"These three incidents, coming over a space of a few days, have torn wide open a fissure which became visible for the first time, when Member of Parliament Jack Straw, until last month a stout devotee of multiculturalism suddenly wrote an article in his local paper. Jaws dropped all over Britain when Straw wrote his defense of the reasons he has begun asking Pakistani women constituents who visit his office to discuss problems to remove their veils. His point, of course, is that it is difficult to talk to someone whose facial expressions one cannot judge. Tony Blair has also now admitted that the veil makes him uneasy. With the bandwagon gathering pace, London mayor and keen adherent of multiculturalism "Red" Ken Livingstone, knocked the population of London over with a feather when he said on BBC's Radio 4 that he would like to see Muslims giving up the veil, although he didn't think this should be imposed "from the outside".

Wearing the veil accords the wearer what British columnist Melanie Phillips refers to as a "radical imbalance of power" in that it gives the veil-wearer the advantage of reading the facial expressions of others, while keeping her own reactions hidden. It is beginning to be viewed in Britain not as a symbol of female subjugation, but as a weapon of aggression and radical Islam. The British-born mothers of these young Pakistani-heritage veil-wearing women did not wear the veil. [ The veil is BOTH a symbol of female subjugation AND a weapon of aggression. Never mind that recent abductees in the Gaza report being shuttled around concealed under hijab. What a surprise. It's a religious "obligation" that's only obligatory for their enemies to treat as one -- not for the "believers". That's the beauty of it for the Islamofascists of course... -ed. ] "