Creeping theocracy
This sounds like a fun moment, doesn’t it? An East End Sainsbury’s, staffed mostly by Bangladeshis.
A young Asian checkout operator, with pious beard and a crocheted Kufi Muslim skullcap, made a big deal out of serving a middle-aged white man who had included a bottle of vodka in his groceries. His wasn’t a discreet arm wave for the attention of a supervisor, it was a full-on hissy fit. At the sight of the vodka bottle he reared from his seat as if the conveyer had presented a freshly slaughtered pig’s head….The customer…was having none of it though. “What the bleedin’ ‘ell are you working in a supermarket for if you won’t handle booze?” he shouted, setting the queue to Defcon Two on the London racial tension scale…The hothead till worker’s protest was more testosterone than Taliban but he succeeded in making his point, loudly, in front of 18 female Muslim staff who won’t let their religion bother their job.
More testosterone than Taliban…that’s an interesting way of putting it. I have a feeling that’s a distinction without a difference. Taliban is testosterone, and vice versa. Taliban is all about men bullying women and telling them what to do and telling them they’re filthy and sexual and shameful, defective and wrong and above all subordinate – above all subject to being told what to do by anyone and everyone except themselves. The very first thing Islamists do when they get power is to start telling women what to do. They give one a nasty sense of the world being full of men wandering around fuming at how out of control women are.
Sainsbury’s, “keen to accommodate the religious beliefs of all staff”, now allows Muslim workers who object to alcohol on religious grounds to have a colleague take their place. The company didn’t see that such cack-handed posturing does Islam no favours, reinforcing a perception of an intolerant and unbending religion, which is not, I believe, where the majority of British Muslims are. Worse still is the atmosphere it creates within its own workforce. The craven attitude of Sainsbury’s creates a space the religious fanatics will use to bully their mostly female fellow workers, arguing they are not good Muslims if they choose to serve alcohol when they have the option not to.
Why isn’t Sainsbury’s keen to accomodate the religious or non-religious beliefs of people who want to buy one of the items on sale without any hassle or delay or display of shock-horror from some self-righteous bully at the till? And at that rate, what next? Muslim clerks in Waterstone’s allowed to refuse to sell atheist books or books by women or gays? Bus drivers allowed to refuse to let women on the buses? Muslim teachers in state schools allowed to refuse to teach girls?
As long as we’re talking about bullying women, I can’t help but be reminded of the repeated flaps in both the US and UK of Christian and Muslim pharmacists refusing to sell contraceptives or morning-after pills.
It probably shouldn’t surprise me to see two religions that are nominally at-odds sharing notes when it comes to breaking down secularist ideals.
I’ve been in shops run by Muslims including one in a part of London where the women were burkhaed to the eyeballs and they would sell you wine. I bet there are about 20 Muslims in the whole of Great Britain who object to selling booze. I suppose they’ll start bullying the owners of the little shops as well, and try and spoil their modest livings and the friendly relations they have with non-Muslim customers. This seems to be yet more stupidly damaging activity from a tiny minority.
Sainsbury’s policy is daft, but I very much doubt that the events described in the first para you quote actually happened. Do you really think the tabloid journalist was, fortuitously, doing his shopping just as someone from Central Casting had a tantrum?
KB Player: In the US, we have the fun combination of militant groupthink and Islamic priggery in the case of the lovely Your Black Muslim Bakery in Oakland, CA. The young thugs trashed a neighborhood, then stole the shopkeeper’s shotgun (we are well-armed in good ol’ USA). The shotgun was then used to slaughter a newspaper editor critical of the group.
“Why isn’t Simsbury’s keen to accommodate the religious or non-religious beliefs of people who want to buy one of the items on sale without any hassle or delay or display of shock-horror from some self-righteous bully at the till?”
I think the crux of the matter most in all probability to some degree lies in the next paragraph.
“What will it mean when Sainsbury’s is eventually taken over by new Muslim owners? Interests connected with the royal family of Qatar have spent more than £2 billion buying a 25% stake in the company, which they hope to control.”
Before one says, Jack Robinson, the royal family of Quatar will own Sainsbury’s outright. There is, however, nothing wrong with them owning the company. Nevertheless, if the British at every hands turn have to conciliate, and mollify, and appease the Muslim’s every religious whim, it is an added narrative. Moreover, it is a very precarious and treacherous one at that!
‘When in Rome do as the Roman’s do.’
I don’t think being owned by Qatar folk would make any difference to Sainsbury selling booze. If they didn’t sell booze they would go out of business. Say what you like about money, it smooths down the sharp angles of the fanatic. One of the 7/7 bombers complaints about his less fanatic co-religionists is that they had sold their souls for semis and Toyotas.
But I am afraid about what will happen if you get between a booze-thirsty Brit and his drink. There are bound to be punch ups at the check outs. I have to say if someone refused to scan the bar code on my Boddingtons I would be pretty affronted and want to throw the cans at him.
Sainsburys may have been afraid of an unfair dismissal tribunal if they sacked someone who refused to sell booze.
KB Player: I doubt that it will lead to serious trouble, as the supermarkets already have systems in place for the scenario where the person working on the till is under 18 (they just ring a bell and the supervisor scans the bottle).
Now, Doug, be reasonable. Just because your testosterone has no affiliation with the Taliban, that doesn’t mean that no testosterone does. Different people use testosterone in different ways. Celebrate diversity.
So they don’t like to serve alcohol. What’s their position on serving Jews?
I would assume that if they have a dispensation for the former they would be able to get one for the latter.
“So they don’t like to serve alcohol. What’s their position on serving Jews?”
You can buy Jews in Sainsbury’s? If you buy a party pack do you get a free hava negila?
