Burka ‘joke’ has us in a muddle

Fiona Onasanya’s condemnation over recent Burka-related comments are muddled.

The latest furore over Boris Johnson’s comments merely provides yet another dose of itchy-scalp syndrome amongst the rapidly declining number of sane-minded citizens left in this green and pleasant land of ours.

The only way to ever open constructive debate on important social issues and to finally move on from this backwardthinking age of political correctness and professional offence-taking, is to sheer our wool, perhaps even - as Boris suggests - sit down with a nice cup of tea, and return to asking honest, logical questions of ourselves, similar to the following, before raising our hypocritical pitchforks in illogical indignation and outrage.

If I said to you that a Nun looked like a penguin, would you call me a “racist” or furiously claim that I were promoting hatred against Christians?

Of course you wouldn’t (and good for you!).

Yet if I were to then say that a woman wearing a burka just so happens to look like a “letterbox onesie”, many here in Britain - perhaps even you yourself - wouldn’t think twice about passionately branding me a “racist”, about screaming from the hilltops or frantically tapping into a keyboard that I were promoting hatred towards Muslims.

Think about that for a moment.

Society - you and I included - has been brainwashed into feeling so adverse to and allout scared of causing offence, so illogically angered at any criticism of Islam that we are now not only prepared to allow women to experience hatred, sexism and oppression in the United Kingdom - a country once renowned for

its progressive thinking - but would also go as far as to willingly and ignorantly vilify anyone - even good old “Bozza” - who dares speak out against said oppressive practices.

Welcome to modern day Britain, my friend: a land of overwhelming confusion; a land where freedom of speech is king (as long as the words spoken fit through the fine sieve of political correctness); and a “great” land where we now inadvertently stand UP for intolerance by truly, naively believing that we stand against it.

Still ready to pick up the pitchfork? Or isn’t it about time for a nice cup of tea? Jay Beecher

Peterborough