Can I be a martyr too please? Part II

Anyone clicking the link to 'Porter sacked by hospital after he asks for 'multi-faith' prayer room crucifix be made visible' in my last post will find that the article has been disappeared from the Daily Mail website, and get a 'not found' error.

Instead, there is a much abbreviated version of the story at 'Christian porter sacked by hospital after argument over a crucifix in a prayer room'. Note the 'multi-faith' bit isn't there any more, scare quotes or no.

A copy of the older version is available here. It should go without saying that I don't endorse the wingnut forum it's on and I'm only linking for the purposes of showing the original article, but I'm saying it anyway.

I didn't quote all the relevant bits in my last post, so here are the important bits of the story that have been dropped.

After pointing out that the porter was released by the police without charge after being questioned over an alleged aggravated assault, the original version had this:

He denies the allegations and must wait to see if police take any action.

He said he was unable to comment on his sacking as the police probe and his plans to appeal were ongoing.

And the last line of the original said:

Police said a file had been passed to the Crown Prosecution Service for a decision over any further action.

These references have gone. Of course, removing these makes it look as though the assault allegation has been dismissed and it's all over, when it isn't. It makes the porter look more reasonable.

This has also been dropped in the new version:

The friend said Mr Protano went into the prayer room about six times a day to check that the statue and crucifix were not left covered because he felt could be upsetting for visiting Christian parents to find them covered up.

A guy who goes into the chapel six times a day to check if the cross has been covered up sounds just a tad less well adjusted than someone who just happened into the room and noticed it was covered.

The changes could be because the original article seems to be directly lifted from this one in the Manchester Evening News 'Hospital porter fired in crucifix row', but whatever the reason, the result is an even more one sided version of events that even further downplays the porter's alleged actions and paints him in a far more favourable light.

Contrast the paper's treatment of this story with the one I covered in 'Who always starts the race row?', 'The Mail, balance?' and 'Chuck Berry?', in which the paper reported that a 10 year old boy had been attacked by a Slovakian woman with a metal bar after throwing a berry at her, despite other reports pointing out that the police had said there was no evidence that a metal bar had been used, and that the berry throwing incident had come the day before and involved a different woman, whom he also allegedly punched.

Why is this one treated differently? You'd get a much better tabloidy headline out of 'Hospital porter sacked after 'aggravated assault' on patients', if not better.

Of course, the trouble is if the paper had reported things that way around, the Christian would look like the religious nutter and the Muslims would have looked like victims. Can't have that, can we? Have to make it look as though the alleged assailant was in fact a victim if the actual victims are Muslim. Or the wrong sort of foreign.

Nice one, the Daily Mail!

Can I be a martyr too please?

Moving away from the Express for a bit, which is a relief, it's over to the Mail for some typical Daily Mail fodder about how poor Christians are terribly persecuted in this country where Christianity is the national religion, its representatives get unelected positions in the second house, the head of state is also the head of a Chritian sect, where the Prime Minister has to be a certain kind of Christian and the national anthem is an extended Christian prayer.

The article is 'Porter sacked by hospital after he asks for 'multi-faith' prayer room crucifix be made visible'. Great image, that headline. You can just see the timid porter in his uniform, wringing a cap in his hands and looking at his shoes as he mumbles, 'mmblmm can we er mblmblm cross?' toward a forbidding looking woman behind a desk the size of a small car.
'What? Speak up man!' booms the woman.
'Umm...it's just...d'you think we can show the uh cross in th-'
'Whaaaaat? Uncover the cross? You're sacked, you insensitive little man. Don't you realise this is a multicultural society? Get out of my sight!'

The Mail are great at this sort of thing - that is reducing whatever someone the paper has sympathy for is supposed to have done to the most innocent, unassuming sounding thing possible when the reality is likely to be a bit different.

We see it every time some pretend martyr pops up whingeing that they're not allowed special treatment. It usually happens when they're not allowed to wear jewellery but Muslims are allowed to wear scarves. Except scarves aren't jewellery.

We've seen this before, with Nadia Ewedia, the BA employee who insisted on not only being allowed to wear a cross, but to wear a visible one. The papers were all over her, her sad put upon face became splashed across front pages and she even boasted support from a number of MPs. Guess what? Turns out she wasn't quite so innocent and hard done by, and BA had bent over backwards trying to accommodate her insufferable, god-bothering demands.

