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A Hairdresser, a Hijab, and a ‘Hate Crime’
The owner of a trendy London hair salon has to shell out $8,000 for hurting a veiled Muslim job applicant's feelings. Boo hoo.
Desrosiers railed against this injustice:
I’ve worked hard all my life — how can it be possible that someone can come into my shop, talk to me for ten minutes, and then sue me for £34,000? How is that possibly fair?
It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair because the balance of risk and reward has been cruelly inverted. Desrosiers risked, sacrificed, and lost. Noah risked nothing, sacrificed nothing, and won.
Desrosiers risked. She risked her savings and her security, and was punished for refusing to risk still more. Significantly, the employment tribunal overrode her judgment, concluding that “there was no specific evidence before us as to what would (for sure) have been the actual impact of the claimant working in her salon,” and that it “doubted whether the risk was as severe as the owner believed.” That is easy for them to say. They do not bear the risk. The only way to provide the required “specific evidence” would be for Desrosiers to employ Noah, lose business, and perhaps go bankrupt. The time spent preparing her defense cost Desrosiers an estimated £40,000 of the salon’s income and many sleepless nights. The case cost Noah, who, being unemployed, must have received legal aid from the British taxpayer, nothing at all. Desrosiers risked and Noah was rewarded.
Likewise, Desrosiers made sacrifices and was punished for not sacrificing still more — for someone else’s freely chosen religious convictions. Most religions require conservative dress, particularly of women. Conservative dress is not compatible with a “funky” workplace, but why should a devoutly religious woman mind? Forgoing the opportunity to work in an “urban and edgy” salon would seem a small price to pay for God’s approval. Wouldn’t God prefer Noah to work in a more traditional salon? And shouldn’t Noah accept this sacrifice as part of the deal? It seems not. Islam demands sacrifice, but the sacrifice must be made by the unbeliever, not the Muslim. Desrosiers sacrificed, but not enough. And for Noah? Nothing ventured, everything gained.
What lesson would an immigrant to this country learn from the Noah-Desrosiers case? What lesson, indeed, would any “disadvantaged” person learn? That he should work hard, take risks, brush off insults, and prove the others wrong? On the contrary, he will learn that “hurt feelings” are what we British call a “nice little earner.” There’s money in outrage, so cry all the way to the bank.
Lucrative outrage is not confined to the Muslim community, but Islam, in its current form, seems to encourage it. A Danish newspaper nobody’s heard of prints some nasty cartoons? Riot. The pope says something you don’t like? Riot and bleat. Ezra Levant reprints the cartoons? Sue — your “human rights” have been breached. Mark Steyn expresses concern about Islamic demographics? You don’t get the job you want? Bleat, whine, and sue for hurt feelings. It beats working for a living.
Islam is doing what Islam has always done: taking territory by any means possible. For Muslims in the West, tears are more effective than guns. We cannot stop Muslims complaining, but can ensure that the squeaking gate does not always get the oil.
Recently, British blogger David Thompson wrote about novelist Ian McEwan’s criticism of Islam, or rather the reaction to it by two journalists for the Independent, Popham and Portilho-Shrimpton:
The novelist Ian McEwan has launched an astonishingly strong attack on Islamism, saying that he “despises” it and accusing it of “wanting to create a society that I detest.” His words, in an interview with an Italian newspaper, could, in today’s febrile legalistic climate, lay him open to being investigated for a “hate crime.”
Under what legislation is not clear. In any case, as Thompson points out, criticism of Islam is not unfair:
What’s unfair, indeed despicable, are efforts by Islamic groups to cow dissent and stifle criticism with a well-rehearsed pantomime of victimhood and the projection of false motives. Pretending to be hurt in order to assert one’s will over others, or to gain unreciprocated favors, or to exert control over what others may say and think, is cowardly and malign. Let me say that once again. It’s cowardly and malign.
Increasingly, in Britain and elsewhere in the West, “cowardly and malign” is rewarded. Fortune no longer favors the brave, but the bleaters. This must change. Turning a deaf ear to the “hurt feelings” of Muslims is a good place to start.
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Mary Jackson is a British editor for the New English Review, an Anglo-American online magazine of politics and culture, dedicated to celebrating the good in Western civilization and warning against that which would threaten it. Click here for the latest full-length articles, and here for the Iconoclast, the regularly updated Community Blog.
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65 Comments
1. jvon:Hurt feelings, eh?
You silly cow. Get a job (one you’re qualified for) and stop bothering people who work for a living.
Did I hurt your feelings again? Too bad. It’s not against the law where *I* live. Not yet.
Jul 1, 2008 - 1:23 am 2. tehag:This case isn’t any sillier than thousand, millions of prior lawsuits for discrimination.
Why shouldn’t Islamists be accorded the same legal rights and privileges as everyone else who is being discriminated against? It wouldn’t be right to allow [modern classes of nobility omitted] to sue and win for discrimination when Islamsists are barred from it because of their religion.
tehag
Jul 1, 2008 - 3:14 am 3. Christopher:Tehag:
I beg to differ. The case here – as in so many we’ve heard of late – isn’t that Muslims aren’t being granted the same rights as everyone else. It’s that they continually insist on special privileges based on their Religion.
So it goes in this case. Noah demanded (and the court agreed, apologists the lot of them) special treatment when denied a job she was not appropriate for, and was unwilling to accomodate the requirements for. This is akin to me applying for an acting job that requires a 6′8″ weightlifting black actor (I fit none of those categories), being denied the spot, and then suing because I have been “discriminated against.”
And those are the plain facts. You may argue until you are blue in the face, but this is the truth.
Jul 1, 2008 - 3:57 am 4. Don:This is what you find when you have an overabundance of lawyers who can’t find enough ambulances to chase, so they learn to be creative in finding clients and grounds to sue. The “victim” escapes responsibility, and makes money, and (of course) the lawyer earns an income . . . nobody loses, except the greater society. It’s a shame that this creeping paralysis is growing not so much because of extremist Islam, but because of it’s willing partners, legal mercenaries.
