Muslim women moved out of camera shot at Obama rally

Fergus Pickering

No it's not tragic. And what do you mean by 'young idealists'. Doesn't sound like very idealistic behaviour to me. Or is an idealist somebody who supports Obama whatever he does? Or oes 'Young idealist' mean ignorant, arrogant, narrow-minded, blinkered young person? and

bank vole

It's not TRAGIC that the muslim women were moved. No one was killed, no one was injured except perhaps their feelings. Get a sense of proportion!

TGF UKIP

James, it really does bother me that you are so gushing and uncritical of Obama. I guess these jounalistic infections are just like measles at school.

The people that surround Obama smell power, position and influence in the White House exactly like McCain's or Clinton's people. This deification of Obama and his followers rightly belongs with the New York Times and The Grauniad and I really am surprised to find it here.

Verity

What on earth is "tragic" about it?

1. Turning up to an Obama rally in headscarves was a provocative act. They knew what they were doing.

2. Jack Straw's people would probably move Christian nuns out of the way if he were campaigning in his constituency.

Chris

It's not tragic. Headscarves don't belong in a 21st century democracy - but what it actually is is dishonest.

Obama is hot air and presentation but no substance - at present Obama is doing what Blair did - finding out what people want to hear and making vague noises about it - people who can't see that have taken leave of their critical faculties.

Verity

James Forsyth: Please be kind enough to point us to where in the Koran or the Surahs women are instructed to wear fright head gear.

Please produce one reference.

Niqabs, burkas, veils, etc are a sensible folk dress of the nomad tribes of Saudi Arabia and other desert countries, and are designed to keep the constantly blowing sand out of the nose and mouth and eyes. Similarily, the men in desert countries often wear a keffiyah across their noses, showing only their eyes, which are also shaded by the way the turban is folded, for the same reason.

It's a sensible folk habit of desert people. It has bugger all to do with religion.

All Mohammad ever wrote was the sensible injunction that women should dress modestly. He may have been motivated by a scarey flash forward to British slappers on a Saturday night. Anyway, he also issued the same injunction to men. Dress modestly.

These women wearing niqabs and burkas are attention-seekers, not pious Muslims. Niqabs in public are now against the law in Turkey and Morocco. In Morocco, women wearing even a headscarf can't enter a state-owned building.

So, please. These women at the the Obama-fest were being deliberately provocative. It wasn't a tragedy.

Fergus Pickering

Verity, James says these women were wearing headscarves. My mother used to wear a headscarf with horses on it (though not, be it noted, over her curlers). No mention of burkas.

Nicholas

"There may be trouble ahead . . . "

Ganpat Ram

James:

It is the mark of the mediocre jobbing jourmnalist that he or she is gushing and uncritical or - what is no better - madly contemptuous (as with the Hillary-haters).

To be a good journalist whose work will lasty one has to question the crowd ideas and try to be fair to people to whom no-one else is.

You are clearly incapable of that.

It is probably unfair to ask for these qualities. Those who had them - George Orwell, James Cameron, sometimes Alistair Cooke - are always few.

Think about the future.

How will you feel in a few years when the superficial Obama with his pop idol appeal is just a joke?

Verity

Fergus Pickering - Yes, people did used to wear headscarves, but not since the advent of mass immigration of Muslims.

The name for their headscarf, btw, is hijab, and a penny to a pound that is what the James Forsyth was referring to. The women were wearing hijabs as a means of drawing attention to themselves and, specifically, their religion. It's an act of aggression.

To repeat: there is absolutely no religious injunction in Islam to wear these outfits. It is practical desert tribal wear and has nothing to do with religion. It has nothing to do with Pakistan, either. It's a stupid inyerface affectation.

To call inappropriately dressed people being moved along at a political rally "tragic" is ridiculous.

Ganpat Ram

Sorry about the typos in my message below.

To put it all very simply, good journalists think of the future when they write.