This story looks as though it's about a similar situation, as it later reveals:

Mr Protano, a Roman Catholic who has worked two years at the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital, Pendlebury, entered the room when three Muslims were using it - two patients and a doctor.

An argument broke out after he asked them to remove a cloth covering the crucifix and statue and to turn a picture of the Virgin Mary face up.

And:

Police quizzed him for four hours last month, on suspicion of religiously aggravated assault, but he was released without charge.

And a little later, in amongst a bit of testimony from a friend, we get:

They are saying he should not have gone into the prayer room and it is alleged he used racist language, which he totally refutes.

So instead of being sacked after he asked for the cross to be uncovered, it appears he was sacked after interrupting people who were using the room, and some sort of assault and the use of racist language has been alleged. Perhaps the headline should be changed. And I doubt he 'refutes' the claim, I suspect he just 'denies' it.

Later still in the article comes this:

The friend said Mr Protano went into the prayer room about six times a day to check that the statue and crucifix were not left covered because he felt could be upsetting for visiting Christian parents to find them covered up.

Six times a day? Are we to conclude that this sort of behaviour is normal?

One final bit of support for the guy comes in the second last paragraph, with:

The case has angered many hospital staff, who think he has been treated unfairly.

Many hospital staff. As the Express has demonstrated in the past so well, sometimes 'many' actually means 'none'.

There are currently four comments on the article, all supportive of the porter. This is my favourite:

I can see civil war breaking out in this country before too long. The politically correct extremists are creating the fertile grounds for this to happen. I don't hear the church making much of a fuss, because they too are scared or part of the extremists agenda for a total breakdown in society and war on our streets. Its not muslims (apart from the extremist muslims) that are to blame for this, and it's not the catholics, it's the poltically correct extremists that are creating the problems for us all.

- Bob, merseyside

Perhaps, Bob, nobody's making a fuss because the bloke sounds like a nutter who just might possibly have assaulted someone while throwing about racist language. It's now Political Correctness Gone Mad to suggest this sort of thing is unnacceptable.

And what does this article imply without saying? It comes out and says that the porter was sacked just for asking to uncover the cross, but by mentioning that he entered the chapel and glossing over the alleged racially aggravated assault, what is the article implying about Muslims? It implies that he walked into a room, asked the three Muslims, one of them a doctor, to uncover the cross, 'an argument broke out' and then the Muslims pretended he'd assaulted someone and threw around racist language.

In short, it paints the Muslims as crazed fanatics who start arguments and lie about racially motivated assaults that result in someone's sacking when that person merely asks them to do something. And it does that without actually stating they did. This is where the Mail is much better than the Express, in allowing its readers to draw their own conclusions from the heavily slanted evidence it gives them.

See, BA was cross all the time. Geddit?

So this is the most important thing happening in the world again, apparently - 'Almost 100 MPs sign motion condemning BA as backlash grows'.

Couldn't they just have said, 'Hey, BA cross lady, have some milk,' and handed her drugged milk so that she woke up with her cross covered? My research shows that would work every week.

Anyway, I mentioned in 'Double standards, not in the Mail, surely?' that this case exposes the double standard the paper has concerning different religions - even as it tries to expose the double standards of others. I won't go over old ground too much, but all the arguments that the paper used against Shabina Begum wearing a jilbab earlier this year can apply just as easily to this case. But the Mail, and other papers that support Nadia Ewedia, decide to drop them in favour of 'freedom of religious expression' arguments they ignored before.

There was a bit of an outcry when Shabina Begum won her initial case. And then there were 'well done the judiciary' style comments when she lost an appeal. The contrast between these two cases is quite striking. Look at the first paragraph to 'Human rights, social wrongs', which comes after the initial case won by Begum:

Yet again, Britain is diminished by a destructive cocktail of human rights legislation, legal aid, lawyers living high on the hog and judges who seem bereft of common sense. Presumably, Britain won't be diminished if rules have to be changed in this case.

And if Ms Ewedia is allowed to wear her cross openly, the people making the ruling won't be 'bereft of common sense'.

Another choice quote:

Shabina is of course entitled to her beliefs and could simply have transferred to another school where the jilbab is allowed. But no. Her fundamentalist supporters wanted a cause celebre instead. And how eagerly lawyers queued to give them one, at our expense.

