JANET STREET-PORTER: Boris Johnson is a buffoon – but our society is built on freedom to disagree

About ten years ago, a female friend had the guts to write an opinion piece in a trendy publication much loved by the intelligentsia, saying the unsayable. She said the burka had no place on our city streets. 

Shopping in central London, she found herself surrounded in an Oxford Street store by women covered from head to foot in black bags, only their eyes visible. These women did not communicate, except with each other. Mysterious, unknowable, walking one step behind their men.

My clever friend is a feminist to her core, and defends the right of any female to wear what she wants. 

Her point – which seems even more relevant today – is that a lot of people (me included) see the niqab (which only leaves the eyes exposed) and the burka (which covers a woman’s entire body rendering her a shapeless non-descript being) as highly distasteful in modern Britain (or any other western society), where we are all supposed to be doing our best to harmonise and integrate. It emphasises an aggressive difference, a lack of approachability.

Boris Johnson is a publicity-seeking buffoon, who would make just about the worst Prime Minister on record. He thrives on the oxygen of publicity, which explains his latest rantings about women in burkas looking like ‘letterboxes’, made at a time when he’s not in any position of real power, writes Janet Street-Porter

You might argue that the women are kitted up like this of their free will, under no pressure from their community, their husbands or their families. They might be very religious, in a way most westerners find alien.

Really? 100% of them? After all, Anglican clergy go to great lengths to try and disguise the fact they are ambassadors for a church, and dog collars seem to be optional. 

Even the Pope wears any old shoes, and isn’t that bothered about his clothing, other than it’s white and featureless. There’s a lot wrong with Catholicism, but the Pope doesn’t hide his face, he washes the feet of the poor and hangs out with prostitutes. He reaches out, not covering himself up. 

And Catholics (even though their church’s policies concerning abortion are repugnant to me) don’t tell women what they should be wearing to reach a bit closer to God.

I'd like to see more prominent Muslims from all walks of life enlightening us on their position regarding the wearing of the burka. Is putting on an anonymous item of clothing really a sign you are proud to be British and ready to meet the neighbours? (Above, protesters in Copenhagen following Denmark's recent decision to ban wearing the burka in the street)

I’d like to see more prominent Muslims from all walks of life enlightening us on their position regarding the wearing of the burka. Is putting on an anonymous item of clothing really a sign you are proud to be British and ready to meet the neighbours? (Above, protesters in Copenhagen following Denmark’s recent decision to ban wearing the burka in the street)

Ten years ago, you could (just about) say that the rise of the burka on the streets of our cities made you feel a bit uncomfortable, as if one group of people wanted to feel separate from the rest of society. 

God forbid you voice that point of view now – you’re called an islamophobe, a racist and God knows what else within seconds on social media. We have entered a puritanical age with black and white and nothing in between. No debate, just shrieking statements. 

The latest spat about the burka has brought out the worse in all concerned, and laid bare our lily-livered snowflake society, full of knee jerk reactions and bids for Twitter stardom.

Boris Johnson is a publicity-seeking buffoon, who would make just about the worst Prime Minister on record. He thrives on the oxygen of publicity, which explains his latest rantings about women in burkas looking like ‘letterboxes’, made at a time when he’s not in any position of real power.

Actually, he was making a valid point – that Denmark’s decision to ban wearing the burka in the street – following France, Belgium, the Netherlands and the German republic of Bavaria- was ill-advised. He said ‘women should be free to wear what they want’. Correct answer.

The knock-about jokes I can live without, but l respect his right to free speech.

Boris is brilliant at one thing – flushing out the tosspots who feel compelled to pontificate on any issue of the day. 

Baroness Warsi found his remarks ‘bigoted and indefensible’. Theresa May demanded an apology. Lord Sheikh wanted him chucked out of the Tory party. 

Only Tory MP Nadine Dorries said BoJo had ‘not gone far enough’- but what’s her self-seeking agenda? The Tory party Chairman, Brandon Lewis, expects BoJo to offer an apology – dream on. Apologies are totally worthless in modern society, ten a penny. Our leaders have grovelled and apologised for slavery, police corruption, failed sex abuse trials and preventable hospital deaths caused by dirt and negligence and yet all those things still go on in modern Britain.

   

More from Janet Street-Porter For Mailonline…

The cornerstone of modern society is the ability to disagree. Back in 1731, Benjamin Franklin, then a not-so-humble journalist and printer, explained in a famous tract why it was so important to express distasteful opinions, and upheld the fundamental right to offend. He even considered writing a standard ‘apology’ he could trot out every time he p*ssed someone off.

He cited the maxim ‘when Truth and Error have fair play, the former is always an overmatch for the latter’. Precisely. The mistake the Telegraph made in printing Boris’s rant, was not to allow equal space to a columnist to express their defence of the burka- even though no one can find it set out in the Koran, which is more concerned with women dressing modestly, than donning black bags.

By screaming for Boris to apologise, have we forgotten the art of debate?

In many ways free speech is facing a perfect storm of challenges.

‘Snowflake’ millennials demand a world where they only ever encounter their own opinions while the political and journalistic elite (who even in Franklin’s day were uncomfortable with the unruly ‘mob’ – ie you and me – having a voice) are only too happy to connive at restrictions that reign in the internet’s threat to their monopoly over public debate.

In defence of a web built on the principle of free speech, Mark Zuckerberg uses a similar argument to Franklin, that Facebook is merely a platform for people to express their views. It is a neutral facilitator, it does not authenticate them.

Now, we are demanding he apologises, for his site to be policed and offensive content removed. That is simply not possible because of the volume of traffic and almost everything will offend someone, somewhere.

Although Facebook made a big concession this week in America where, along with Apple and YouTube but not Twitter, they booted the loony right-wing conspiracy-theorist Alex Jones off their platform.

Can’t we accept that if we allow free speech, then we WILL be offended – and have faith that we can counter hysteria, prejudice and fake news with well-reasoned rebuttal.

Don’t shut down discussion; that way lies censorship and a narrowing of vision.

The biggest mistake at the moment is to talk about offending the Muslim ‘community’- that’s even more insulting than slagging off the burka. ‘Community’ is one of the most over-used words in the language – it lumps people into one homogeneous group, depersonalises them and makes it easier to attack them en masse.

The word community also does a very good job of preventing Britain (or any other civilised country) becoming one fair society, with shared simple goals of better health, education and social provision, regardless of religion or ethnicity. Communities tend to look after themselves first, and that’s not good.

I’d like to see more prominent Muslims from all walks of life enlightening us on their position regarding the wearing of the burka. Is putting on an anonymous item of clothing really a sign you are proud to be British and ready to meet the neighbours?

And is screaming down anyone who questions the burka just an admission that the arguments in its favour are less than convincing? 



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