|
|
|||
|
|||
|
|
Tony Blair: Veils Are a 'Mark of Separation'
Veils are a sign of separation, Prime Minister Tony Blair said Tuesday, taking a strong stand in an emotional debate that has raised broad questions about Muslim communities' ties with the rest of Britain. Britain's Muslims must find a balance between preserving their cultural distinctiveness and participating fully in broader society, Blair said. Recent heated arguments about the veils that hide the faces of some Muslim women are part of a wider debate raging across Europe about how Muslims fit into Western nations, he said. Both Muslims and non-Muslims in Britain must face up to such difficult questions, he said at his monthly news conference. The conversation "is there in every village, town and city of the British nation at the moment, and also in other European nations and worldwide," he told reporters. "People want to know that the Muslim community in particular but actually all minority communities have got the balance right between integration and multiculturalism."
Veils have been in the headlines since former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, now leader of the House of Commons, said two weeks ago that he asks those visiting his district office to remove them.
Story Continues Below
That set off an angry back-and-forth about a garment seen as a symbol of some Muslims' reluctance to enter fully into British life. The issue of alienation was brought painfully to Britons' attention last year, when four young British Muslims carried out suicide bombings that killed 52 commuters on London's transit network. The veil "is a mark of separation, and that's why it makes other people from outside the community feel uncomfortable," Blair said. "Now no one wants to say that people don't have the right to do it, I mean that's to take it too far." Blair said all evidence showed that "when people do integrate more, they achieve more as well. There is a reason why minority communities that have integrated well then end up doing better, achieving more, attaining more." The prime minister angrily rejected suggestions that British foreign policy — particularly the war in Iraq — has helped radicalize some young Muslims. "It's absurd," he said, arguing that opposition to the conflict does not justify acts of terrorism.
"If (radicals) are going to use that as an excuse to cause further extremism or violence, that is a reflection on them, it's not a reflection on the work we are doing in Iraq or Afghanistan," he said. Britain's army chief set off a firestorm last week by telling a newspaper that British troops should leave Iraq soon because in some areas they were provoking violence rather than preventing it. Blair repeated his contention that Gen. Richard Dannatt's comments were in accord with government policy because he was not suggesting that British forces leave before Iraqi troops were ready to take over security duties. Blair vehemently defended Britain's deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying both missions were important "for the security of our country, the security of the world." "If we walk away before the job is done from either of those two countries, we will leave a situation in which the very people that we're fighting everywhere, including in extremism in our own country, are heartened and emboldened and we can't afford that to happen," he said. "What we've got to do is to see that job through." The debate over Muslim veils in Britain has focused most recently on the case of Aishah Azmi, a teaching assistant in northern England who was suspended from her job for refusing to remove a black covering that leaves only her eyes visible. Blair said he backed the local education authority's handling of the case and its right to decide whether the veil interfered with Azmi's ability to carry out her work, although he didn't say specifically whether he supported the suspension.
© 2006 Associated Press.
Editor's note:
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Inside Cover Stories
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Print Page 
Forward Page 
|
| All Rights Reserved © 2009 NewsMax.Com |