Veil changes only possible 'within Muslim community'
Mr Livingstone says Muslim women giving up the veil is a 'long-term aim'
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Saturday, 14, Oct 2006 08:26
Mayor of London Ken Livingstone has said that he personally would like Muslim women to stop wearing veils, but insists that any such moves will only ever originate from within the Muslim community itself.
Mr Livingstone told the Today programme that efforts by non-Muslim politicians to change the way in which Muslims dressed would not have the desired effect.
The debate sparked by Jack Straw, the leader of the House of Commons, via an article in his local paper has continued, with a West Yorkshire supply teacher recently suspended for refusing to remove her veil at school.
Mr Straw did not call for wholesale changes to the way in which Muslim dress, but revealed he asked women visiting his constituency office to remove their veils to aid communication.
And the London major today said "change from within the Muslim community" was necessary if women were to ever remove their veils.
"I guarantee now getting Muslim women to give up the veil, which I suspect is something most people would like to see in the long-term, including myself, is not going to be done by old white male politicians telling them to do it," he said.
"And that is why it's important we should engage with the progressive elements and leaders in the Muslim community, rather than what the US has been doing over the last 30 years, which is alliances with say the Saudi [Arabian] royal family and the most backward and reactionary elements," Mr Livingstone added.
Aisah Azmi, 23, was suspended for two weeks pending an employment tribunal by Headfield Church of England junior school, Dewsbury, after school officials said that pupils found it difficult to understand her English through the veil.
But the supply teacher insisted to the Today programme that she had been prepared to remove her veil in her classroom and had never received complaints from her pupils about communication problems.