Il faut rire, parce qu’il y a des salauds partout… [‘scuse me, I’m in France right now…]
It matters not if the Qatari ‘royal’ family buy Sainsbury’s. The Sainsbury family, currently majority shareholders, are very close to the present theocratic ‘government’ of ‘Britain’. Plus ca change…(that’s for David).
Current plans afoot in New Labour to make alcohol prohibitively expensive (for our *own good*) will render this story a mere footnote on the great label of time. We won’t be buying much of it anywhere :~{
I tend to agree with Chris Bertram’s speculation about, er, the strict accuracy of the reporting of the incident.
The Sainsbury’s policy (whic is anyway not a compasny policy, just a store policy) is a good example of very British compromise and tolerance. Look her. Tinfoil hats vs calm and reasonable or what.
I think this sort of thing should not be allowed, since the religious are forcibly imposing their prejudices and bigotry on the rest of us. Surely nobody could write that sentence other than as a joke????
Sorry about even more typos than usual.
When I were a kid, you always went to the local Pakistani-owned corner shop to buy your booze, because they found it more difficult to judge your age (assuming anyone cared??), just as their kids went to “white” shops to buy their fags (and sometimes booze, too, of course!)
The pakistani boys had the distinct advantage of seeming to be able to grow facial hair from the age of about 10 onwards…oh, how we envied them that!
:-)
Despite popular belief, testosterone is a many-gendered hormone. It belongs in the hormonal kitbags of both men and women, and can play a role in the well-being of us all. Male, female…or anywhere in between. Nevertheless, testosterone should perhaps be best known as the “value-laden hormone”, caught in a confusing web of social expectations and gender stereotypes. Taken from: The Many Gendered Hormone, by Natasha Mitchell.
“Current plans afoot in New Labour to make alcohol prohibitively expensive (for our *own good*) will render this story a mere footnote on the great label of time. “
Tt makes your heart sink, doesn’t it? How long will it be before your bottle of Chianti Riserva has ‘Drinking Kills’ printed in black letters six inches high on the front of the label and a photo of a dying alcoholic reproduced on the back?
David, no you get put them all up in your own appartment and pay them rent !
(You’re right about the salauds;-)
John M, agreed, but the price thing is what some of the lemon-sucking NewLab puritans are angling at – there’s an increasingly strong NHS backed lobby on this, but it’s misguided as the idea giving it legs is that it will stop kids and young people binge drinking. It won’t, but it will mean we (adults who like a couple of pints in the evening) lose even more independent pubs and breweries and probably as you say, have pictures on wine bottles of large dyspeptic livers, right on the label next to where it says Vin de Pays.
Il y a des puritains salauds partout…
potentilla,
I like the way the Sainsbury policy apparently equates religious peculiarities with other forms of disability.
“Il faut rire, parce qu’il y a des salauds partout”
I love that. (It sounds funnier in French, somehow.)
potentilla, Tingey can write pretty much anything not as a joke; pay him no heed.
potentilla,
You seem very relaxed about the business establishment unilaterally setting precedents allowing personal religious belief to be given priority over the norms of the society in which the adherent lives.
Will you still be claiming it’s good old British tolerance and compromise if the young man in question starts to refuse to serve uncovered women, or pork and bacon products, or (as David Sucher asks above) Jews? What would you say, as someone else in this thread asks, if an anti-abortionist refuses to sell pregnancy testing kits, or contraception – would that be just more quaint British tolerance and compromise?
Do you think that Sainsburys should establish Muslim-friendly tills, where non-Muslims are discouraged from bringing ‘upsetting’ produce? And would you object to tills for Christian fundamentalists, and Jews, and Wiccans, and the other faith-based or ethnic groups?
At what point would you agree that the ability and/or desire to opt out of the norms and broad secular expectations of British society becomes both harmful to coummunity relations and a betrayal of the open spirit that permitted the person in question to enter the country in the first place?
My direct question to you is, if developments like this continue, where will you personally draw the line?
Oh, and why are you so sure that this story is fabricated or exaggerated? I’m sure a quick call to the store in question can clear up any doubt about whether or not Sainsburys permits their staff such opting-out.
I suppose it’s the idea of someone eyeing the well chosen contents of my shopping basket askance and then disdaining to deal with it that would make me feel insulted and cross. I’ve been praised by a young woman at the check out for my mound of healthy items. Will these guys refuse to sell any food at all at Ramadan before sunset?
Sainsbury’s reply on the discussion that potentilla linked is interesting.
“Our aim is not to develop a religious policy, but to show understanding of our colleagues’ individual lifestyles. If one of our colleagues is a vegan and asks not to work on the meat or delicatessen counters, we will try to accommodate that request by finding them another area of the store in which to work.”
Okay – but will you assign them to work a till and then allow them to refuse to ring up any non-vegan products? I don’t think so!
“Our aim is not to develop a religious policy, but to show understanding of our colleagues’ individual lifestyles.”
That’s it. I am going to work at Sainsbury’s and explain to them that my lifestyle involves being rude to customers and generally unhelpful. No, wait – that’s Tescos.
Probably not, Ophelia. But you probably don’t know that all UK supermarkets have to make provision for those on the till who are unable to ring up alcohol anyway. It is an offence for under-18s to sell booze so they have to summon a supervisor to scan your bottle of wine every time.
I do know, Chris, because I saw your comment above. I didn’t know it before that. I have to say I think it’s fairly idiotic – a bit of ‘sod the customer.’ It would seem to make more sense not to hire people under 18 to work the tills.
