It’s an odd feeling and I’m not quite sure how I should react to it, but I agree with Jack Straw.
My name is John and I agree with Jack Straw.
“Hello John”
I’ve had the feeling for a while and wondered if I was prejudiced, I though there was something wrong with me, a basic and human distrust…
“Carry on John”
OK, well I was OK with it, and then I saw that Jack Straw felt it too, only he wasn’t afraid to say something about it… and I think I was glad about that.
“I think everyone here will understand how that feels, please continue…”
Well firstly I’d like to say that I’m not… well that’s it I’m not racist but it’s the sot of thing that if your not racist you’re worried that the thing you’re discussing, that I’m trying to discuss now… make you appear… Well…
“We’re all the same here John”
No, I mean, Yes, I know, it just… I’m not used to agreeing with Jack Straw. But he has a point, about the veil… firstly there are varying levels of veil, there is the head scarf, the head and neck scarf, the head and mouth scarf and then the full black hood with the little slits for eyes… well, I find it alienating, I do, I’m sorry, but I always take people, I form judgements and I don’t think that’s wrong…
So when so much of what we use to make a judgement, not skin colour, but expression, openness, the brightness in the eyes, how much the mouth moves… The more there is to a person the more their face moves, the more their imagination works the more their face moves.
There’s also the issue of consistency, we are all equal, at college we all have to wear ID passes, so… what would be the picture on the card of someone who wears a veil, and how do you verify its them… and also what ever the dealings we have, being served at a shop, getting mortgage advise, anything that is face to face, then I’m at a loss, if I need to recognise someone then… But if someone want to cover themselves then that should be a right but… the thing is Jack Straw is right, so much of the way we communicate is not just in the voice and the words but in the face, and the removal of this depth I believe limits conversation, plus I find it uncomfortable… Its nature to be insecure of the unknown, not suspicious, but wary… if I had a balaclava on and stood behind you in the bank, you would be too. Because you would only see my eyes, and because your mind and would start to make assumption. Should my right to wear a balaclava be limited? No, but should I expect people to be cautious around me because I have it on, yes. So what the fuck am I on about? The very fact that I feel this way makes me feel guilty, so I try to justify it, which can’t do, because, quite simply, I don’t understand it. The concept is as alien to me as the two eyes in a sea of black.
Now the Biggie… is the balaclava a fair comparison, no… there is no fair comparison, and as someone who abhors all superstition and religion it is extremely easy for me to talk down the rationale of wearing a veil, but Jack Straw has actually dared to say something that many people must think. We really on taking peoples faces in, we see trust in a face, so by withholding the face, can we argue a veil wearer is withholding trust?
In a way, from my understanding of the veil within Islam (which is very limited) it is, in a formal and prep-prescribed way, but can I explain the understanding I’ve somehow managed to cling on to… no, it is not comprehension but the suggestion of an idea… an idea that I do not understand. Just through writing this I’ve felt brief instants of nearly being able to comprehend what I want to say - before confusion and the need to find words lets it slip I away, and the only words that some it up, are “I don’t understand”.
When I speak to someone who is veil I can’t ever entirely see past the veil, its something so incompressible to me that it begins to impede my view of the person. Big Breast, facial scaring acme or a wonky nose can do the same, for a while, but it fades, you learn to read it as just the face that is, but you can’t read cloth, you can’t jibe the same way, because you can’t read the person you might be jovially mocking, because you can’t read cloth. I have to be honest it drives me nuts, and Jack straw is right, maybe just because we have not grown up with it all around it makes someone who is less than a meter away so very distant, and in such a disconnected world, I don’t understand it.
I agree with Jack Straw and I just don’t understand it at all
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