Minister warns of ‘inbred’ Muslims

[minionofmidas]

“If you have a child with your cousin the likelihood is there’ll be a genetic problem.”

False.

(Now, if you do it again... and again... and again... for generations, you have a point. But normally, having your cousin's baby is no more risky than having a baby at over 30 years of age.)

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Cross-cousin marriage is the norm in *some* Hindu communities as well, completely unknown in others. Of course given the relatively low number of acceptable spouses, *some* amount of above-average relatedness is probably a given for most marriages in India.

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That sounds like a very  high estimate, and may have been the highest the journalist (or the person who gave the figure to the journalist) could find. I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand though. Although I wonder about the definition of "genetic illness" here. Not all - nor even most - genetic defects are recognised at birth.
Notice that he didn't state the percentage of Pakistani children to be born with genetic illnesses.

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a seat with a long embedded BNP vote, and the less Islamic seat in Oldham...

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LOL! What a dumbster bigot... "AARGH! She's wearing a headscarf! HELP! HELP! MOMMY!" That kind of "fear"?

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Seems she doesn't believe in ten times the rate, then... Much more realistic set of figures probably, by the way. (Although note that, due to the high number of Pakistanis in Bradford, we would expect the percentage of disabled children in Bradford to be higher compared to the national average, an aspect not covered by this figure.)

[minionofmidas]

“If you have a child with your cousin the likelihood is there’ll be a genetic problem.”

False.

(Now, if you do it again... and again... and again... for generations, you have a point. But normally, having your cousin's baby is no more risky than having a baby at over 30 years of age.)

That's exactly what's happening.

Yes... I know.

[minionofmidas]

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a seat with a long embedded BNP vote, and the less Islamic seat in Oldham...

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LOL! What a dumbster bigot... "AARGH! She's wearing a headscarf! HELP! HELP! MOMMY!" That kind of "fear"?

I'm guessing the Muslim woman not wearing a headscarf might get a little nervous if she starts seeing more and more of them around her neighborhood.

That just shows you know nothing.

[minionofmidas]

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a seat with a long embedded BNP vote, and the less Islamic seat in Oldham...

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LOL! What a dumbster bigot... "AARGH! She's wearing a headscarf! HELP! HELP! MOMMY!" That kind of "fear"?

I'm guessing the Muslim woman not wearing a headscarf might get a little nervous if she starts seeing more and more of them around her neighborhood.

That just shows you know nothing.

You're the one who knows nothing if you discount group pressure so easily. If wearing of headscarves is acceptable, then those who don't wear them will be under pressure from their family and peers to wear them. This certainly isn't helpful for integration. Woolas may have used to extreme language, but he's mostly right.

Uh... you know how many Muslim women wear headscarves, and how many don't? Lots of both, so where's the problem.
Now, the disappearance of headscarves from old German women's heads in the course of the 80s. That probably had something to do with group pressure and opposition to integration.

[minionofmidas]

Worse still they use religion to justify the adoption of Middle Eastgern garb by Pakistani/Bangladeshi women.

Pakistani and urban Indian hijab is arguably the most radical of all the styles already. (You know which style I'm thinking of. The one without even slits for the eyes.) Certainly more extreme than an Iranian chador or either a traditional Turkish burqa or the more modern, "chic young female turkish islamist*" variety of Turkish burqa I see a lot on young women.

*"islamist" because it takes care to cover all of the hair, which a traditional Turkish burqa sometimes does not.

Really, given the broad variety of hijab styles and the subtle, and often misleading, nuances of meaning, it is just plain absurd to read more into them than, say, into whether a businessman is complying with a "business", "business casual" or "smart casual" dresscode.

[minionofmidas]

My mom doesn't wear a headscarf. Neither do my grandmothers. In fact, they're quite rare in Bangladesh, which supplies many of the Muslims in Britain. IIRC, they were rare on Brick Lane, too.

Food for thought.

Yeah, Bangladeshis mostly wear the Salwar Qameez, with the Dupatta losely draped over the head, I think. Same goes for Muslims across most of rural India.