I want to comment on your post as you invited us to read it on Gary’s wall.

The truth is I probably agree with Gary’s conclusion that New Labour is to blame for the rise of the BNP however I very much disagree with the justification.

In your post, you too seem to consider that Jack Straw’s comments on the niqab were incendiary or offensive. I am very much supportive of the right for women (or men) to freely choose how to dress within the bounds of decency in public (although I highly support the right of men and women to also go fully naked on naturist beaches if they feel like it). As such my first view on the niqab is: if some muslim want to wear it, then they should. However, there are some additional factors there that also need to be taken into account. First of all – it is well known and well documented that the wearing of the niqab is very often under the constraint of family environment (husband, father) etc (I tell you immediately that I am ready to concede that some muslim women will say they wear it totally from their own will). As such – and also because in some Muslim countries (or some specific regions of Muslim countries – for instance there is a big difference between big cities in Syria (Aleppo/ Damascus) where you will see women unveiled, and some more remote villages where you won’t see any unveiled women)) wearing the niqab is a constraint for women, and also prevents them from engaging in societal activities, or what would one call emancipation. The same happens in some places in France, and women’s associations (composed of 1srt or second generation immigrants) are fighting a long and hard battle to change mentalities.

The point of the niqab is that it established an assymetric relationship between the person that wears it and the person that does not. I can bee seen, but I can’t see. One of the main characters of our societies, and part of our humanist experience is that, as French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas said in 1981 in Ethique & Infini, that I am able to engage with somebody else, and therefore reflect on my own humanity because I can see the other’s face, in its nudity, which means it vulnerability, reminding me of my own vulnerability. Not only therefore do I consider wearing the niqab deshumanising for the person that wears it, but also for me as well. And this is true of all sort of fully veiled types. Remember the Klu – Klux – Klan wearing their long white robes. This is of the same order (I tell you immediately I do not compare Islam to KKK but I am just using this as an analogy – it could be Christians, Jews or Buddhist wearing the niqab, my comments would be the same).

What do you think ?

>> On a similar topic – with your book coming out in America for teenagers, I hope that you have some information that addresses race athletics. If there is a last bastion of racism, it is in the belief that some races are “better” at certain sports than others. In particular there is a lot empirical “evidence” that cites the overwhelming number of AA athletes in leagues like the NBA, or the view numbers of AA NFL Quarterbacks (see Rush Limbaugh comments), or even that AA athletes cannot swim… as proof that there are eugenic properties to race. Would love to see your response to that notion, I think a chapter on Race and Sport would really be interesting to the American teenager.