Cultural dominance and hypocrisy...

Submitted by Nigel (New Zealand), Feb 7, 2012 at 07:36

So, turbans, frik kippot, kufis, hijabs, are security risks due to allegedly hindering identification? What about wigs, some hair-styles, some jewellery, and some neck wear? FACT is that this so-called secular obsession with head coverings is based on the writings of the Christian apostle Paul, who was opposing Jewish practice. (The same goes for the common prohibition against men having long hair.) It is actually imposing Christian culture on everyone. I'd also like to know what the difference is between sunglasses, in general, and corrective eye glasses? Many sunglasses do not have dark lenses, and many corrective lenses are tinted. While the niqab is arguably a special case, everything else is either blatant coercion or pathetically ill-though-out due to long-standing cultural prejudice. It has nothing to do with secular inclusion, but rather secular exclusion. It has very little to do with security but enforced conformity with much greater implications than access to banks and shops, but workplaces and court spaces. It is about building grounds to exclude people from earning a living, giving evidence and defending themselves, unless they submit to the majority cultures sensibilities at the expense of their own culture and all they are as individuals. It is about enforcing the 'norms' of the dominant culture and demanding submission.

How is this different to the Islamic demand that all submit to Islam? The West claims to be enlightened and secular, but in reality it continues to object to the accommodation of other cultures and unquestioningly demanding submission to Christian customs. Surely secular society should protect diversity. The West continues to promote the falsehood that all people are fundamentally the same, and in doing so promotes dishonesty. All people are not fundamentally the same, and forcing everyone to appear the same will not make it so. Does preventing a schoolteacher from wearing a religious symbol or religious dress remove his/her potential educational bias/es or simply attempt to prevent them being seen and therefore known. It seems to me that Western secular thought is either the absence of thinking or a relentless campaign against nonconformity, ie, thoroughly hypocritical and far from being enlightened.

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