Jul 1, 2008 - 4:10 am 5. Noga:“Police sniffer dogs trained to spot terrorists at railway stations may no longer come into contact with Muslim passengers – after complaints that it is against the suspects’ religion.
A report for the Transport Department has raised the prospect that the animals should only touch passengers’ luggage because it is considered “more acceptable”. ”
In the Muslim faith, dogs are deemed to be spiritually “unclean”. But banning them from touching passengers would severely restrict their ability to do their job. The report follows trials of station security measures in the wake of the 2005 London suicide bomb attacks. In one trial, some female Muslims said the use of a body scanner was also unacceptable because it was tantamount to being forced to strip.
British Transport Police last night insisted it would still use sniffer dogs – which are trained to detect explosives – with any passengers regardless of faith, but handlers would remain aware of “cultural sensitivities”.
http://www.mesi.org.uk/ViewNews.aspx?ArticleId=533
Jul 1, 2008 - 4:31 am 6. Sissy Willis:Bushrah Noah learned her multi-culti, pc lesson well:
“Blame someone else and sue”
Jul 1, 2008 - 5:21 am 7. mjk:My feelings were hurt when I took a philosophy class in University years ago and the professor made disparaging and childish remarks about my religious beliefs. Too bad I didn’t realize I could sue him for that.
Suck it up, buttercup.
Jul 1, 2008 - 5:27 am 8. Lisa:Every salon I have ever been into has had workers with well-coiffed hair. It is one of the ways they demonstrate their skill to a potential client. If I can’t see your hair, I have no idea whether or not you have a clue about what to do with mine. I don’t know if your sensibilities will match mine (I am more conservative with my hair and will back away from someone too funky).
Jul 1, 2008 - 6:22 am 9. Peggy:There is definitely an effort by some in the Muslim community to “prove” that the hijab is no barrier to anything for anyone, that the girl who wears it loses nothing, sacrifices nothing, that she is every bit as modern, hip, fashionable, cool, free and normal as a girl who doesn’t wear it and then some because she is also modest and does not display herself for the sexual pleasure of strange men. Of course, that this pursuit of all of these things runs contrary to the pursuit of holiness that the hijab is supposed to enable is a contradiction that these types are hoping that you won’t pick up on.
That is probably what drove this girl to intially apply for this job. Someone, probably a religious leader or exemplar probably told her that her hijab should not be a bar to employment anywhere and that she was serving the cause of Islam by pursuing a career that would to any rational person be counterintuitive to her beliefs. This is how she would claim some territory for Islam as someone mentioned above. They probably argued, as some do, that Muslim women can have fashionable hairstyles too as long as no man other than her family sees it (the concept of art or fashion for its own sake or as public expression is lost on these types) Believe me this kind of campaign has been going on for a long time and we are just beginning to see its fruits (see Muslim Girl magazine for another example. Or what about those fashionista Muslimas that you see strutting around high end shopping malls?)
BTW, I couldn’t get over it the other day when I saw a girl in full hijab and big coat working at McDonald’s with some kind of brimmed cap worked into or worn under the scarf. I could only imagine the intimidation that her employers must have felt when she applied and sympathized with them trying to accomodate the uniform, which they have every right to require, to her religious preference. The compromise looked ridiculous. She still stood out like a sore thumb and she still looked like she was completely out of uniform compared to the others. But she was proving a point, by gum! Its just for that kind of attitude that I will usually try to avoid being served by someone like her unless I have no choice.
Jul 1, 2008 - 7:06 am 10. Mary Jackson:Peggy, some very perceptive comments.
Lisa:
I am more conservative with my hair and will back away from someone too funky
Quite. Trendy can be as off-putting to some as conservative is to others.
There are plenty of un-funky salons where Noah’s image would be perfectly acceptable, or she could go to people’s homes – women’s homes, where she could uncover her hair. But that’s not enough, as Peggy points out. She wants to have her cake and eat it, and naturally at the infidel’s expense.
Jul 1, 2008 - 7:33 am 11. Eowyn:I’ve been following this outrage since its beginning, and I’m glad PJM is adding its voice. This stuff has to be brought out in the public eye and kept there.
Apparently, Ms. Noah had been turned down by at least 20 salons previous to Ms. DesRosiers’. Apparently, also, there are plenty of Muslim hairdressers happily at work who do not wear the hijab. This should be a glaring “duh” — clients want to see the hairdresser’s own hair when making a decision whether to patronize a salon.
It’s been argued that Ms. Noah’s qualifications should have carried more weight than her own appearance. Well, she could have been hairdresser to the stars, and still not an appropriate fit, especially for a trendy salon. And it seems to me there ought to be plenty of salons that cater to hijab-wearers that she could work at. Big market, I would think.
So, it all came down to easy money, as Mary Jackson rightly said. Only maybe not so easy. I wouldn’t want to have someone else’s financial ruin on my hands.
Jul 1, 2008 - 8:00 am 12. Doubting David:I would hope she can appeal this foolish decision by what appears to be an administrative court. If people can be denied access to discos because they are ‘not cool,’ if weight and dress guidelines can apply for other jobs in the public eye (air hostess, TV news presenter) then certainly it is reasonable to insist that persons working in a hair salon display their hair.
Jul 1, 2008 - 8:21 am 13. Danny:Well firstly someone should have told Noah that a woman only has to wear the Hijab in the presence of men, so the owner could have asked to see her hair. As for the Macdonalds woman, as long as she worked hard and produced for the company I think it is a fair compromise.
The fact is that the tribunal system is heavily biased in favour of the employee and is normally a form of extortion where you pay off the complainant because it is cheaper and less risky than arguing the case. There are far worse travesties of justice than this – like the case where someone applied for a full-time job and then said he only wanted to work part-time and so was refused the job. I would also note that the government has statutory immunity from these claims – so bad luck if Noah applied to work as a doctor in the NHS….
