speaking out against the niqab

[astralis]

http://www.time.com/time/europe/maga...543877,00.html

From the Magazine
Nothing To Hide
It's not illiberal for liberal societies to disapprove of the veil

By YASMIN ALIBHAI-BROWN


Sunday, Oct. 08, 2006
For years, I have vehemently opposed the politics of Jack Straw, a leading member of Tony Blair's Cabinet and former British Foreign Secretary. He has backed the disastrous war in Iraq and domestic laws that curtail civil liberties. In his north of England constituency, which has a sizable Muslim population, he panders to local Muslim bosses. But last week, in his local newspaper, Straw came out against the niqab, the full body and face veil worn by some Muslim women. The niqab, Straw wrote, makes him uneasy and hampers communication. He now asks women — respectfully — to consider taking it off when they come to seek his help. I now find myself in the unusual position of agreeing with Straw's every word.

Feminists have denounced Straw's approach as unacceptably proscriptive, and reactionary Muslims say it is Islamaphobic. But it is time to speak out against this objectionable garment and face down the obscurantists who endlessly bait and intimidate the state by making demands that violate its fundamental principles. That they have brainwashed young women, born free, to seek self-subjugation breaks my heart. Trained creatures often choose to stay in their cages even when released. I don't call that a choice.

I would not propose that Muslim women should be stopped from wearing what they choose as they walk down the street, although, to be sure, there are practical problems with the niqab. I have seen Muslim women who had been appallingly beaten and forced to wear it to keep their wounds hidden. Veiled women cannot eat in restaurants, swim in the sea or smile at their babies in parks. But the most important reason for opposing the veil is one of principle. So long as it ensures genuinely equal standards for all, a liberal nation has no obligation to extend its liberalism to condone the most illiberal practices. State institutions as well as private companies should have the right to stipulate that a person whose face cannot be seen need not be served. That would not discriminate against Muslims; it would, for example, also affect men whose faces were obscured by motorcycle helmets. The principle expressed, in other words, would not be anti-Muslim, but one in favor of communication.

The example of France is salutary here. In 2004, the government banned the hijab, the headscarf, in public schools. The policy may have been introduced with an air of insufferable Gallic superiority, but it was absolutely right; overtly religious symbols are divisive. Schools and colleges should be places of social integration. Protests against the injunction soon died down and many Muslim French girls were happily released from a heritage that has no place in the modern world. Belgium, Denmark and Singapore have taken similar steps. Britain has been both more relaxed about cultural differences and over-anxious about challenging unacceptable practices. Few Britons have realized that the hijab — now more widespread than ever — is, for Islamicist puritans, the first step on a path leading to the burqa, where even the eyes are gauzed over. I have interviewed young women who say they feel so wanton wearing only a headscarf that they will adopt the niqab. Now even 6-year-olds are put into hijabs.

Western culture — it is true — is wildly sexualized and lacking in restraint. But there are ways to avoid falling into that pit without withdrawing into the darkness of a niqab. The robe is a physical manifestation of the pernicious idea of women as carriers of original sin; it assumes that the sight of a cheek or a lock of hair turns Muslim men into predators. The niqab rejects human commonalities. The women who wear it want to observe fellow citizens, but remain unseen, as if they were cctv cameras.

As a modern Muslim woman, I fast and pray; but I refuse to submit to the hijab or to an opaque, black shroud. On Sept. 10, 2001, I wrote a column in the Independent newspaper condemning the Taliban for using violence to force Afghan women into the burqa. It is happening again. In Iran, educated women who fail some sort of veil test are being imprisoned by their oppressors. Saudi women under their body sheets long to show themselves and share the world equally with men.

Exiles who fled such practices to seek refuge in Europe now find the evil is following them. As a female lawyer from Saudi Arabia once said to me: "The Koran does not ask us to bury ourselves. We must be modest. These fools who are taking niqab will one day suffocate like I did, but they will not be allowed to leave the coffin." Millions of progressive Muslims want to halt this Islamicist project to take us back to the Dark Ages. Straw is right to start a debate about what we wear.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is a newspaper columnist living in London
From the Oct. 16, 2006 issue of TIME Europe magazine

[starsiege]

yeah , about time these women stand up for their rights!

[PubFather]

yeah , about time these women stand up for their rights!

I dont like the nijab anymore than the next man. Muslim women,imo, do have the right to wear if they chose. The fact that many only "chose" to wear it because of indoctrination and coersion is a different issue, and one that Jack Straw is perhaps hinting at as well.

