British Women, Lift up your skirts for Jack Straw

British House of Commons kingpin Jack Straw, formerly British Foreign Secretary, has written that Moslem women should lift up their veils. His reasoning is if a person does not show their face, no one can know the true meaning of the speaker.

He compared this to communicating via letter or telephone, and apparently the non-face-to-face communications lack validity. Therefore, a veiled woman cannot be taken at face value.

Straw claims he has requested that veiled female Moslems lift their face covering and they have responded to his request to defrock in his presence. He added that he always had a female staff member present at the unveiling. Straw went on the claim that the women appeared to be relieved after being stripped of their veil. Although if he did not see their face before the removal how could he know. After all, he claims that not seeing the face hinders communication.

Now, the veil can be a simple ornament, a strong religious symbol, and even a shield to protect modesty. Some westerners follow the bizarre claims of gender feminists that the veil is a symbol of unbridled male dominance (note that gender feminists are among the most bigoted persons on this planet). The veil is also used to promote separation between men and women.

Ataturk, founder of the Turkish Republic, believed that the veil, along with the headscarf, and the fez, was an imposition by the mosque-state Ottoman Empire and that the Ottoman form of Islam was responsible for keeping the empire and its citizens in ignorance. He worked toward removing these vestiges from the modern Turkish state. He was also clear that Turkish women could defend their modesty quite well without any synthetic props or even without separation from males in public settings.

Veils preceded Islam along with the burqa just as baptism, as immersion, and Easter, as the Goddess, preceded Christianity. And the face covering is not a universal practice of Moslems. Simple observations show that. Rudimentary research reveals the face covering practice as an Islamic dictate is controversial. Tying any practice to a specific religion and claiming the practice to be true for all adherents is shallow thinking.

But expect shallow thinking coming from a British statesman. This is the country that, along with Israel, propelled Idi Amin to overthrow the government of Uganda and begin his bloody rule. This same government earlier suggested that Uganda be the independent homeland of Zionists (don’t bother asking the Ugandans). The machinations of Britain before and after World War I have a direct bearing on much of the world turmoil today.

Veils have a history in Europe as well. A woman taking the veils was used as a euphemism for becoming a nun. Veils were worn (as a fashion statement) in church and on the street. In some times and places it was something that self-respecting females would wear, at least according to the wearers and their peers.

The separation of males and females is apparent in many rules of American society. Some very conservative Jews avoid contacts involving unmarrieds of the opposite sex. In the NAZI death camps, males and females were kept separate all the way to the end. The separation of men and women has existed in various degrees in other societies as well.

The argument that Straw uses about face-to-face contact is ludicrous. People are very capable of lying and acting to procure resources. People in courtrooms will swear open-faced on the Bible to tell the truth and then lie. It seems that us humans are extremely likely to favorably interpret people pleasers as sincere. Some individuals do not or cannot express facial emotions. Then there are individuals who are quite excitable and express facial emotions that are not related to the present situation. For most though, facial expressions for social gatherings are largely learned responses.

Now, if Straw wants to ban religious symbology as superstitious and backwards, he should say so. And be honest enough to ban all symbols. If he wants to ban the veil as an edifice of female modesty, then take the whole step and apply his words to his female peers as well.

To this end, it is the patriotic duty of British women to raise their skirts high in the fight against modesty. Make statesman Jack Straw Proud.