Jul 1, 2008 - 8:25 am 14. Boris:Gosh, why can’t we just hate Muslims in peace? Why are we subject to rules? Why can’t we just be bigots like we want to be? Where’s OUR freedom?
Jul 1, 2008 - 8:25 am 15. TalkinKamel:It’s just more pushing the envelope—getting us to submit to Shari’a law without having it actually put into law, or voting on it.
Jul 1, 2008 - 8:28 am 16. Eowyn:Boris:
Gosh, why can’t we just hate Muslims in peace?
I don’t think anyone here hates Muslims. People are angry at what they see as preferential treatment, and are expressing their opinions. Nowhere do I see (yet) any ad hominem attacks.
Why are we subject to rules?
We’re subject to rules insofar as they are properly enforced. This includes the spirit, as well as the letter, of the law. In Ms. Noah’s case, the law was wrongly enforced, in the opinion of many.
Why can’t we just be bigots like we want to be?
Many are. So? Unless they directly incite people to violence, their speech, while offensive, is protected.
Where’s OUR freedom?
We’re exercising it right here.
Jul 1, 2008 - 8:52 am 17. Dawn:Everytime I see her picture with that smug little smile, just makes me very angry. I go to a place to get my hair cut, I look at the people that work there and see what their hair looks like. No, if I see someone in a headscarf (unless it’s because the woman has cancer), I will not patronize.
Jul 1, 2008 - 9:37 am 18. Rucker:Along with everything else that is wrong with what was done here to the salon owner by this muslima, I find the smirk on her face in this photograph to really sum up the whole story: “You have been shown your place kaffir, now pay up”, she seems to be saying
Jul 1, 2008 - 9:56 am 19. Freeman:One thing that many of our Muslim friends never quite grasp, as they seek to “integrate” into our society on their terms, is that every time they use the West’s sense of fairness and indeed its laws against Westerners then there are making the gap wider. Increasingly such stunts persuade people not to accomodate them.
That there are plenty of fair-minded, reasonable and even positively-determined female Muslims who want to establish themselves as useful members of society is not in question. What is in question is whether waving a semi-barbaric religion in front of a large number of non-believing people, demanding people regard it as something special when it isn’t, gets in the way of simply being a human being. Society has to function as a give-and-take; and this woman it seems was happy to take without giving.
Bushra Noah has every right to worship whatever concept of God that pleases her; but I would imagine if God exists then He (or She) is – in the greater scheme of things – not much bothered by one person taking her headscarf off for a few hours a day.
But a religion which believes that God is continually angry and must be placated by gestures and even murder (yes, it appears to happen) doesn’t appeal to most of us. A lot of us can see no reason why we should continually amend our way of life for the supposed benefit of their belief-pattern.
Every time the Muslim faith bleats they are disliked and mistrusted they seem to do something to show there is cause for it. Parading placards calling for the death of ‘non-believers’ may be an extreme example of this, but we tolerate it for reasons I can never understand. It certainly isn’t fairness on their part for us to be told we are all to die for the glory of a religion we do not admire.
Ms Noah may in the eyes of many “angry” muslims be a hero of their cause. But her ill-advised action is for most part yet another piece of proof that religion ought to be a purely private matter and never be permitted to enter into the nation’s public life.
Jul 1, 2008 - 10:03 am 20. Jeff Perren:I don’t normally go for conspiracy theories, but it’s hard not to seriously wonder if, in this case, she was put up to it by those seeking to advance the Islamist cause.
Jul 1, 2008 - 10:08 am 21. Eowyn:I might also add that Islam forbids women to touch men who are not related to them. As Ms. DesRosiers’ salon was unisex, wouldn’t this have posed a problem?
Jul 1, 2008 - 10:14 am 22. Paul:I bet her next job application will be for a liquor store and she will sue because it “violates” her religon. Just goes to show why the EU is being rejected by real Europeans.
Jul 1, 2008 - 10:42 am 23. Dawn:I cannot say it enough. These people are trying to take over by any means possible. This should have immediately been not only thrown but laughed out of court. We can CHOOSE not to hire anyone we want but apparently we should lie to avoid this insanity. I vote that we make laws to insue that no muslims work in jobs outside of their own society. Case closed.
Jul 1, 2008 - 10:47 am 24. C Williams:It’s obvious the UK is lost.
You can’t defend yourselves. You have given up your arms. Much of your population faces violent crime without even the police willing to intervene.
Your courts protect the leaches of society while doing harm to the people who work to provide for themselves and produce jobs, and income for others.
Your courts also free known terrorists to live among you, at great cost to your society and ignoring individual safety.
Your everyday television presents, as role models, only the most effeminate of males, and makes great fun of the few who aren’t. Your newspapers do the same.
Cameras are now more numerous than any Hollywood grade B version of “1984″.
You have no right to self defense, but no ability, anyway.
Sad to watch and not pleasent to visit.
It’s much as if watching an aging dementia patient. You are saying goodbye to the mind, but the body still exists in a some form…….. At least for a while.
Jul 1, 2008 - 10:49 am 25. Will Becker:The sad thing about it is,just like hispanics, there will be more and more lawsuits,draining the lifeblood out of us.Are we we going to sit by like helpless sheep and let it happen?
Jul 1, 2008 - 11:12 am 26. Boris:“I don’t think anyone here hates Muslims.”
Do you read the comments here?
Jul 1, 2008 - 11:20 am 27. bullshine:The photo of the smug little cow shows up the truth about this story…..She did this as an act of political terrorism and nearly ruined her victim.She is disgusting.
Jul 1, 2008 - 11:25 am 28. Wow:Seems terribly unfair. But aside from everone saying so, no one seems to have any idea what to do to prevent more of the same.
Its not clear if this award was by a jury, judge or professional panel: anyone know? In either event, how can the supporting law be altered? Why did the judge/jury/panel award anything at all based on the record given?
This award, like the Canadian investigation into Steyn and McCleans, also suggests that “informal” tribunals (if that is what made the award) are more menacing to Defendants than jurors. They feel compelled to give “something” because its their “mission.”
