"Violence" Has a Different Definition for Muslims

Below is another post, from my discontinued blog of a few years ago, which can still provide food for thought today. The article, dated 19 September 2006, was prompted by and referring to a then recent event, that of Pope Benedict XVI quoting from the erudite 14th-century Christian Byzantine emperor, Manuel II Paleologus, and the violent reactions from Muslims it elicited. Since it's not in the article, this is what the Holy Father said in the lecture he gave at the University of Regensburg in Germany:

In the seventh conversation (διάλεξις - controversy) edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that [the Quran] surah 2, 256 reads: "There is no compulsion in religion". According to some of the experts, this is probably one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur'an, concerning holy war.

After the South American Pope Francis' election, Benedict XVI sounds refreshingly well acquainted with Islam and its development from weak - and therefore forced to be "peaceful" - to strong and aggressive.

Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the "Book" and the "infidels", he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness, a brusqueness that we find unacceptable, on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”[3] The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. "God", he says, "is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably (σὺν λόγω) is contrary to God's nature.

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To state that Muslims, by reacting with anger, attempts at intimidation and with both threats and acts of violence to the claim that Islam is violent (regardless of the question whether this was what the Holy Father simply quoted), are saying with their own actions what has been claimed just with words is even too obvious.

What I think is showing here is a semantic gulf between the West and Islam.

I cannot believe that all Muslims are so stupid (it’s possible, but statistically improbable) not to realize that for someone to say: “I’m not violent, and I’ll kill you if you say that” is a situation worth of a comedy sketch.

What I think is that when we Westerners say “violence” or “violent” we mean something entirely different from what Muslims intend by the same words.

The Western definition of those words, for reasons of culture, history and mentality, is not the Muslim definition of them. They have a negative connotation in both worlds, but they are applied to different behaviours and actions.

For example, for us in the West the act of killing someone who has offended Mohammed, Islam, the Koran or anything sacred to Muslims is an act of unqualified violence. For Muslims, it simply is not: it is indeed an act even laudable and in some circumstances legal and required (e.g. the fatwa proclaiming the death sentence for Salman Rushdie).

I personally am convinced that the Pope believes in the words he quoted from the erudite 14th-century Christian Byzantine emperor, Manuel II Paleologus. He did not retract them. The reason for his expressing regret at the way they had been taken was mainly, in my opinion, to protect the unfortunate people who are already persecuted on a routine basis and prevent them from being persecuted even more: I refer, of course, to the Christians living in Muslim countries, particularly in the Middle East, where the burning of churches is a normal occurrence, only made worse by the jihad against the Holy Father.

And, to mix the sacred with the profane, does anybody remember what the Muslim Zidane did when he headbutted the Italian Materazzi in the football World Cup final last July? He blamed Materazzi for having provoked him, stubbornly refused to apologize to him and, in the politically correct environment of the FIFA and the liberal media, he almost got away with that lame excuse. It looks like blaming others for one’s own violence and irrational behaviour is definitely a Muslim thing.


Photo by permiegardener (Creative Commons CC BY-SA 2.0).

What Eid Teaches Moderate Muslims and Their Kids

Two days ago 15 October - the date changes every year - was the wonderful Islamic festival of Eid-ul-Adha, celebrated by Muslims worldwide by sacrificing fully conscious animals.

Of course, considering that this is a multi-million-animal slaughter - on Eid, 7.5 million animals are sacrificed every year in Pakistan alone -, by the theory of probability some incident or another is bound to happen.

Like this in Gaza, where some poor, oppressed (sob) Palestinians showed their great kindness of heart - why, they would never hurt an Israeli, promise - when, not content with simply butchering the animals, started torturing them and were attacked and wounded by the cattle.

