No, we shouldn’t forget this image:
The reason given for Lambeth Palace to withdraw the “Interfaith” award was because of Hafiz Ashrafi’s previous enthusiasm for Osama bin Laden. A possible oversight, perhaps, though horribly embarrassing, and unforgivable on the 25th anniversary of 9/11. But for me, and I’m sure for many people, the horror of the whole event is captured here, with the supposedly feminist archbishop grinning inanely while standing next to a woman in a black sack, and another with her face almost hidden. The likely reason why the woman in the sack, Ashrafi’s wife, is even present is because she can be given the medal – later pictures show her with the medal round her neck – so that Ashrafi himself doesn’t have to touch a woman.
Disrespect isn’t the half of it. It sums up so much in one extraordinary photo.
Camilla Long in the Times feels the same way:
How do you feel when you see a woman in a burqa? Perhaps you have not seen one in a while. Perhaps you live in Inverness, or the remotest tip of Wales. But in this part of north London, I see them all the time. I may see maybe three or four niqabs on the way to the Tube. On the bus, always. And whenever I see them, I never, ever get over the way that I feel. I feel livid — ragingly angry — like I have to do something about it. But what?
To wear a full-length shroud is to be clinically closed off from the world. It is to be placed in a cloth prison. No matter how much you tell me it is religious expression, how the women want it, how it is their choice — to me, it is enforced disability. These women can’t easily run, walk or see.
So when we saw the pictures of the Archbishop of Canterbury — an avowed “feminist” and first woman in the post — handing an award to Imam Hafiz Ashrafi, a fan of Osama bin Laden, at Lambeth Palace on the 25th anniversary of 9/11, it wasn’t Ashrafi himself who most alarmed me, nor the monstrous stupidity/comedy of the timing.
It was the fact that standing next to him was a single, blank black column of faceless nothingness: his wife. And then there was his daughter, also heavily masked, as if she were ill. How could the Palace not know there was an issue with this man? Every woman in the country knew with a single glance. Even — especially — the ones in burqas….
When is this kind of thing going to stop happening? It is not so much the stupid “mistakes” as the incessant, evil gaslighting. The presentation of men like Ashrafi as friendly and avuncular, the praise of his “tolerance” — tolerance meaning what, anyway? It is the same as the insistent, malicious arguing for separate laws, separate schools, separate communities — for, essentially, ghettos. For the headscarf on female children and the ongoing, mendacious support for the burqa and the niqab, using our own liberalism as a weapon against us.
“It’s her choice.”
“She loves it” — that is the line of the hard left in this country when it comes to full face coverings.
“She loves it.” Ever heard that before?
We cannot continue pretending any of this is normal, that it fits our cultural values, that we are the country we were 20 years ago. Why aren’t feminists tearing their hair out? Or are they excusing this behaviour for fear it’s them their friends on the left will call racist? Left-wing newspapers, of course, have hardly covered this story at all.
Sarah Mullally, by the way — I cannot think of a better example of mimsy cowardice and self-indulgence. When she was elected this year, the first thing she said was that she would “speak” against misogyny. When misogyny physically turned up at the Palace, though, she said zero. She even posed for a picture with it, awkwardly laughing it off.
The problem is much deeper than Sarah Mullally and the C of E. But that picture sums it up perfectly.
Should we ban the burqa, as Camilla Long goes on to demand? I’m in two minds. Yes, it never ceases to offend me, and it’s a walking display of contempt for western liberal values and for everything positive about social space in a vibrant modern multicultural society. And it screams misogyny. On the other hand….legislating for what people can and can’t wear? And the French ban doesn’t seem to have done much to counter the Islamists.
I don’t know – but I think I’m inclining now towards a ban.
Her other demand – ban all religious clothing in schools for under-16s – yes, absolutely.
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