Wearing veil over face is threatening (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Wearing veil over face is threatening

1:31pm Tuesday 7th July 2009

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I don’t always agree with the comments made by Councillor Brian Gordon, but this time I fully support his comments about the wearing of the veil. It is a fairly recent thing in Blackburn, that young women, and it is mostly young women, have started to wear the burka. Five or six years ago it was quite rare in the town. Why has it suddenly become more common?

I do believe that these women wear it from choice and it is not forced on them.

But I also believe that they are setting a precedent and eventually all Muslim women will be expected to wear them. As far as I am aware, the Koran does not say that women should cover their entire body – although some of the more traditionalist Muslims would disagree – but that both men and women should dress modestly.

A lot of Muslim women wear a scarf that covers their hair and neck – I think it’s called Hijab which in anyone’s book is dressing modestly. The ones in the full veil, whether the women who wear them think so or not, are threatening.

In the West when we talk to someone we like to see the face of that person.

It gives us clues as to how a person is reacting to what we are saying.

If we cannot see these reactions, we feel threatened, and go on the defence.

It is not, as Shuiab Khan says, making a mountain out of a molehill, it is real and a growing problem.

We all have to live together in this town and the only way to do that is to get on together.

No-one is telling these women what to wear, only that they should have some respect for the majority of people in the town.

Stephen Smith, Moorland Avenue, Feniscowles, Blackburn

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