A few reports are coming from Italy, where Muslims are - alas, oops I meant Insha'Allah - rapidly multiplying. Il Giornale di Vicenza, a local paper in the region of Venice, says about the halal slaughter on Eid:

The ceremony takes place in front of the family, with the children in the front row: it is not considered a macabre spectacle because Muslims witness it from an early age and it's part of the religious tradition.

But a grandad disagreed. An Italian man, Salvatore Cipolletta, whose daughter Cristina married young Yemeni Haidar Rohay Ahmed Al-Tawil, shot dead his son-in-law after seeing him butcher a lamb on the family's dinner table under his own grandchildren's eyes.

While in Italy the number of marriages, and in particular church weddings, has reached historic lows, mixed marriages between Italians and immigrants have steadily increased.

These, however, often don't seem to lead to happy families.

The climate of violence that surrounds Islam in so many of its doctrines, characteristics and rituals can only generate more, interminable violence in an endless cycle.

During a festive family celebration having, rather than a visit to a theme park or a trip to the cinema, an animal slaughter show without the benefit of pre-stunning as entertainment and education for the children is likely to produce adults who will not abhor blood and savagery but will find them normal: which may be what the original intention behind these rituals actually was.


Hat tip to Vale Ramone.

Photo by TheAnimalDay.org (Creative Commons CC BY 2.0).

Italy's Muslim Immigrants Family Violence

In Italy the number of marriages, especially in church, has reached historic lows, but on the other hand mixed marriages between Italians and immigrants are on the rise and have been for several years.

What's the result? Not always family bliss. As could have been easily predicted, cultural and religious differences are more important than multiculturalism leads people to believe.

And within purely immigrant Muslim families the problems are the same.

From Il Giornale di Vicenza, a local paper in the Venice region:

The wife who kills her husband's mistress because she does not comply with the dictates of the Koran; the husband who kills an acquaintance who offended his wife by calling her a prostitute, again in defiance of Muslim laws. The family dramas triggered by religious causes are unfortunately not uncommon in the Vicenza area.

Then there are the nephew tortured because he doesn't go to the mosque, the wife battered for not wearing the burqa, the little Indian girl beaten up due to her choice of an Italian boyfriend.

If the first hypotheses about the Via Todeschini crime were confirmed, namely a quarrel resulted in tragedy over the differences on the sacrifice of a lamb, the death of the young Yemeni would be part of the long trail of blood shed in the Province of Vicenza for reasons related to beliefs, rituals and conflicts of a religious nature.

If the most recent case is that of a young 14-year-old African from Arzignano, whose uncle cut off his ear lobe as punishment because the boy did not want to regularly frequent the mosque, the most resounding, followed by the whole of Italy, dates back to 4 November 1999.

That evening, in the butcher shop near the Multicenter, in the city, the Moroccan citizen Saida Tawil, 38, killed with 32 stab wounds her compatriot Mina Etamraoui. The victim, who was the lover of her husband, did not want to accept the Koranic law of concubinage. An honour killing paid with "only" 6 years in prison because she was granted, thanks to her lawyers Paolo Mele senior and Caterina Evangelisti, the extenuating circumstance of provocation.

The two women were in love with a man, the murderer's husband, who loved both and could not decide. The victim had converted to Western customs; and although the killer had recognized the concubine, as the Koran rules, she did not accept that she didn't respect the laws of the Koran by wearing Western clothes and drinking beer.

For these religious reasons she murdered her and injured her own husband.

The previous year, in Bassano, another Moroccan killed the man who had dared call his wife a prostitute; in this case as well, the murderer acted for religious motives, because that type of insult is considered very serious by the Koran.

A case that received much coverage is that of an Asian immigrant living in the Chiampo valley, who wanted to prevent his daughter from going out with an Italian boy. For him this was unacceptable, so he locked her in the house and beat her up. Similar is the case of the Arzignano husband who mistreated his wife for not wearing a burqa as his religion dictates, and who was reported and risked being arrested.

