THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD: While car bombs were being prepared in London and Glasgow, I was visiting the land of the niqab, communities that are in England but not of England, where I was usually the only white person on the street, where the veil and the beard are the norm, and where sharia law holds greater authority than English common law. I was in East London, Bradford, Dewsbury, all bastions of the niqab.
The niqab is the veil which covers the entire face of a woman, except for a slit for the eyes. It has become the symbol of revolt in Pakistan, a tinderbox of Islamic fundamentalism and political instability, where hundreds of young women in black niqabs in the capital, Islamabad, have been challenging the authority of the military Government all year. What they really want is an Islamic state in Pakistan.
I've just been sharing streets and markets with scores of women hidden behind black niqabs, quite a powerful social statement, but these women were in Tower Hamlets in London, Manningham in Bradford, Savile Town in Dewsbury, and in shopping centres in Luton and Leeds. Mind this gap, where trouble brews (more) By Paul Sheehan
Mark Alexander
