Veils, turbans and "rivers of blood"

Controversy about the how other cultures and religions dress is centuries old – stretching at least as far back as ancient Roman anxieties about the flamboyantly coloured costume of the eastern priests of the goddess Cybele (also known as  “the Great Mother”). It’s odd that most of those who have recently huffed and puffed on either side of the Jack Straw “veil debate” seem to have forgotten the almost equally fierce arguments in the 1960s about a quite different article of religious clothing: Sikh turbans.

When I was a child, growing up in the West Midlands, one of the big issues of multiculturalism (though we didn’t yet call it that) was whether local Sikh bus drivers and conductors should be allowed to work with long beards and their traditional headdress. It provoked national debate and banner headlines no less doom-laden than what we have seen and heard over the last week. Panic intensified after one Wolverhampton Sikh threatened to burn himself to death unless the prohibition was relaxed. There were rumoured to be many  more prepared  to follow his suicidal example.

Opinions were, of course, divided. Many Sikhs felt that their religion was being insulted by a prohibition on turbans. Others were uneasy about the hardline stance, worrying about the “worsening of community harmony” that it might cause. But the problem was resolved when in 1969 the Wolverhampton Transport Authority gave in to the pressure. I cannot now remember what had caused their opposition in the first place.But, apart from the old-fashioned assumption that men on the buses would not be the same without peaked caps, I imagine it came down to some version of  (in Straw’s words) ‘separation’ and ‘difference’.

Forty years on Sikhs are still threatened by the endemic racism that even now affects the lives of anyone in this country who is not ‘safely’ white. And, since 9/11, there has been some unease in the New York transport department about traditional Sikh dress. But no-one in Britain, apart from the lunatic fringe of the BNP, would surely think anything odd about a bus-driver wearing a turban (and most of would be only too delighted to have conductors back, whatever they were wearing).

It is hard at the distance of almost 40 years to recollect the intensity of feeling generated by this particular controversy. But it lay directly behind Enoch Powell’s infamous ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, delivered in Birmingham in 1968. Towards the end of this, he quoted the words of the then Labour MP and  government minister, John Stonehouse decrying the stance of the local Sikhs and their campaign for the right to wear the turban:

“The Sikh communities' campaign,” said Stonehouse, in tones no better than Powell’s, “to maintain customs inappropriate in Britain is much to be regretted. Working in Britain, particularly in the public services, they should be prepared to accept the terms and conditions of their employment. To claim special communal rights (or should one say rites?) leads to a dangerous fragmentation within society. This communalism is a canker: whether practised by one colour or another it is to be strongly condemned.”

This was no straightforward party political issue.

Looking back at the full text of Powell’s speech, you will find it springs a number of surprises. Not least, Powell never used the phrase “Rivers of blood”. He actually quoted a line from the sixth book of Virgil’s Aeneid. “I see the river Tiber foaming with much blood” ("Et Thybrim multo spumantem sanguine cerno”, line 86). These are the words of the prophetic Sibyl, uttered to Aeneas, the refugee from Troy and ancestor of the Romans, on his way to re-establish his ancestral line on Italian soil.

Uncharacteristically, Powell seems to have overlooked the way the quotation might contradict his own arguments. True, the Sibyl was referring to the bloodshed that would result from Aeneas’ attempt to found his new city in Latin territory, integrating his own line into that of the native population. But that bloodshed would lead to a strong and proudly mixed community of Trojans and Latins. And Aeneas’ Rome in due course would become the most successful multi-cultural society of the ancient world – granting full citizenship to the inhabitants of its imperial territories, and eventually seeing Spaniards, Africans and others on the Roman imperial throne.

Sikh turbans or not, Powell should have thought a bit harder about the implications of his clever classical allusion.

Comments

[Katherine]

Or V for vacuous, vainglorious, victim-hood, violent, virulent, but, heck, who has time to peruse the entire alphabet to sum up such denial of self as epitomised by the moslem 'veil'?

So, in the spirit of Churchill, and of the British who have never been conquered by tyranny, one's response to the moslem veil is surely:

'V' for VAE VICTIS.

[Lord Truth]

A brief word on the veil...
The wearing of the veil by British Muslim women has absolutely nothing to do with religion.
It represents a personal protest against the failure of Western politicians to do anything constructive about Israel,Palestine or Iraq
As such it is identical to Winston Churchills famous "V for Victory" gesture and the "v"signs chalked on walls throughout Europe in World War Two....
The use of the veil will undoubtedly increase....V for Victory....V for veil....

