Muslim waitress sues restaurant after dismissal

A Village person and the 'all-new'

2011-10-05T16:10:00.000+01:00

Does it all come down to my birth and early life in a small community?

Having observed my feeling at a loss with all the new faces and names at my humongous university campus, and looking back onto my recent past and then making a comparison between the two social situations, I come to a conclusion that my present dissatisfaction with the 'all-new' stems from the fact that I was once just a small-village girl.

The initial start in life prepared me for comfort within places where everybody knows one another. This led me to small places with strong sense of community where I always tend to feel at ease, happy and content. In London I belonged to a couple of small social groups, a small and friendly pub, a small class of mature students etc. My work places were never large business. Usually 3 or 5 staff. How can I then come to a university which has 5000 new students each year and feel comfortable whilst I sit in a lecture theater of 400?

People rush past one another, brushing against each other, pulling faces, shouting, shy, vain... Some demonstrating their own bodies' favourite parts as one might in a Hollywood movie.
One of my co-students wore a white vest (the 20s Italian gangster style) today. He has a lovely torso that made me smile upon my glancing it. Whilst a young woman's shirt was unbuttoned all the way to under her breasts clearly showing an absence of a bra. Teaching staff must have a right ball of a time whilst the students attempt to make an impression on one another.

In the meantime I am pining for the familiar.

Thank god my old friend is in town to stay and he is just about to knock on my front door.

Shocking!

2011-09-29T22:54:00.000+01:00

So it seems that I have deliberately chosen a shaky path with thorny walls. However, it is based on a thick layer of happiness of love. And the more it shakes the more it shines with the most luminous light one can ever feel.

In Bosnia I am English and in England I am Bosnian who can pass as English to all the long-term-relationship friends. Now I am a 'mature' student in what seems to be a predominantly a very baby-faced environment on my (rated 7th out of 69, impressive: I think!) undergraduate course.

I was asked if I was 18!hahha... Shocking, how very shocking to always be sticking out. A paradox of desire to be normal yet achieving quite the opposite. If I was to be 'normal' I would be a married woman with a couple of kids and a carrier. It is time that one regards normality as an abstract when glancing at a woman such as myself.

Gallivanting over

2011-09-20T22:48:00.000+01:00

Over a month had passed before my return to London. No more gallivanting through the forests and the hills of my homeland. Bosna is back east, still doing it's same thing as yesterday. I miss it. I miss the space and the green green green trees everywhere you turn. The friendly faces and at least three separate visitors per day. I miss the coffee house where everyone knows my name even if I have forgotten theirs. And, most of all I miss the hugs and kisses of all my friends and their genuine smiles when they see my face. Life was very sweet that month of August 2011.

Here, back in London I have seen some of my friends who I love so dearly. They are precious and as fabulous as one would wish ones friends to be. They are my friends who know me as an adult.

Here in London, I am busy. I am shooting a lot. Getting a little money for it too. Time is an essential necessity right now because i have three days before I become engaged in my full time study! I am again a student! Oh, so very exciting. :)

Tears

2011-09-11T22:53:00.000+01:00

I wondered back a few years this evening and without even a glimpse of sadness: tears came. A replay of an event which can be characterised as one of my earliest (and consciously grasped) wisdoms. Although an event one might associate with sadness, I felt none. Yet, tears would tell me otherwise. Numb sadness, I wonder.

Folk dance of Bosna and Hercegovina (BiH)

2011-09-07T12:14:00.000+01:00

BiH folk dance is loved by most Bosnians. Yet, only a few choose to dace it. It is full of complex steps based on two basic ones. One is called trokorak (three short steps making one) and the other is poskok (one upward movement of the knee). Once a dancer becomes experienced these two steps can be danced in so many different ways that to an audience it appears as the most complex and incomprehensible dance routine. Those who do not dance the folklore are in awe of the dance and those who dance it.

Since I had spent my childhood attending such dance lessons twice each week for many years I had managed to master the maneuver of the body through those two steps.

Last night again, after 19 years of absence, I joined a dance practice and impressed myself by being able to pick it up straight away. My body stayed centered and upright around the basic dance axis (tango dancers work on this for months). Head up, shoulders back. The feet moved the whole body whilst gliding effortlessly across the dance floor.

