Things I miss (and don’t) about London
Things I miss:
- Family
- Friends
- The large community of lovely helpful people at the mosque
Things I don’t miss:
- The weather, every day in Barcelona I pray afternoon prayers in the sun outside keeping me feeling warm, even now in October.
- General people, in Barcelona I have random people talking to me in Spanish on the streets while they are having a stroll. People don’t seem to do that here. Maybe it’s a big city versus a smaller city thing.
- The newspapers and the politics. Every day in England there seems to be a sensational headline criticising and mocking some of the misguided Muslims. However last week, a high ranking politician here said that he would rather Muslim women do not wear a veil or even a headscarf and recommending them to take them off to improve community relations. This seems to be a very misjudged public comment, causing unnecessary ire in the normal so called “moderate” Muslim. I hope he understands that Britain is trying to preach freedoms to the rest of the world and his comments are suggesting some women should forego that freedom and wear attire that he approves of. Thankfully it was a comment not a policy statement. But it is worrying that we may in England go to the extremities of France with respect to mandating no headscarves in schools and in public sector jobs.