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Jack Straw doesn't think women should sport the veil, at least not in the UK where this "visual statement of separation and difference" is unwanted.

Straw, ensconced in authority on his comfy chair, not only asks women attending his constituency surgery to uncover their faces, he'd rather veils weren't worn at all.

Certainly the extent of the utterly reductive treatment of Muslims amounting to 'Muslim bashing' in the popular Sun tabloid and other fascist media gives weight to the argument white British people don't integrate well.

But, for women, whatever our individual thoughts on asylum policy and multiculturalism, we should at least be united in our conviction that a white, privileged male has no right tossing our right to personal freedom to the lions.

Straw's comments were a complete abuse of his political power, and utterly unacceptable in 21st-century, liberal British society. They were patronising, and, because Straw's emotional opinion was launched from a political platform, damaging.

Muslim women who bear the weight of family pride may find their horizons predetermined for them, probably by patriarchal men. But this confers no duty on Straw to do the same and worse. Yet again Muslims are isolated and their religion and culture subsequently attacked, but for what discernable reason?

The clash of civilisations fabrication, that "vulgar notion so much in vogue," is readily deployed to justify the unjustifiable including the illegal and brutal occupation of oil-rich Iraq, and war against Afghanistan.

The consensual lexicon in general use similarly normalises Israeli brutality while condemning Palestinians without proof. Like the colonised before them, the indigenous people of Palestine live and die the fate of the undeserving 'terrorist' - we may as well say 'savage' - since 'they' don't respect life or uphold equality between the sexes like 'we' do.

The language of feminism has a long history of partnership with the language of colonialism, being used to denounce the indigenous culture and assuage 'liberal' consciences.

The rhetoric tells us we're not invading, torturing, murdering, and plundering foreign lands; we're spreading freedom and democracy. It's a seductive if stupid argument.

People like Straw are sufficiently convinced of the inferiority of Islamic religion and society, they are able to bestow upon themselves the task of educating and liberating the 'uncivilised.'

For this reason, and this reason alone, Straw specifically seeks to persuade a minority of Muslim women to change their dress code, and does not, for example, similarly target Orthodox Jews.

Veils may make some people feel uncomfortable, but so do short skirts, sunglasses, and hoodies. Had Straw been genuinely concerned about community relations he would have sought to challenge fear and prejudice, including his own it seems.

Had he been concerned about female freedom, he would have spoke about the under-representation of Muslim women in higher education and in the work place including central government. For if there is a "visual statement of separation and difference" that requires urgent discussion, it is the wholly unrepresentative Parliament that fails to look like or represent us. He did not.

In the end it is those who wear grey suits we should rightly be fearful of. In Iraq the death toll is staggering, with reliable sources citing UK and US troops as responsible for the vast majority of overwhelmingly civilian deaths. Lord only knows the suffering in Afghanistan, while in Palestine the suffering ranks at least alongside Iraqi suffering. Where is the humanity?

Nor is there any political care for British people. Shelter continues its campaign for a better deal for more than one million children suffering bad housing in the UK. The Foyer Federation is re-launching its 'give us a chance' campaign, to lobby the Government to drop a rule that effectively means disadvantaged young people must choose a house or an education, but not both. And Tony Blair has slipped draconian law through a negligent Parliament, effectively undermining another civil right - the right of peaceful protest. The new anti-veil dress code for British citizens must have been squeezed through at the same time.

Grey suits are blunting all our horizons, with their sophisticated bombs and casual disregard for the lives and rights of people everywhere. When societies are brutally oppressed, demeaned and degraded, they grow more conservative. Sadly the language of feminism has been misused to this end in just about every colonial project, past and present. And while it was always used to rally support at home for wars that rage aboard, it is the same 'progressing' of society by removing anything distasteful, as measured by 'Western' standards of course, Straw advocates for the UK.

It's not really surprising then that Muslim women will likely prefer a revolution of their own making, rather than the subjugation of their sex or 'western-style' feminism. Perhaps there will even be a place for the veil in the Muslim feminist movement.

Sarah Skilton.