[betty]

um, no - I'm not brainwashed, I have no time for Enoch Powell, and I have actually thought about my opinions - in this case for a very long time - and, although it's not clear from comments, I'm not actuaaly British -I'm Australian. And yes, we have lots of Islamic migrants here, most of them lovely people.

[john gregory Flinn]

Betty's post surely epitomises the deep Brain-washing and Indoctrination that has befallen Britain today.
It confirms my earlier post, and exactly what Enoch Powell was warning against - ".. to overawe and dominate the rest with legal weapons".
These weapons being - inter alia - multiculturism and the industry it spawns.
British people feel deeply uncomfortable and, even perhaps racist, just explaining educational practice in schools to Islamic women whose horizons are limited to a transplanted Third World village.(sic; Michael Burleigh, The Times 6 Oct.)
Betty is not irrational, she has simply been "dominated and overawed" by all the politically correct claptrap since Enoch Powell's time.

[luke]

and eventually seeing Spaniards, Africans and others on the Roman imperial throne...
Which led to the eventual demise of the Empire

[betty]

In principle, I think that everybody should be able to wear whatever they like, and it's none of my business. But as a school enrolment officer I occasionally had to meet totally veiled Islamic women, usually in the context of them wanting their children exempted from certain subjects - sport, PE and music for the girls, just music and sport for the boys. Now I had to explain to them that this was impossible - and I found it a deeply uncomfortable experience. Every day I dealt happily with girls wearing headscarves, Sikhs in turbans,and various eccentricities of dress to be found in a school which has abolished uniform, but these ladies were different.

I still think they should be allowed to wear what they like, but we should acknowledge that it can be a very unsettling experience. I seldom felt confident that they had understood the school's position, and I always felt that they were personally hostile towards me. I fought this feeling as irrational and perhaps racist, but there is no point in dnying that I felt it.

[Alex Drace-Francis]

PS a correspondent from Michigan sends me her article in which she quotes a 1913 TLS review of Zeyneb Hanim's book A Turkish Woman's European Experiences in which the reviewer knocks the author for wearing a veil, apparently attributable to her upper-class Europeanized but rebellious background ('Veiled Women', TLS, 1913, cited by Kader Konuk, 'Ethnomasquerade in Ottoman-European Encounters' Criticism, vol. 46 (3) 2004, pp. 393-414). Maybe Mr. Straw gets his ideas by leafing through back copies of your publication?

[Mike]

What is so frightening about the veil is that it is not worn as a religious duty at all, but is a uniform that signals detestable and abhorrent politics. If the same values were being spouted by white guys wearing masks, they would be banged up in no time. Have we learned nothing from the rise of the Nazis and what that lead to. I grew up believing "never again" but am now genuinely afraid.

[Neil Murphy]

I had completely forgotten about the Turban controversy. I think the whole veil thing is hysteria, and its shameful the government and other political and social leaders are stoking this particular issue. Women should not be forced to wear the veuil, but they should be forced not to. I don't like the veil, I don't like to see women wearing it, voluntarily or otherwise, but the hysterical nature of the debate is helping no one except the terrorists.

[harry mickelson]

"Sorry to be so brutal but I am Lord Truth and thats the brutal truth....Britian is a very prosperous and sadly very sick society."

Then feel free to leave, Lord Truth. Your heightened sensitivities and proclivity for honesty will doubtless find you a warm welcome in many countries around the world. It'll be tough, but I think we'll cope without you.

[john gregory Flinn]

"But no-one in Britain, apart from the lunatic fringe of the BNP, would surely think anything odd about a bus-driver wearing a turban..."

Well they would in France!
Perhaps you equate France with 'the lunatic fringe of the BNP'?
Has it never occurred to you why it is that the French manage to deal with the immigrants' costumery issues better then the British, or English?
It cannot be very flattering to realise that Britain and the British can so easily be conned by these 'foreign johnies'. Or, do you feel sorry for them, and their plight back in the 3rd world?
Either way it is a form of racism. Because you treat one ethnic group differently on account of their race and/or culture. Morover, in this case the Sikhs are treated better, because for example, they are effectively exempt from the laws relating to the wearing of crash helmets.

This is what Enoch Powell was driving at, with his 'Rivers of Blood' speech - discrimination against the host community. His words used are as follows; "immigrant communities can organise to consolidate their members, to agitate and campaign against their fellow citizens, and to overawe and dominate the rest with the legal weapons".
Without a doubt this is exactly what is happening, and has happened in Britain today.

[Vision Eagle]

Ancient Rome a great and noble society???