Another phenomenon, less serious, is represented by the customs of the Sikh religious community, which is very strong in all Alto Vicentino and normally meets in Castelgomberto. [The problems here are] The turban, which prevents them from wearing helmets when riding a motorbike, and even more the knife they carry around as an object of worship (like the cross for a Christian) and is frequently seized by the police, with criminal charges, as a posssible weapon.

Hat tip to Vale Ramone.

Green Britain: Energy Blackouts Imminent

First published on FrontPage Magazine.

By Enza Ferreri


The UK is facing its greatest risk of blackouts since 2007/08 in the coming winter. The National Grid, responsible for balancing the country's supply and demand of energy, last week has given this warning because Britain’s reserves of electricity have halved in 12 months.

The UK and the USA are in the same boat here. Both countries have governments that have – or pretend to have - fallen for the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) theory hook, line, and sinker.

The Obama Administration’s regulations to limit carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, that The New York Times has described as “an aggressive move by Mr. Obama to bypass Congress on climate change with executive actions he promised in his inaugural address this year”, have been denounced as part of the president’s “war on coal.”

White House climate adviser Daniel P. Schrag, director of the Harvard University Center for the Environment, admitted in an interview with the paper that this is exactly what it is:

The one thing the president really needs to do now is to begin the process of shutting down the conventional coal plants. Politically, the White House is hesitant to say they’re having a war on coal. On the other hand, a war on coal is exactly what’s needed.

The new rules will be aimed at new gas-fired power plants but mostly at coal power plants, being the form of energy generation that emits most CO2.

According to a report released earlier this year by the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, over 280 coal-fired units are expected to close down partly because of the new, stricter EPA regulations, 5 times more than the number predicted by the EPA itself. One of them is New England’s largest coal-fired power plant.

Some say that the rules will kill the future of coal and raise electricity costs.

In Britain, skyrocketing utility bills and “fuel poverty” are already a reality. "Fuel poverty" is a new condition, in which energy bills expenditure makes up 10% or more of the household's net income. One in four British households is suffering from it. Some people have to choose to eat less in order to keep warm.

The exceptionally high gas and electricity bills are due to the fact that householders are obliged to subsidize ineffective “renewables”, like the totally useless wind farms which are now blotting the country’s landscape and seascape against the fierce but crushed opposition of the local residents.

The Renewable Obligations Order system, introduced by Tony Blair’s Labour government in 2002, forces companies supplying electricity to buy a proportion of their electricity from non-fossil sources. Since these are highly ineffective, the energy companies have to pay inflated prices, which they pass on to their unfortunate customers through their electricity bills.

In March 2003 the Blair government published an Energy White Paper. In its Section 4.7 it says explicitly:

We have introduced a Renewables Obligation for England and Wales in April 2002. This will incentivise generators to supply progressively higher levels of renewable energy over time. The cost is met through higher prices to consumers. By 2010, it is estimated that this support and Climate Change Levy (CCL) exemption will be worth around £1 billion a year to the UK renewables industry. [Emphases added]

It also estimated that meeting the CO2 reduction targets would increase household energy bills by up to 15%.

With the Climate Change Act 2008 the UK government, by its own description, "passed legislation that introduces the world's first long-term legally binding framework to tackle the dangers of climate change."

It is an unprecedented piece of legislation, which The Telegraph journalist Christopher Booker, author of books on the global warming scare, described as:

by far the most expensive law in history, which commits Britain, uniquely in the world, to reducing its CO2 emissions by 80 per cent in 40 years. By the Government's own estimates, this will cost up to £18 billion a year. Any hope that we could begin to meet such a target without closing down most of our economy is as fanciful as the idea that we can meet our EU commitment to generate 30 per cent of our electricity by 2020 from 'renewable' sources, such as wind and solar.

Many want that law scrapped. The UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change has taken much more seriously the second part of its name than the first, and now the country is facing the consequences with the first blackouts of possibly a long series, while fracking is hysterically opposed by environmentalists who with their celebrity-filled protests managed to stop it in some locations.