What is good and refreshing about this, is that a British politician has been willing to actually say this publicly. Even a few years ago, it would have been almost unthinkable for a relatively mainstream politican to have said this - certainly in the Labour party.

I dont like Straw but I wish a few more UK politicians would be willing to risk a public debate on Islam and other issues as he has done. It might actually do Britain massive favour...

[Ray]

Alibhai Brown regularly features in BBC's "Dateline London" Programme.

She is very frank in her views.

She is absoultely right, as is Straw, that a niqab acts as a barrier in communication.

It is as good as talking to the wall.

[Ironduke]

Minneapolis has a large population of Somalis... they tend not to interact that much with other people. I attend the Univeristy of Minnesota, in classes they all sit by each other.

Now I think it's certainly their right to wear it... I think employers ought to be able to forbid wearing it if they wish, but only as part of a ban on headgear altogether though (e.g. safety reasons).

[Ray]

I have read that people were dismissed from their jobs in the US because they were smokers.

They appealed but it was turned down since the employer is entitled to decide the working conditions with assigning any reasons.

Therefore, if an employer decides no niqabs, then it will have to be agreed or one will not get the job.

[PubFather]

Minneapolis has a large population of Somalis... they tend not to interact that much with other people. I attend the Univeristy of Minnesota, in classes they all sit by each other.

Now I think it's certainly their right to wear it... I think employers ought to be able to forbid wearing it if they wish, but only as part of a ban on headgear altogether though (e.g. safety reasons).

Oh good luck with the Somalis - the ones in the UK are not well adjusted (by and large). They tend to be extremely aggressive and expect that the UK owes them a living... They and the Pakistanis dont get on either... which is something I suppose!

[Parihaka]

They're not so bad here, (Somalis) something like an 80% employment rate though the numbers are small. Most of them were located in subsidised housing in an area near where a friend of mie lives, at night time all the blokes like hanging out on the street talking, a bit daunting if you're not used to it but all it takes is a nod and g'day and they all break out in smiles.

[tarek]

Blame it on veil?
BY MADELEINE BUNTING

11 October 2006




IT’S been quite extraordinary: one man’s emotional response to the niqab — the Muslim veil that covers all but the eyes — has snowballed into a perceived titanic clash of cultures in which commentators pompously pronounce on how Muslims are "rejecting the values of liberal democracy".


Jack Straw feels uncomfortable and within a matter of hours, his discomfort is calibrated on news bulletins and websites in terms of an inquisitorial demand: do Muslims in this country want to integrate? How does Straw’s "I feel ..." spin so rapidly into such grandstanding?

The confusions and sleights of hand are legion, and it’s hard to know where to start to unpick this holy mess. Let’s begin with its holiness, because this is an element which has been absent from the furore. There are two distinct patterns of niqab-wearing in this country. One group wears the niqab by cultural tradition. Often they are relatively recent migrants, from Somalia or Yemen for example, and for the record it is not a "symbol of oppression" but a symbol of status.

The second group comprises the small but slightly increasing number of younger women who wear it as a sign of their intense piety. This latter prompted the memory of being taken as a child by my mother to visit the Poor Clares’ convent in York. We gave alms to these impoverished women who had chosen complete segregation from the world as part of their strict spiritual discipline; we talked to the gentle, warm mother superior through the bars of a grille that symbolised their retreat from the world. No one accused these nuns of "rejecting the values of liberal democracy" — yet they were co-religionists of the IRA terrorists of their time.

The point is that within all religious traditions there are trends emphasising the corrupting influences of the world and how one must keep them at a distance. Catholicism and the celibate monastic tradition of Buddhism interpret this in one way. Salafi Islam interprets it in modes of dress and behaviour in public places. Since when has secular Britain become so intolerant that it can’t accommodate (no one is asking them to like) these small minorities of puritanical piety?

But the bigger part of the muddle is why Straw felt entitled to privilege his emotional response without questioning it more deeply. Does it not occur to men opining on their sense of "rejection" at the niqab that it could be equally prompted by separatist lesbians? Or on another even more obvious tack: how comfortable does the woman wearing the niqab feel coming to visit her MP ensconced in his cultural context, at ease with enormous power and authority?

Comfort is a disastrous new measure for interactions in a diverse society. I’ve got a long list of discomforts. Does that licence me to make demands of others? I find talking to blind people difficult because I rely on eye contact. Similarly, dark glasses are problematic. And, to my shame, I often give up on conversations with people hard of hearing because I over-rely on chat to kindle warmth.