What a strange view, especially considering the ruthless way in which they conquered the British Isles. Rape, Pillage and Plunder, that was the rule of the day. And to enslave everyone in sight, unless you killed them outright.

The reverberations of this mentality have been echoing down through the bloody halls of western *civilization* ever since. Hitler was just one more attempt at reconstituting the Roman Empire.

You call that a good thing? All these invasions, all this bloodshed. All of this self righteous arrogance?

It was not such a very long time ago that America put all of the Japanese in prison, for the simple crime of not being "white". Justified by a bunch of scare tactics about how some of them might be spies etc..

Afterward, when people came back to their senses, they vowed never again to allow such insanity to happen. Or at least they claimed that they did. But today, people seem to have forgotten those vows. Once again the hysteria mongers are working the crowds. People are giving away their rights to freedom and privacy on the premise that somebody might be out to get us....

Now it is true that some very bad things have happened. But the fear mongers take these entirely out of context. "Oh poor *innocent* us, look what those monsters have done, to us." The presentation is always one-sided. The presentation always ignores what we did to them... Such as dropping hundreds of tons of radioactive munitions on Iraq, thus ensuring centuries of cancer and birth defects. Very strange how some people manage to define terrorism and weapons of mass destruction?

[Lord Truth]

The level of absurd nonsense written on these comment boards amazes me...and from Times readers....
The multicultural phenomenon that the British are famous for has its roots in the British class system.This ensures that nearly three quarters of the population whether prosperous ,war heroes or successful in some way ,know they are essentially isolated from the heart of British culture---to put it brutally- they are white lower class niggers.This is what comes of having a long history ,a class system that has extended in recent years and a huge enduring high culture. Britains "low" culture-football rowdiness -the "Carry Ons" pigeon racing,pub talk,Max miller-is all wonderful as well, yet one can still remain locked out of the heart of Britishness.In the past this did not matter because the population was deferential-"I'm only a servant but I love my master and the King and his Lordship."With this society destroyed the masses are aimless and feel worthless-until -thank de lord -along comes de BLACK nigger and the PAKI and all the rest .AT LAST these are people I can relate to -they are like me technically British -yet out of the real loop...
It is for this reason that the British flock to Indian shops and get on so comfortably with blacks -..The fundamental rule of British society is the British LOVE ANYONE THEY FEEL COMFORTABLY SUPERIOR TO
If they meet anyone who doesnot fit exactly the part of the classic Englishman BUT who IS a real cultured Englishman the hatred they will exude is
terrifying.Incidentally include gays with the blacks above-yes the acceptance of gays has nothing to do with real acceptance merely that gays are like blacks and the others not real people merely a kind of talking dog...a gay person can never be equal to any "normal"white person so you can always be friendly to them...
Sorry to be so brutal but I am Lord Truth and thats the brutal truth....Britian is a very prosperous and sadly very sick society.

[azra]

I am a muslim woman in my experience wearing a veil is the same as wearing a mask, in other words it is difficult to have a dialogue with a person on the other side of the door!
Where as there is an obligation to have hair covered for Muslim women, there is no obligation to have the face covered. In that respect, in opinion the veil in this country is a symbol for many of us, as segregation/oppression not Islam.
My solidarity is with the women of the world who, are forced to choose between the niqab or death. If a choice is embedded with conditioning, conforming and a history of blood shed, then it is not a choice, it is a reaction!
George Galloway is misguided by his own political agenda. Muslims are facing the so called 'pre-pogrom barrage’s he puts, this is a mere exaggeration. The truth is Muslim women all over the world are faced with a pogrom on their Human Rights. He would sell all our human rights just for the Muslim vote. He should be shamed of himself, for supporting a backward cultural practice. He may as well have supported female circumcision! SHAME ON THE GUARDIAN!!
We are of Muslim background and have daughters we can speak for ourselves. We do not wish to see OUR daughters walking DOWN the streets with BLACK SACKS OVER THEIR HEADS, IN ORDER TO FEEL CONFIDENT, OR, TO BE RESPECTED. WE DEMAND RESPECT AS HUMAN BEINGS!
The debate on the veil is much deeper and complex than a woman's right to choice, or Galloway being an expert on Muslim issues!
Just like racism is institutionalised so is women's oppression. When young women want to change how they look, with the thinking this will change how they feel about themselves. (Plastic surgery e.t.c)We question the society we live in, that forces women to such drastic actions. Likewise, when women want to cover themselves in veils (especially the younger generation) we should be questioning the society that informs people psychologically, to go to such extreme lengths. (Not shouting the race card!)
To suggest that women wear the veil because it prevents men lusting over them is to degrade men. Secondly, many women who wear the veils in this country have family that has originated from countries like Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. Take a visit there. There is hardly a veil to be seen.
Wearing the veil is also banned in Mecca and also many other Muslim countries. Have they banned it because they are racist?? It is banned because it represents subjugation of women. To say it makes a women feel near god is utter rubbish and distortion of Islam. It is a Dark Ages abusive cultural practice.
I am Muslim myself. I do not support the state in legislating, what people wear or don’t wear. However, I welcome the debate on the veil, long time over due in my opinion. I find the veil offensive and I find women who support it misguided. (because I live in England I can have an opinion, however if I were to say this in a strict Islamic country, I would face being stoned to death or prison!!)
To say we are educated women and are wearing the veil from free choice does not change the fact that the veil perpetuates women’s oppression. Women, who work in the porn industry, are also educated and say, they do this from free choice. This does not prevent their exploitation.
For so long it has been the Pakistani Muslims communities including groups such as MAB, who have not allowed a dialogue to take place on these issues. People have feared the race card and women like us have feared harassment from the minority for speaking our minds.
The left with their own political agenda has colluded, by unconditionally supporting those, who shout the race card, each time a degrading practice is challenged at the expense of human rights for all!
In this country you have girls young as five wearing the hyjab. How repulsive and disturbing is this, to think these children are covered to stop men lusting over them.
British women should not remove the veil but, should analyse their own beliefs and value systems and, if they feel the rest of us don’t understand Islam or a women’s right to choice, then may be they need to make their way to countries that support these Dark Age beliefs. They will find that the veil is banned in places like Mecca, Turkey, Kurdistan and many other Muslim states. Are these countries racist? Or is it they place value on women’s right to dignity without, having to resort to such degrading measures.
Muslim woman azra