This is the paradox of the AGW theory of man-made climate change. Not only UK pensioners are suffering and dying from some of the coldest winters on record – which refutes the theory, since temperatures haven’t increased with the risen levels of CO2 in the last 15 years, as the computer models based on the theory predicted -, but also they may not be helped by an efficient energy system, providing the heating that could save their lives, because of policies dictated by the very same theory.

For years energy experts have warned of an impending energy shortage crisis in the UK, due to the closure of many coal-based and gas-fired power plants while new ones have not been built, and the reliance on an astronomical number of newly-built wind farms to generate the necessary energy has proven a huge mistake.

The IPPC, the United Nations body responsible for research and policy recommendations on climate change, is a confused mixture of science and politics.

The IPPC comprises scientists and government officials, some of whom are scientists and some are not. There are two main types of IPCC documents: the reports written by scientists and the Summaries for Policy Makers which officials write on the basis of the scientists’ reports often in greatly altered and misrepresented form.

The Summaries for Policy Makers are usually the only IPCC documents that journalists and governments see. Repeatedly the scientists who wrote the original scientific essays have complained that their views had been misunderstood and inaccurately reported in the documents for policy makers, invariably to make them appear more strongly in favour of the received AGW theory wisdom than they actually were.

Even allowing for the remote possibility that there were some truth in that theory, whatever the reality about climate change, the policies of both the UK and the USA are nothing short of insane.

With China and India, the world’ most populous, fast-developing (and polluting) countries with 40% of the planet's human inhabitants between them, never subscribing to AGW theory - mainly supported by Western nations - and never accepting even the minimum restriction to their CO2 emissions because this would have hampered their economic growth, Britain’s and America’s attempt to cut down CO2 will only serve to damage their economies without helping the environment in any way, shape or form.

This is what columnist Charles Krauthammer has recognized when he called Obama’s proposals “nuts”. A diagnosis which is hard to fault.


More articles on the subject:

Why UK Electricity Prices Are so High

Disadvantages and Advantages of Wind Turbines

China Development and Climate Change

Is Ought


Photo courtesy of BritainGallery.com

Repulsion Is the Natural Feeling towards Homosexuality

If we think of the gigantic progress made by the "gay liberation" movement in just a few decades or even years, we are astonished.

The idea of homomarriage would have been unthinkable 20-30 years ago when homosexuals themselves were declaring their opposition to this institution, and even 5 years ago it would have been difficult for it to become part of the UK law.

It has required a social re-education programme of vast proportions, a cultural war for general sexual freedom, of which homosexual "liberation" is part.

One method of crucial importance and psychological effectiveness employed by the homosexual movement and by the Left in general, of which proponents of "gay rights" talk openly, has been the use of desensitisation.

This technical term derives from the learning theory, a psychological theory descended from behaviourism.

The technique of systematic desensitisation is popularly and commonly used in behaviour psychotherapy. It consists in exposing the patient to something - an object, situation, person, animal - to which he has a sensitivity considered excessive, abnormal, pathological or harmful, as in the case of a phobia, until it gradually decreases and hopefully disappears.

The point is that desensitisation is useful and advisable if you have, for example, a phobia of cats. If you have a fear of tigers, getting desensitised may be a very bad idea.

Clearly, for people who believe in the existence of "homophobia" - an irrational fear of homosexuals comparable to fears of harmless spiders, the number 13, lifts or mice -, the folks who suffer from it are badly in need of treatment, and desensitisation is the method they've been employing through prolonged exposure to TV, press, celebrity behaviour and public discourse in which homosexuality is presented, in words and images, as "the new norm", or just another lifestyle.

It's natural, animals are homosexuals too, they say. In addition, anything negative said about homosexuality is treated as morally equivalent to discrimination on the basis of race, which these days is a crime worse than murder. This not only reinforces desensitisation to homosexuality but also creates a new sensitisation, a new fear in its place (this time real), that of being considered as a socio-political pariah for thinking - and even feeling - in the wrong way.

