Thursday 1 April 2010

Smile, you're on CCTV.

There was a spontaneous Smoky-Drinky this evening. Those are always the best ones. Since the wind is well above the local kilt safety limit and it's so cold the brass monkeys haven't even noticed yet, I wrapped up very well indeed. We have snow again, it's whiter than a BNP rally out there and it feels well below zero. So it was the peaked hat with the furry ear coverings, scarf over the nose, and gloves. You could just about see my eyes. CCTV would need a powerful zoom lens and iris recognition technology to identify me, and as they don't have my irises on record, that wouldn't work either. I was showing less flesh than any Muslim woman anywhere.

France has tried, and as far as I know is still trying, to ban the muslim women's veil. There is considerable support for such a move here too. I don't support it other than in banks and other places where masked people have done unsociable things in the past. On the street, in the park, in public spaces where a masked person poses no serious threat, I don't care. If you wear a cloth over your face, I'll avoid you and I won't speak to you because it makes me uncomfortable, but I would never support a total ban.

Not just because I'm a smoker and have a natural aversion to total bans, but for another reason. It was clear from the outset that the real target was not the Muslim veil. That was a convenient excuse, something the public could be persuaded to support. No, as Belgium makes clear in its moves to 'ban the veil', it's not the veil they are banning at all. It's this:

The home affairs committee of the Brussels federal parliament voted unanimously to ban the partial or total covering of faces in public places.

Not 'the veil'. Any partial or total covering of anyone's face in any public place.

My scarf, my furry hat with the peak, any hood or hat, anything that makes seeing who you are on CCTV more difficult. That's what they are in the process of banning.

Once it's done, we're all going to have blue noses all winter. For our own good.

11 comments:

almighty said...

what about comedy glasses and fake noses with groucho tashs'?

Leg-iron said...

I thought I saw someone wearing one of those the other day.

He wasn't. Poor bugger.

PT Barnum said...

You've made me change my mind about the burqa. I've always found it disturbing, misogynistic and problematic (viz. the two veiled students who may have made private arrangements about who was sitting the exams but then we were told not to investigate). But you're right. Banning it would be the wedge being inserted in order to open up a chasm into which we can all tumble.

National Burqua Day - April 1st said...

We should have a 'National burqua day 'with full niqab. It would make all the cctv cameras obsolete for a day and maybe help the state to realise the stupidity of allowing burquas in public.

banned said...

Was chatting to two students yesterday. They had been to the Police station to collect their stuff from the evidence locker.
He had been assualted in the High Street (the one with the Banks and classy shops) and still had the crutches to prove it.

I asked if the Police had caught anyone but was told that the CCTV was rubbish and just showed the back of someone running away. They had been told that if they had been a few yards up the road they might have been filmed by the KFC cctvs which are "much better than the council ones".

Zaphod Camden said...

Bloody ridiculous. That would be me effectively under house arrest from November to April then.

And for what? As Banned says above, the quality of the CCTV footage is abysmal in many cases anyway.

Typical. First we "save" money by replacing the bobby on the beat with CCTV and then we "save" even more money by getting cheaper CCTV cameras.

April Fool? We're being played for a fool regardless of the date.

Spartan said...

Isabelle Praile, the vice-president of the Muslim Executive of Belgium, warned that a Belgian ban could be the thin end of the wedge.

"Today it's the full-face veil. Tomorrow the veil, the day after it will be Sikh turbans, and then perhaps it will be miniskirts," she told AFP.

..............

Miniskirts? :) ... " Excuse me ma'am but that miniskirt is illegal to wear. Please take it off immediately"

Severina said...

l hope thongs are to be banned also because they crack me up, or words to that effect.:-)

Anonymous said...

What about make up - lipstick and th like. Fully intended to deceive.
Should be banned

Leg-iron said...

Severina - Ever given a thong-wearer a wedgie?

Wear earplugs.

Leg-iron said...

Banned - an excellent point and one worth taking further.

opinions powered by SendLove.to