People ought to be actively seeking to eliminate these “informal hearing boards” and return dispensing justice to regular people serving as jurors.
The same creeping lack of realism exists in US labor boards and agencies that sanction employers for all kinds of ridiculous things.
Jul 1, 2008 - 11:34 am 29. FreedomLover:Has anyone started a legal defense fund for Ms. Desrosiers to enable her to appeal? I’d be willing to contribute! An outpouring of public support helped turn the tide for Steyn and Maclean’s in Canada, while revealing the cowering idiocy of the CHRC. It could do the same here.
Jul 1, 2008 - 12:05 pm 30. Kay:Guaranteed this was a plan before she walked in there. I’ve had friends sued for similar things from similar people. A friend of mine got sued in a 3 car accident when the Pakistani woman in the third car up sued(the car didn’t have one scratch on it), and counted on the insurance to settle out almost instantly for $5000. A little investigation found that this was the 30th lawsuit she’s filed for in the few years that she had been in the country. A Pakistani doctor has her labeled with all kinds of medical ‘issues’ and basically turns it into a lawsuit every time the woman is touched(and various slip/fall lawsuits). Its great for our tax dollars to go cover the costs of this lunacy as well as from our own people(i.e. Inmates suing the state over broken cookies and the like). Liberals are determined to destroy all free nations.
Jul 1, 2008 - 12:25 pm 31. Dane:Boris: Speaking for myself, I have no problem with Muslims except when their practice of the religion interferes with the life, liberty or pursuit of happiness of others. I do take issue when creeping Sharia being pushed by Wahabbists or Qutbists results in, say, a cartoonist being beheaded, or a situation where gays and Jews can’t venture out onto the streets at night, or a ridiculous lawsuit like this one. If you consider this to be “hatred”… well, I don’t know what to tell you.
Jul 1, 2008 - 12:33 pm 32. Findalis:I patronize a hair salon where my regular stylist wears a wig. She is undergoing chemo for breast cancer and has lost her hair. There are days she might not wear it, and I tell her that she looks good without it.
As for a Muslim woman wearing a hajib, if she works as a hair stylist and wears that, I won’t go there. I want to see her hair and how it is styled before any stylist works on mine.
Jul 1, 2008 - 1:37 pm 33. Tony:The whole situation is utterly crazy.
Let us be adults here for a second…..religion is a pile of hocum….stories invented to keep people sane in the dark ages of human ignorance.
Yes, people are entitled to swallow whatever bunk they want, blah blah blah, and nobody should hate them for it, blah blah blah, but come on! It’s nonsense. Yet here we are in the developed world kow-towing to simpletons who get financially rewarded for being backward. Brilliant!
Who needs human development when we have arseholes making stupid decisions to protect the feelings of idiots…..? Its almost too pathetic for words.
Jul 1, 2008 - 2:18 pm 34. Brian:Definitely agree this was planned from day one in advance to stir a lawsuit. It is definitely a fact that those who wish to be diabolical using Islam as a way to undermine the system for free money learn this from one another. Just as many illegal Mexican immigrants have long mastered using the US system to their advantage. It does make me laugh that those who are most noted in the news for the Islamic faith be it terrorists or the new generation of litigious immigrants do everything AGAINST Islam by definition, and use it only for personal gain. Obviously this is not exclusive to Muslims, but at the moment we just haven’t gotten used to it yet so its extremely effective. The MSM has already vilified the Christian faith enough now it would never work to make a case for a discrimination lawsuit. There’s a lot of money to be made right now using your ‘Islamic’ faith….
I’m a modern white Irish ‘Catholic’ engaged to a lovely modern Syrian ‘Muslim’ woman, and we obviously have grasped the concept of disseminating present-day logic from religious heritage. She definitely thinks this is as completely stupid and a contrived scam for personal profit as I do. She profoundly called it faster then me with the exclamation ‘what horseshit!’.
It is definitely the goal of the liberal media to do everything it can from making this look to be more then a simple legal scam. I would also be furious with whatever courtroom allowed this to happen in the first place.
Jul 1, 2008 - 3:00 pm 35. Brian:It’s ironic when I watch the news with my finance and/or the hodge-podge group I ‘hang out’ with.
I work for a decent sized flooring installation company.
The boss has been in the US for about 15 years, came here from Iran(I remember when he only knew about 10 words in English other then every vulgar word we use) and only wanted to get enough money to buy a red Corvette(which he now has). He’s married to a lovely black all-American woman from Tennessee
I run the showroom/install crews and I’m an all-American white dude engaged to an aforementioned Syrian woman who fled here with her family from Lebanon when she was a child.
our warehouse manager is an immigrant from Iraq who was tortured by Saddam and has quite a few acid scars all over his body who finally became a US citizen 2 years ago(the man has about 30 ‘USA’ ball caps.
our lead install crews include two Afghan brothers, 2 Korean crews, a crew with a guy from Kenya, 2 Iranian crews, a Mexican and a Guatemalan crew(don’t get THOSE two mixed up), and 3 ‘good ol boy’ crews born in the USA, one black and two white.
Not to mention the sprinkling of every nationality and color you can think of with various helpers and girls in the office.
Most of us have know each other for 5-15 years, and we all BBQ together, hit the bars, and of course talk politics here and there. NONE of it sounds like what the MSM feeds down our throats every day, making it incredibly laughable.
The best is my boss’s take on Obama. He’s not crazy about politics, but he noting that “this guy was born to a Muslim father(and the whole idea that he’s then always Muslim discussion), then gets with a crazy preacher after he marries his wife who hates America, and I don’t have any idea what the hell is wrong with him. He doesn’t even show his name on the signs when he speaks, and I have no idea what this ‘change’ means, and people love this guy, some Americans are just crazy I guess”… Ironically, just about everyone I work with likes Bush, and many much more then I do, myself a long-term white Republican.
Hell, if we had a reality-show based at my office, every liberal would think it was faked.
