Cover up

Thank God for friends like Ceri who phones up to let me know that Peter Lord’s programme on Archie Griffiths (the painter) is on S4C, translates the programme blurb for me and has offered to record it for me. Why, you may ask, do I, an eager cultural dilettante, have to have the programme recorded for me? Why can I not record it for myself? I have, after all, a video recorder.

The answer to this situation is to be found in Stamford Bridge – where Chelsea is playing Barcelona. Toni is, at this moment, with shaking hands, making a milk shake with all the nonchalant calm of Attila the Hun trying to decide which burning village to use to roast his marshmallows before dunking them in his sanguine Ovaltine. He is, it must be admitted, a little tense.

For him it is very simple: Barcelona are the Chosen Ones of God while José Mourinho is the anti-Christ and his team a rag bag selection of cheaters and overrated, unprofessional nonentities. The fact that I also have an opinion about this game and the relative merits of each manager and of members of their teams; that I know the colour of Barcelona’s away strip; that I can name and defend my choice of favourite Barca player [Puyol by the way, though I am not unimpressed by the brilliant skills of Messi and Ronaldinho, but Puyol is constantly impressive and dependable]; that I have watched more football in the last few years than I have in the whole of the rest of my life – is more than astonishing, it is, um, uncharacteristic, but, it is something that I will have to live with. You never know, in time, I might even begin to like football. (Only joking, Toni!)

The continuing debate about the wearing of the full face veil is constantly interesting. The quality of debate is not scintillating but the political background and the desperate positioning of various politicians (who are obviously paranoid about being wrong footed on the wrong side of a divide that they don’t really comprehend) is little short of farcical. I can’t help feeling that this question is not the most pressing in Britain today but, being cynical, it does allow a populist twist away from the main debate on the Iraq war so that the essential elements in this wrong headed conflict are swamped by a ‘which side are you on’ debate in which vital considerations are reduced to the bicycle shed/atomic power station level. You know the sort of thing. Parkinson in one of his laws said that the amount of debate on a particular subject is in inverse proportion to the number of people who have any technical knowledge about the matter being discussed. So, everyone knows about bicycle sheds and everyone has an opinion and a strongly held point of view which they express at great length, whereas the complexity of a nuclear power station leaves most of us behind, so the whole complex is passed through committee on the nod.

The Islamic veil for women is obvious and clearly visible. The links with masks, balaclavas, and hoodies: all covers associated with negative sometimes criminal, certainly anti social activities. The choice therefore, for most the population is relatively simple: hiding the face means something to hide means danger.

From what I have been able to glean the full veil is not stipulated in the Koran; it is not a statement of the Prophet it is not an undisputed piece of Islamic tradition. I further understand that there is a considerable amount of debate within the faith about the veil. With an open display in an open society, discussion by non Islamic folk is not prejudice, it is a right.

Like so much of women’s clothing: tight skirts, very short skirts, delicate stockings, corsets, cramped shoes, high heeled shoes, the use of cosmetics, the growing of long fingernails – all of these, seem to me to be yet another way of subjugating women in making their ‘appropriate’ appearance something which limits their movement and freedom. The blatant differences between the dress of men and women in some Islamic dominated societies emphasises the dominant position of men and the subordinate position of women. I do not find it strange that some Islamic women embrace the hajib and burka and paradoxically claim that they are liberating; didn’t some women organise themselves against the suffragettes who were fighting for votes for women when women were lumped with criminals, lunatics and the House of Lords in not having the vote.

I was interested to listen to one British woman who had taken to wearing the full burka in spite of the fact that her own mother did not wear it. One commentator suggested that it was the fact that this woman had grown up in a liberal democracy that had, paradoxically, encouraged her to become more restrictive. A society which allowed her to consider her own sense of identity in a society of multiple identities, where individuality is encouraged, allowed her to assume a more demonstrative version of a position that she felt could be more central and help her respond to the challenge of an open society.

To be frank I find the burka sinister and restricting; it does suggest a complete rejection of a whole way of life and society. It reminds me of the arrogance of the English in India who defiantly dressed as though they were in the Home Counties; a complete rejection of the values and importance of the people they were among. I relished reading an account of a viceregal ball in India where the ladies were in full evening dresses and the men in full evening dress and both sets of them dripping in torrents of sweat almost immediately as the evening commenced. An absurd assertion of irrelevant

How is the wearing of the burka different? A defiant assertion of difference? A provocative rejection of a different version of society? A glaring sexism? A symbol of devotion? This easy-to-join-in-debate will run and run.

I am reading an excellent book called “When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple” (ISBN: 0-918949-16-5) a compilation of writing and photographs of “women living in their later years.” The title is taken from the opening line of Jenny Joseph’s poem ‘Warning.’ It is edited by Sandra Haldeman Martz and has contributions from a whole range of people I have never heard of, but have much enjoyed reading. As an example of the little delights that await in this volume, take the poem ‘In Conclusion’, the last of a series of short poems in a sequence entitled, ‘A Place for Mother’ by Joanne Seltzer.

IN CONCLUSION

Not wanting to be a burden
on your children
you sign yourself into a nursing home.

You become active
in every group
and serve on every committee.

You are voted
resident-of-the-month,
a role model.

Mother would be proud of you.