I’m not surprised about the ‘sod the customer’ though. I have a rich and varied experience of Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Tesco, Morrison’s, etc. The generalized hostility from the staff is one of the joys of UK life…
Chris, while you are legally correct, in practice the spotty youth on till 15 will usually yell at their supervisor who acknowledges the sale, thus technically being the one who sells the alcohol – the youth merely being a pair of hands. The difference with this policy of Sainsbury’s is clear. If a muslim till person objects, they won’t even handle the bottle, but rush from you as if you had the plague. The scope for thereby embarrassing customers is quite something.
Sorry, I’d forgotten that I’d already made that point ….
Rockingham: not where I live, but I shop at Waitrose.
Ophelia: that policy would put lots of kids out of a Saturday job.
Chris: so what? Any hiring policy that includes an expectation that people will be able to do the job in question would put lots of potential hirees out of a job; so what? People who can’t drive don’t get hired as bus drivers; what of it? What alternative is there? Just hiring people at random?
Tingey, what brought that on was potentilla’s question and your own post, which was of a kind I have repeatedly asked you not to make. I’ll be deleting it.
@Roger Lancefield:-
(1) I don’t think a Sainsbury’s store manager deciding to run his store in a particular way can be descibed as “the business establisment unilaterally setting a precedent” in any meaningful way.
(2) I think that slippery-slope arguments are, in general, logically unsupportable. To claim that thing A should not be allowed (even though it is of itself acceptable) because it will inevitably lead to thing B (which would not be) is not a good argument unless one has some evidence (as distinct from unsupported asseveration) that thing A will in fact lead to thing B. Slippery-slope arguments tend to play to the tinfoil hat contingent, as I think you rather neatly demonstrate with your question about tills for Wiccans.
(3) I quite specifically think that stopping Sainsbury’s store managers from making this choice is a “betrayal of the open spirit”. I don’t think that tolerance and compromise and pragmatism is “quaint”, assuming that’s a pejorative, I think it’s one of the few things that I might feel anything approaching patriotic about. (As a side-issue, I’m not sure why you apparently assume that the checkout guy is not British-born so that there is no question of entering the country).
(4) The question about where will I personally draw the line is kind of pointlessly rhetorical, given the scope of the subject. However, the place I would draw it would definitely be something to do with the law, not with the instore policies of a single branch of Sainsbury’s, ot even all of Sainbury’s. I would draw the line at a legal requirement for supermarkets to make special provision for religious groups of this nature, unless perhpas said supermarkets were also allowed to discriminate against the religious groups in hiring policy unless individuals signed terms and conditions waiving any right to such special provision. I would also draw the line at a law which prevented supermarkets from making such policies from time to time if they wanted to (as G Tingey’s “shouldn’t be allowed” seems to suggest).
(5) I’m not sure that the story is exaggerated or fabricated, I just think on the balance of the probabilities it may be, based on my long acquaintance with the inaccuracy of the press. Specifically, it was the hissy fit I was dubious about (and Rockingham’s entirely invented “rush from you as if you had the plague”). The store’s policy is quite clear from the link I gave (and it is not a general Sainsbury’s policy). (But be comforted; if the hissy fit is true, the store manager will quite certainly be plotting about how to get rid of the employee in question with the least hassle and will probably not find it hard).
Several people on this thread seem to think that Sainsbury’s is putting being politically correct over keeping its customers. Sorry, no. It is just trying to avoid getting into a noisy religious row whilst fixing its problems quitely and away from scrutiny.
Chris & Ophelia, you are, I think, highlighting the different approaches to customer service in the US and the UK. The US is all about the customer, the UK is all about having a job.
And Chris, I understand that at waitrose the truffles are wrapped in gold leaf, so it is hardly typical of UK supermarkets. Anyway, as part of the John Lewis Partnership, the staff actually have a vested interest in doing a good job – its called profit sharing.
Potentilla, how’s that PR job for Sainsbury’s working out? I agree completely with OB – if you have an objection to doing a job, then don’t do it. Don’t expect your employer to make special arrangements for you. Siansbury’s have said on their discussion board that they support the accommodation of individual lifestyles. That seems like company policy to me.
Goodness, Rockingham, how naive. Sainsbury’s would never admit to the truth of my last sentence at 21:47:20.
Just kidding with ya, portentilla. You sounded like the Official Corporate Line there for a sec.
Your last sentence at 21:47:20 presumes that Sainsbury is not sincere in its (now) stated policy that it makes allowances for individual licences. How very cynical of you.
Apologies, I meant *Potentilla* of course.
Absolutely, about highlighting the different approaches to customer service in the US and the UK; I’m sharply aware of that. We go way too far with the intrusive bonhomie – but I find the active hostility extremely unpleasant.
potentilla, but is the Sainsbury’s policy really a good example of tolerance and compromise? It doesn’t seem that way to me – it seems much more like the opposite: people making a show of intolerance and uncompromise in a setting and situation where they simply have no business doing it. People who go into the business of selling or offering a service usually have to give a very good reason for refusing a product or service – see the fuss about whether ‘devout’ Catholics would be able to turn away gay customers from restaurants and hotels. I don’t think they should be able to, any more than people should have been able to refuse to serve black people in Mississippi in 1955. I don’t think there’s anything very tolerant or compromsing about telling employees they can decide what products they will or won’t ring up.
Rockingham – oh no, they are sincere – up to the point where understanding their colleagues lifestyles impacts on their ability to make a profit for their shareholders. That'[s as it should be, of course. One can be very creative in compromising between the weird ideas of one’s staff and protecting the bottom line (which in general means not pissing off one’s customers). Got the T-shirt.
O – like I say, I rather doubt that facts of the specific situation are quite as reported and, if they are, I am quite sure that they will not be allowed to continue. And the “person” who is in the business of selling here is not the checkout assisant, but Sainsburys – which is not refusing to sell a product. I also think that there is a difference between refusing to sell a certain product to anybody, and refusing to sell any product only to a certain group; your gay and black analogies are not directly relevant.