The other dancers around me danced with great skill and knowledge which helped me follow the routines with an ease.

The choreographer also seemed impressed with my dancing. Perhaps, it is all the tango in Buenos Aires, samba in Rio, salsa in Santiago de Cuba and the Indian dance in Varanasi that helped me stay in tune.

Although I am not as knowledgeable as the dancers with whom I danced last night, I feel that I am by far the best at Bosnian folklore out of all the other dances which I have danced. Even at an early age I had taken a concious decision to dance and because of this awarness of what was unfolding I can say that Bosnian folk dance is more part of me that my being Bosnian. I am less Bosnan than I am a bosnian folk dancer because being Bosnian was effortles unfolding of giving up of me (a person which one is at birth) and taking up of what was on offer around me (becoming Bosnian like I could have been, for example: Somalian if I grew up in Somalia). This little reflection on the dances evokes an analysis which I can conclude as such: that which is learned the earliest on in life is that with which one becomes and stays the most comfortable and most expert at throughout life. Hence, although I had tried many dances the one that is truly me, as I had always believed before, is the former Yugoslavia's folk dance.

Note: I grew up in Yugoslavia so I learned dances from around the whole of the country. This would have been dances from all the republics (Slovenia, Croatia, BiH, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia, plus Kosovo and Vojvodina) Sice the split up of the country, within BiH, more emphasys is paid to the dances which are believed to be from BiH. Those are all of the peoples' dances: Muslims, Catholics, Christian Ortodox, Gypsies and others.

Bi-culture

2011-08-30T23:48:00.001+01:00

Oh, such burden this bi-cultural life. One moment I am this and another I am that. Life would be a lot simpler if it was simple. Ah, well ‘of course,’ I hear you think. Of course, of course.

Nation is so ingrained in all that we are. One day perhaps we will wake up and the most obvious question one asks is where the new acquaintance is from. Which county, which part, which city? Political borders are within our psyche so much that we identify ourselves with a political entity that is a nation. Perhaps one day we will see the total absurdity of a nation and see that it serves no other purpose but to protect itself. Your nation will tell that it loves you and that it has given you the rivers and the seas, it has given you clean air and land. Your nation will protect you and look after you when you are an old one. Well, is it really your nation that gave you the rivers and the seas, the sky and the land? I don’t think so somehow. Nation gave you wars and greed. It gave you an addiction to feel the necessity to belong to it and to want it. “War made the nation and the nation made the war.” (..?) Nation simply gave a notion of an enclosure which to have its people serve her.

Anyway, this is just some rumbling on my thought of a struggle to fit in to be either Bosnian or English. I suppose it really doesn’t matter which of the two I feel I belong to the most. In England I am Bosnian and in Bosnia I am English. Both are so absurd. I feel like neither. In fact I feel just like the Indian people see me, and that is as a worldly woman. Whilst we have to divide our preferences between different parts of land belonging to a different political system wars will continue to dominate the world scene. Hence, comes my wise suggestion to take a rubber and we rub out all the borders, burn all the passports and give all the politicians the sack. In turn we can all continue doing what we love. Whatever that may be. (I must stop here to get back to my point before I forget what it was.)
The point is that the burden of being bi-cultural is only here because there are two nations and two cultures with which I can identify and with which I can be identified. If however, they were only geographical areas then my identity would only belong to a geo area. Such as a sea person, river, plane, mountain, hill... etc. It would be similar to identifying people for their qualities or abilities. For example, ‘Charlotte the singer’ or, ‘Sam the carpenter’. person living by the sea would have sea expertise.

But, Fata the English or Fata the Bosnian. I am neither before I am Fata. Nor will I ever be loyal to either of the two nations. I will never go to war for either nor will I want to. I will also do my best to avoid those who may wish to. That would be a futile game of servitude (service) to the nation. A nation that some one might have power to direct. So, this is really simple, I am neither. I belong to the world and the world belongs to me.
To be continued…

Transformation

2011-08-29T01:07:00.000+01:00

How can something so beautiful become so very mundane so much that it almost sends frustration through my body? I understand that this place is small and that it has mostly a quite and content life. People don't go out much and when they do it is a simple affair of exchange of the daily happenings: informative and funny but never too fun nor too entertaining. There is a restraint. The ease. When I stop I feel it's ease. Is it mundane.