[Wackford Squaares]

And by the way, tge statement "I haven't seen the faces, or heard the voices of anyone on this message board, yet I am perfectly able to agree, disagree and communicate with you all" reminds me of a funny: Dog at computer keyboard says, "One good thing about computers, they'll never know it's a dog."

[Wackford Squaares]

" . . .one Wolverhampton Sikh threatened to burn himself to death unless the prohibition was relaxed. There were rumoured to be many more prepared to follow his suicidal example."

Yes, there are indeed differences between the Sikh turban controversy and the present-day veil flap. There are plenty of Muslim suicide(homicide) bombers who don't just burn themselves to death but take many innocents with them. They do it practically every day. And we are growing increasingly numb to it.

[Alex Drace-Francis]

Muslim culture has no monopoly on either violence or vestimentary head-coverings: the latter have been traditional in many Christian communities in the East, while West Europeans have been pretty good at the former over the years. Nor can assumption of a veil be seen as presaging the 'rejecting of, the commonly understood duties and obligations of a democratic society', as Kate puts it, since there is no law or common agreement on the subject. Mr. Straw on the other has assumed formal obligations to represent his constituents, not to make impertinent remarks on their clothing. It seems to me he has no more business doing this than they would have asking him to remove his shoes (as is customary in many households).
An analogy from a different epoch offers other morals: When the King of Hungary was doing badly in the then war on terror (aka crusade against the Ottomans) in 1463, he tried to divert attention by accusing his neighbour the Prince of Wallachia of cruelty. The famous bit is that this guy (known to posterity as Vlad the Impaler) impaled his victims on stakes; a lesser known piece of spin against him was that when Italian ambassadors came to see him they took off their hats but not their turbans - yes, Italians wore turbans back then - and that Vlad, angered at this discourtesy, allegedly nailed them down to their wearers' heads. Back then, intolerant response to strange customs was something shameful to accuse your rival of doing, not something to be boasting about to the press.

[Katherine]

