Category Archives: Ireland

Irish Muslim loses award after refusing to shake hands

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Muslim asylum seeker lost out on an award for volunteer work after indicating that he would not shake hands with the woman who was to present him with the prize.

Alinoor Ahmed Sheikh, a Somali based in an asylum hostel in Tralee, was to have been honoured for his work raising funds for Amnesty International at a ceremony last Thursday organised by the Africa Centre in Dublin. The event was designed to highlight the positive work done by refugees and asylum seekers in Irish communities.

Five minutes before Benedicta Attoh, a member of the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism, was due to present the award she was told not to call out Sheikh’s name. “The judges had decided that someone else should get the award,” said Attoh, chairwoman of the Africa Centre’s board.

Attoh did not find out the reason why until she read in Metro Eireann on Friday that his name had been removed because of his refusal to shake hands with women. Sheikh told the newspaper that he had been assured his request not to shake a female presenter’s hand would be accommodated because it was based on his religious beliefs.

Attoh said she would havebeen shocked if a prize-winner had refused to shake her hand. “I don’t think I would have presented his prize if he wouldn’t shake my hand because I’m a woman,” she said.

Sunday Times, 22 June 2008

Ireland: intercultural adviser warns against hijab ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Banning the hijab or other religious symbols which are important to minorities is “likely to result in tension with those communities where no tension existed before”, according to the director of the State’s advisory body on intercultural affairs.

In a detailed intervention in the debate over whether Muslim pupils should be allowed wear the headscarf in State schools, Philip Watt of the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism said most schools had already found their own “sensible and sensitive compromise” by allowing it to be worn provided the colour was consistent with the school uniform.

Mr Watt suggested that those advocating a ban on the hijab “may, or may not, have fully considered the consequences of such a ban, for example in respect of all religious symbols and obligations in Irish schools”. While much of the focus had been on the Muslim headscarf, other religious symbols were worn in Irish schools, including the Sikh kara (a bangle), the Sikh patka (a scarf worn by boys and young men), the Jewish kippah or skullcap and Christian crucifixes. The pioneer badge, the sacred heart and crucifixes are worn by some teachers.

“The banning of religious symbols or obligations solely aimed at one religious community or indeed all religious faiths is potentially discriminatory and likely to be tested in Irish law,” Mr Watt said. “In 2004 the French government considered the issuing of a ban on the wearing of the hijab in French schools, but after legal considerations decided that the only way that such a ban would be legal would be to ban virtually all religious symbols and obligations, including large crucifixes.”

Fine Gael education spokesman Brian Hayes and his Labour counterpart Ruairí Quinn said separately last week that they opposed the wearing of the hijab in the country’s secondary schools, though Mr Hayes made a distinction between State-run VEC schools and those run by religious orders, which decide their own rules. “There is enough segregation in Ireland without adding this to it. Segregating in this way is not helpful to Muslims and not helpful to anybody,” Mr Hayes said.

In yesterday’s statement, Mr Watt also sought to correct the impression that all Muslims are recent immigrants. Just under a third of the 32,500 Muslims in the Republic are Irish.

An Irish Times/ TNS mrbi poll conducted last week found that 48 per cent of people feel the wearing of hijabs should be allowed in State schools. Some 39 per cent disagree and 13 per cent have no opinion.

Irish Times, 10 June 2008

Ireland: 48% support right to wear hijab in schools

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Almost half of people feel the wearing of hijabs or headscarves by Muslim students should be allowed in State schools, according to the latest Irish Times /TNS mrbi poll. While 48 per cent agree with their use in State schools, 39 per cent do not and 13 per cent have no opinion.

A breakdown of the figures show that while a clear majority of younger people agree with the use of hijabs, older people are more likely to be opposed.

Green Party voters are among the most likely to agree (69 per cent), followed by Sinn Féin and Independents (57 per cent) and Fianna Fáil (48 per cent). Labour and Fine Gael voters are split evenly.

Women are more likely to agree (55 per cent) compared with men (42 per cent).

People are also divided on whether the Government should produce guidelines on the wearing of hijabs in State schools. A total of 49 per cent agree that the State should provide guidelines, while 41 per cent feel the State should not get involved in the issue and 10 per cent have no opinion.

The poll was conducted last Tuesday and Wednesday among a representative sample of 1,000 voters in face-to-face interviews at 100 sampling points in all 43 constituencies.

Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe has said that the Government will consider whether to issue guidelines on the wearing of the hijab in schools when it drafts an intercultural education strategy later this year.

Some teachers’ groups and the State’s advisory body on interculturalism have signalled that national guidelines should be avoided and the issue should be dealt with on a case by case basis.

The poll indicates that there is little difference on the issue between rural and urban areas. When broken down by social class, people from better-off backgrounds were more likely to agree with the use of the headscarf or hijab.

