If there is something that frustrates me most in my discussions with some Muslims, it is their total inability to see the world through the eyes of others.

Anything that Muslims want to do is right. It is not negotiable. It must be allowed. It cannot be criticised.

And for a group, which seems to use ‘moral equivalence’ arguments whenever it is subjected to even the mildest criticism, Muslims seem incapable of seeing the ‘moral equivalence’ of their intransigence.

I feel fortunate that I have had the opportunity to travel and experience many countries and cultures. This has broadened my mind.

In Iran, despite the oppressive heat of August, I wore long trousers. My wife wore a hejab and abiya. We both longed to wear shorter, lighter garments, but we suffered the discomfort and didn’t complain. After all, long trousers for me, and hejab for her, are the law in Iran.

In Turkey or Egypt there is no such law. But on our travels there we still dressed 'modestly'. My wife usually wore the hejab despite finding it hot and uncomfortable. We did this voluntarily.

Why?

It’s called respect. We may not agree with Islamic dress (we don’t), but who are we to judge when we’re in a Muslim majority country?

Who am I to think I have any right to make demands on what the people of that country should, and should not, tolerate?

A different scenario. My wife is from central Europe where they have a very different attitude to nudity to the British. They see nudity as completely natural and ‘healthy’. Day-time adverts for shampoo will often feature full nudity. The sexualising of nudity is frowned upon as puerile and perverted.

Once I visited a swimming pool there with my children, where men and women undressed fully in public by their lockers (despite there being cubicles nearby). No one batted an eyelid. I entered the spa area and was surprised to see people of both sexes, and all ages, wandering around naked. Before I could leave with my children, a fat, naked man came over, prodding and berating me for entering the spa ‘clothed’ (we were wearing swimming trunks). Everyone else was nodding in approval. I turned and left, red-faced.

My wife told me that wearing clothes in a spa is considered to be very rude and unhygienic in her country!

I may disagree, but what right have I to dictate to or ‘educate’ people in their own countries on what they should and shouldn’t find offensive?

If my wife and I insisted on wearing shorts in Eastern Turkey or Egypt then surely we would be inviting hostility and intolerance. If I insisted on staying and wearing my trunks in the spa then surely I would have invited hostility and intolerance.

Even though MY views of appropriate dress and modesty are 100% RIGHT and everyone else in the world is WRONG!

But we don’t have to ‘understand’ why some people find certain types of dress to be offensive. We don’t have to agree with them. But if we want to be tolerated and respected, then we have to accept them.

The niqab is offensive to the vast majority of people in the West. Whether or not this is irrational, it is a FACT and nothing will change that fact. Mini-skirts are offensive to the vast majority of Egyptians. Right or wrong, nothing will change that fact.

And as I discovered, wearing clothes in a spa is offensive to most Central Europeans…

Arrogantly dressing as WE feel is appropriate and stubbornly disregarding the values, morals and laws of the countries we’re in, is simply a form of passive aggression. It is plain hostility.

So wear the niqab in countries where it's legal. But try, please, to understand why people will dislike you for it.

by 'Prague Spring'

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