Today, as I sat with a friend by a well at a crossroad on a seldom visited hill, a man in a brand new Mercedes shows up. Engine still running, he stopped the car and just sat inside it for a minute or so. Engine still running, we could see that he was on his phone. He then finished his conversation, opened the window, switched off the engine and said hello. A slow and precise exchange of introductory words was exchanged between the two men: my friend and the Mercedes newcomer. Then, nonchalantly we entered the most random ramblings ever. It was mostly laughter and some obscure mentioning of bare realities, gossip, and some unremarkable and unrecallable randomness. This continued longer when a man on a massive tractor simply drove to the well. Stopped. Switched off the engine. Eased himself into the seat up above all of us and joined our random nonchalant, easy ramblings. It felt like everyone was hit by a good dose of marijuana. But, no: everyone was sober and straight. We were simply slow. The water poured out of the well. I sat next to it listening to it. All around me was forest and in front of me a t-junction with two cars and a tractor. A few cars drove past. They slowed down to look at the party. Some even wound down their windows and shouted a hello.

This was probably one of the most enjoyable conversations that I have had in the last week. I was never told the names of the tractor and Mercedes drivers. They never found out my name. It was never important. I never found out where they lived or what they did for a living (well, the tractor driver didn't need to explain). Most importantly, it was unimportant. And, it is precisely this kind of behaviour, this luxury of time that makes life in Bosnia very appealing.

Some moan about the standard of life being low and a few people still don't have laptops. Some people are even beggars on the streets. Some live as slaves to a German car manufacturer. They work 12-hour shifts 6 days a week. Their wages are low. They earn about £300 per month. Ok, so the food is not so expensive here and the fruit is ripe in everyone's gardens. But, still. After a 12 hour shift of factory work, how many absolutely gorgeous, ripe, fresh, mouth watering plums would one need to pick to come back to nature and be freed from the numbness of mundaneness of sawing identical bits of fabric all day long. Non stop. Moreover, how can one's body be content when one works random shifts. So random that they vary from a 12 hr shift from 7pm to 7am!! Then something like 8 till 17:00h. And 15:00 to 23:30h. That's half an hour breaks. There are a few demands I could think of. Good pay? Good working hours! Why do people have to work through the night for a car seat cover? This is appalling. Yes. life for a factory worker is shit. This is the case with factory work all over the world. Some people even moan about having to have to take extra jobs outside their factory work to supplement their pay.

Such hard life.
Yet, when you are free from the numb realities of a nation sliced and divided. When you are awake in the realities of the love that surrounds you in the hills of this beautiful bit of Earth. Those moments of calm and moments subsumed in nature all around. When you can appreciate that it is the trees that you see out of your bedroom windows and that the forest, the space, the mass of sublime land is only a minutes walk away. When you are able to be aware of where you are and when you are able to not care about what you or they do, then, then, this place has the scent of an English rose. It has an effect of the only drug I ever tasted and enjoyed. It gives you the giggles. It gives you tingles. It robs you of freedom, yet it gives it to you in abundance. You become its slave and its master. The hills have memory and never stop to share it with you.

The people have wisdom. A raw, painless, sour but happy wisdom which only their lives of Communist upbringing which which gave way to rapacious Capitalism. The wounds are still sore, but they have been put in safe harnesses and they are an every-day-thing. Not a thing of the past. No. Not yet. Will they ever be? Can we forgive and try to forget? Somehow, even the Milky Way knows. At night the stars tell me, during the day the trees speak to me. The heat that seeps through everything on an August day suffocates me with it. The coolness of the water shakes it away. Yet, it also speaks to me but I don't understand. No one will tell me. They speak, they whisper, they imply. No one will inform. I do not have that wisdom - for the lack of it I am deeply grateful. Yet, somehow regretful.

Today, was a nice day. When I stop and listen. I feel and I learn.

Conformity

2011-08-24T15:10:00.000+01:00

It's rather an annoying thing having to have to conform. I don't think any of us should conform to anything but love and happiness. If there was a compulsory behaviour or a line to walk then it should nly be that one of happiness and love. (Ok, add health in there too, as a pinch of seasoning. However, it can be argued that health comes from love and happiness and love and happiness are interlinked in a way that perhaps happiness is subsumed in love.)