Irish Times, 9 June 2008

‘Symbolism of hijab’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Remember this article calling for the hijab to be banned from Irish schools? And this report that Ireland’s opposition parties backed the proposal? As a contribution to the “debate” the Irish Independent has published a letter from a US reader in support of a ban: “Like it or not, the hijab is a symbol of a culture that promotes the murder of innocents and mutilation…. The culture of the hijab is against the liberal principles of Western culture…. Ireland has an opportunity to take an early stand against a culture that threatens the West with violence and aggression.”

Ireland: Opposition calls for school ban on hijab

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslim girls should not be allowed to wear a headscarf in public schools, the two main opposition parties said last night.

Labour’s Ruairi Quinn said immigrants who come to Ireland need to conform to the culture of this country. “If people want to come into a western society that is Christian and secular, they need to conform to the rules and regulations of that country,” the Labour spokesman on education and science told the Irish Independent.

His comments come amid mounting controversy over guidelines on the wearing of the hijab, commonly worn by Muslim girl in state schools.

His stance on the issue was backed by his Fine Gael counterpart Brian Hayes, who says it makes “absolute sense” that there is one uniform for everyone.

Mr Quinn said immigrants should live by Irish laws and conform to Irish norms. “Nobody is formally asking them to come here. In the interests of integration and assimilation, they should embrace our culture,” he said. He added: “Irish girls don’t wear headscarves. A manifestation of religious beliefs in such a way is unacceptable and draws attention to those involved. I believe in a public school situation they should not wear a headscarf.”

Mr Hayes said Ireland should not be going down the route of multiculturalism.

Last night, a spokesperson for Integration Minister Conor Lenihan said he had no problem with students wearing the hijab. “For those that wear the hijab, it’s an issue of modesty. It’s not so long since Irish women wore headscarves to church, so we have to respect that,” the spokesperson said.

Irish Independent, 2 June 2008

‘No place for the hijab in civic life’ says Irish journalist

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“If Muslim men are so keen on seeing their headscarf introduced into Irish society, they should wear it as well as their women. Let them cover up, too. Otherwise there must be no place for the hijab in civic life here. Not in banks, hospitals or libraries, not in the guards or civil service and most definitely not in schools.

“You hear a constant stream of hooey about why we can’t ban the headscarf. But this is not about Islamophobia. It’s not about prejudice on race or religion grounds. It’s not about equating the Muslim scarf with terrorism. It’s not about denial of civil rights. Here’s what banning the headscarf is about: the State demonstrating our belief in gender equality. It’s about removing a symbol of repression and submission.

“… it is not discriminatory to ban the hijab in a country that is culturally Christian…. Of course, some nuns wear veils but that’s of their own volition as adult women – not a custom they are railroaded into as children….

“I don’t regard the hijab as a harmless expression of religious and cultural diversity. A veiled woman carries regressive connotations. If we accept it in schools, we open the door to other practices in the Muslim world even more repressive to women, among them arranged marriages and female circumcision.”

Martina Devlin in the Irish Independent, 22 May 2008

Update:  See Yusuf Smith’s comments at Indigo Jo Blogs, 23 May 2008

‘Time to take stand and say we don’t want Muslim immigrants’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Let me ask you something. Is it a rational decision for a secular-Christian society to admit thousands of Muslims into its midst? … The question is especially apposite, because we now know the consequences for every single European society which has admitted large numbers of Muslims: social alienation, religious antagonism and outright terrorism. We know this. We all know it. And yet we continue to allow Muslim immigration. Why? What do we gain from it?”

Kevin Myers in the Irish Independent, 17 July 2007

Why the secular left sides with Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The other day when he was asked to react to the attempted car-bomb attacks on London, the city’s mayor, Ken Livingstone, called for tolerance. Fair enough, you might say. But at whom was his call for tolerance directed? You are probably thinking, if you are a logical sort, that the call must have been directed at the fanatics who had come within an ace of killing and maiming possibly hundreds of people. But you would be mistaken. Instead Ken directed his call at his fellow, non-Muslim, Englishmen. He said that in the past Jews, the Irish and gays had been persecuted in England and now it was the turn of Muslims….

“The War on Terror, if that term can still be used, is revealing strange ideological fissures in Western societies. I came across these fissures in person last September when I took part in about eight radio discussions in the days after Pope Benedict had quoted the Byzantine emperor who had less-than-flattering things to say about Islam. The line-up on those shows was me playing my usual role as the Catholic commentator, a Muslim representative, and frequently a representative of what I suppose we’ll have to call the secular left.

“On almost every one of these shows the secular left representative did his or her best to impersonate Ken Livingstone. First there was the usual ritualistic condemnation of the extremists, but this was then followed by a much more detailed discussion of why we are to blame for whatever Muslims extremists do to us. To all intents and purposes this placed the secular leftist firmly on the side of the Muslim representative….

“Essentially you had the guardians of tolerance siding with people who would crush homosexuals under walls if they could, and who would turn women into property given half a chance. And why this horrid sympathy? It is because the secular left’s hatred of Western civilisation, and certainly Christianity, America and Israel, is such that they will side with anyone, no matter how unsavoury, who shares that hatred.”

David Quinn in the Irish Independent, 6 July 2007