Jul 1, 2008 - 3:25 pm 36. stan:so a hindu can apply for a job a a butcher but says it’s against his religion to handle meat, should get the job anyway? uk is turning into a multicultural cesspool. time to abandon ship before it drowns you all.
Jul 1, 2008 - 7:11 pm 37. Geoff:Boris, I don’t hate Muslims per se, but I do hate Islam. This hair salon issue is only a tiny example of what Islam is doing to Western culture all over Europe, Australia, North America, even Thailand and China now for crying out loud. Wherever Islam takes root the host country suffers. It has been this way for 14 centuries. We see clearly what this religion and many of its followers are doing to the UK. If you read the Qur’an you understand that these are not just the occasional crack-pots imposing their values and beliefs on our culture, it’s simply Muslims following their faith. The more I study Islam, the more I realize what a cancer it is to civilized, free, liberal, tolerant societies. I’m politically incorrect, but educated and aware. You may be politically correct and tolerant, but it is to your peril and ignorance if you are. You want bigotry? Get past the “Jews are the decendants of apes and pigs” portion of the Qur’an and you find nearly 200 more verses describing “unbelievers” in terms just as clear as that. Get off your high horse and wake up.
Jul 1, 2008 - 9:24 pm 38. torasham:i think we should more understanding about others religion. i mean, if we offer some alcoholic drinks to a muslims and the man refused, we should not laughing to the people at all.
Jul 1, 2008 - 9:46 pm 39. joeblough:pre-emptive surrender by the dhimmi courts
Jul 2, 2008 - 12:04 am 40. joeblough:When societies are dying they protect the evil and inferior, and oppress the virtuous.
What has that disgusting bloodsucking toad ever done to deserve $8000 ?
What has innocent Desrosiers, a model of virtue, ever done to deserve losing $8000?
An exact and perfect moral inversion.
Jul 2, 2008 - 12:24 am 41. Expat:When I just moved to Australia and I was seeking employment, many times I been told my English is not good enough. Now I know how much money I could have made by sueing for discrimination. By the way I would not have done it.
Jul 2, 2008 - 4:33 am 42. Tonto (USA):Jeez, My rottweiller has better looking eyebrows….better looking face too. Here’s a prime example why mooselimb broads gotta wear a veil and bubushka. They need to get a life too.
Jul 2, 2008 - 5:24 am 43. Radtop:Sorry, but Desrosier’s mistake was simple inexperience. She should have gone through the interview without asking an obviously unqualified applicant to remove her head scarf and tell her later a more qualified person got the job without revealing specifics. If pressed she should say that in her opinion the person she hired was the best applicant she interviewed. That’s the way it is in the entitlement world we live in today.
Jul 2, 2008 - 5:45 am 44. TDawg:Serves the shop-owner right for not taking further precautions. She should have named her business, “The Three Little Pigs Hair Salon” … probably wouldn’t have been bothered with the islamist then. On a serious note, countries need to begin deporting these islamists and stop catering to their foolishness. PC is a killer and solves nothing.
Jul 2, 2008 - 5:45 am 45. The Resistance:Exclude ideologies from the constitution should solve the problem…
Jul 2, 2008 - 7:15 am 46. windy blow:With those eyebrows and that smirk, she can get a job impersonating Groucho Marx. Just wish the rest of them would be like Harpo and never say a word.
Jul 2, 2008 - 10:55 am 47. mwl:…And the Brits will shake their heads and wonder why so many of their best and brightest continue to flee the country.
Every story like this is just another nail in the coffin.
Jul 2, 2008 - 1:23 pm 48. em2brown:yep just a nother inch tward urabia
Jul 3, 2008 - 8:25 am 49. Chris R.:That kind of PC garbage is happening here in the USA as well. Remember that Target made allowances to several muslim cashiers because they balked at handling bacon and pork products while performing their jobs. Did those muslims get fired for refusing to do their jobs? Nope. Did they know that they would have to handle pork products during checkout when they applied for the jobs? Yep.
I will never visit a Target store because they shunned common sense in favor of PC nonsense. I fear it is only a matter of time before insane lawsuits are brought and won by islamofascists here in the USA. Victory in the UK likely means they will try that same tactic elsewhere.
Jul 3, 2008 - 8:31 am 50. Sreenivasa:In India we started with Gujarat. You guys better protect your turf else these moussies will takw it.
Jul 3, 2008 - 8:59 am 51. big fat infidel:More muslim perfidy! And yet, the UK takes it, and takes it, and takes it.
Jul 3, 2008 - 3:23 pm 52. Olympic Party Blog » Blog Archive » July 4th Celebrates The Freedom To Be Your Best:Have you heard about the latest thing in the UK over which muslims are “outraged?” The picture of the puppy with a cop’s hat? What the frak? Is there ANYTHING that does not offend a muslim? If they really loathe British society that much, I really don’t know why they stay there-they’re free to leave, right?
I know I’m gonna wake up one day, and read that the St George’s cross has been abolished as the English flag, because it offended muslims. The Brits have to FIGHT BACK, and re-take THEIR nation, THEIR culture, and THEIR traditions back from this fetid, arrogant bunch of whining, blame-spewing, hate mongers.
Wake up Britannia! Do like the Spanish did, and boot the lot of them. IF they want to stay, they need to abide by ALL British laws, traditions, and customs; no exceptions made. NONE.
[...] Here’s an example of a woman who tried to be her best being sucked under by a degenerate Muslim who refuses… [...]
Jul 3, 2008 - 8:44 pm 53. Jerry:Well, I worked in Saudi Arabia myself for a number of years, and in the interview room for the company I worked for was a very large poster. It said,”If you are not prepared to abide by the laws and customs of Saudi Arabia, then don’t go there.” All we need to do is tell these muslims the same thing. I think my foreman, a guy from the north of England put it better. He said,”If’n ye don’t fookin’ well like it ‘ere, then ye can fookin’ well fook off ‘ome !”
