No Houellebecq, the arguments are mainly about what is appropriate in Australia, whether it is reasonable to expect immigrants to adapt to the country of adoption and the security implications of persons obscuring their identity.

There has been mention by one poster about violence towards women in the closed communities of this particular culture but generally most respondents seem unsure as to whether the women wear full facial cover out of duress or voluntarily.

Lots of people out there look 'funny' - whether those who favour a non-mainstream style of dress and grooming, like the Jews you refer to and others of similar ilk through to the many fashion victims one sees in the streets daily. However since none of these folk go about with identity concealed that is not the argument - is it?

As for you making comments about flashes of eyebrow - hopefully not when the 'tent' is occupied by menfolk. It may earn her unnecessary grief when she gets home.

The fact that we have had numerous articles written and discussions about the burqa popping up, just about every few weeks on OLO for the past five years at least, it is obvious that this is a very worrying and concerning topic for many people out there and it is not going to go away. The feelings about it obviously run deep.

Religions do become tribes when they don't intergrate and there have been many wars between religious tribes in history.

When I was a young girl growing up in Australia, Catholics were the most fundamental and strictest adherents of the Christian denominations and it was frowned upon if they married outside their faith, but today Catholics marry non-catholics all the time because the religion has lost it's overzealousness and become more modern and less archaic in it’s beliefs,although still remaining Catholic.

If we are to have peace then this is what has to happen with the Moslim religion, it has to lose some of it's archaic beliefs and become more 21st century in the way it interprets the Koran. This goes for all other religions in the country as well. Fundamentalism divides, tolerant modern thinking in religions creates cohesion because the gulf between different beliefs is not so wide. Hence the apprehension about the fundamentalist archaic way of dressing. After all, isn't the God and Allah that all religions worship, one and the same despite the different doctrines.

The best thing for the Moslims and everybody else in Australia including all other religions, is for them all to practice their religion in a sensible,tolerant way, not a way that sets up huge divides or barriers. The moderating down of the Burqa is a start in this process. After all women should appear as real entities on the streets not as just some non-existant strange presence under floating black sheets. Women do after all represent half the human race, men will just have to deal with that reality and stop trying to cover them over with big black bedspreads. Get real.

Well said Cherful. I agree.
I was kicked off early in the piece because I was over zelous in the was I described Jocelynne Scutt.
So I'll try again. Jocelynne Scutt being in the Law profession & dealing mostly with womens issues has become biased towards those issues. Therfore her thinking on womens issues become clouded by her involvement. She, possibly, thinks that the whole world is like the world she is involved with.
It isn't. Therefore her opinions are totaly invalid & not worth the time of day to the normal person.

I hope that this is a more satisfactory explanation of the view I wanted to express.

No Houellebecq, the arguments are mainly about what is appropriate in Australia, whether it is reasonable to expect immigrants to adapt to the country of adoption and the security implications of persons obscuring their identity.
Well that's nice, isn't, and I agree. The witch hunting parties are sharpening their spears, well religion gets to walk free and say what-ever they like. Interesting little bunch I must say:) Question. If every human from where-ever is the cake recipe, and multiculturalism is the oven, then why isn't it cooking as well as some make out?

Yes sorry, to the Sidney Morning Herald columnist:) Sydney! There:) All better:)

I simply Quote Pat Cordell's thoughts on the matter, and again! I still don't know what all the fuss is. Iam well known for the support of womens rights and I still support the idea, that Muslim women are not free to wear what they like, and freedoms of speech! don't be silly.....only religion has that right.

LEA