Kelvin Mackenzie Is Thinking About Lodging An Official Complain About Fatima Manji's Hajib

[sp1814]

From his column in The Sun (the link at the bottom is to the Independent, because the Sun is behind a paywall):

I will be looking at making a formal complaint to Ofcom under the section of the broadcasting code which deals with impartiality.

Since the question of religious motivation was central to the coverage of the Nice attack, I would ask whether it is appropriate for a newsreader to wear religious attire that could undermine the viewer's perception of impartiality

http://indy100.independent.co.uk/article/kelvin-mackenzie-is-thinking-about-an-offical-complaint-about-fatima-manjis-hijab--byxQgHfLUZ

Do you think he has a point?

[jim360]

Returning, if I may, to the verse in question, it's obvious that this is an instruction about covering the rest of the body, rather than the head specifically.

So it again arrives at the interpretation that hijabs are not proscribed by the Kuran, and so the habitual wearing of them is a cultural choice.

[mikey4444]

NoMercy....lol !

[naomi24]

Jim, // it's obvious that this is an instruction about covering the rest of the body, rather than the head specifically. //

No it isn't. It refers specifically to 'head covering'. Why do you think so many women cover their heads? Think about it.

[naomi24]

Another one to add to your little bike shed gang, Mikey. Thassa boy! :o)

[Hypognosis]

Whilst "not all A are B" is true enough, how come a pork-eating, booze-swilling, womanising oddball failed to get into a heated, multi-page theological debate with whoever (whomever?) radicalised the attacker in the space of less than 3 days?

Why are peaceful Muslims so easily and rapidly gulled into destructive acts by people from afar?

[Hypognosis]

There are photos of Muslim women throwing off their headscarves in celebration - because they have just been liberated from a regime which enforces them.

There are photos of Muslim women wearing all the various types of veil because they are in a country which band them.

Whatever the local code is, they like to assert their freedom to flout it and have things their way.

Not so different to Western women, then. ;-)

[Hypognosis]

…country which banned them

[jim360]

Nevertheless, the instruction amounts to saying "let them wear [the things that they already wear despite us not actually having told them to] over [parts of the body that (presumably) weren't previously habitually covered]."

I think my interpretation is equally valid. I can see where you are coming from but this is not an instruction specifically to wear veils -- and certainly not an instruction specifically to wear hijabs. The original خُمُرِ is transliterated as "khumur", which is a very different garment from the hijab.

[naomi24]

Jim, twist and turn it whichever way you like. The fact is the Koran commands women to cover their heads – and in actual fact, in doing so, insults every respectable man on the planet – but apparently you and the others here have no objection to that. I seriously fail to understand why people do their utmost to protest that this isn’t so when they are clearly doomed to failure. The book is there, the instruction is there, and there can be no argument. The Koran is deemed to be the direct word of God. If God said it, it must be so. Jim’s opinion doesn’t count.

[Hypognosis]

@jim

Google translate is a rather primitive device and offers this selection of interpretations for the word you gave. For entertainment purposes only, then

vintage
خمر, محصول, غلة الكرم, قطف العنب, موسم القطيف, عهد نشوء شيء
wine
نبيذ, خمر, عصير
booze
خمر, مرح صاخب, شراب مسكر
red
أحمر, اللون الأحمر, صبغ أحمر, خمر, السياسي الأحمر
port
ميناء, المنفذ, مرفأ, بوابة, باب, خمر
inebriant
خمر, شراب مسكر
boose
شراب مسكر, مرح صاخب, خمر
verb
brew
خمر, دبر, تشكل, أحدث
ferment
تخمر, خمر, ثور, اهتاج, أثار
sour
تدهور, حمض, أثار, تحمض, تخمر, خمر
raise
رفع, جمع, جمع تبرعات, ربى, نهض, خمر

[jim360]

Can I also just point out that women veiled their heads long before Islam was a thing?

Also I wasn't twisting, but quoting from the original Arabic (as opposed to any English translation). The Kuran mentioned women veiling their heads because they already did so (perhaps in part because that's kind of what you do in a hot country, but also because sadly the subjugation of women has been a thing throughout history).

