Does anyone like or support face-covering (hijab or burka)??

Have you got a pic of this outfit bags ?
I sometimes wonder if the "Scotland is full of midges" story is put about by the natives to discourage tourists.
Bit like the "killer cockles on the rampage" story we try to spread about S Wales.
BTW there is a little bit of research interest in the theory that we get more colds in cold weather because viruses thrive in cool noses. So if this is proved then we may all be wearing balaclavas soon. When it is not the midge season.

Gut reaction taking away sex/religion/age and anything else that could draw a conclusion of prejudice I really don't feel comfortable not seeing someones face. We have very complicated patterns of social behaviour which involve facial expressions and body gestures. Just look at how difficult it is to misconstrue what people are saying on the internet without these aides.

Dissimilate - to change the sounds in a word so that it becomes another word e.g. paper is from papyrus (OED). Not sure how that fits into this thread!

crimson Do you mean easy to misconstrue in your last sentence?

midge net pics. There's one taken of a couple of guys at an Arrochar Alps campsite not a million miles from where I live.

I would not personally choose to cover my face and I do not think it is a in any way a sensible thing to do unless very cold /hot & dusty. However I cannot support any of the posts that talk about legislation/deportation etc. I find that far too repressive..as repressive as men demanding women dress in a particular way. It was only in the late 40's in GB that Christian women who worshiped in C/E churches were 'allowed' not to wear a hat!!

I do know several Muslim young women who dress in a very contemporary way but when out and about in pubic do choose to wear a headscarf. Some also choose to cover their indoor clothes with a coverall black 'coat'. I cannot see that harms me or any member of my family. I worry more about my DGC seeing young women out and about in 'sexy' clothing, heavily made up and smoking cigarettes / being drunk.

In Istanbul recently many western tourists were walking about in shorts and vest tops which was as unnerving for many of the locals as a niquab is to western eyes.

Come and try out the Scottish midge season anytime, jess

Bags, will you kindly stop distracting me by sending me to look at interesting sites! I like the look of the full head midge net, and might get one for my next tropical trip. We don't suffer much with insects here - not much standing water (plenty of waterfalls) and too many months of snow.

For some reason, I cannot get the image of a cock strutting in a farmyard out of my head this morning.

Lilygran tuareg don't insist on keeping their faces covered in public. I've seen the wonderful Malian band Tinarawen twice on stage. They are Tuareg. They play their electric guitars wearing full desert robes, an impressive sight! They wear a cloth wrap across their mouths some of the time, but not all the time. Just as the mood takes them I guess. They don't cover their eyes at all though (it was the covering of eyes which I was objecting to in my OP).

Interesting that the only female member of the band did not cover her face at all! Maybe because she mostly sang.

pics of Tuaregs, some without covered faces They seem to have a practical approach.

greatnan It's a talent of mine!

ithis As I pointed out about half an hour ago, it's only Tuareg (and some other West African) men who traditionally cover their faces; the women don't. Probably the men in the band are more westernised and less traditional than some others.

absent; I'm taking benylin drowsy for my cold at the moment and everything is coming out a bit garbled . Can't believe how many typos I'm making either [I hope it is the benylin and not old age and senility...]. Yes, I did mean 'easy to [I think]

There you go Bags, the one whose face is not covered is a woman, but Tuareg men traditionally cover their faces whenever they are with other people – including their families – from the age of 25.

The Tuareg pics look more like a protective thing against dust to me, not like something they're wear to nip to the shops in. Protection is one thing, it can be removed when conversing, eating etc. It's not a barrier against other people.

(I have a mossy net which fixes around the rim of my hat but the little b*****s get in through the ventilation holes in the hat. And my whole face is visible through it)

And does anyone know how children find their mothers in full black garb at the school gates?

Nfk - probably the way baby penguins find their mothers amongst ten thousand adults!
N.B. Benylin used to contain codeine so it should be taken sparingly. I think they have had to change some formulations. I am extremely alert to all codeine-containing remedies, for obvious reasons.

Nfk The head and face covering of Tuareg men protects them against evil spirits (as well as against sandstorms). Traditionally, it is not removed when conversing, eating, etc.

This seems to be going round in circles.

They must have really, really evil spirits there.

I expect that all the clothing (burkas etc) were originally worn pragmatically to protect against dust/sand storms etc and subsequently got subsumed into crazy religious practice.

So many cultural practices have got entwined with religion for all kinds of reasons..some insidious and some benign.

I agree.

Not just Scotland ! DS and GD have very fetching midge nets and hats which they wear when camping in Northumberland.

I agree with nfkdumpling about showing respect when you are abroad and amongst people of a different culture, when we visited the Arabic part of Jerusalem a few years ago I made a point of wearing a longish dress and made sure I had my arms covered, this is not something I would normally do in a hot country but I was aware that some cultures do not want to see loads of flesh on display. Frankly it sickens me when I see some of our young taking their bad behaviour to more conservative parts of Europe like Greece I feel it gives our country and bad name. However, having said all that I still hate seeing the burka, it simply doesn't fit in with our culture. For me there is a complete disconnect between how most people feel about equal rights in the UK and how those Muslims who live here would want Sharia law introduced with all it's ramifications for not only women but gays as well, I have already commented about posters being put up in Tower Hamlets by some Muslim zealots declaring it a "gay free zone" I personally find a group of people who have chosen to settle here and then want to change our laws to accommodate what they believe totally unacceptable. It's not a race thing, I remember this summer when we went to our son's graduation one of the mothers who was obviously African had on an exquisite African type full length dress and head dress on, it was very colourful and she looked stunning. Similarly I like saris and I always loved the way Benazir Bhutto dressed, tunic, baggy trousers and Pashmina loosely draped over her head, modest yet elegant and it's in no way de humanised her. With the whole burka thing it's almost like seeing a person dressed in a Disney like character outfit. you have that nano second where you think is that a real person under all that before your senses kick in. I just think it's vile to see what looks like a mobile black tent moving around and I imagine, particularly with the lack of peripheral vision with a burka in particular, quite dangerous. Many have talked about education changing things, sadly for a culture that was such a driving force in maths, architecture, science in the Middle Ages when Christianity was back in the dark ages, they sadly seem to have gone backwards especially regarding the education of women.

absent, you didn't look far enough. Swipe through the images. You'll find some of Tuareg men in traditional dress, but with their faces not covered.

You don't protect a culture by building a wall round it and not letting in outsiders with different customs. It did not work in China or Japan, and it has not insulated the French language from "le weekend". Neither does passing a law change anything overnight. If anything, it makes those who think it a bad law even more determined to overcome it, as martyrs if necessary. There needs to be a dialogue between practice and legislation, with each moving forward in turn.

Like it or not, there are a lot of people in this country now who do not subscribe to all its established habits - as in the first centuries AD there were christians living in "heathen" places who did not want to follow local customs.

How much do we do to demonstrate and foster the best of the customs of our culture, and show them as something to adopt, rather than rant against what is not traditional? Are there lessons in schools about the voting system, about freedom of expression tempered with basic politeness, about the equality of women and the equal responsibility of men for maintaining morality (their own, not just that of their womenfolk) without repression? Do all those work or live beside immigrants take trouble to welcome and befriend them and show them what supportive family and neighbourhood life is like here?

Bags Well if Tuareg men are moving on from traditional veiling, there's hope for Moslem women.