Actually, Ophelia, the school-age kids who operate some of the tills in my local supermarket are perfectly customer friendly. And it doesn’t bother me in the least that they have to ring a bell to get my vino checked through. (And I was pleased that my own kids could get a holiday job there.) You do have the oddest ideas about the UK!
Here here to O.B.s last post!
“M&S are much better”
This is not just a supermarket. This is a supermarket for people who think they are even more bourgeois than they actually are.
“it doesn’t bother me in the least that they have to ring a bell to get my vino checked through”
This doesn’t compare. They are obeying the law, not imposing a cultural shibboleth on you.
And it annoys me. They check for every bottle so it takes me ages… ;-)
Smashing comments, Potentilla. Don’t listen to the snide remaks about sounding like the corporate line, I think you make your case well and persuasively.
And I bet you’re right – if customers who have such experiences make it clear to the store that they’re unhappy with the situation then the staff causing the trouble will be shuffled over to bog-roll stacking quicker than you can say ‘market forces’.
“Say what you like about money, it smoothes down the sharp angles of the fanatic.”
Unluckily, and despite the look of things, the young Asian checkout operator, with pious beard and crocheted Kufi Muslim skullcap, [who made a big deal out of serving a middle-aged white man who had included a bottle of vodka in his groceries] has not been sanded down. His fanatical sharp edges could one of these fine days, very well get him into serious trouble. Allah, not money, may be his God. However, his love for Allah could land him into the middle of next week with a very irate customer. He might not get off as lightly as he did with the vodka customer. As a person with severe alcoholic problems could walk unexpectedly into the shop and demand to buy by the Muslim counter assistant – alcoholic! The consequences of not by the shop-assistant being allowed to purchase alcoholic – could wreak havoc. As we, all know the adverse effects of drink on people with hard drink problems
The non-obliging Muslim’s discreet arm wave for the attention of a supervisor will bring on more than a hussy fit in the person with severe alcoholic problems. Hand waving gestures of a severe kind could be raining down instead on the unwilling [to serve alcoholic shop] assistant.
“I bet there are about 20 Muslims in the whole of Great Britain who object to selling booze.”
Well, I bet there are more than twenty crocheted Kufi Muslim skullcap clones to be had.
I individually do not like the laissez-faire laws we have in place with respect of Alcohol. Alcohol, to my mind, creates in its wake, to incalculable persons myriad nemesis and demise. Nevertheless, because of living in a democratic system one has to accept there are going to be ways of the law that one does not essentially agree with. It is price of freedom, I suppose. Or is it?
“Alcohol,” not “alcoholic” as I have in last post repeatedly stated.
‘And the “person” who is in the business of selling here is not the checkout assisant, but Sainsburys – which is not refusing to sell a product.’
But Sainsburys is by its policy making it more difficult to buy a product. It is, basically, refusing to sell it in the most neutral transparent fuss-free impersonal manner possible; it is allowing its customers to be treated as morally suspect because of their choice of purchase. That seems to me to be a very, very odd thing for a commercial enterprise to do. It’s as if Barnes & Noble or Waterstone’s allowed its checkout assistants to refuse to ring up atheist books.
‘I also think that there is a difference between refusing to sell a certain product to anybody, and refusing to sell any product only to a certain group; your gay and black analogies are not directly relevant.’
Hmm. I don’t think so – because surely that is part of the point. People who buy alcohol are kafir, or if they’re Muslims, they’re bad Muslims. The refusal to sell alcohol is a moral refusal. Or to put it another way, you’re right, there is a difference, but the difference is superficial; underneath the two are pretty much the same.
If you’re arguing that Sainsburys (more accurately, probably, the manager of the Tower Hamlets Sainsburys) made a bad commercial decision, then that’s a whole different point from arguing that they/he made a wrong moral decison, which is what I understood most people above to be claiming. I would need to know more of the facts to know whether I agree with you.
If you’re arguing that Sainsburys has somehow colluded in a moral judgment of its customers, then (a) I don’t really agree with you (since the customers can still buy alcohol) and (b) it doesn’t seem more logical to argue it that way than to say that were Sainsburys to “force” its staff to do something which the staff member found immoral and which Sainsburys could reasonably easily avoid the staff member needing to do, Sainsburys would still be makning a moral judgment, but the opposite one.
I sometimes wonder whether the customer service ethos has become so strong that people (I don’t mean you, O) begin to think that businesses have something akin to a moral duty to act as though “the customer is king”. But of course, they don’t. “The most neutral transparent fuss-free impersonal manner possible” is purely a commercial issue. (To be clear, I am not denying that businesses have other sorts of moral duties to their customers, like not stealing from them). Why should any paying customer have to put up with this religidiocy? They don’t have to. They can shop elsewhere.
I would agree that the checkout assistant is making a moral judgment (not to refuse to sell, since he is not a principal in the matter, but to refuse to be a party to somebody else selling), but he is making a moral judgment that applies to anyone who buys. He is claiming that an action is wrong for anyone, not just wrong for certain groups. If we exclude the special case of children, that is what we generally consider a proper way to make moral judgments. So even if we disagree strongly with his specific moral judgment, we might concede that he is applying it in a proper way. We would be very much less likely to agree to this were his judgment applied differentially to different groups of adults. Hence my claim of a difference between this and discrimination against black or gay customers.
I’m wondering why we all feel strongly enough about this to keep arguing it. Would the majority above who (presumably) think Sainsburys should have sacked the b*gger feel any differnetly if the assistant had meekly and quietly asked for this dispensation – ie is the (reported) sense of entitlement and drama queen aspect which is particularly galling?
