According to this news article here a British hospital has banned it’s Muslim staff from covering their faces when they talk to patients at the hospital.
I’m somewhat conflicted over this to be honest. On the one hand, I’m a serious secularist and have very little time or patience for overt signs of people’s religion. As such, I obviously support this move. But, and here’s the rub, I have to wonder about whether this is being applied fairly.
In the French case a few years back they banned ‘all signs’ of religious appearal – with the veil being the most obvious one in the public schools. But even then it was hard to escape the feeling that this was targeted towards Muslims. And the same is happening at the minute. While the hospital’s reasoning on this is sound – that patients have to be able to see and hear the person who’s treating them, the way it’s been done feels like it’s being done badly.
As I say, I’m not 100% sure how I feel about this. There is a lot of problems with integration and the like at the moment especially with the Muslim community and I feel that if this is done badly it may harden attitudes. But we can’t have people we deal with covering themselves up – especially when a person’s face greatly impacts on our confidence with that person (especially with the medical community).
It’l be interesting to see where this goes over the next while – but does anyone else out there feel strongly about this?
CiaN | 18-Oct-06 at 5:28 pm | Permalink
I know what you mean about the timing of these moves to ban the niqāb being unfortunate, but it must be addressed at some point and, since it doesn’t look like militant Islam is going to give up any time soon, then now is as good a time as any. I don’t see how even the most ardent liberal could argue for a woman’s right to cover her face if it negatively impacts on her ability to do her job.
Besides, it’s absurd to think that Western governments shouldn’t take sensible action on issues like this for fear of appearing to be targeting Islam. The only reason people are so touchy about the issue is that everyone damn well KNOWS that Islam poses problems for Western democracies, but nobody will say it for fear of being labelled ‘racist’, etc…
CiaN | 18-Oct-06 at 5:31 pm | Permalink
So in answer to your question, I would “Yes, absolutely” in the context of working in government-funded jobs. I don’t think that you can ban it altogether though, even if it is an abomination in my opinion.
Hasiba | 16-Nov-06 at 5:22 pm | Permalink
cian you can shut your mouth up…. think of it in muslim point of view ok not ur point which doesnt make no sense!!!1 people cum here leaving sh*t polls witout evn thinkin properly