Now read the Mail's article from today. Notice how Shabina Begum was critiscised for not transferring to another school - but Ms Ewedia is not critiscised for refusing to take a back office job in the same company. No mention is made of lawyers queuing to take on the case if Ms Ewedia decides to go to court. Her supporters are not accused of wanting a cause celebre. In fact, the whole point of this article, and 'Christian students slam BA and campus 'fundamentalism'' is to trumpet about her fantasctic supporters.

That second article is curious. It says:

Christian student leaders have condemned the British Airways ban on workers wearing the cross as the same 'secular fundamentalism' that has targeted their own activities.

If the BA are fundamentalist secularists, why do they allow their staff to wear turbans and headscarves?

Back to the original article, and we have:

UN human rights chiefs will raise the issue alongside death sentences for critics of Islam in Pakistan and forced conversions of Muslims to Buddhism in Burma at a conference in Prague.

Now, it's hardly on a par, is it? Death sentences on the one hand, and having to wear a cravat on the other. If only I knew the seriousness of my plight when I was an usher at a wedding a couple of weeks ago. The high collar did chafe a bit actually. These people who get executed don't know they're born.

The article quotes direct parallels between Christianity and Islam:

[Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights] spokeswoman Kieran McCaffey said: "Britain is trapped in a multi-cultural mess of its own making. What’s provoking this situation is a hostility towards Christians and a fawning over Islam, which is rooted in fear."

Notice how this quote places this case in the framework of claiming that Muslims get things Christians can't. But in two of the last three cases of women wearing Islamic dress hitting the headlines, two were told they weren't allowed to wear their religious dress, and all three were pilloried in the press.

I could quote whole chunks of the article, but I won't. There are more important things that are missing from it than the stuff that actually makes it in:

• No mention is made to Ms Ewedia being from a minority Christian sect. Much was made of Shabina Begum not thinking other forms of Islamic dress were adequate.
• No mention is made of the fact that she is allowed to wear a cross, although a number of references are made of a ban on wearing the cross.
• No mention is made of the offer of another job.
• No mention is made of the cross being disallowed under rules about visible jewellery. The article gives the impression that is has been 'banned' (which it hasn't) because it's a Christian symbol.
• None of the Mail articles (or any in other papers that I can see) mention the fact that British Airways is a multinational company, with employees having to face the public in a number of countries around the world. In such a company, banning turbans and headscarves would be out of the question. Imagine trying to prevent turbans and headscarves from being worn in India.

Another important thing to note is the paper's treatment of Ms Ewedia herself. We've seen the 'poor folorn victim' picture loads of times here, and she's never referred to in a negative manner. She has a number of supportive articles (it looks as though there'll be a couple more in this paper alone tomorrow).

Remember the references to Shabina Begum being a 'little madam' and a showoff. Remember the massive emphasis on the possible costs of the Aisha Azmi case, and the spurious, badly backed up allegations of terrorist connections. Remember Shabnam Mughal being bullied by the press, and being blamed for starting the 'row' she was involved in. Remember that all three were accused of deliberately courting publicity and angling for compensation money, and all three were depicted as the cause of their own problems for refusing to remove their religious attire.

Nadia Ewedia gets two Daily Mail front pages supporting her in just a few days, and pledges from nearly 100 MPs. BA get threatened with boycotting.

Fawning favour over Islam? Who are you trying to kid?

BA cross lady says 'HRRRN! I ain't flyin' fool!'

Of course, a couple of non-rabid stories about Muslims don't mean that the Mail has stopped being the idiot voice of hard-right Britain. Far from it.

Today's headline is on the left. The online version is 'Archbishop accuses BA of 'nonsense' for refusing to back down in cross row'.

I'm having an attack of 'this is the most important thing happening in the world?' syndrome again. Is it? Is it really?

The first thing that srtikes me is the inclusion of the Archbishop's birthplace in the headline. There are a few implications that including the birthplace makes. It implies that the issue shouldn't be a problem, and the answer is so straighhtforward that it takes an outsider to point that out. The second implication is one that's familiar to people who have heard the argument, 'I know a black bloke who thinks Bernard Manning's hilarious, so he can't be racist.' In effect, the headline is saying, 'look, a black foreigner thinks we're doing too much to prevent offending foreigners, so we must be'.