I think in my case, apart from being motivated by the considerations apostrophized as quaint above, its because I cannot help empathising with the store manager. “Oh no, Mo has flipped his lid again, just when I thought he was beginning to settle down and grow up a bit. I suppose it was because You Know Who was at the mosque last night. I’ll have to give him a talking to, but maybe I can think of a way round it for the few days it takes him to simmer down and the others to tease him out of it. I do hope I can avoid giving him the boot because losing his job really isn’t going to do much to reduce his militant tendencies and he’s a conscientious worker most of the time.”
Of course this may all be crap; the store manager may be an ineffectual twit and Mo may be something more sinister. But my version is not intrinsically less likely than yours.
Yes, I’ve been pondering the question of whether we (and in particular I) think businesses have something akin to a moral duty to act as though “the customer is king” or at least is entitled to expect the services or products on offer. I pondered it during the fuss about the gay rights legislation, too. I admit the thought probably has a lot to do with habit and custom. It has become customary for people to expect to buy products in shops without getting an argument or a refusal from the people at the till. (One exception is people in bars and pubs, who are now expected to refuse customers who have already had ‘too much’ – which has always struck me as a large burden while also being obviously sensible in some ways. I don’t know what I think about that, frankly. Or I do know: I think two incompatible things. It’s unreasonable and reasonable.)
‘that is what we generally consider a proper way to make moral judgments.’
True. But we don’t want strangers making them about us in these impersonal transactions that are part of everyday life. We don’t want to accord them that right. Not unless we’re doing something obviously harmful to others – pounding on a child, for instance.
I think I feel so strongly about it because it seems on a par with the people who tell women what to do in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, etc etc – with the complete erasure of personal autonomy for women there, such that they are subject to judgment and criticism and bullying wherever they go and whatever they do. It boils down to the fact that we don’t want strangers telling us what to do unless there’s a damn good reason.
I agree with potentilla, in principle. I think the Sainsbury analogy with not putting vegans at the meat counter is a good one. In a big store, there’s no practical problem. You could even have a no-alcohol line, and nobody would be
inconvenienced. Accomodating the guy harms no one. In a smaller store it’s another story.
The analogy with books is silly. There are too many different books that offend different people. You can’t have bookstore with a “no hunting magazine” line and a “no atheism” line and a “no pornography” line and a “no Christianity” line. Just not possible.
A manager has to first decide what preferences are a matter of serious conviction, and not mere irrational prejudice. Then decide whether the accomodation harms anyone. This seems like a good way to go in a pluralistic society.
As a smug Canadian I can only say (ironically, for I am an atheist),
“Thank [deity of choice] for the Liquor Control Board of Ontario!” The LCBO sells booze. Lots of booze. It is dedicated to making the purchase of booze as pleasant and convenient as possible. I would suggest that our LCBO is an excellent argument for the un-privatizing of the liquor trade.
Actually I can see that this might be considered an enlightened policy. I always thought it was enlightened of the Romans to allow Jews to pick up a double supply of the dole in one day since they could not pick it up on the Sabbath. Other Romans may have been aggrieved that Jacob could do that when Gaius could not but it seemed to me to point to a tolerant government. It could be read as multi-culturalism gone mad or as reasonable and harmless accommodation and was a refreshing contrast to the Christian theocrats that came in afterwards. Depends what you mean by enlightened I suppose. I’m not clear about it myself. In the sixties it meant a widening knowledge that there were other ways of doing things besides our own.
About money tempering religiosity the very good greengrocers near my work used to close at Friday lunch time – I assume for the owners to go to the mosque. It no longer does. Presumably because of loss of profit.
As for me I go to Lidls where everyone, staff, customers (including myself) are first generation immigrants and where you can get 4 cans of Boddingtons for £2.87.
‘I think the Sainsbury analogy with not putting vegans at the meat counter is a good one.’
I don’t, because the alcohol at the till one involves an implied rebuke to an actual, present person, which the meat counter one doesn’t. Does Sainsbury allow vegans to refuse to ring up meat? That would be a better analogy – it would be one that dealt with the real problem.
‘The analogy with books is silly.’
Is not silly.
“You can’t have bookstore with a “no hunting magazine” line and a “no atheism” line and a “no pornography” line”.
You can indeed, if you went into a Veritas Catholic religious bookshop dotted around Dublin you will see a “no line” in all these three subjects.
No accommodation for these books, at all.
The thing about preferences that are a matter of serious conviction is worrying too, I think. For some people it is a matter of serious conviction that women should not be out in public without a male relative. For some people it is a matter of serious conviction that gays should be executed. Should said people be allowed to refuse to serve unaccompanied women or hand-holding gay couples?
I’m afraid of serious conviction. It covers a multitude of sins.
This insanity has to be stopped – any realistic suggestions, anyone Well, you live quite near Tower Hamlets, don’t you – you could go and picket the store, if you can work out exactly which one it is.
O – maybe the difference between our intuitions is that I’m quite sure I wouldn’t, were I to have my booze rung up by the supervisor whilst Mo glowered at me, feel morally judged, any more than I do when my nephew tells me ferociously that I’m not being faaaair. “nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”. I suppose I would just be discounting Mo as a moral agent, which is not necessarily any better.
Serious conviction – yes. I will have to come back to it tomorrow to see what, if anything, intelligent I have to say about the problem. Tis past the witching hour.
p – Hamlet didn’t mean that, he was just in a mood when he said it.
ha!
To me, nephews are one thing, and strangers in shops are very much another. I agree that thinking makes it so, and Stoicism has its appeal – but I think tyranny should be resisted, and that includes petty tyranny. It’th a matter of printhipal.
Hasta mañana.
Ah, but I talked about separate lines–a no alcohol line. If that’s practical, I see no problem with the accomodation. In a store with lots of muslim employees who really had this preference, it would make sense.