Just think about it, if we were all happy then no one would really harm anyone else. It would be so simple.

Division of labour in BiH seems to mostly be based on gender. Physical work is reserved for men while housework is performed by women. Both sexes will claim that each other can perform each others' tasks. However, division remains. Having been seen cutting grass caused a great deal of entertainment. I overheard three young girls having a brief discussion if it was ok for me to be cutting grass or not. A few men used me as an example to the females in their families claiming that all women can cut grass. And, yes, we can all cut grass. but, is it women with power who chose not to, hence remain in power? Although hereditarily patriarchal society women are really the ones with power here. They remain in power by not claiming it publicly. (?!)

Can this only be said for a few women whose men are feminists but whose beliefs are non-conformist and therefore need be disguised?

Women have too much freedom!

2011-08-24T14:08:00.000+01:00

I simply had to get this out of my system!

A man my age, from my home-town; upon my question to his relationship with his wife who I have never met because I no longer live in Bosnia ((This question if the wife is behaving herself is customary and I don't see it as derogatory (this requires a separate analysis). It also gives me an excellent way into the minds of my male ‘contemporaries’ on their view of women in their and society in general)); his answer was that they have a good relationship and that he is glad that he is in Bosnia and Hercegovina because “women outside have too much freedom”! This statement still permeates through all of my thoughts, day and night, because there is absolutely nothing I could do to change his mind.

Sadly, this kind of attitude would not have been thought out on his own, but most probably passed down from man to man, in a bar somewhere. Only a few may be intelligent enough not to repeat such utter rubbish.

This brings me to yet another point through which I send gratitude to my ever-so wise father. He taught me that we are all the same. Much to my male friends' horrors: "How can a girl be better that I am?" Because she does not carry the burden of having to have to submit to you! Nor should any one.

Where is home? Lake District?

2011-07-17T20:56:00.000+01:00

For a very long time I wanted to see the Lake District in England. Ever since I learned that there might be land as beautiful as my home-land in the western Balkans, that beautiful central Bosnia where the rivers are fast and the mountains are high and overgrown with the greenest of the forests; that place is also here in England in the Lake District, I wanted to go there. I am so in love with it that I want to become a poet once again. I want to forever feel the fresh wind and the warm sunshine touching my skin so lovingly. I want to frolic on its hills and splash my face with its waters. I want to drench my feet in bogs around which I navigated amongst the Cumbrian sheep high up at 600 meters.

Trekking in Lake District for only two and a half days was a re-charge for the soul. My mind was focused on a simple goal to enjoy every step of the way on connecting villages with my feet. Upon a slight wonder of a possible loss of control in terms of the normality of my actions of disobedience to follow a trodden path, I was worried. I looked up at the clouded sky and they parted. I wove the path before I got there. There was no sign that someone had walked it before. However, it does not make it wrong.

The ten-hour trek was invigorating, incredibly satisfying and tiring at the same time. Only once the clouds had to part for me. The rest of the time was filled in harmony, smiles and laughter. Food for soul was in abundance. Upon reaching the village of Grassmere, we found that the buses were no longer running that day. It was only about 7pm. So, we ended up drinking wine and eating overpriced dinner at what seemed the only restaurant around. We most certainly were not prepared to run around looking for alternatives. A few hours and a taxi ride later the cosy bed of of B&B welcomed us for an immediate oblivion of trekking dreams.

We stayed at Keswick with our lovely host Ronnie who thought we were crazy to plan to walk from Keswisk to Rosthwaite to Grassmere. He did his best to try to get us to get a three-day bus pass so that we can do a few short leisurely walks. We didn’t quite understand what the panic was all about. They were just a few hills and forest that we wanted to walk around. We were not interested in guided tours, rules and regulations. We live in London where the buzz of the traffic is the background to our landscaped gardens. We want wilderness and the wildest we have found was only a few steps out of the front door of our B&B!

As planned, we got our extended treks. The landscape from Keswick to Rosthwaite consisted of light forest and luminous green pastures, Derwent Water and crystal clear rivers. We walked through the best looking campsite and although a few years back I vouched not to camp (ever again in England) I think that I would more than happily be able to sleep in this wonderful one.

