Why Banning The Burka Wouldn't Help Integration

Image by IB Time UK

Unless you've been asleep for the past week, you will know all about the furore unleashed by Boris Johnson's comments on women in burkas.

Opinions currently differ over whether banning the burka is a good thing or not - some say that an outright ban would be the solution. Take away the problem and then we can all forget about it. Others, including myself, feel that it should be a woman's right to choose how she dresses, so long as she is making the choice of her own volition and not because she is forced to.

However, I have recently experienced something that has made me question the whole subject of the integration of ethnic minorities into our western culture and I have come to the conclusion that it is not that these group of people are unable to integrate - they simply don't want to!

Just last night, my partner and I were leaving a friend's flat, in Blackburn, Lancashire. She is Blackburn born and bred, British and white. She lives next door to an Asian family and they share an access pathway to their respective flats.

As we were leaving, a car pulled up outside on the road and a young Asian lady, in her late twenties, wearing normal western clothes, got out of the car and walked up the pathway towards the flats. My partner, who is always polite, said "Good evening" to her and she totally ignored him. Personally, so far as I am concerned, if someone chooses to ignore you, you don't bother to push the issue, but Jim being Jim, said to her "Why are you ignoring me?".

The young lady immediately flew into a rage and shouted at the top of her voice "Why are you speaking to me? I don't know you!" to which Jim replied, "I was just being polite by saying "Good evening" to you."

Immediately after this, the front door to her flat flew open and a very angry young man stormed out and verbally attacked Jim whilst shouting "Why do you speak to my sister? You have no right! You should go!"

Again, Jim calmly replied "I was just being polite. I said "Good evening".

By now, I was becoming slightly concerned for his welfare. He is 71 and has terminal cancer. I ushered him into our car and as he got into it, the Asian man flew at the window, which was open, and grabbed Jim threatening to hit him!

By now, there was a group of about six people, all Asian males, stood on the pathway, shouting and gesticulating about how upset they were because Jim said "Good evening" to the Asian lady.

Fearing that they might damage my car, or worse still...Jim, I started up the engine and as I did, the original young man stuck his face into the car and shouted: "Get the f**k out of here!". So we did...in haste, unfortunately, leaving our friend, who presumably knows them, to try to pacify the baying crowd on her pathway.

It was very scary and I can only draw the conclusion that, in this particular instance, this group of people simply did not want to have anything to do with us. So, even without the burka, how on earth are we going to get certain "ethnic minorities" to integrate into our society when they really, quite obviously, don't want to!

Could someone please explain what is so wrong about saying "Good evening" to someone, even if you don't know them? Is it really so wrong to be polite to people? Or am I missing something?



     

 

In Which Countries is Euthanasia Legal?

Presently,  human euthanasia is legitimate in the Netherlands, Belgium, Colombia, Luxembourg, Canada, India and South Korea. Assisted suicide is lawful in Switzerland, Germany, South Korea and Japan.  In the US states of Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Hawaii, Vermont, Montana, Washington DC, and California, assisted suicide is also legitimate.

An assisted-dying scheme in the Australian province of Victoria will become effective in mid-2019. Assisted suicide will be dying with the assistance of someone else, usually a doctor. The term is frequently utilized conversely with physician-assisted suicide (PAS), which includes a specialist “knowingly and intentionally providing a person with the knowledge and means required to commit suicide, including counselling about lethal doses of drugs, prescribing such lethal doses or supplying.”

Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Switzerland allow doctor involvement in the patient’s death. In the United States, six states permit medical assistance in passing on.

Euthanasia is portrayed as a non-treatment decision (NTD), which incorporates withholding and pulling back life-sustaining treatment, followed by death from the underlying illness. It is designed to assist the person to die rather than carry on with persistent, intolerable pain. The lawfulness of this varies throughout the different nations. It is defined as willful, non-deliberate, or automatic. Willful euthanasia is legal in a few nations. Non-willful killing (patient’s assent inaccessible) is illegal in all nations. Automatically euthanising without the patient’s consent or against their will) is also illegal in all nations and is typically considered to be murder.

In April 2002, the Netherlands was the first country to legitimize euthanasia and assisted suicide. There are very strict rules and conditions: the patient must be suffering considerably, they must be terminally ill and the request must be made in “full cognizance” by the patient.

Belgium passed a law in 2002 legitimizing euthanasia, becoming only the second nation on the planet to do so. The law says specialists can assist patients with ending their lives when they openly express a desire to die if they are enduring interminable suffering. Patients can likewise be euthanised where they have overtly expressed it before entering a coma or comparable vegetative state.

Neither in The Netherlands nor in Belgium is there a necessity that the patient is at death’s door. The two key components of the laws in the two nations are that the misery must be (subjectively) “excruciating” and that there (objectively) is “no prospect of change”.This potentially opens up euthanasia for those who are chronically and mentally ill. In The Netherlands, there is a lower age limit of 12 years, but there are no such limits in Belgium.

Colombia’s Constitutional Court decided in 1997 that “no person can be held criminally responsible for taking the life of a terminally ill patient who has given clear authorization to do so.”The court characterized a “terminally ill” individual as one with sicknesses, for example, “cancer, AIDS, and kidney or liver disease being the “cause of extreme suffering”. The decision particularly declined to approve euthanasia for individuals with degenerative diseases, for example, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, or Lou Gehrig’s illness. The nation’s parliament passed a bill legitimizing euthanasia on 20 February 2008.

In Canada,”doctor-assisted dying”, is legal for all people over 18 years old who have a terminal illness that has advanced to the point where natural death is “reasonably foreseeable.”

In every one of the six American states above, a patient may request doctor-assisted suicide on the basis of having only six months to live.

Physician-assisted suicide (PAS), involves a specialist “knowingly and intentionally providing a person with the knowledge and means required to commit suicide, including counselling about lethal doses of drugs, prescribing such lethal doses or supplying.”

Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Switzerland enable doctors to physically aid the demise of patients. In the United States, six states permit therapeutic assistance to die.

Doctor-assisted suicide is frequently mistaken for euthanasia. In instances of euthanasia the doctor oversees the methods for death, for the most part, a deadly medication. In doctor-assisted suicide, it is required that a man of sound mind intentionally communicates his or her desire to die and demands a sufficient dosage of medicine that will end his or her life. The main defining adjunct is that doctor-assisted suicide requires the patient to self-administer the medicine.

Assisted-suicide is legally supported in Switzerland’s penal code, even though there is no law about it. A specialist must analyze the patient and compose the deadly solution, however regularly does not take an interest past that. Rather, the patient is given control by a right-to-die organisation  (like EXIT), which at that point utilizes its own particular strategies to help the demise.

Recently, the UK Supreme Court has decided that where a patient is in a lasting vegetative state, or minimally conscious, specialists may, with the agreement of close relatives, pull back sustenance and water to enable the patient to die. As this is simply starving the patient to death this controversial law will most likely prompt dissent from pro-life associations in view of the length of time it can take for the patient to die – in some cases up to a month from the sustenance being withdrawn. No-one can deny that this is a horrible way to die, even if the patient appears to be unaware of the process. It is euthanasia in all but name and no doubt further discussions and possible legislation will take place in the future.