Jul 4, 2008 - 5:41 am 54. Sharonsj:I’m of two minds over this. If the woman was qualified and could cut hair really well–better than the other applicants–she should have gotten the job. There are other cultures/religions that cover their hair too, and it doesn’t stop them from accomplishing things. However, the salon owner has the right to hire whomever she wants based on any standard criteria, including appearance, as long as the reason doesn’t break the law. The problem for Muslims is that the more they insist on special treatment, the less employers are likely to hire them.
Jul 4, 2008 - 10:09 am 55. Mark G:All you Brits should go apply for jobs at Halal grocery stores. Wear your crucifixes, yarmulkes, saffron robes, etc. Then file your law suits and wait for the cash to roll in. Good luck my friends, you need it.
Jul 4, 2008 - 12:31 pm 56. Steynian 188 « Free Mark Steyn!:[...] A HAIRDRESSER, a Hijab, and a ‘Hate Crime’, by Mary Jackson. “The owner of a trendy London hair salon [...]
Jul 4, 2008 - 4:19 pm 57. fouse, gary c:In the grand tradition of Iran’s lunatic Ayatollah Khomeini (who issued a Fatwa against British subject, Salmon Rushdie), and the murder of Dutch Filmmaker, Theo Van Gogh on a Dutch street by a Muslim immigrant a few years back-comes this out of the Kingdom of Jordan: During the past month, a Jordanian prosecutor has filed charges for blasphemy and “contempt of Muslims” against Danish cartoonist, Kurt Westergaard, as well as 10 Danish newspaper editors who published the cartoons that infuriated the Muslim world and set off deadly riots across the globe. In addition, also charged with similar “crimes” is Dutch politician, Geert Wilders, whose offense was to make a short film (Fitna or Strife) that stated that the Koran incited violence. The charges against the Danes came in early June, while charges against Wilders came early this month. The warrants issued by Prosecutor, Hassan Abdullat, in Amman come as a result of a complaint filed by a Jordanian group called “The Prophet Unites Us”. Thus, the Jordanian prosecutor has summoned all of the above Europeans to report to Jordan for trial or international arrest warrants will be issued.
Can you say “Chutzpah”?
Though neither Denmark nor the Netherlands have signalled any intention of arresting their citizens and extraditing them to Jordan, all of the affected individuals may have their ability to travel outside their own borders restricted if international arrest warrants are obtained. An international arrest warrant could be circulated within Interpol. On the surface it would seem implausible that Interpol would enforce arrest warrants on these charges (They do not honor warrants based on political crimes) However, given the cowardly manner in which many European countries are conducting themselves in the face of Islamic intimidation, who knows?)
In the case of Wilders (who is a Dutch Member of Parliament), he appealed to his foreign minister, a certain Maxime Verhagen, to summon the Jordanian Ambassador in Holland for a lecture on freedom of speech. Verhagen declined, stating that it would represent “interference in Jordanian judicial matters”!!??!
Meanwhile in Riyahd, the Organization of Islam Conference (OIC), a league of 56 Muslim nations, expressed “disappointment” that the Dutch prosecutors could take no action against Wilders based on “free speech issues”.
So now, Middle East prosecutors are filing charges against foreigners in the West who dare to criticize Islam-and this from one of the so-called “moderate, pro-American” nations. Have you ever heard of such brazen arrogance? And what about the cowardice of the Dutch Foreign Minister who will not speak out and summon the Jordanian Ambassador for a good chewing out? At what point does any self-respecting nation tell these fans of the 7th century that, here in the West, we have freedom of speech, and we will never give up our citizens to some Third World banana republic (which Wilders has correctly called Jordan).
A note to the Jordanian prosecutor who is so concerned about “contempt of Muslims”: You could go a long way toward eliminating said “contempt” if you would lock up the killers that are giving Islam such a bad name around the world.
The entire civilized world should stand shoulder to shoulder with the Geert Wilders, Kurt Westergaards and Salmon Rushdies of the world.
gary fouse
Jul 5, 2008 - 9:20 am 58. misanthropicus:fousesquawk
Poor Bushra Noah, scarf martyr! Poor those Muslims cabbies martyrs from Minneapolis who must take infidel dogs with booze in their luggage! Poor students from Michigan U who don’t have dedicated sinks to wash theyr feet soliled by the infidels’ odious grounds! Indeed, my righteous brothers and sisters, martyrdom wherever you look around – the Western world is so oppressive! How can a righteous Muslim not join the Intifada?
Bellow is the description of Malika’s, Bushra’s sister-martyr struggle as Al-Quada enabler in Belgium – the same mixture of entitlement, pomposity, idiocy and fanaticism:
——————————— * ———————–
NYT – Internet Warrior Rallies Women To support Al Quada/
By ELAINE SCIOLINO and SOUAD MEKHENNET/May 28, 2008
BRUSSELS – On the street, Malika El Aroud is anonymous in an Islamic black veil covering all but her eyes.
Malika El Aroud, seen in her living room in Brussels, has become one of the most prominent Internet jihadists in Europe. In her living room, Ms. El Aroud, a 48-year-old Belgian, wears the ordinary look of middle age: a plain black T-shirt and pants and curly brown hair. The only adornment is a pair of powder-blue slippers monogrammed in gold with the letters SEXY.
But it is on the Internet where Ms. El Aroud has distinguished herself. Writing in French under the name – Oum Obeyda,- she has transformed herself into one of the most prominent Internet jihadists in Europe. She calls herself a female holy warrior for Al Qaeda. She insists that she does not disseminate instructions on bomb-making and has no intention of taking up arms herself. Rather, she browbeats Muslim men to go and fight and rallies women to join the cause.
“It’s not my role to set off bombs – that’s ridiculous,” she said in a rare interview. “I have a weapon. It’s to write. It’s to speak out. That’s my jihad. You can do many things with words. Writing is also a bomb.”
