This is not about celebrating diversity, it is about making a mockery of it.

Sorry it really should have read as “For all to watch and mull over”.

Otherwise it does read as you say.

Yes, of course, because to people like Refresh, bigotry and boneheaded stupidity and ignorance can only flow in one direction from us viewers, self-righteous prigs like him or the niqabi are higher mortals.

That’s true, in the sense that petrol is a ‘challenge’ to firey burning combustion.

Best case, she sticks to cute fluffy bunny stuff, the Sun takes the piss a bit, some americans rant about eurabia, everyone laughs at them, nothing happens.

Worst case, who can say?

Dear me, know nothing about the PR then I see…

It may well have been specifically targetted at Harry’s Place and PP.

Er…a national TV channel makes a decision to stir up two blogs??

I think it says more about the posters than it was ever going to say about the woman doing the speech. And I don’t doubt for one minute the C4 executives didn’t know that.

Its a challenge to ignorance, racism, prejudice and bigotry. For you all to watch and mull over.

It may well have been specifically targetted at Harry’s Place and PP.

It is for that reason, I consider this a very good move.

I’m going to treat it as a spoof and watch it with all the family so that we can have a good laugh

Doesn’t C4 have a history of this – ISTR a few years ago they had Homer Simpson doing the Queen’s speech.

I agree that a lot depends on a persons motives and whether it is right to make evalutions as external observers. Taking into account the interior frame of reference of the individual and their first person account of why they behave the way they do is valuable
in how something appears. There have been Muslim women on TV who have clearly said they don’t feel oppressed by their decision to wear the veil and I
have no reason to disbelieve them and wonder why anyone else would.

As well this has a history bound up with male patriarchy which puts the responibilty on the female.
(I have sometimes said in jest, why not make muslim men wear blinkers). Maybe some muslim women are blind to this.

Yes in some places the veil etc is bound up with oppression and is definitely just oppression and should be pointed out as such.

http://www.islamonline.com/cgi-bin/news_service/fatwah_story.asp?service_id=393

My youngest son no longer goes on a Thursday to his nursery — which is voluntarily-run and in the grounds of a catholic church — because I object to one of the carers wearing the niqab. She doesn’t wear it during the day at work, or even when parents arrive to pick up their kids (although she used to) but she insists on wearing it on Thursdays when the kids (3-4 years old) visit the local library. I’m not happy with that because I don’t want my son to think that that is normal, let alone ok.

I’m sorry if that offends, but the niqab offends me.

Erasing individual identity – if that is what you feel it does – is also something which clothes choices do without being unique to women or Muslims.

Objectifying women is also something which clothes designs do without being unique to currents within Islam. And whether it is seen as an objectification depends on the particular interpreter – some people will insist it is resistence to objectification or a symbol of piety and they will think you miss the point as much as you feel they do.

It is disingenious to present something which is imposed as something which is chosen. And where niqab is imposed there are many further layers of oppression and it is one of many instruments of oppression where both force and opinion are used to keep people conforming to unchosen rules and interpretations. But I did not think this was the situation of the woman who is making the speech (my own assumption).

There are many things which people choose to do that appear pathological to others. I don’t think those things are above criticism. It is just that criticism which makes sweeping assumptions about people’s motives and worth are part of the same problem to me.

If people make choices I don’t like then I shouldn’t assume they are doing it for reasons I don’t like. That would be another way of repressing complex human stories.

I am genuinely disappointed with your array of examples as i have come to expect more thoughtfulness from you, Arif. Not a single one of the circumstances you cite is unique to women or to muslims (with the exception of the last one, that of the woman playing provocateur which is arrogance personified) and yet, very few women and no men feel compelled to shroud themselves as such. The niqab erases individual identity and objectifies women, and only women so it is disingenuous to present it as just another arbitrary fashion choice. Especially when you and those that don the awful garment know very well that male religious dictat in other parts of the world make the burqa an instrument of cruel oppression. The niqab appears to me as pathological as self mutilation.