The criterion is–is this accomodation going to harm anyone? We also have to ask if the preference involves one of these deep convictions that we put in a special category.
Are you seriously suggesting that stores shouldn’t accomodate the religious practices of employees? No days off for religious holidays? Schools shouldn’t distinguish between a kid who wants a day off for a Jewish holiday and one who wants a day off to collect shamrocks?
You can think religion is nonsense, but to actually implement that in the rules you set up at businesses and schools is…well, a recipe for disaster. Where people aren’t allowed space for their deepest convictions (those compatible with the other liberties we also hold important) they get very, very mad…and then we can’t all live together peacefully.
Bill of rights, ACLU, first amendment, religious tolerance, all good stuff.
A no-alcohol line would not be so bad. Impersonal, not confrontational, not necessarily unsecular.
See the thing about special category is one that I think is highly suspect. I don’t put deep convictions in a special category merely on the grounds of their depth – I make a point of not doing that, because I think it’s dangerous: I think depth of conviction should not be confused with merit or harmlessness, and thus should not get extra weight.
No, I don’t particularly think stores should accomodate the religious practices of employees. And as far as I know, they mostly don’t. Most businesses don’t give extra days off to people who want to observe a religious holiday (that would be grossly unfair to the secular employees, for one thing). Do (public) schools let children take a day off for a Jewish holiday? News to me!
I think proliferating the special privileges and dispensations for religion is a recipe for disaster.
Bill of rights, ACLU, first amendment, religious tolerance, all good stuff, up to a point. The free exercise clause, not so good! (Christians are busy using it to sue for all sorts of demented ‘rights.’ It’s a mess.)
What, no accomodations for religious holidays? Aww!
Public schools do give special days off for Jewish holidays. My kids just took off for two. I bet businesses do the same thing. It might come out of your total vacation budget, but there’s going to be an effort to work around religious events. I’ll bet lots of businesses with a lot of Muslims give them a break to eat after sunset during Ramadan. I did this for a muslim student last year who was taking an evening course with me. Of course–it didn’t hurt anyone!
It’s different if the liberties he wanted interfered with the liberties of others. He doesn’t get to tell the women in my class they have to wear veils. But where accomodations don’t cause anyone any serious harm…
I don’t think deep convictions are in any separate categorically “epistemically” as we might say to sound fancy. They’re only separate because if you don’t honor them, then bad things will happen. Jews will all go to special Jewish schools, Muslims will go to Muslim schools…we’ll have a very fractured society. Or everybody will just get very, very mad.
I think I’ll go mail the ACLU a check…(oh, I think I did already).
Well if the days off come out of the vacation budget, of course I don’t object. That’s just taking a vacation day, that’s all. Naturally a decent employer tries to give the employee the day requested. [right hand on heart] I don’t object at all if employers try to give employees days off at the times requested by the employees!
The trouble with doing things because otherwise people will get very very mad is that it’s extortion. It’s like the ‘grievance’ thing. X has a grievance, so we’d better mollify her. Not necessarily. It depends what her grievance is; whether she has any right to be aggrieved or not; what she wants as the price for mollification.
Some people get very very mad when women have some rights and freedom. I don’t want to mollify them, and I don’t want them threatening anyone with their rage.
Potentilla I would point out that while this jerk is cooling down more of the sacred customers will be treated like crap! it seems like a recipe for bankrupcy to me,the first rule of buisness is the customer is always right.
Well, it’s not a matter of one lunatic being mollified, it’s a matter of how a pluralistic society can work. The social contract, at large and on a smaller scale, means we live with differences by being mutually accommodating. The atheists don’t have to trim the company Christmas tree, the Jews get off on Yom Kippur, the Muslims don’t have to sell alcohol, the vegans don’t have to be butchers. You can call this mutual extortion or mutual accomodation. It just allows people to live together despite deep differences.
Well, I don’t drink alcohol, I’m too aware of the difficulties it causes, and I definitely wouldn’t work where I had to sell it, however I think this is one of those occasions when I would line up 50 friends, each with a bottle of their favourite, and send them through the particular check-out line, one after the other.
What if the check-out person is a feminist and the customer is buying hard core porn?
“What if the check-out person is a feminist and the customer is buying hard core porn?”
A very good point. I’m a feminist, I hate hard-core porn or soft-core porn for that matter. If I was sitting next to someone on the bus who was reading it I’d probably glower at them. If I found a friend reading it I’d tell them what I thought of it. If I walked into a space where it was on display eg a garage or (I remember) a part of the sorting depot of the post office I would probably scan the walls and look disapproving. On the check-out I’d probably flinch slightly and then carry on with the job I’m paid to do.
Of course I wouldn’t work at a hard porn shop but I would acknowledge it as a small lousy element of a job. If it became too much I’d look for another job.
“What would you say, as someone else in this thread asks, if an anti-abortionist refuses to sell pregnancy testing kits, or contraception – would that be just more quaint British tolerance and compromise?”
As the first post in this thread points out – pharmacists can refuse to provide the morning after pill (as can doctors refuse to refer for abortion).
My question is, after 73 posts, would we have cared if it had been Lidl? [Think, umm, K-Mart for the norteamericanos out there…]
‘The atheists don’t have to trim the company Christmas tree, the Jews get off on Yom Kippur, the Muslims don’t have to sell alcohol, the vegans don’t have to be butchers.’
But that oversimplifies. Of course Muslims don’t have to sell alcohol, nor do vegans have to be butchers. But if Muslims take jobs that include selling alcohol – ? It’s not self-evident that they have a right to opt out. If vegans in fact take jobs as butchers, then they do have to be butchers, because that’s the job they’ve taken. I don’t get to take a job teaching Sunday school and then refuse to do it. And, again, what does ‘the Jews get off on Yom Kippur’ mean?
