Bel is thinking

A muslim woman in a headscarf applies for a job as a hairdresser. She tells the potential employer that she has to wear her headscarf at all times. Predictably, she is turned down for the job. She is now suing the hairdresser for discrimination.

Why do I say ‘predictably’? It’s because no hairdresser with any business sense would employ a stylist whose hair the customer cannot see. If I, as a customer, cannot see what the stylist has done to her own hair, why should I trust her with mine?

The case continues. I only hope common sense prevails. By all means, wear a headscarf if your religion mandates you to do so (doubtful, but let that pass); but don’t expect to work in a field where we need to see your hair.

Just wondering: if her religion really demands that she go everywhere with her hair covered, and given that no-one would trust a stylist with concealed hair, perhaps the logical (even if absurd) conclusion to draw is that perhaps Allah never intended for his women to work as hairdressers in the first place? I wonder if she’ll think on that.

So the Government now recognises that there is a ‘moral case’ for promoting the traditional family through the tax system?

Never mind that the Conservative Party has been saying this for a long time, and being accused by Labour of being ‘nasty’ and judgmental.

I am yet to be convinced that Labour actually recognise that marriage is actually the best state in which to bring up children. Of course not. This latest about-face is down to nothing more than political expediency.

And they have the cheek to accuse other people of ‘flip-flopping’.

And speaking of Labour’s U-turn, please remind me: who was it abolished the Married Couples’ Allowance for under 65s, in the first place?

Step forward, Mr G. Brown.

A worrying story in the Telegraph today.

A suspected rapist is out on the run. Police are trying to track him down. They decide that a televised appeal would most likely yield useful results.

However, before they can go ahead with the appeal, the local Racial Equality Council (REC) advise them that because the suspect is Afghan, the appeal could lead to a racist backlash.

So in the world of the REC, the whole of the UK will take to the streets with machetes and hack down every foreign-looking man, if this appeal is shown?

So the police reluctantly back down, the suspect is still on the run, and the Racial Equality Council are satisfied with themselves for a job well done.

What strange times we live in. Never mind the risk to public safety. That obviously is as nothing, when compared to the danger of perceived racism.

I have been reading the report (pdf) of the Commission on Integration and Cohesion, which was published yesterday. Among other things, it considers the effect of immigration on integration and cohesion.

The report is rather good at laying out the perceptions of integration and cohesion from point of view of the different players in this issue; the settled indigene, the immigrant, the voluntary sector and the State. Considering the dramatis personae in this way led me to thinking about what constitutes a just society.

I took this train of thought because I began to wonder, reading through the report, whether it was at all possible to have a society which all the above players would agree to be ‘just’.

Of course, I know that unanimity is not really possible in these things. What I mean is, is there really, as far as immigration and cohesion are concerned, a framework of rules that can be described, objectively, as ‘just’, regardless of the ‘player’ involved. So can we have a society that is ‘just’ in the eyes of the immigrant, the indigenous Briton, and even the voluntary sector? I exclude the State from consideration in this question, simply on the basis that I assume it, for these purposes, to be ‘outside’ society, in such a way as not to be affected by whether or not the society is a just one.

This train of thought led me to Rawls’s door. John Rawls was a political philosopher who did much thinking on the idea of justice. In particular, he thought a lot about what principles of justice should obtain in a society. Rawls wrote that this could be considered under a setting he called ‘the original position’. Basically, the rules of justice were determined by parties behind a ’veil of ignorance’. Put very simply, the question Rawls postulated was this: ‘what sort of society would you regard as a just one, if you did not know what role you had, or what you would be, in that society?’

So for the purposes of this post, let us try this very simple thought experiment: let us imagine the following people sitting blindfold  around a table: an Eastern European immigrant, an  Englishwoman with roots in  this country going back to the 12th century, a pensioner of limited means, a single parent, and a rich man.

None of these people know what their identities in the society would be, because they are behind the ‘veil of ignorance’. So, for example, someone at the table would have no idea whether he would be the immigrant, the rich man, the pensioner, or the single mother. The task then is this: considering that that they do not know which they would be, what laws would they then create to ensure a just society?

If, for example, someone at the table proposed a law whereby all immigrants were given free housing ahead of single parents and pensioners, and that this was to be paid for by very high taxes, it could backfire on him if he ended up being the rich man, the single parent, or the pensioner. He could only benefit from this law if he were the immigrant. However, the fact that he does not know which he would be in the new society, would force him to think carefully before he proposed such a law.

What the exercise seems to suggest is that there is a point in the middle where all the participants can agree; a consensus ad idem. It suggests that there must be a place where they would all agree that the rich man would not be taxed too much; that the pensioner, immigrant and single parent would be treated fairly according to some agreed criteria; and that whatever accommodation is made for them, it would not be such as to anger the Englishwoman whose family have given their all to this country, and who has never asked anything of the State, but the space to enjoy her country as she remembered it as a child.

So will the Commission’s report find that meeting place? I don’t know yet. I don’t even know that such a meeting place exists. I am still reading the report, and will let you know my views later.

Here are some interesting articles about the hostages etc.

Morag considers armed forces recruitment ads and wonders if perhaps the true nature of what the forces are about has been badly downplayed. Also some analysis of the MoD’s thinking. A very interesting and thought-provoking post.

EU Referendum calls for a properly constituted Board of Inquiry into how they were taken hostage in the first place. Richard North makes the valid point that the Conservatives should be demanding a proper inquiry instead of making feeble noises about ‘lessons learnt’. Well said.