Any feeling of aversion or repulsion for homosexual behaviour - even if not extended to homosexual individuals - is to be ferociously repressed and suppressed, by order of the "liberators". If that sentence sounds like a contradiction in terms, it's because it is.

You don't "free" people by making them afraid of you and by imposing on them your views through that fear.

As homosexual celebrity Graham Norton commented in reference to what was happening on the stage during the Eurovision Song Contest held in Malmö in May 2013, "if two girls kissing offends you, you need to grow up". Feelings of offence are not acceptable to the thought police.

To desensitise the public even more, later on two male dancers kissed in the final choreography during the voting process. It's exactly the correct procedure of graduality: first you expose the subject to a milder shock, then to a slighly stronger one.

And any opportunity is good for the cause of "gay liberation", as long as it has a wide audience.

The theory, if we can call it that way, behind this vast programme of brainwashing - vaguely reminiscent of the film A Clockwork Orange, but on a much bigger scale -, which its supporters probably would consider education or rehabilitation, is that only positive feelings towards sexuality are natural.

It probably has a Freudian derivation, since the father of psychoanalysis has had an enormous influence on the way we think and, along with Marx, has been the greatest destroyer of all that is good about Western civilisation.

Sigmund Freud believed that society is a necessary evil, in that the individual's natural urges must be sacrificed for it, which gives rise to neuroses and psychoses.

He inspired the idea that, if we were left to our natural sentiments and impulses, we would only feel attraction for everything that is sexual. Repulsion, shame, disgust only come from society's repressive influence.

But what if it were not like this? What if our natural feelings towards sex were mixed, both of attraction and repulsion?

I'll explore this in more detail in another article, but there are signs that it could be this way. After all, many mammalian species' females go through periods of oestrus or heat, so sexual attraction is limited to those times. In other animals, who don't live in a restrictive society, it's not a sexual free-for-all.

Each species has its normal behaviour, anyway, which may be greatly different from what is the norm in another species, so this is not conclusive. But we can see that in humans too. There is, for example, an innate aversion to sex with kin individuals in humans as well as other animals.

So, sex can provoke natural strong feelings in both directions. Since homosexual activists and their supporters, hard as they tried, have not managed to produce credible theories that homosexuality is "natural" or non-pathological, but on the contrary there are good reasons, which I've examined elsewhere in the articles linked to below, to believe that it is neither, the feelings of aversion to homosexual acts that they try to suppress in us may just be an innate and totally healthy reaction, similar to that towards brother-sister sex. In which case this indoctrination is a harmful manipulation - in addition to an illiberal attack on personal freedom - that we must fight against tooth and nail.

Read previous posts on the condition of homosexuality:

A Critical Assessment of LGBT Claims

Is Homosexuality as Harmless and Healthy as Political Correctness Dictates?

Consenting Adults, Homosexuality, Incest, Polygamy, Bestiality: Defining Acceptable Sexuality



Photo Gay Pride Amsterdam 2008 by FaceMePLS (Creative Commons CC BY 2.0).

Help Immigrants to Lampedusa Back to Their Countries

In what is one of the worst immigrant tragedies in the Mediterranean in recent years, a boat full of immigrants sank off the coast of the Italian island of Lampedusa, causing over 300 victims at the last count.

The response to the accident is what divides Italy and public opinion worldwide. While the Minister for Integration, Congolese Kyenge Cecile, has used this tragic opportunity to reiterate her call for the abolition of the crime of illegal entry and illegal residence, the Northern League has requested her resignation and wants the boats to be turned back because they are full of illegal immigrants.

Indeed, the best way to prevent tragedies such as this is to discourage the crossings by deterring the would-be migrants, and the best way to achieve that is to turn the boats back.

