West that can match the deep and evil plots and plans and practices of hostility and fabrication against Islam and Muslins.
Those who are mentally - metaphorically - dancing in 'celebration' that the Muslims are being attacked so openly and with such intensity by the West, may not be able to do so for long as and when the evil forces turn their attention on THEM, those dancers.
I am thinking of Blair's incredible praise of the Hindu India image!
Be warned the rest of the world. The attack on Muslims and Islam is an attack on all of humanity.
Evil is on the ascendance right now.
All humanity mist rise up and stop the evil, front men, front women [Hillary Rodham! included] all the tokens and the manifestations and couriers of evil.
Justthought
Get rid of hatred - the world does't need hatred. It does truth and tolerance
10.10.2006 15:50
So, can we resist the temptation to score points againts 'Moslems'?
If the pagans and heathens were indeed being violated by 'Moslems' and that was of course wrong and anyone who accepts that the violation is wrong should themselves would stand up for the rights of others?
Yes?
If yes then how can you make a statement as the one containing the grotesque hateful statement saying that 'Moslems' cause the problems and that it is 'Moslems' who are bringing more people into the world than the world can bear?
Where is all this hatred coming from?
How can the same person or source be so apparently hateful against 'Moslems' and at the same time as speaking for alleged targets of alleged ‘Moslem’ violations?
The world does not need hatred any more.
It needs an end to the hatred that is already around.
Let us start by stopping the hatred that is being addressed against Muslims.
Let us remember that we owe it to oursleves as conscientious people to tell the truth and nothing but the truth.
Let us judge the actions of others based solely on evidence.
Uncontaminated, honestly obtained evidence.
Let us tolerate disagreement as long as the universally desirable rights of all to fair and equal treatment are honoured by all sides.
That is what we should be arguing for.
That is the only way away from G W Bush's and Blair’s way.
Justthought
Justthought
10.10.2006 20:22
How can you have the insolence to ask where the hate comes from. You are an approved person on Indymedia. Your misrepresentations that my hate is only for Moslems, not for all the Religions that insult God is allowed to stand. But the truth that was between your two comments has been censored.
The agents of Religions determined to destroy God's Creation through overpopulation are in control of Indumedia.
Stoner