Refusing to shake hands - the latest crime?
Whilst the delightful squeaky clean tabloids are busy throwing stones in Jade Goody's glass house, they are also running a story about a female Muslim police officer who has refused to shake hands with Sir Ian Blair, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. It is, once again, the end of the known world.
She has completed her training, engaging with both men and women as required in a professional capacity of being a police officer. However, according to this story she states: "There is a standard between personal and professional life. A passing-out parade is a personal event. You are not fulfilling a professional duty there."
Once again, it seems that the media wishes to blow the tiniest most insignificant incident into a full scale national security issue. I can't currently find any information to cross reference this against, but even in the story itself, the woman in question comes across as quite balanced. She shows that full engagement in her role as on officer is what is required, but once outside that domain, why should she have to do something that she doesn't want to? Last time I checked, it wasn't a crime to not shake hands with someone. Think of shaking hands for a Muslim woman like a full face snog with your boss might feel like for someone else. It's a case of re-calibrating the sensitivity scale.
"It's ridiculous!" you may cry. "We should all be identical! And I am the person who should determine how people should feel and what they should do!"
She has completed her training, engaging with both men and women as required in a professional capacity of being a police officer. However, according to this story she states: "There is a standard between personal and professional life. A passing-out parade is a personal event. You are not fulfilling a professional duty there."
Once again, it seems that the media wishes to blow the tiniest most insignificant incident into a full scale national security issue. I can't currently find any information to cross reference this against, but even in the story itself, the woman in question comes across as quite balanced. She shows that full engagement in her role as on officer is what is required, but once outside that domain, why should she have to do something that she doesn't want to? Last time I checked, it wasn't a crime to not shake hands with someone. Think of shaking hands for a Muslim woman like a full face snog with your boss might feel like for someone else. It's a case of re-calibrating the sensitivity scale.
"It's ridiculous!" you may cry. "We should all be identical! And I am the person who should determine how people should feel and what they should do!"
posted by Shelina Zahra Janmohamed at 14:19
8 Comments:
"She shows that full engagement in her role as on officer is what is required, but once outside that domain, why should she have to do something that she doesn't want to? Last time I checked, it wasn't a crime to not shake hands with someone. "
I think you're underestimating the cultural faux-pas the lady in question has committed in front of the nation.
A public snub like that is socially an open war declaration on your victim in the West, in all European cultures.
We shake hands to greet, to make up after a confrontation, and to say goodbye meaningfully, and it is a universal bonding gesture and the most important one as it is used formally on so many public or meaningful occasions.
So, by not shaking hands you in effect slap someone in the face in a very personal way, and for your victim being turned down in public by you is embarrassing as it signals to everyone around you that you find them too contaminated to touch and that you will not be their friend, let alone respect them. It is the strongest statement of dislike and defiance you can make in the West.
She not only turned her bosses hand down but also forced him to be openly rude to her in public, without everyone else knowing that this was at her own request.
Now that might not be what is intended by female muslims, but that is the message that arrives at the other end and people do take this kind of insult very personally.
Remember, whilst there is legislation that guarantees you equality, the law cannot force people to like or respect you.
So my advice to you all is to get rid of your Kuffarphobia and learn to shake hands vigorously and make friends, the European way.
Why should you integrate instead of demanding that we drop our biggest social convention to accommodate you, you ask? Because in life, you need to make real friends, not stand outside society to casually meet a string of eternal strangers that merely tolerate you because the law says so and who avoid you whenever it is possible because they find you too much hard work to get along with to relax.
So it isn't a crime to publicly snub your boss by refusing to shake his hand, but it sure was public social suicide, and also not a good career move either.
And to make it worse, in the current climate, it was not a great favour to those people want to fit in without fuss and have a life whilst also being, amongst other things, being muslim.
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handshake
You have no posts because you clearly forbid all posts the way you censor all thoughts that do not agree with your own. Your truth is surrounded by haram.
To quote from the film, The Wizard of Speed and Time:
"...if you feel compelled to grab part of my body and shake it, before you can even be friendly, you've got far worse problems than you think I have."
I agree with Spirit 21 here. If someone said to me, sorry I can't shake hands I would just take it as a minor cultural taboo, like not eating bacon. It's not important and far too much fuss has been made of it. Greetings in the Western or at least the Anglo-Saxon world have changed a good deal over time - once a Western woman would have curtsied to, rather than shaken hands with, a man. I remember as a child that when friends or relations met the men would shake hands with each other, the women would sometimes shake hands with the men and sometimes not and the women would kiss each other. The children would have their hands solemnly shaken. Now everyone falls into each other's arms.
If a woman doesn't want to shake hands with a man a smile and nod should cover the slightly awkward moment. But it's only slightly awkward.
Think of not-shaking hands for a non-Muslim as being like a slap in the face might feel like for someone else.
But it's just a case of re-calibrating the sensitivity scale, isn't it?
Dear Sister Shelina et al
Salaam.
Can I just ask you one question?
Where does the Quran say that women cannot shake hands with unrelate men?
If this is not on the Quran, I have to honeslty tell you that I am sick and tired of all those "cultural items" that are being passed off as Islamic and part and parcel of Islam.
Personally, I have never had any problem with shaking hands with anyone.
Peace
Sister Francesca
1. There are different scholarly opinions on shaking hands, Muslim women can choose to shake hands or not. Although hands are not 'awra, some scholars have suggested that physical contact should be avoided. However others have allowed shaking hands. Muslims can choose to whichever opinion they want to and both are valid.
2. It does not have to be a religious reason to not shake hands.
3. Muslim women (or Men) may choose to only shake hands with those immediately related to them (Mahram). But it is not an anti-kuffar thing, and has nothing to do with interaction with non-Muslims.
It is disrespectful and discourteous to offend Muslim women and to harass them for their beliefs!
It is NOT a crime or an offense not to shake hand. Not shaking hands does not make anyone any ruder than the male who DEMANDS that he can take a part of a woman's body without her consent and abuse it his will.
Ian Blair should, know full well that most MUSLIM women do not have physical contact with other males.
Why should she forgo her personal and religious rights for a male egoist who thinks he can own her body, mind and spirit?
What if she does NOT want to befriend and shake hands with a political nutter who is solely responsible for the 'shoot to kill' policy on innocent Muslims on the streets, using suspicion as evidence against people creating terrorism on the streets of UK by murdering poor innocent Charles De Menzes?
Where is the freedom to practice one's religious beliefs? What happened to tolerance, respect and courtesy?
Why should she have to shake hands with such a chauvinist who thinks his beliefs and values are above hers?
To use force on people to shake hands at workplaces is discrimination against a person's religious & personal beliefs and political affiliations!
A person CAN CHOOSE who s/he wants to shake hands with.
Post a Comment
<< Home