Calum Carr contrasts two recent MoD actions:

• the reluctance to provide information to the inquest into the ‘friendly-fire’ killing of Lance Corporal Matty Hull; and
• the decision to allow the captives to ‘tell all’ in response for payment.

True word, Calum. To that I might add a third, the MoD’s self-righteous persecution of David Kelly for talking to a reporter, even threatening him with dismissal.

Very good articles, all.

Boris Johnson has described Portsmouth as “too full of drugs, obesity, underachievement and Labour MPs.’’

There is anger in the town.

But why? He is right, after all. The only thing Portsmouth has to complain about is that this description applies to many towns in the UK anyway, so why single them out?

Now about this report in the Daily Mail yesterday:

Schools are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils, a Government backed study has revealed.

It found some teachers are reluctant to cover the atrocity for fear of upsetting students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial.

There is also resistance to tackling the 11th century Crusades - where Christians fought Muslim armies for control of Jerusalem - because lessons often contradict what is taught in local mosques.

I spent yesterday evening thinking about it, and concluded that we should not  be surprised. After all, as the Patrick Mercer episode taught us, where Truth conflicts with political correctness, Truth must bow the knee.

The Lab Gallery in New York has incurred the displeasure of the US-based Catholic League. It is displaying a milk chocolate sculpture of a naked Jesus on the cross, entitled ‘My Sweet Lord’.

My view? As a practising Christian, I am not at all bothered by the image. I can see why the Catholic League is upset, though. Catholicism seems to have a greater affinity for symbols than do other branches of Christianity. For me, the image is nothing more than what someone somewhere believes to be the likeness of Jesus. I do not expect non-Christians to have reverence for my religion. It would be nice if they did, but if they don’t, that’s also fine. If it upset me, I’d just stay away from the Lab Gallery until the sculpture was removed.

I wonder what caused the greater offence, the depiction of the sculpture at all, or the fact that it was made with chocolate. Making the sculpture in milk chocolate shouldn’t really matter. I know Jesus didn’t mean it in this context, but he did actually say in the Bible: ‘whoever eats my flesh … has eternal life’.

Seriously though, my message to the Catholic League is to lighten up a bit. Let people mock your religion if they want. Surely your God is strong enough to withstand that.

On a happy note, no death threats or threats to bomb the gallery. Perhaps some other religions could learn from that.

UPDATE. The exhibition has now been cancelled.

UPDATE 2. Just seen Sky News coverage of this story, complete with pictures of the chocolate sculpture. I just wonder, would they have dared show any pictures if it were, say, a chocolate sculpture of Mohammed?

The doomsayers of climate change are not having a good week. They are being ‘beset round about’, as the Bible would put it.

First, Channel 4’s splendid documentary, and now a hard-hitting article in the Telegraph by Janet Daley. She pours scorn on their repressive tactics and self-righteous manner, and restates the case now resounding everywhere that before swallowing their burdensome dogma, we must first see scientific evidence:

I don’t know about you, but before I can feel comfortable asking people in emerging economies such as India to forgo the benefits of economic growth and mass prosperity, before I can sentence some of the poorest people in the world to living indefinitely without modern technology, before I am even prepared to ask the lower-paid of this country to give up the improvements in their quality of life to which they have only just become accustomed - I want to hear any and every argument that is to be had about this theory.

And to the comrades in the green movement, I would say this: before you slam the lid on debate, and put your invasive restrictions into place to deny people freedoms and comforts that have transformed their condition, you had better be damned sure that you are right.

And she is right. If climate change is a scientific fact, then the green movement should not be nervous about allowing debate. It is only a religion that would insist that contrary evidence be not countenanced. So far, we have seen envirofascists telling us that ‘the climate change debate is over’. It is not over. In fact, it is only just beginning. It will not be over until we have incontrovertible proof one way or the other.

If we are to accept wholesale the claims of the green lobby without investigating their veracity, then we are dealing with the subject as one would a religion. However, even in religion, there are false prophets, and every religion has guidelines for determining who are the false prophets in its midst.

I don’t know how it works in other religions, but this is the Biblical test for if a prophet is true or false: look to the evidence. We are asked to ‘examine everything carefully, [and] hold fast to that which is good’.

Yes, as far as pronouncements by prophets are concerned, not even religion (at least, not Christianity) demands unthinking acceptance. We are to be rational, use our God-given faculties, test the evidence, and then ‘hold fast’ to whatever passes that test.

So having satisfied neither the scientific nor the Biblical standards, perhaps these repressive false prophets may wish to think again.

Muslim leaders in Australia have banned five of their number from speaking to the media. Among the five is Sheikh Taj el-Din al-Hilali, the deluded bigot who claimed last year that unveiled women (whom he likened to ‘uncovered meat’) were to blame if they were sexually assaulted by men.

The muslim leaders claim that the ban is necessary to repair the relationship between the muslim community and the rest of the public. Well, maybe so. A cynical observer might interpret it as a means of keeping poisonous propaganda inhouse for the time being. After all, no sensible warrior (or jihadist, for that matter) would want their weapons of war out in the public gaze before the time for battle has come.

Gagging a mad mullah who is bent on jihad does not stop him from spreading his poison elsewhere. Preparations will continue apace, only out of the gaze of the ignorant public. I would prefer that such people were talking to the media, actually. Always better to know what they are saying.