Again, it is absolutely not a religious thing, it is a cultural one. That isn't my opinion either but an historical fact. The distinction is an important one.

[jim360]

Thanks Hypo -- as it happens, though, I wasn't relying on Google Translate but on a site that provided the original script -- I copied the part that was explicitly given as the relevant word from the verse Naomi cited (and it, too, mentions that the root also has associations with wine, intoxication etc. How odd. Languages are fascinating.)

[andy-hughes]

Mr Mackenzie was, is, and always will be - a professional button pusher.

Judging by the reaction to his agitating, he is extremely good at it!

[Khandro]

He is right to do so, 100%

[naomi24]

Jim, Muslim women are instructed to cover their heads in order that they don’t entice men. It’s as simple as that. You will note that men are not at fault - it's incumbent upon women to ensure that men don't offend. You’re right in one respect though – women did cover their heads before Islam was invented. The bible commands women to cover their heads too, and the Koran - the ultimate law in Islam - is a rip off of that.

[Hypognosis]

@jim

My mind was boggling at the potential uses of "ornament", to be frank but Finbarr Saunders beat me to it.

Linguistically, what if "ornament" was, in those days, understood to meant scent? Let no-one other than the men in the family get close enough to you to smell you is a convoluted way of saying "never leave the house", otherwise, a big "keep off" sign to other men. Property, in other words.

Mysogyny, as we like to label it, these days. If you read up on primogeniture, it all starts to add up.

[naomi24]

Hypognosis, ankle bracelets that jangle were, like hair, another ornament that had to be hidden from men. Must have sent them wild with passion!!

[andy-hughes]

Khandro - //He is right to do so, 100% //

In the interests of clarity - do you mean he is right to push buttons, or that he is specifically correct in his particular crusade here?

[Ellipsis]

MacKenzie is an expert at keeping things in the news, and that's all this is. He has no intention of complaining to Ofcom as he knows what the outcome will be. He is a nasty, cynical piece of work and if you use this piece of so-called "news" ("I'm considering reporting this to Ofcom") in order to continue the same lengthy debate that we've already had then you're doing exactly what he wants you to do.

[jim360]

"The fact is the Koran commands women to cover their heads ..."

Just an extra rebuttal of this and an extension of my point. Later on in the chapter (verse 33) there's a line usually translated as "...do not condemn your slave-girls (فَتَيَاتِكُمْ , fatayatikum) to prostitution...". Again, this is hardly an instruction to *keep* slave-girls, merely that if you do already have such slaves then to treat them in a certain way. I don't want to condone the rest of the passage but it is important to the point I'm making. The veils mentioned earlier are best treated in the same way: "you already have these things [head coverings], now do something more with them".

On a separate point, I wanted to note that yes, I do find abhorrent the motivations behind the Islamic verse. I find the same sorts of passages in the Bible equally disturbing (particularly the arbitrary doubling of certain penance periods for women in some parts of Leviticus). Women get an awful deal from history and in particular from religions, there's no doubt about that. But if women were "forced" or obliged, by men, to wear veils and niqabs and the like, there's a certain irony in trying to force them not to. Hopefully over time the wearing of the veil will be, at the very least, only because women freely choose to for reasons that have nothing to do with protecting men from their wiles or sinful nature or whatever else it is that we totally innocent menfolk have to watch out for.

But even if it is influenced by that then the freedom to choose logically extends to making choices I don't agree with. It arrives at the same thing either way. If Fatima Manji wears a hijab at work, whatever her motivations, then even without the fact that the link between her hijab-wearing and the disgusting attack at Nice is tenuous at best, it's a choice that she is free to make, and breaks no code of impartiality. Kelvin Mackenzie has no point and shouldn't be given the time of day with this protest.

* * * * *

Hypo, apparently the relevant passage could also be translated as hiding "adornments" rather than ornament. I think the 'scent' interpretation is stetching it based on that, although the whole passage is still more than a little off.