Monday, July 26, 2010

Burka Ban: Syria 1 England 0 by Dr Helen Bright 26/7/2010


Predictably, England remains backward when it comes to social justice and interestingly, national security. Syria has banned the wearing of burka in public places but UK has not.
Burka has been banned in many countries before eg socialist states. Some Arabic states, where Muslims are the majority faith holders, have also banned burka for a variety of reasons: security as well as allegedly some respect for women to be more free.
I read various arguments for and against burka.
My thinking is along these lines:
1. Burka unjustifiably segregates men and women. We know that millions of women are telling men every day what to wear and what not to wear. Men, usually, do obey. Women cannot use the excuse of wearing burka just to look a total mess underneath it. It is not fair to men! And to women who see a lot of self-neglected women.
2. Burka gives false impression that men are in charge. All the evidence of chaos in our world shows nobody is in control, but that the second principle of thermodynamic dominates matters. Please, read about it here.
3. It is a security risk. Criminals and terrorists can and do use it to hide their identity.
4. Women can make rude faces while hiding behind the veil and that is not honest communication. In fact, burka prevents effective communication. General Medical Council in London is very keen on effective communication. They blew it up when it came to the wearing of Christian religious dress and working with mentally ill (now one million men have been raped by Catholic clergy world wide and some of these men find the sight of religious uniforms panic provoking. Those who have panic attacks have twice as high mortality rates from cardiac arrests)
5. It is unsuitable for dining out etc. Burka looks silly in a swimming pool. Not dignified. Not fair to ice cream sellers, either.
6. It is not very good (protective) when it comes to radioactive radiation as it absorbs more radiation energy and causes more damage to the body. Look at the radiation burns on the body of a Japanese woman (photo above right) and how the pattern of radiation skin damage matches the pattern on her dress. Where the fabric is darker in colour it has absorbed more radiation. This is also interesting, as the last time I visited one Arab country, I noted some Arab men wearing long white shirts while women are dressed in black burka. In Saudi Arabia women do have reduced life expectancy compared to men. I am not aware that anybody thought of burka contributing to decreased life expectancy for women.
In Afganistan where one finds white burkas (and blue) women have slightly increased life expectancy over men, but still both sexes have life expectancy of only 44 years.

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