Let’s not go 'wobbly’ over the veil

Most of the time, we Western liberals think we know what we believe in, and some of the time we articulate it. But when fundamentalism walks into the room, exuding its self-righteous sense of certainty (underpinned by a readiness to generate an almighty row), it is not uncommon for liberal values to go a bit wobbly. Since wobbliness is embarrassing, this is then swiftly rebranded as tolerance; I don’t think, however, that we should pretend that they are the same thing.

The most recent manifestation of wobbliness came from Birmingham Metropolitan College, which had a long-standing ban on hoodies, hats, caps and veils as part of an attempt to ensure that individuals were “easily identifiable” in a “safe and welcoming learning environment”. BMC is a large and sprawling institution, with more than 9,000 students aged upwards of 16, and it had evidently decided that it was better for campus security if faces were clearly visible.

Then one prospective female A-level student formally complained about the restriction on the veil, and before long the industry of outrage was in full swing: a petition gained 8,000 signatures, hundreds of students threatened to demonstrate, and in the end the college backed down. The MP for Birmingham Ladywood, Shabana Mahmood, called the climbdown “wise” since the veiled women “would have potentially been excluded from education and skills training at the college had the ban been enforced”.

Yet who, or what, would have been responsible for such exclusion? The veiled women would have been excluded on the same basis as a youth who refused to attend unless he could wear his balaclava. Much of the debate around the niqab, or full-face veil, seems wilfully to ignore the fact that it is not a compulsion but a choice. There are many Muslim women who do not wear the veil, and many Muslim scholars who argue that there is no requirement in the Koran to do so, merely to be modest in appearance. The full veil is worn in this country as a manifestation of an extreme religious – or political – viewpoint, designed loudly to proclaim the wearer’s heightened devotion to a particular version of Islam.

The question of where rights stop and dressing-up begins was dealt with succinctly by the Law Lords in 2006, in their ruling on the case of Shabina Begum, a who had relentlessly pursued her school through the courts for the right to ignore its uniform policy and instead wear an all-concealing garment called the jilbab. The school – which had a Muslim headmistress, Yasmin Bevan – had gone to great pains to devise a sensibly modest option for Muslim girls, but drew the line at the jilbab. The Law Lords found for the school, ruling that “a person’s right to hold a particular religious belief is absolute, but a person’s right to manifest a particular religious belief is qualified”.

And so it should be. I can see no argument for banning the niqab when worn by women in public places: it’s a free country, and adults can mostly wear what they want (although I note that the polar opposite of the veiled woman, the “Naked Rambler”, Stephen Gough, is perpetually being arrested and jailed for the crime of refusing to wear clothes, for his own philosophical reasons).

Yet what happens in colleges, hospitals, schools, airports, court-rooms and workplaces is another matter: in those places, one enters into a tacit contract with the institution to abide, within reason, by its rules, which are supported by the wider values of the state. Facial expressions are, and always have been, essential to effective communication and a sense of security in others. Judge Peter Murphy took this into careful account when he ruled last week that a female defendant should remove her niqab when giving evidence.

The lack of muscle in our Western liberal values is having some serious effects. First, it is permitting a fundamentalist strain of Islam to gain a foothold in spheres that should be protected, such as schooling and childhood: I am thinking of the

11-year-old girls who are required by certain Islamic schools to wear a burka to and from school. Second, it is failing to support those courageous British Muslims who openly oppose fundamentalism: it writes them out of the equation by ceding the ground to more fanatical groups as the “authentic” voices of the religion.

Muslims such as Dr Taj Hargey, the imam of the Oxford Islamic Congregation, have spoken out forcefully against the spread of the burka and the entrenchment of Wahhabism – the Saudi-influenced, misogynist variety of Islam – in the UK. I suppose Dr Hargey cannot comprehend why many other British citizens are so complacent. He seems to understand the oldest lesson of fundamentalism, across all centuries, countries and religions: that it never knows where to stop.

It’s no fun being the 'gas checker’

It was a striking sight, the photograph of a South Wales bungalow reduced to a pile of sticks and rubble while its owner was on holiday. Michelle Wright, a college lecturer and mother of three, was in Greece with her daughter when she received a phone call to tell her that her house had exploded with “a tremendous bang”. Firefighters believe the explosion was caused by a build-up of gas, which may have been left on when Mrs Wright went on holiday.

I feel sorry for Mrs Wright, but that spectacular image of ruin will sear itself into the mind of anyone who tends to fret before leaving the family home.

In my experience, there is usually one person in every couple who acts as the “checker” prior to departure. Often, other more carefree folk will laugh or roll their eyes at the checker, as he or she grouchily patrols the house, diligently turning off switches and tightening taps, testing the window catches and verifying the dormant state of the gas hob.

The worst thing that can happen – halfway up the motorway en route to the airport – is the blooming of a sudden doubt over whether the iron has been switched off. At such a point, it can be hard to see the line between the sensible diligence of the checker and the runaway imaginings of a sufferer from anxiety. If the iron is indeed on, it’s the former; if not, it’s the latter. I’m a checker, and it’s a thankless role: the only time the checker’s code is proved right is when things have gone horribly wrong.

A deluxe tank for discerning drunks

There is something appealing about the notion of a “drunk tank”, or tunk drank as it will almost certainly be called by those who are already seven vodka-and-tonics down. I fully understand that it is intended – as explained last week by Adrian Lee, chief constable of Northamptonshire – as a unit of punishment for heavily inebriated people who are making a nuisance of themselves, and bankrupting the health service. Still, perhaps we could be even more imaginative.

The proposal is that such lock-up tanks be run by private companies that would charge the newly sober miscreant, upon release, a scorching fine of around £400. This makes sense, I suppose, but, in the spirit of the free market, drunks should be offered a choice of tanks: the basic model, possibly padded and easily hosed down, or the de luxe tank, which might also be stocked with painkillers, blankets, juice, and a hot cup of tea in the morning. The extra profit on the superior service could, of course, be ploughed back into the NHS.

Think of where drunks usually gravitate to: gutters, doorways, pavements, hospital A&Es, and fights. Unpleasant places, all. I suspect that – caught at a susceptible point in the evening – they might think a warm trunk dank was cheap at the price.