Falling in love with Lake District was rather simple. The sun was shining, my companion was full of smiles, intellect, love, compassion and willingness to have a great time. Our aim was the same. Our needs were the same. The result was the Lakes becoming my escape hut. I shall see them again.

Thanks to the Internet and its provision of social networking I managed to head straight up to northern part of the lakes. The part where I saw osprays, woodpeckers and goldfinches, and the part where one can find empty hill peaks dotted with sheep hiding amongst tall grass. The part where I sang out loud to the summer songs chosen by Bob Dylan, amongst my favourite of Girl from Ipanema. Even after two full days of exhaustion from trekking singing and dancing whilst descending (or, 'dropping down' in Lake District lingo - totally new language to me!) into Keswich was only possible because the place was absolutely perfect!

Here, in Lake District, I walked many miles. I was prepared with rain-proof clothes, sandwiches, dried fruit and a small map. I suppose I could have got my self a bit of a bigger map and I could have taken my compass with me. Lesson learned: however little you may feel a hill might be, it is still large enough for a compass. Watch and the Sun worked this time around, but be prepared the next time.

I shall visit again and again for I love it with my whole heart. Once again I have found my home. Everywhere I go I find my home. I find the Self which comes out to play when happiness looms. The Self takes me home and the home brings my Self to me. As complete oneself I am able to live in harmony with the nature bringing out that which ought to be on the forefront of my persona each and every day. My true self, health and vitality is always here ready to be used and played with. I just feed my soul. I belong. I am at home.

The sweet aftermath

2011-07-17T20:47:00.000+01:00

I thought I better give you all a bit of an update on the outcome of the tribunal. Apparently I won the case although it was my name that was dragged through the media in their frenzy to sell their trash. Their cunning language and suggestive notions of how one ought to think and behave is incredibly strong and when they have the world in their palms, and can help influence people to love, be compassionate and prosper, they chose to disregard one person's life to better their own. Anyway, who on earth would care about any one spec in the utilitarian world dominated by the small hegemony.

My wonderful no-win-no-fee lawyer was the most incompetent worker I have ever met in my whole life. He wants to be a film producer. I can imagine his first film titled: "f**** up as many clients as you can". The judge didn't like him either. In fact the judge was rather unimpressed by his inability to organise himself. Joe, the lawyer, had his mind on his money primarily. He was driven by greed so much that he was about to take time to figure out how to charge TV and Radio companies for the interviews which they asked me to have with them. I refused to talk to anybody and when a man with a van sat outside my house for over 5 hours -on the day that my lawyer told me not to leave the house - and asked me a question, I froze in fear. This was not my fight. This was an ill society driven by the likes of a few sad little Daily Mail journalists on the orders by a higher greed. Such as that of the News of the World; the unfolding of the Murdock business where the humanity (at last) holds an upper hand gives my thinking a substantial evidence to prove my logic.

I was scared. I understood why a few of my lawyer's clients sued him too. This is nasty business. I am not interested. I am not interested in spending time suing people. But, those who I met in the waiting room before the tribunal were all upset for good reasons. It really takes a big wrongdoing to take someone to tribunal. We were all fighting for our rights.
Since the media took my name that fine day of 15th of May, which is also the day when I was hypnotised by Laurna Cordwel to stop smoking, the psychological effect of the two cannot be separated. I was going through the pain of losing that precious poison and also experiencing a completely new feeling of being hated by a very large number of the British public. In fact public all over the world.

It was tough! it was very tough. I don't remember crying. But, I remember working out the best strategy on how to get to sleep. Thankfully, my mind was strong and logical. I praise the resilience that lets me not only get up but fly back up full of vigour and wisdom. May this strength be the luxury to all those well-meaning ordinary people like myself.

So, I never saw any cash. Rocket folded. I never looked into how to be paid. Before the tribunal all I wanted was for them to pay me for the 5 shifts that I worked there. The judge ordered them to pay me during the tribunal. They did.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those for their supportive emails and responses. Thank you for reminding me that not all people are of the kind to follow like little ducklings which have two purposes in life: first, to look good in my pond and second, to look and taste good on my plate. Thanks to Daily Mail Hating Feminazis from Hell for saving my sanity and opening a whole new door into discovering my Feminist nature. I thought I was just being a human being.