Italy's immigration law requires repatriation of illegal immigrants and has allegedly sometimes led to the sequester of fishing boats that have saved the lives of migrants. There have been accusations that, in the latest disaster, nearby local fishing boats had seen that the vessel was in trouble but had not come to its rescue.

Italy has pressed the European Union for more help to fight the crisis, saying that “Lampedusa has to be considered the frontier of Europe, not the frontier of Italy.” The EU's Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroemn called on EU countries to do more to take in refugees, which she said would help reduce the number of perilous Mediterranean crossings.

There is talk of having EU boats patrol the area. The point is: should they help immigrants to get to Lampedusa or to go back?

Read previous posts on Lampedusa to get a background of the situation:

Lampedusa, Italy. Part I: What Happened in 2011

Pope's First Official Visit Is to Lampedusa, Tiny Sicilian Island Flooded by African Migrants

An Island in Revolt: A Window into Europe’s Future


Photo lampedusa by Noborder Network (Creative Commons CC BY 2.0).

The Battle of the Burqa

First published on FrontPage Magazine.

By Enza Ferreri


Britain is reaping the fruits of its multi-decennial multicultural policy and of what is euphemistically called “tolerance” - and realistically “bending over backwards” - to Islam.

If anyone doubts that Muhammadanism is a supremacist doctrine, this doubting Thomas should take a look at what’s happening in an English school currently in the news.

Britain's first Muslim “free school” (namely, government funded but outside local authority control), Al-Madinah School in the city of Derby, underwent a two-day (October 1-2) inspection by officials of the government’s education regulator Ofsted. The school has been shut during and after the inspection by its Principal allegedly “owing to a health and safety issue”.

This is how Al-Madinah describes itself:

A strong Muslim ethos will give the school its uniqueness... At the centre of our school is a community of pupils, able to enjoy learning in a caring Islamic environment.

The school is said to be controlled by Islamic hardliners who ban children from playing stringed instruments - forbidden by Islam -, singing except Islamic faith songs, and reading fairy tales as these are 'non-Islamic'.

The school’s former head Andrew Cutts-McKay and former deputy Suzanne Southerland claim they were 'bullied, sidelined' and forced to leave by members of the school's trust, which is predominantly Muslim.

Al-Madinah, established in September 2012, denies it. But only days before those claims, female teachers had alleged that they were told to sign new contracts forcing them to wear the hijab – covering head and neck - and forbidding jewellery, regardless of their religion. They had expressed concern about other practices, like banning non-halal food and forcing female pupils – even 4-year-olds - to sit at the back of the class away from boys.

Even devout Christian teachers were compelled to wear Islamic garb, and in the end quit the school.

One woman claimed she was told not to shake hands with male teachers to avoid “insult”, while another said that girls are allowed to have lunch only after boys have finished eating: “It is like being in any school in Pakistan. That is why it was founded, that is the idea”, she added.

An employee told The Sunday Times newspaper: “When teaching children the alphabet, you could not associate the letter 'p' with pig.”

About half a dozen teachers, who risk their jobs if they don’t comply with the rules, are seeking legal advice from the National Union of Teachers, which commented: “It’s one thing to have a dress code which we can challenge and quite another to build it into a contract.”

The Union’s Sue Arguile explained: “We have always had a number of concerns about this school ever since it was first set up, as essentially they can do what they like.”

The problem with Al-Madinah is its “free school” status which means that, although it received £1.4 million from the government and is expecting more, it sets its own rules, curriculums, dress codes, teachers' pay and conditions. In short, a lose-lose situation for the taxpayers, obliged to sign a blank check to the Islamization of their country.

“But”, Arguile points out, “forcing people to agree to contractual changes or face being out of work could breach employment law.”

The Derby school was already under investigation, the Department for Education revealed, before the allegations against it became public, followed by an immediate inspection. “We are waiting for Ofsted's final report and considering all legal options” a spokesman said.

