Long and furious rant

[smokingboot]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/minette_marrin/article2604019.ece

The above article talks about how multiculturalism may be killing us, whoever we are - not to worry, we aren't kept guessing for long. It talks about how Boots gives its muslim pharmacists the right not to sell the morning after pill, how Sainsburys allows its muslim cashiers not to check out alcohol, how muslim medical students are refusing to deal with cases of venereal disease, and I am on the verge of screaming, for two reasons.


This was the challenge put to me live and rather scarily by a BBC World Service presenter a few years ago. She was chairing a debate about multiculturalism in front of a large audience of people who were mostly black or brown. Seems very important that we know the prevalent colour{s} of the audience. I hope freckled minorities were well represented.

“...Those were the days [snip] when it was genuinely hard to point out that cultures that treat women as irresponsible inferiors, that hang young gay men, mutilate criminals and silence debate are not equal to ours. They are inferior and it is not self-evidently racist to say so.' Our culture, if by that the author means English culture, did all of these things once upon a time. Things have changed therefore implying that these horrors were not entirely necessary to our cultural identity. Any chance of that happening to anyone else? Or are we just that special? And on it goes, though my personal favourite is the following;

A week ago The Sunday Times reported that some Muslim workers in Sainsbury’s are refusing to check out purchases of alcohol on the debatable ground that it’s against their religion. Whenever the sinful stuff is presented by a customer at the till, the Muslim expects an infidel colleague to hurry over and sully his or her hands with the transaction instead.

Sinful stuff? Infidel? Sully? Very helpful. Thank heavens the author is avoiding emotive language. This being my lj, I will not.




I need to find out if this is true. I'm not used to the Times being inaccurate, but on this occasion I can but hope. If what The Times recounts is really happening...

I do not go to my pharmacist to be judged, I don't care about anyone else's moral code when I shop. S/he who cannot serve me on account of their principles should get another job, especially when said principles are based on someone else's idea of what my moral code should be, based on my chromosome combination. People like me have been deprived of votes, money, power, and basic human rights in many civilisation for many centuries, and this injustice has been maintained, applauded even, by every major religion in the world. So now, when I finally have control over my body and my sexuality, the world can live with it or get out of my face.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want anyone to touch anything they don't want to touch, but I pay good money to keep the NHS rolling; I don't pay for prissy doctors to treat women with disgust because they might have STDs. I pay for them to treat people. Don't want to do it? Go find other employment.

And the most colossally stupid thing about it? The way it opens the door to the real old bogey, culturalist/racist intolerance. How soon will it be before women who don't want to be judged start asking for non muslim doctors? And from this valid fear of being hated or judged, springs the insidious excuse for asking for doctors from the same ethnic background...and suddenly we are half a step from saying 'Please no blacks/whites/asians/lady doctors, they make me uncomfortable...' Jesus, I thought we had come so far from this.

One day all this sh*t will be dead and gone. But for now I am so sick of it. I'm not special cos of my skin, my sex, my god or my opinions. I'm a person. That should be enough.

Comments

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I keep hoping that the incidents quoted in both the article I link to and the article that infuriated larians are blown out of proportion. In my head I keep hearing old Brixton friends laughing at my credulity, saying, 'If it's in the Times it must be true!'

[cat-that-walks.livejournal.com]

You want a true story of religious stupidity?
My local council (Lisburn) has voted in favour of suggesting to schools that they teach 'Creationism' in science classes!

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

Creationism, if it belongs anywhere at all, belongs in R.E, a subject which I feel needs considerable overhaul and then reintroduction into schools. The sooner everybody understands where everyone else is coming from, and either forgets it or accepts it, the better.