This second implication is a bit ironic, because according to one of the Mail's three other articles on this issue, Ms Ewedia is 'a Coptic Christian with an Egyptian background'.

So it's a bit odd that the archbishop, Dr Sentamu, says:

British Airways needs to look again at this decision and to look at the history of the country it represents, whose culture, laws, heritage and tradition owes so much to the very same symbol it would ban.

Aside from the typical Christian overstatement of how much the country owes to Christianity, Dr Sentamu has missed the fact that Britain owes sod all to Coptic Christianity - a rare sect in this country. And BA haven't banned a symbol. She's allowed to wear it.

And BA are not trying to ban anything. I'll be going over old ground here, but she is allowed to wear a cross if she wants, just under her clothes.

Dr Sentamu says some more nonsense:

Dr Sentamu said BA's position undermined its right to be Britain's national airline because it was failing to recognise the country's Christian culture and heritage.

Again, Britain owes nothing to Coptic Christianity. Also, Dr Sentamu seems to be saying that every British institution should be explicitly Christian. That's non-devisive.

And he appears to have said more in the past:

Last month the Archbishop risked a row with the Muslim community by suggesting Islamic women should not wear veils in public.

The Ugandan-born cleric told the Daily Mail that "no minority" should impose its belief on the rest of society.

I'm going to repeat myself. Coptic Christians are a minority. And why should this Christian - a minority of one who thinks they have to display a cross as far as I'm aware - impose her beliefs on the rest of society, if that's what wearing religious attire does. How is wearing a veil imposing your beliefs on anyone anyway?

It's funny that he says:

This decision by British Airways is a nonsense and is based on flawed reasoning.

Because he seems to have only a passing acquaintance with reasoning himself.

Dr Sentamu says:

Under BA's current reasoning, an employee who turned up to work wearing a three foot long cross must be allowed to wear it, because to hide such a cross under their uniform would be impractical.

But this is what BA said:

Our uniformed staff, many thousands of whom are Christian, have happily accepted the policy for years. The policy recognises that it is not practical for some religious symbols such as turbans and hijabs to be worn underneath the uniform.

You can't hide a turban or a hijab under a uniform, and neither are jewellery. Banning these things would effectively ban people who wear them from working for BA. As far as I'm aware, it isn't a Coptic tradition to wear a cross and display it openly at all times. The most I've been able to find is this 'What the cross means to non-western Christians':

Coptic Christians in Egypt see their cross as the greatest glory of their church and as a symbol of their long martyrdom. They tattoo it in pride and defiance on the inside of their right wrist as an indelible mark of their identification with their church and community, although they know that this visible mark might bring them scorn and discrimination in their Muslim-majority society.

A couple of points:

• Ms Ewedia's cross is not a Coptic cross. It's a plain one.
• A cross tattooed on the inner right wrist would be covered by long sleeves.
• A tattoo is not an item of jewellery.
  

And there is no religious tradition anywhere to wear a three foot cross.

I actually disagree with Shami Chakrabarti, which is unusual, when she says:

British Airway's policy appears to be fundamentally misconceived and has led to a bonkers result. This woman's cross is clearly as important to her as a turban or a hijab to someone else.

She is allowed to wear a cross, and a turban or a hijab is impossible to cover with a uniform.

Miss Ewedia's MP talks some rubbish too:

This is very disappointing. British Airways have behaved very badly. They are treating different faiths inconsisently [...]

No. They've said religious attire that can be hidden under a uniform must be hidden. That's treating them the same.

Ms Ewedia herself isn't innocent of talking nonsense:

But despite this they stuck by their decision to refuse to let me wear it. I find their stance confusing. It makes no sense to me.

They haven't refused to let her wear it. She also says:

I am glad that a Christian like him has spoken out. I hope it encourages other Christians to start praying and persuades BA to change its mind.

God, I fucking hope not.

Just to reiterate - I don't care if she can wear a cross visibly. I just hate the rubbish reasoning behind the arguments her supporters are using.

*UPDATE* I've revised my earlier post to take out references to things being necessary to various religions. I'll produce another post on this later. Lucky you.

Double standards? Not in the Mail, surely?

More on the BA cross lady from the Mail in 'BA worker in 'cross' necklace row faces disciplinary action'.