They will want to respect themselves when they read again what they had written in the past.

Bad journalists - as you, James, are, too often - simply go with the tide.

Their work is dead after a day or two. No-one, least of all themselves, would want to re-read anything they had written years back.

Verity

Of far more interest than attention-seeking bints being moved along is the saga of Obama's birth certificate and whether it exists.

This story's hotting up. Even what Obama's people call "a copy" is not a copy. It is an attestation that the person signing it has seen a copy.

More exciting still is an email I had yesterday noting that Obama, because of the circumstances of his birth - only one parent an American citizen and she was not old enough for her child to be considered an American citizen. The law then was that that lone American citizen must have resided in America for at least five years AFTER THE AGE OF 16. At the time. Obama's mother was only 18 when she gave birth to him. This law was changed in 1986.

So is Obama an American citizen or not? What does his birth certificate, which he will not show to anyone, say? Woo hoooo!

James Forsyth

For all those objecting to the me saying that Obama volunteers are 'generally young idealists', I'd say the same about the volunteers for nearly every presidential campaign. After all, the vast majority of these people are giving up their time for free because they believe that their candidate will make America a better place. Of course, there are some who are angling for a job or a favour but the vast majority of them are simply motivated by the noble beleif that politics can improve the national condition. James Forsyth

Dee Ranged

James Forsyth

For goodness sake, grow up!

.

ObamaBlows

To all of you who think there was nothing wrong with what they did you make me SICK!!! Is this the kind of "New Government" Obama is talking about? There was someone in the late 30's and early 40's in Germany that wanted a "New Government" just like this, Hitler. Creating a false image and all the sheep fallow.

Hysteria

Verity - good comments re dress requirements - and my understanding is you are completely correct.

Interesting that Jack Straw alluded to this a couple of years ago when asking women to unveil in surgery. The point being that wearing the hijab (or more) is becoming a political (aggressive) statement more so than it is a religious (all be it mistaken) point - certainly amongst the young women anyway.

The wider point I guess is that Islam, Culture and Politics are completely inter-woven in a way that makes some of the dialogue with the "liberal West" pretty meaningless.

Verity

James Forsyth, the Great Understander, writes: "For all those objecting to me saying that Obama volunteers are 'generally young idealists', I'd say the same about the volunteers for nearly every presidential campaign. After all, the vast majority of these people are giving up their time for free because they believe that their candidate will make America a better place."

Here's the truth about these two gals - as I intuited - http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/2008/06/muslim_grievanc.html#

Two toxic pieces of work.

Shimaa Abdelfadeel's Group Hosted Islamic Jihad Chief Sami Al-Arian. Oh, such an idealistic young person! Willing to give up her time for free. Ha ha!

And the other bint was Aref " not just any officer of the U-M Dearborn Muslim group. She was in charge of Dawa, or proselytizing, from 2000 to 2003 at the school."

Oh, those idealistic young people, eh, James? And squeezing their hijab clad fat faces into the camera behind Obama! I cannot stand Obama, but I take his point in this.

Didn't your instinct tell you to check these two out instead of fawning lyrical?

Mine did.

Ian C

Thanks for that link Verity. I'm not surprised that they were moved out of site.

James, I think your keypad engaged before your brain on this one. Those supporters of Obama were/are a real danger to him.

James Forsyth

Hang on a second, I was calling the volunteers--not the women who were moved--idealists. JGF

TGF UKIP

Yes, James, but your youthful volunteers would have "only been obeying orders." One of Obama's senior people would have given the order to have them moved and this is just another case of Obama running with the fox and hunting with the hounds. He really is just another egregious politician after all with a particularly effective gift of the gab and a "change" message which his intended audience don't, and are intended not to, fully comprehend. Kind of like someone in the UK in the last quarter of 2005.

Ian C

And knowing the whole picture of who was why moved added an unavoidable line of interest in the story as to why else they may have been moved by the 'young idealists' - on party orders in all probability.