So forget comfort and accept the starting point for any kind of tolerance: that it’s not easy, that it requires imagination, that it makes demands of us. Learn new forms of communication and your world expands.

This debate about the niqab is the flipside of another, parallel debate (led by women) about the over-sexualisation of another subset of women who dress very provocatively (no men complaining here). One of the impulses for women who choose to take the niqab is how highly sexualised public space in this country has become. How do you signal your rejection — even repulsion — at what you regard as near-pornography blazoned over billboards?

A point worth pondering is that a minority of young women are so repulsed by the offer of femininity in Britain — rapidly rising alcohol abuse, soaring sexually transmitted diseases — that they have sought such a drastic option as the niqab.

And here’s the most damaging aspect of Straw’s self-indulgent intervention: the niqab is a drastic option and one that many Muslim women reject. It is the response of a minority who feel that they are living in a hostile climate. Straw’s comments have unleashed a storm of prejudice that only exacerbates the very tendencies which prompt some Muslims to retreat. They undermine efforts within the Muslim community to build more self-confidence, to encourage tightly knit communities to reach out. They have elevated the situation of a tiny minority of women who are often the most fearful anyway into a national problem — even that they form a barrier to successful integration.

This is dangerous and absurd. There are many far more important barriers to successful integration. Two-thirds of children from families of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin are growing up in poverty. More than 20 per cent of all Muslim youths between 16 and 24 are unemployed. In many areas, the desire of second generation Muslims to integrate is being stymied by "white flight" from residential areas and white families using parental choice in education to avoid schools with large numbers of Asian pupils. Outgoing, confident ethnic communities are built where they find understanding, opportunity and engagement. We need to ask ourselves whether that is what we have provided.

Straw’s comments on the niqab escalated into an utterly false implication that Muslims don’t really want to integrate. Television reports ran over pictures of monocultural playgrounds. Ted Cantle’s identification of "parallel lives" in his report on the Bradford riots of 2001 has morphed into a problem that is being laid entirely at the door of a small minority that is impoverished and marginalised. This is ugly.

And there is another, equally ugly, agenda here. Many Muslims were surprised at Straw’s comments — including close political Muslim allies — given his long relationship with the community in his constituency. There has been speculation on his political ambitions. But the point that intrigues me is how Straw is elevating this question as one of primary national concern. In an article on Tony Crosland in the New Statesman last month, Straw cited the Labour thinker’s belief that class was the great divide in society, and added that, now, "religion" was the great divide.

Obviously, Straw meant Islam. No one is too worried about a shrinking number of Anglicans or Catholics. It’s a magnificent convenience for New Labour to let the divides of class slip from view as they prove intractable and social mobility grinds to a halt. In its place, a divide is drawn between a Muslim minority and the vast majority of non-Muslims. It resonates — as the public response to Straw testifies — but it is profoundly mistaken.

The job of a political leader at this historical juncture is to prod our complacencies and prejudices, to open our eyes to recognising how much we have in common; how much of Islam we non-Muslims can appreciate and admire. How much Islam can contribute to the far greater problems we all face? We shouldn’t be hounding those nervous or pious women in their niqabs. Their choice of clothing is as irrelevant as that of Goths. Beware, said Freud wisely, of the narcissism of small differences.

Madeleine Bunting is director of the thinktank Demos. This article first appeared in the Guardian. Write to her at [email protected]

[PubFather]

I'm not going to respond to all of this (parts have merit) but I will take issue with some of it.

[SIZE="2"]IT’S been quite extraordinary: one man’s emotional response to the niqab — the Muslim veil that covers all but the eyes — has snowballed into a perceived titanic clash of cultures in which commentators pompously pronounce on how Muslims are "rejecting the values of liberal democracy".

Jack Straw feels uncomfortable and within a matter of hours, his discomfort is calibrated on news bulletins and websites in terms of an inquisitorial demand: do Muslims in this country want to integrate? How does Straw’s "I feel ..." spin so rapidly into such grandstanding?

I feel this exaggerates and misrepresents the media response. If anything, the media was almost amazed that someone had dared raise such a topic for public debate.