Isn't it incredible that desire, need, want and demand to be treated as a human being has been such a long and hard struggle that most women who do not look into what feminism is, are totally oblivious to what feminism means. Well, I will tell you what, misogynous world: women are strong, brave, beautiful, full of love and sooner or later we will unite and there will be a day when every single one of us will stand up to injustice. And, I am a feminist. And, I am proud.

As evident from the previous paragraph a good lesson was learned on my behalf. I am a feminist. As long as I continue discovering myself in this life I will be satisfied. Although not one's most obvious path to discovery, it is still a path.

I managed to spend my 20ies learning slang English, pretending to study, working at a few nice jobs. Mainly looking for parties and good-looking crowds. I was only learning. Avoiding anything remotely serious. Hence, life caught up with me and bit me in the ass. Excellent, I say: 'bring it on' because I am ready.

Since that 15th May of mayhem of the media frenzy, I went through a few new emotions. I remember going to see Dizzee Rascal in Hyde Park and feeling happy that no one recognised me on the way there. The world did not revolve around the Daily Mail front page from a few days earlier. Thank you Universe! Thank you for the fickle, forgettable little minds of ours. Thank you for sending us a fault. Perhaps it may be this fault that has created the mayhem in the first place. Blame it on the Universe. Faults are always the creator's fault. Let me find joy in this fun music and let me dance. So, I have danced ever since.

I was also scared, alone, desperate, sad, angry, frustrated. I was full of cigarette withdrawal symptoms. I was full of rage. I was sad. I sat alone. I worked and I watched my co-workers read the Sun. Sniggering away and judging the size of my hips. Sad little people, I thought. Then, what would I be doing in their position? Not that - I am sure.

Thanks to Daily Mail Hating Feminazis from Hell, my hell was a little sweeter. Thank you to all of you who are of independent minds to react in the only acceptable way.

I shall not write about this again. I have other stuff I'd rather blog about. :)

Muslim waitress sues restaurant after dismissal for refusing to wear 'revealing' dress

2008-12-19T16:16:00.000Z

Dear reader,

You are here because you are interested in this story that has been told to us all so crassly.

The case has absolutely nothing to do with any religion at all.

It’s a simple matter of dignity and my want to retain mine.

When I started working at Rocket I was required to wear black clothes (trousers and shirt).

On my fourth shift at the restaurant I was given a red tight dress to wear. I immediately refused, as I did not believe that wearing a red dress was appropriate. The bar was already full of men who seem to believe that they can buy anything and parading around in a red dress would make me seem available.

I did not invent the notion that wearing a red dress means that a woman is sexy, flirty, easy, fun, available, and daring. This is what a red dress has come to represent in our culture. And “not many women can carry it off” according to rather a few stylists here in London.

According to one of the Sun's readers I "should be paid to wear a burka" because I am so ugly; a comment that certainly reassures me that I made the right choice not to wear the red dress. It makes me smile.

A waitress has a job to serve the guests. She is to be noticed when she is needed. Other than that no one is interested in a waitress. People go to bars and restaurants to eat, drink and socialize with their friends. Not to look at the staff. The staff should be friendly and approachable. As a waitress I never once believed that I was paid to entertain. To be polite, yes. To be helpful, yes. To serve, yes. But nothing else.

I have worked in bars and restaurants before Rocket. It was mostly to aid to my other income and back in 1994 as a main job for the one and a half years before I went to college.

It is true that I grew up in Muslim family and Muslim community. The last time I felt religious was in 1989. Religion has nothing to do with this case.

This is a simple case of dignity.

None of the people that I know would want their daughters working in that dress in a restaurant/bar.

Those who have been quick to comment about this case in a negative way should re-read the story and pay attention to what is said and written. The case has nothing to do with religion.

I love England. This is my home now. I have spent most of my life here and I am openly grateful to people who live here and who have with their intelligence created a country with rules and regulations and protection to those who may need it.

Although I was born in Bosnia I don’t feel Bosnian more than I feel British. I love both countries in a different way and thanks to such uneducated posts that I have read in response to the article, I yet again feel like I don’t belong to either of the two nations.

And who are any of us to claim a piece of land, a city, a country, for ourselves?

Is your house really yours? Are you really English, Bosnian, Australian, Turkish, Indian, etc., as you may believe that you are? Look at your history. Look at the migrations that humankind has been through during all our times.