Ms. El Aroud has not only made a name for herself among devotees of radical forums where she broadcasts her message of hatred toward the West. She also is well known to intelligence officials throughout Europe as simply “Malika” – an Islamist who is at the forefront of the movement by women to take a larger role in the male-dominated global jihad. The authorities have noted an increase in suicide bombings carried out by women – the American military reports that 18 women have conducted suicide missions in Iraq so far this year, compared with 8 all of last year – but they say there is also a less violent yet potentially more insidious army of women organizers, proselytizers, teachers, translators and fund-raisers, who either join their husbands in the fight or step into the breach as men are jailed or killed.
“Women are coming of age in jihad and are entering a world once reserved for men,” said Claude Moniquet, president of the Brussels-based European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center. “Malika is a role model, an icon who is bold enough to identify herself. She plays a very important strategic role as a source of inspiration. She’s very clever, very sly and extremely dangerous.”
Ms. El Aroud began her rise to prominence because of a man in her life. Two days before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, her husband carried out a bombing in Afghanistan that killed the anti-Taliban resistance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud at the behest of Osama bin Laden. Her husband was killed, and she took to the Internet as the widow of a martyr. She remarried, and she and her new husband were convicted in Switzerland for operating pro-Qaeda Web sites. Now, according to the Belgium authorities, she is a suspect in what the authorities say they believe is a plot to carry out attacks in Belgium.
“Vietnam is nothing compared to what awaits you on our lands,” she wrote to a supposed Western audience in March about wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “Ask your mothers, your wives to order your coffins.” To her followers she added: “Victory is appearing on the horizon my brothers and sisters. Let’s intensify our prayers.”
Her prolific writing and presence in chat rooms, coupled with her background, makes her a magnet for praise and sympathy. “Sister Oum Obeyda is virtuous among the virtuous; her life is dedicated to the good on this earth,” a man named Juba wrote late last year.
The rise of women comes against a backdrop of discrimination that has permeated radical Islam. Mohamed Atta, the Sept. 11 hijacker, wrote in his will that”women must not be present at my funeral or go to my grave at any later date.”
Last month, Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda’s second in command, said in an online question-and-answer session that women could not join Al Qaeda. In response, a woman wrote on a password-protected radical Web site that “the answer that we heard was not what we had hoped,” according to the SITE monitoring group, adding, “I swear to God I will never leave the path and will not give up this course.”
The changing role of women in the movement is particularly apparent in Western countries, where Muslim women have been educated to demand their rights and Muslim men are more accustomed to treating them as equals.
Ms. El Aroud reflects that trend. “Normally in Islam the men are stronger than the women, but I prove that it is important to fear God and no one else,” she said. “It is important that I am a woman. There are men who don’t want to speak out because they are afraid of getting into trouble. Even when I get into trouble, I speak out.”
After all, she said, she knows the rules. “I write in a legal way,” she said. “I know what I’m doing. I’m Belgian. I know the system.”
That system often has been lenient toward her. She was detained last December with 13 others in what the authorities suspected was a plot to free a convicted terrorist from prison and to launch an attack in Brussels. But Belgian law required that they be released within 24 hours, because no charges were brought and searches failed to turn up weapons, explosives or incriminating documents.
Now, even as Ms. El Aroud remains under constant surveillance, she is back home rallying militants on her main Internet forum and collecting more than $1,100 a month in government unemployment benefits.
“Her jihad is not to lead an operation but to inspire other people to wage jihad,” said Glenn Audenaert, the director of Belgium’s federal police force, in an interview. “She enjoys the protection that Belgium offers. At the same time, she is a potential threat.”
Born in Morocco, reared from a young age in Belgium, Ms. El Aroud did not seem destined for the jihad. Growing up, she rebelled against her Muslim upbringing, she wrote in a memoir. Her first marriage, at 18, was unhappy and brief; she later bore a daughter out of wedlock.
Unable to read Arabic, it was her discovery of the Koran in French that led her to embrace a strict version of Islam and eventually to marry Abdessater Dahmane, a Tunisian loyal to Mr. bin Laden. Eager to be a battlefield warrior, she said she hoped to fight alongside her husband in Chechnya. But the Chechens “wanted experienced men, super-well trained,” she said. “They wanted women even less.”
In 2001, she followed her husband to Afghanistan. As he trained at a Qaeda camp, she was installed in a camp for foreign women in Jalalabad. For her, the Taliban was a model Islamic government and reports of its mistreatment of women were untrue. “Women didn’t have problems under the Taliban,” she insisted. “They had security.”
Her only rebellion was against the burqa, the restrictive garment the Taliban forced on women, which she called “a plastic bag.” As a foreigner, she was allowed to wear a long black veil instead. After her husband’s mission, Ms. El Aroud was briefly detained by Mr. Massoud’s followers. Frightened, she was put in contact with Belgian authorities, who arranged for her safe passage home.
“We got her out and thought she’d cooperate with us,” said one senior Belgian intelligence official. “We were deceived.”
Judge Jean-Louis Bruguière, who was France’s senior counterterrorism magistrate at the time, said he had interviewed Ms. El Aroud because investigators suspected that she had shipped electronic equipment to her husband that was used in the killing. “She is very radical, very sly and very dangerous,” he said.
Ms. El Aroud was tried with 22 others in Belgium for complicity in the Massoud killing. As a grieving widow in a black veil, she persuaded the court that she had been doing humanitarian work and knew nothing of her husband’s plans. She was acquitted for lack of evidence.
Her husband’s death, though, propelled her into a new life. “The widow of a martyr is very important for Muslims,” she said.
She used her enhanced status to meet her new brothers and sisters on the Web. One of them was Moez Garsalloui, a Tunisian several years her junior who had political refugee status in Switzerland. They married and moved to a small Swiss village. There, they ran several pro-Qaeda Web sites and Internet forums that were monitored by Swiss authorities as part of the country’ first Internet-related criminal case. After the police raided their home and arrested them at dawn in April 2005, Ms. El Aroud extensively described what she called their abuse.