What KB said, about the porn.
If it had been K-Mart? Hmm – interesting question. Possibly not. So apparently the supermarket aspect makes a difference. I guess because we have to go there often, it’s necessary to survival, it’s more familiar and intimate than K-Mart type places?
That’s interesting though; I hadn’t thought of it. My basic view is that I do not want religion being forced into everyday (secular) life. A religionized supermarket would be a much thicker end of the wedge than would an occasional place like K-Mart.
Then again, I don’t fly terribly often, either, but I nearly blew a gasket when I received a little card with a prayer on it on an Alaska flight a few years ago. Yecccch.
Vegans shouldn’t apply for jobs at butcher shops and Muslims shouldn’t apply for jobs at liquor stores. But at a big supermarket there are lots of things people can do and ways to accommodate them.
“Jews should get off for Yom Kippur” means that Jews should get that day off, considering that Christians get Christmas off.
In the US and the UK, the real “creeping theocracy” is Christianity. If Jews, atheists, and Muslims don’t stand together against the Christian onslaught, they’re all going to be forced into Christianity reeducation camp together. It will not be pretty.
You may think atheism is different because it’s, well, true…but that thought really doesn’t have any role to play in the public realm. Of course that’s what the Christians think about Christianity, and they’re the ones with all the power.
There are no atheists at 35,000 feet (well, none that are nervous flyers anyway, we prefer walking).
If I maybe allowed just one more ounce of cyberspace…
Your “reductio ad absurdum” of the Muslim’s guy’s rebellion certainly does make a lot of initial sense. And maybe his request is just silly…I mean really, selling alcohol and drinking it are surely two different things.
But looking at the bigger picture, I fear for religious minorities–as one who is doubly sensitive to that status (being both Jewish and atheist). I think I need to fight to keep all the God talk out of my kids’ school. But I also have to fight for them to be allowed Jewish holidays, when the whole school year is set up around the Christian calendar. Out of consistency, this means having solidarity with Muslims who also feel marginalized by the majority religion.
But everybody gets Christmas off. (Except people who don’t, of course. I once had my picture in the paper – shoveling elephant shit, as a matter of fact – because I was working at the zoo on Xmas day. The animals don’t shut down for holidays, I pointed out sweetly.) So is it just Jews who should get Yom Kippur off? Or should Yom Kippur be made another universal holiday?
I agree about the creeping theocracy in the US of course. (I don’t think that’s right about the UK, where there’s less of the Xian kind and much more of the Muslim kind.) But I think the alternative is secularism, not coalitions of minority religions and atheism.
Same applies to your point about atheism. The alternative to theocracy is not atheism, it’s secularism.
You can have all the cyberspace you want! (Unless you want to write an essay on doorknobs. Then all bets are off.) I see your point – but again, I think secularism is the better alternative. (Is the whole school year really set up around the Xian calendar? I mean, in the sense of around Xian holidays? I realize it uses the Xian calendar, but so does everything; the Xianity of it is pretty nominal, isn’t it? Is there more than Xmas by way of Xian holidays observed by schools? They don’t pay any attention to Easter, do they?)
But the UK has an official state religion! I find that appalling. I lived in Putney as a 9 year old and detested going to chapel, or whatever they called it, at school. This was a formative experience–made me extremely adamant about no religion in school (in the US).
But I can’t see letting schools make it hard for religious minorities to practice their religions outside of school That’s too much secularism for my tastes. We can’t have a calendar where everybody gets off on everyone else’s holidays–we’d never get anything done. So no, I don’t think everyone should have the day off on Yom Kippur and all the Muslim holidays, etc.
Tis whole idea that one perspective on religious matters (secularism) should prevail doesn’t sit well with me. The dominant folks would just love it, but of course it’s their truth (Christianity) that would wind up prevailing.
Yup. They do here (UK) – so we get stupidly long and stupidly short terms (semesters) depending on where Easter falls in the year.
Ah right, I was thinking US schools. I know the UK makes an incredible fuss about Easter – shops closed for a month or so. Terrible.
I agree about the official state religion! The bishops in the House of Lords make my blood run cold.
However – we can’t have a calendar where everybody gets off on everyone else’s holidays – but we should have one where everyone gets off on ‘her own’ holidays. Sorry, but I think that’s a terrible idea. Balkanizing and theocratic at the same time. It privileges religion, for no very obvious reason.
‘Tis whole idea that one perspective on religious matters (secularism) should prevail doesn’t sit well with me.’
But the point about secularism is that it abstains from having a perspective on religious matters. It brackets religious matters in order not to have to adjudicate between them. What other way is there?
The other way is that each person is given the right to practice their own religion as they please, with no adjudication between religions. This is (hate to sound patriotic) the way of the Bill of Rights.
It’s the alternative that’s “Balkanizing.” If Jewish kids couldn’t have their special days off and Muslim kids couldn’t etc…they would go to separate schools. To live together, in a world where people are religious, is to respect each other’s rights in this area.
The privileging of religion is not due to any judgment that it’s right and good, but that it’s in fact the way a huge number of people choose their outlook, values, and way of life. So encroachments on religious liberty deny people very important forms of autonomy.
Well it’s not exactly the way of the whole Bill of Rights, but it is one (much contested) interpretation of the free exercise clause. But I’ve already said I’m not a fan of the free exercise clause – I think it was a mistake.
Would all Jewish children and Muslim children go to separate schools? To the best of my knowledge, some religious people prefer a secular public realm, very much including schools.
True enough that encroachments on religious liberty deny people very important forms of autonomy, but then we have to figure out what actually constitutes an encroachment on religious liberty, and what competing goods are in play. There are for instance disputes over animal slaughter: some religious people consider it an encroachment on religious liberty to make cruel forms of slaughter illegal; should religious liberty trump concerns about animal suffering? I say no: concerns about animal suffering should trump religious liberty. The same questions come up with respect to female equality, medical treatment, physical punishment of children, and so on. ‘Compelling interest,’ in judicial terms.
