I see that Richard Dawkins has been somewhat outspoken again. This time, it’s the Burqua that is the target of his ire.
The 69-year-old author and Oxford academic said he is filled with “visceral revulsion” when he sees women wearing the traditional Islamic covering.
I don’t see anything particularly controversial about that view. I share it. A suspect that a lot of people share it. So what?
But he held back from advocating a ban on the all-enveloping cloak, insisting that such legislation would fly in the face of Britain’s liberal tradition.
And he is perfectly correct. Again, it is a view I share. I despise Islam and everything that it represents. I deplore the misogyny and the overt adoption of wahhabist cultural clothing to identify themselves as different, pretending that it is an expression of piety. But as long as there is no attempt to impose any form of Islamic law on the rest of us, then, I’m relaxed. If people want to walk about in bin-liners, let ’em.
Oh, it’s the bin-liner thing that is the problem…
Professor Dawkins referred to the burka as a “full bin-liner thing” in an interview with the Radio Times in which he discussed his forthcoming documentary on the dangers of faith schools.
He has sparked fury among Muslim groups, who have accused him of being “ignorant” and “Islamophobic”.
Ah, yeah… the old “Islamophobia” thing. Look, deploring Islam is neither irrational nor is it necessarily a fear. The term Islamophobia is merely a construct designed to shut down debate and as such should be challenged at every opportunity. Saying that we dislike Islam or object to the wahhabist clothing adopted by some Moslems is not a phobia. And, expressing our thoughts on the matter is a part of another great British liberal tradition; freedom of speech, something that is an anathema to the primitive Islam and its incompetent Sharia legal system.
But he stood by his remarks last night…
And so he should. While I am often irritated by Dawkins’ abrasive version of atheism, freedom of speech means allowing people to say things that other people don’t like. And if Moslems don’t like their ridiculous clothing being likened to bin-liners, then that’s just too bad. Our liberal traditions are more important than their medieval belief system.
I expect some of the more volatile followers of the religion of peace will be demanding that Dawkins be beheaded…
*sighs*
Fair play to him, at last he’s mixing it up with the sort of people whose displeasure doesn’t merely take the form of a stiffly-worded letter to ‘The Church Times’…
Not a bin liner fan myself, but am a fan of the right to choose what (and what not) to wear even more. If these women want to wear bin liners OF THEIR OWN FREE WILL, then they have my full support, even though I doubt that they will support my right not to wear a motorcycle helmet.
Atheist – someone who worships Richard Dawkins.
Right with you (and Dawkins) on this one.
So he stands up for their right to wear what they want, but because he calls it by a comical term they are still up in arms?
Islam is all about intolerance, in any form they can make it. They don’t care about our freedom of speech. They don’t have it, they don’t want it and they don’t want us to have it.
I don’t worship Richard Dawkins…
Julia, Stan and Bucko, indeed.
H&M, I would expect nothing less 😉
Good for him.
“Our liberal traditions are more important than their medieval belief system”
Hear, hear!
If only our ruling class would take such a robust view of the matter.