Al-Madinah is not the only case. Another state-backed school, this time in in Blackburn, has imposed strict rules under which pupils must “wear the hijab outside the school and at home, recite the Koran at least once a week” and not have stationery with “unIslamic images”, like pictures of pop stars.

And it was discovered that many Islamic schools in Britain force girls as young as 11 to wear burqas - covering the whole body and face, sometimes with a mesh screen to see through - as the “desired dress code of a Muslim female”, while many others - including about a dozen state-funded schools - demand that female pupils cover their hair.

Prime Minister David Cameron said the government should back institutions on banning face-covering veils, as in this BBC interview:

We are a free country and people should be free to wear whatever clothes they like in public or in private.

But we should support those institutions that need to put in place rules so that those institutions can work properly.

So for instance in a school, if they want that particular dress code, I believe the Government should back them. The same for courts, the same for immigration.

Obviously, in court the jury needs to be able to look at someone's face. I've sat on a jury, that's part of what you do.

When someone is coming into the country, an immigration officer needs to see someone's face.

In a school, it's very difficult to teach unless you can look at your pupils in the eye.

Cameron was referring to the recent case of a London judge who ordered a Muslim defendant and witness to remove the niqab - covering all the face except the eyes - throughout her evidence, while allowing her to wear it during the rest of the trial. He ruled that it’s crucial for jurors to see a witness's face so they can assess her demeanour and expression in order to establish credibility, that some restrictions to Muslim garb are necessary, and that no tradition or practice is above the law.

He ended with a pun, “The niqab has become the elephant in the courtroom”, and called for Parliament or a higher court to provide a definitive statement on it.

Similar public unease has been manifested concerning hospital nurses’ wearing headscarves and veils.

It’s clear that a certain discontent with Islamic dress is growing in Europe. France in 2011 banned Muslim as well as non-Muslim face-covering clothing because it prevents the identification of a person, on the grounds of both security and social communication.

Ban opponents claim it breaches individual freedoms. It does, and so does having a number plate on your vehicle, so if you want to use your car for a get-away after a bank robbery you can’t. That’s a limitation on personal freedom we all must accept in order to live in a civilized society.

The French concern is totally justified. In June this year six men in burqas raided London's Selfridges department store, smashing glass cabinets and stealing high-value watches.

The same ban was attempted in Britain in 2010 with Conservative MP Philip Hollobone’s bill, unsuccessful due to claims that it would breach the Equality Act.

Two weeks ago the Italian Swiss canton of Ticino voted in favour of a burqa ban.

It will be a difficult battle, with two steps forward and one step back. In France the ban has caused riots and violence. Back in Britain, the city of Birmingham’s Metropolitan College, which had for some time had a policy forcing students to remove veils, hoodies and hats while on its premises to be identifiable for security reasons, was made to retract it in September by a planned mass demonstration against “'Islamophobia” and an online petition signed by 9,000. A prospective student started the row by complaining to her local paper that she was being discriminated against.

While the debate over female Muslim attire has in recent weeks dominated UK headlines, a student in South London’s Bromley College, asked to remove her cap for identification and security reasons, refused to do so unless Muslim women removed their headdresses too, rightly complaining of double standards.

When defending their presumed “right” to act like Muslims, the followers of Muhammad sometimes let their guard down and reveal something about themselves.

Britain’s Home Office Minister Jeremy Browne, pointing out that the government should consider an Islamic dress ban, did something that you don’t see often. Very timidly, he hinted at reciprocity, a thorny issue for Muslim sensitivities, by saying:

That would apply to Christian minorities in the Middle East just as much as religious minorities here in Britain.

The chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation Mohammed Shafiq responded that he was "disgusted" by Browne's comments.

What disgusted him? The proposed, very mild exception to the kid-glove treatment that Muslims receive over here or the slight indication that Christians should not be massacred over there?


Photo Peek a boo! by Justin Hall (Creative Commons CC BY-SA 2.0).