But you see, the thing about the Church of England is that it isn’t really a *religion*, hasn’t been since about, ooh, 1860-ish. You should see the trouble the Archbish of Cantab has with all the people who’d like to make it into one. Strange foreign types, mostly…
Except for those dang bishops!
Re: I860. Peter Tatchell was charged with “indecent behaviour in a church”, contrary to section 2 of the 1860 Ecclesiastical Courts Jurisdiction Act, formerly part of the Brawling Act of 1551.
On the matter of public holidays, couldn’t we all be given, say, ten days of celebration/observance holidays a year and book as we please.
You want to celebrate Christmas or Eid with a week off, I want to commemorate the moon landings with a four day weekend. Should’t be a problem to organise, if you book regular slots.
Well that’s what I said about holidays yesterday. If everybody gets an allowance of holidays, fine. But this idea that religious minorities should get extra holidays that other people don’t get, I think is highly unfortunate. I really didn’t know US public schools were doing this; it surprises me.
Apart from anything else it sounds like a recipe for resentment rather than pluralist harmony.
“My question is, after 73 posts, would we have cared if it had been Lidl?”
Well I would because I shop there and it is uncannily cheap. But I think they are known as being not the best employers in the world & probably would not be so accommodating to the staff’s whims and fancies.
As Dave says, the UK’s state religion is pretty nominal. Why on earth did you go to “chapel”, Jean? Your parents could just have said that you were not going to; thye wouldn’t even have needed to give any reason. The House of Lords is a mess anyway at the moment; I daresay the dang bishops will go quite soon, but I doubt it will make a lot of difference to anything.
May I make a plea to retain at least a few standard public holidays? – those are the days that the markets are closed and so those of us involved with financial services IT can do things to our computer systems!
What I would quite like to know, from all of the people deploring Sainsburys behaviour, is who do they think should do what about it? I have just checked back on that Sainsbury’s forum, and there are no new posts.
I have just spent the entire day reading Infidel and, magnificent though AHA is, I don’t think I have changed my mind on this issue yet.
Religious liberty is not an absolute value, so of course you have to take into account competing values. That’s important–one person’s liberty shouldn’t come at the expense of harm to someone else or limiting someone else’s liberty.
I just don’t see what the competing value is that would prevent a school from letting the Jewish kids have the day off on Yom Kippur. It sounds good, but I don’t really see the point of giving everyone the same budget for religious holidays. Other things being equal, it’s better for kids to be in school. Just because my kid needs to be home for a religious holiday, why should someone else’s miss out on a day of education?
Religious folks who have their kids in public school obviously prefer it, but I do think they’d leave in droves if the policies weren’t accommodating.
I’ve never noticed any resentment over these things. The Jewish kids get a day off from school, but it’s not like they watch TV all day. They have to go listen to boring stuff in synagogue.
Yes, my Jewish mate takes Yom Kippur off, and then has to sit around yakking with family members who haven’t even brushed their teeth, on purpose! That’s the kind of thing I go to work to get away from….
My parents had me stay in chapel because they thought it would be more comfortable than going off with the 3 other Jewish kids and having everyone think I had horns growing out of my head. I got to learn “All thing(On two levels–as Jewish, and as a non-believer even at that age.) This experience is my ammunition when people say prayer in public schools (in the US) is OK. It is not OK.
On the other hand, it’s not OK for public schools to create any kind of a barrier to religious observance that does nobody any harm. Truth is, I wouldn’t leave our public school if they hassled me about Jewish holidays, but I’d show up at the school board meeting and raise hell.
Is there a bit missing out of your first para?
Oh, I see – the extra day off is punishment! Okay, that’s different.
cackle
That’s weird. A sentence got swallowed. I said I got to learn “All Things Great and Beautiful” (that’s it right?) which is a really pretty song, but hated having to sit there on many levels.
Jews standing with moslems against christians makes great sence Jean! trouble is a large number of moslems hate Jews with a pasion that you could not imagine.
And he snicks a quick single past square leg… One Hundred Not Out!
Off the top of my head:-
All things bright and beautiful
All creatures great and small
All thing wise and wonderful
The Lord God made them all
He gave us eyes to see them
And lips that we might tell
How great is God Almighty
Who hath made all things well
The purple-headed mountain
The river running by
The sunset and the morning
That brightens up the sky
In a later verse there is a bit about the rushes by the water we gather every day, which my maternal grandfather (reportedly) refused to sing, because he didn’t. Hmmm, do you see a characteristic persnicketiness about detail here. In fact, I could gather rushes by the water every day here, but not sure what I’d do with them – making rush-lights is a long and tedious process. (But we do have a p-h m and a rrb).
Oooh, and if you want a really terrible American (i can tell by the spelling) rendition, with something bizarre about the harmony in the second line of the verse, and all the verses my memory had supressed, go here.
This is a bit better, if you imagine the tinny little organ as a great big cathedral one.
Monty Python’s
All things dull and ugly
http://www.geocities.com/fang_club/All_things_dull.html
_
Don’t start hymn reminiscing if you ever want to complete the comments thread. Incidentally that really pretty, popular and modern hymn Morning has Broken was written by Eleanor Farjeon who was Jewish and agnostic.
Y’know, it’s a damn good song.
To people of a certain age “All things bright (etc)” has a very nasty resonance.
It was sung by the little children of Pant-Glas primary school in Aberfan … about five minutes later, the school was eradicated by the mud/coal slide ….
Christian ministers were NOT welcome for some time thereafter.