The law is here to protect all of us. And I thank those who have created all those laws. And I thank all those who are willing to decide what is right and what is wrong. We all live in one world where we should all be free and be good to one another. Treat each other with love and respect. Help those who need help and protect those who need protecting.

Life and the World are something that you and I have been given and we are equally allowed to enjoy them. All of our lives...

I must also clarify another rather major issue with this story.

After I was no longer working for Rocket I telephoned to inquire about the money that I was owed for the work that I had done. I was told that I would not be paid, as they “would rather give that money to their existing staff”. I was finally paid 7 months later during the Tribunal. The Tribunal judge simply said that I should be paid. I was given cash.

Now, does one have to posses great intellect to know that staff are to be paid? Would you have to wait for the Tribunal to tell you that you should pay your staff?

If I was paid within the 26 days that it took me to see a lawyer I would have most probably never taken any action against them. It felt incredibly unfair and I felt helpless.

The restaurant made a mistake. They insulted me, and all the females. They put the girls in dresses to attract more attention. They cared not that a waitress is already of lower class than those that she serves. Put her in a red lycra dress and you demean her not just as a waitress, but as a person.

I am not unconscious of the fact that working as a waitress is not glamorous. I am ok with that. If it bothered me I would have never looked for a job as a waitress.

I would rather that we all be happy than that we all be superstars or bankers. And the truth is that we all can be happy, we just need to open our hearts and respect one another.

I am not here to belittle anyone or to complain. I have already complained and the law says that I should not have been treated the way that I was. It’s simple. Religion never came in to it. Had I been born in a Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Hindu, or Sikh.. a member of any family, I still would have acted the same. This issue deals with morals and principles. I acted with instinct. I never had to think about this at all. It is very straightforward:
I am a person. Not just an employee.
I am a person. Not just a girl.

I did not want to wear the dress. I would rather not work there than wear that dress. I also asked what the boys would be wearing. Their uniform was to remain the same. Is this fair?

Subsequently, they had no work for me. The restaurant could have kept me on to work in a different part of their establishment where they did not change the uniform. They did not.

So I finished the next two shifts and was then without work. I was very stunned with the restaurant's choice of uniform. I asked another waitress to take a photo of me wearing the dress to show to my friends and family why I no longer worked there.

I did not want to wear the dress so I no longer worked there.

Who is wrong and who is right is for the Tribunal to decide.

The £20000 compensation is not what I demand, not something I invented. The law states that this is the minimum amount one shall be paid by their employer if their employer is to be found to have treated him/her unfairly and discriminatory.

The journalist who was more interested in selling his story than telling the actual story has caused a lot of unnecessary trouble. He knew the case had nothing to do with religion. Thanks to people like him with money on their mind, soon, our world will be completely polluted by hate created by a few crafty creative writing journalists.

The article is unfair to Muslim people. I am not a representative of Muslim people.

Rocket restaurant is not a sex club! Anyone knows that.

I had said, at one point, that I thought that perhaps someone is out there holding a board with a sign pointing to Rocket saying something along the lines of it having waitresses to enjoy. And one would get paranoid if approached on regular basis. Then they bring out a rude dress. ???

At the end of the day, I don’t know much. I just go through life looking after myself. I looked after myself. I resisted to someone's demand of me to behave in an undignified way.

I wish that all of you and your daughters, sisters, mothers, cousins.. All the girls feel strong enough to stand up for their dignity. Regardless of their age, religion or sexual orientation.

Fata Lemes

UPDATE 05.02.2009:

The news is that the restaurant has put in application to reopen the trial to consider the picture of me published by The Sun. The photograph in question was taken during a beach holiday which was then tagged by a friend on Facebook, which subsequently was taken by the press from my Facebook account without my knowledge.

Personal thought on the matter is more of a wonder at what point will I be considered as I am: just a normal woman? Have they read the posts and decided that the majority of people were right to disregard the decency which I seek? I asked for nothing but to be treated as a human.

I just hope that disputes like this will become a thing of the past.

Perhaps they will, once we eventually have robots to do our jobs where one will be allowed to treat them as one wishes, until poor machines acquire feelings. And on it goes. So this inspires a question if it would be wiser just to be decent to one another. (?)