“See what this country that calls us neutral made us suffer,” she wrote, claiming that the Swiss police beat and blindfolded her husband and manhandled her while she was sleeping unveiled.
Convicted last June of promoting violence and supporting a criminal organization, she received a six-month suspended sentence; Mr. Garsalloui, who was convicted of more serious charges, was released after 23 days. Despite Ms. El Aroud’s prominence, it is once again her husband whom the authorities view as a bigger threat. They suspect he was recruiting to carry out attacks last December and that he has connections to terrorist groups operating in the tribal areas of Pakistan. The authorities say that they lost track of him after he was released from jail last year in Switzerland. “He is on a trip, “Ms. El Aroud said cryptically when asked about her husband’s whereabouts. “On a trip.”
Meanwhile, her stature has risen higher with her claims of victimization by the Swiss. The Voice of the Oppressed Web site described her as “our female holy warrior of the 21st century.”
Jul 6, 2008 - 6:10 am 59. will:Her latest tangle with the law hints at a deeper involvement of women in terrorist activities. When she was detained last December in connection with the suspected plot to free Nizar Trabelsi, a convicted terrorist and a onetime professional soccer player, and to attack a target in Brussels, Ms. El Aroud was one of three women taken in for questioning. Although the identities of those detained were not released, the Belgian authorities and others familiar with the case said that among those detained were Mr. Trabelsi’s wife and Fatima Aberkan, 47, a friend of Ms. El Aroud and a mother of seven.
“Malika is a source of inspiration for women because she is telling women to stop sleeping and open their eyes,” Ms. Aberkan said.
Ms. El Aroud operates from her three-room apartment that sits above a clothing shop in a working-class Brussels neighborhood where she spends her time communicating with supporters, mainly on her own forum, Minbar-SOS.
Although Ms. El Aroud insists that she is not breaking the law, she knows that the police are watching. And if the authorities find way to put her in prison, she said: “That would be great. They would make me a living martyr.”
(NYT note: Basil Katz contributed research from Paris.)
this is so damn stupid…okay, get this, how does a mid life, white, anglo saxon, protestant, get some of this special treatment…the answer…i don’t!!!!!
Jul 6, 2008 - 4:36 pm 60. Michael Canzano:take life as you earn it
This miscarriage of justice only enhances the truth ; First the UK government has wimped out and should be donning head scarves and burkas themselves.
Jul 7, 2008 - 7:51 am 61. LBR:Second “An addition of Muslims to a Nation is a subtraction in civilization.”
American Christian Infidel
Michael Canzano
Take this one in! I wasn’t able to get to my bank because of work. My hours and the bank hours just didn’t align so I jumped onto the Internet and jumped over to their website and found a closer bank location. It wasn’t in “Bad” section just an older part of town so off I went. I opened the door and walked up to the counter. No waiting… This was strange because any trip to my bank always resulted in waiting in line. I have two bank cards, one for Checking and another for Savings. I made little marks on the backs of the cards so I could tell them apart and was trying to find my mark and then I looked up and all I saw was 2 eyeballs. The bank clerk was dressed head to toe in a black robe with only her eye’s showing. I took my checks out of her fingers and started to walk out the bank when an older woman walked over and wanted to know why I was leaving. I gave her a nasty look and walked out. Two days later I moved my money to a local owned bank. The following week at our local Wal-Mart if you lucked out and got in the “wrong” line you were unable to buy pork products. You could either grab all your items and place them back in your cart and find another line to stand in again or throw your pork items on the floor. Then a blind woman leaving the airport with her dog was denied a cab because of her dog is unclean. Federal laws allowing assist dogs access didn’t matter. Now they want to take tax money to build foot baths for the taxi drivers. When a reporter asked if these baths would be open to everyone the answer was ‘No’. It then came out that more of these foot baths were going to be built. It wasn’t just a little bit of money that was going to be used and not just in an area for the taxi drivers. All this in a town that won’t allow a christmas tree at Christmas. They even renamed it “Sparkletime”. Schools can’t have cookies with either green or red icing.
Jul 12, 2008 - 5:00 am 62. Pajamas Media » It’s Not Just Muslims: Christians Play the Victim Card, Too:[...] and the hairdresser, the Muslim demanded that the non-Muslim bear the cost of her piety. In my Pajamas Media piece on that case, I wrote: Islam is doing what Islam has always done: taking territory by any [...]
Jul 28, 2008 - 1:19 am 63. cosrkb:It is unbelievable what these people seem to get away with ,,all over the world. The faith of ISLAM IS A CANCER ON THE WORLD. Is their another faith on the planet that tells its people to kill all those that will not conform? arnt their women supose to stay home or beg? We ALL better wise up send them back to their land and get them off of and out of everything OURS.
Aug 22, 2008 - 3:42 pm 64. sara:Taking off her hijab should not be a requirement to working in any salon. That is discrimination. Sorry to disagree with you. If she can produce a client book that shows that she can do the funky hairstyles, then she deserves the job. The salon owner had no right do demand she remove her hijab as a condition of employment. A better approach, on her part, would be to ask to see the Muslim stylist’s portfolio, and make a decision on that alone. It may surprise you to know that quite a few Muslim women… especially teens and twenties… do have funky hair underneath their hijabs.
Your point against the perceived injustices against the salon owner would have held more merit if you had kept the inaccurate Islam-bashing in the latter point of your article. Remember, the Brits and the rest of the West were afraid of bathing and were ignorant lots back during the Golden Age of Islam.
A hijab-wearing pregnant Muslim woman was stabbed and killed in a German court room last week. Her crime? Testifying against a hate crime. A hijab-wearing Muslim woman had a knife pulled on her and her baby at a US health clinic in Seattle last week as well. Based on those very real crimes against women whose only crime is the way they dress, I think your article is a bit over the top in fueling hate.
Jul 10, 2009 - 7:33 am 65. G.T.:This makes me extremely angry, and don’t even get me started on that picture. I’m having very hateful thoughts in my head.
Sep 25, 2009 - 11:42 am