Having read Mr Powell's speech in full, I am impressed by his prescience and his correct estimation of what the policies of 'multiculturalism' and unrestricted immigration would portend for his nation. Multiculturalism is actually a Marxist and thus, left-wing attempt, not to 'embrace,' 'celebrate' or 'respect' all cultures, but, rather, to denigrate, debase and deny one's own parent and foundational culture. In Britain's and the Eurabian Union's case, that means the Christian beliefs, values and concepts which have made for a relatively tolerant society. His use of that quotation may have simply been the realist's acknowledgement that the re-establishment of one's own national ethos is never obtained without violence and suffering. The present controversy over veils is not over either social or religious usage: it is over premises that are antithetical to one another: the Judaeo-Christian concept of the individual and his relationship with God and the Islamic notion which regards womankind as a 'shameful orifice.' Upon that appraisal of humanity, and Islam's other disparaging tenets, rest the social and religious stances which threaten our civilisation. Those of us who have recourse to the internet and are not reliant on the msm, are aware that Islam's goal of a worldwide state is to be obtained through violence (jihad); this is not some minor theory tucked into a corner of Islam which has been dusted off by 'extremists.' We are aware that, not only in the Middle East, but also in Africa, Asia, the Americas and in Britain and Europe, volence is used to enforce Islam's law, sharia, and that this occurs wherever Moslems have populated or emigrated in sufficient numbers to create enclaves. These enclaves are reaching out, both politically and socially. This is why this controversy arouses strong feelings, especially amongst intelligent Western women, who realise it is they who are the ultimate targets. Whether a nation must lose its soul before surrending its identity or whether its failure to uphold its ethos leads to such an end, lifeblood will be spilt. Lastly, in a letter to the press shortly after this 'River of Blood' speech, Mr Powell wrote that this unrestricted immigration, and what it would portend, was the fault of the British people and their leaders: "when we contemplate the consequences of what we call immigration, we are contemplating the consequences of our own determination to take refuge from reality in pretence." ( He is referring to the legislative change from a British Empire to a Commonwealth of Nations with unrestricted immigration into Britain). "So great a catastrophe does not happen unless a whole people wills it upon itself." The classicist in him therefore probably saw that 'river of blood' as the consequence of hubris.

[ResoluteReader]

The similarity between the comments on the veil and those on the turban is not about whether the item of clothing covers the face - it is about the scapegoating of a section of the population based on something that is different about them.

Two things strike me - that Muslim women (who don't all wear the veil) will be increasingly donning it, to stick to fingers up to Jack Straw and secondly, that this isn't really about the ability of Mr. Straw or anyone else to communicate with women in veils. I haven't seen the faces, or heard the voices of anyone on this message board, yet I am perfectly able to agree, disagree and communicate with you all.

Mr. Straw may well be entitled to his views on the veil - the problem is that he has used his elevated position in society to raise them, at a time when racism and Islamaphobia is on the rise in society. A rise that has a lot to do with the actions of Mr. Straw's own government.

[Mary]

Let me reply to some of these interesting comments. First (re Jackie and Kate) the focus of my comparison was intended to be a little narrower than you take it to be. Of course there are major differences in culture and implication between the two forms of head gear. But the media panic about turbans 40 years ago (now strangely or happily forgotten) was now less over the top thaan what we see on the veil today. My underlying point is that clothing (like food) is one of the most common cultural areas to be mobilised when we talk about difference and separation ... it is a good 'carrier' of cultural anxieties.
For Susan, I am not saying that I think Virgil was necessarily right (or wrong). My argument is that (unusually) Powell went rather against the grain of his classical quotation...turning it into a prophecy of doom (which it wasn't exactly).

[emanuel appel]

It starts with the veil and it ends with you having to cover up whether in Iran or in the Moslem areas of Paris.

How soon before your scholarship is affected? Ah, yes, Classics, but what about the medievalist? What does he write about Mohamed and the Moslem invasions?

[Kate]

As always, an interesting, but I fear, this time a somewhat naive, analysis. There is little point in 'comparing and contrasting' the Britain of 40 years ago and the multicultural Britain of today. Or, the Britain of today with ancient Rome.

One can, surely, only compare 'like with like'. The Sikh community have never sought to impose their cultural or religious diktats on the majority. Nor, to my knowledge, has any other ethnic or religious immigrant minority?

I fear the veil debate is merely the tip of an iceberg. Muslim representatives in Britain today present as 'above' and rejecting of, the commonly understood duties and obligations of a democratic society.

Might I suggest a closer and more appropriate comparison would be with 20th century totalitarian regimes in Europe and Russia, both achieved by strategies identical to those employed by European Muslims today.

[Jackie]

I think there is a major difference between the argument about Sikh turbans, and Jack Straw's comments about wearing of veils. Turbans do not hide the face. What I understood Jack Straw to say was that he, personally, found it profoundly uncomfortable to converse with someone when he couldn't see anything but the eyes, not that Muslim women should not be allowed to wear a veil if they chose to do so. This is a view I can go along with. They have a right to wear what they choose, he has a right to say, out loud, if it makes him uncomfortable.

[Susan Ingram]

How long did it take for this 'strong and proundly mixed community' to in due course 'become the most successful multicultural society of the ancient world'. How much blood got shed before it all worked out, and didn't the Roman Empire fall, so do we really want to do it their way.

[JZ]

The pun on 'rights' and 'rites' is particularly repellant...and seems from another age (let's hope).