Of course, the stuff I said in 'Odd one out' applies here. Turbans and scarves are not jewellery, so it's no surprise that they're not included in rules about jewellery. It's not a requirement of Christianity - even Coptic Christianity - to wear a visible cross, but it is a requirement of Sikhism to wear a Kara bracelet. But this is pretty academic, because according to the BBC:

"British Airways does recognise that uniformed employees may wish to wear jewellery including religious symbols. These items can be worn, underneath the uniform."

It's perfectly possible to wear a bangle under a buttoned sleeve. So, I'd like to see evidence that Kara bracelets are allowed to be visible before I accept that they are. And even if they are they're different because there a requirement of those that follow the religion.

The interesting thing about the Mail's position (and to a lesser extent, the rest of the press) on this issue is that it is completely the opposite to one it's taken before. Earlier this year, the paper was completely unsympathetic to another female who faced disciplinary action over her choice of religious attire and pretty much said she could bog off somewhere else where it was allowed.

The difference? That was a Muslim.

The arguments the Mail used at the time can easily be applied here. (I've republished my old comments about that case. Lucky you, eh? Just look in the March 2006 folder):

• They argued that uniforms are a way to promote a sense of belonging, so she should adhere to the uniform rules. Ditto here.
• They argued that she wasn't discriminated against because she could wear other forms of Islamic attire. This woman can't be discriminated against because she's actually allowed to wear a cross.
• They argued that the girl wasn't discriminated against because she could enrol in another school that allows a jilbab. So this woman can't be discriminated against as she can get a job somewhere else that allows visible crosses.
• They argued that the girl was to be blamed for the people lining up to defend her and the money it would cost, whereas this woman is feted for the people lining up behind her, and no mention is made of how she'll finance her prosecution.
• They argued that a rule in favour of the girl would have been a disaster, as schools would not be able to have uniform rules anymore. Strangely, the argument that airlines will not be able to choose a uniform for their staff is absent here.
• They argued that if the girl was allowed to wear the jilbab, other girls might be pressured into wearing it too. Again, we have no argument that women will be pressured to wear visible crosses.
  

Most of these arguments can also apply to the girls and their chastity rings. Especially the last one.

Now, I argued that Shabina Begum should be allowed to wear a jilbab, but I don't necessarily argue that Nadia Ewedia should be allowed to wear a visible cross, so am I being as one-sided and contradictory as the Mail? Obviously, I'm going to say no, aren't I? But here's why.

Nadia Ewedia hasn't been told not to wear a cross because it is a cross, but because it is visible jewellery. Shabina Begum was told not to wear a jilbab because it was a jilbab. There were supposedly other forms of Islamic dress that she could have worn (this isn't strictly true though. The shalwar kameez, which she would have been allowed to wear is not specifically Islamic dress), but this specific one was against the rules.

I am not sure that Kara are allowed to be worn visibly by BA or the school stopping chastitiy rings, but even if they are, to the Sikhs who wear them (which is the majority), to wear one is a required part of being a Sikh. To say that employees or pupils are not allowed to wear one is discriminating against these people.

For Muslims who wear the jilbab, this is a required part of their faith, backed up by passages in the Qu'ran and Hadith. From Wikipedia:

Some modern Islamists insist that the contemporary jilbab and the garment described in the Qur'an and the hadith are exactly the same, and that the Qur'an therefore requires the believer to wear these garments.

To say that pupils at a school are not allowed to wear one, you are specifically discriminating aginst these Muslims. Especially if other forms of Islamic dress are allowed, and especially if those forms of dress are not specifically Islamic.

While Christians might like to express their faith by wearing a cross, or express their vow of chastity by wearing a ring, there is no part of Christian doctrine to say they must. To say employees or pupils can't wear one is not discriminatory in the same way. But the important thing is that crosses are allowed to be worn by BA, just not visibly. Whether or not Muslims and sikhs are allowed to wear turbans or scarves is irrelevant because neither are actually items of jewellery.

I don't actually give a stuff either way if Miss Ewedia is allowed to wear her cross visibly. The important thing is that this paper is showing its hypocritical treatment of Christians and Muslims, and that its arguments, both in favour of Miss Ewedia and against Miss Begum, are appalingly bad and designed only to reinforce its prejudices and those of its readers.