The confusions and sleights of hand are legion, and it’s hard to know where to start to unpick this holy mess. Let’s begin with its holiness, because this is an element which has been absent from the furore. There are two distinct patterns of niqab-wearing in this country. One group wears the niqab by cultural tradition. Often they are relatively recent migrants, from Somalia or Yemen for example, and for the record it is not a "symbol of oppression" but a symbol of status.

Interesting, but I know for a fact that there is huge pressure to on Muslim youths to wear such head attire, and much of it is coersion. Some may well wear it from cultural norms - the cultural norms of a society that is profoundly patriachal.

The second group comprises the small but slightly increasing number of younger women who wear it as a sign of their intense piety.

This latter prompted the memory of being taken as a child by my mother to visit the Poor Clares’ convent in York. We gave alms to these impoverished women who had chosen complete segregation from the world as part of their strict spiritual discipline; we talked to the gentle, warm mother superior through the bars of a grille that symbolised their retreat from the world. No one accused these nuns of "rejecting the values of liberal democracy" — yet they were co-religionists of the IRA terrorists of their time.

Not a good comparison at all. Besides, they are entitled to wear what they want. Jack Straw did not (AFAIK) call for the niqab to be banned. He questioned whether wearing it was culturally appropriate in the UK.

The point is that within all religious traditions there are trends emphasising the corrupting influences of the world and how one must keep them at a distance. Catholicism and the celibate monastic tradition of Buddhism interpret this in one way. Salafi Islam interprets it in modes of dress and behaviour in public places. Since when has secular Britain become so intolerant that it can’t accommodate (no one is asking them to like) these small minorities of puritanical piety?

It certainly tolerates them far more than a corresponding Islamic nation would do.

But the bigger part of the muddle is why Straw felt entitled to privilege his emotional response without questioning it more deeply. Does it not occur to men opining on their sense of "rejection" at the niqab that it could be equally prompted by separatist lesbians?

Crypto-feminist hogwash....

Comfort is a disastrous new measure for interactions in a diverse society. I’ve got a long list of discomforts. Does that licence me to make demands of others? I find talking to blind people difficult because I rely on eye contact. Similarly, dark glasses are problematic. And, to my shame, I often give up on conversations with people hard of hearing because I over-rely on chat to kindle warmth.

Perhaps adding unnecessarily to the discomfort is not a wise move. Blind people cannot help being blind and dont chose it. I could add to Muslims discomfort by wearing an amusing "Allah" t-shirt. Why are Muslims the only ones with sensitivities?

So forget comfort and accept the starting point for any kind of tolerance: that it’s not easy, that it requires imagination, that it makes demands of us. Learn new forms of communication and your world expands.

Muslims need to learn communication in the form of tolerance of views they find repellent.

[I]This debate about the niqab is the flipside of another, parallel debate (led by women) about the over-sexualisation of another subset of women who dress very provocatively (no men complaining here). One of the impulses for women who choose to take the niqab is how highly sexualised public space in this country has become. How do you signal your rejection — even repulsion — at what you regard as near-pornography blazoned over billboards?

They can do what they want - not is saying they cant.

A point worth pondering is that a minority of young women are so repulsed by the offer of femininity in Britain — rapidly rising alcohol abuse, soaring sexually transmitted diseases — that they have sought such a drastic option as the niqab.

Yep, protray the rest of society as being corrupt and immoral. Hey, why not have Sharia law here... to clean the place up.

And here’s the most damaging aspect of Straw’s self-indulgent intervention: the niqab is a drastic option and one that many Muslim women reject. It is the response of a minority who feel that they are living in a hostile climate.

Why might they be living in hostile climate? 7/7? 9/11? Neither justifies hostility, but they do explain it.

Straw’s comments have unleashed a storm of prejudice that only exacerbates the very tendencies which prompt some Muslims to retreat.

Rubbish - there has been no storm of prejudice, rather a civilised discussion about an important issue that many Muslims are sympathetic to.

They undermine efforts within the Muslim community to build more self-confidence, to encourage tightly knit communities to reach out. They have elevated the situation of a tiny minority of women who are often the most fearful anyway into a national problem — even that they form a barrier to successful integration.

Why would Muslims that are described in this way want to "reach out" to a morally corrupt, alcoholic, pornographic society?
Why is that minority of women so fearful? Is it because of repression and male dominance at home?

This is dangerous and absurd. There are many far more important barriers to successful integration. Two-thirds of children from families of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin are growing up in poverty. More than 20 per cent of all Muslim youths between 16 and 24 are unemployed.

And that is the "whites" fault, I suppose? Funny that Hindu and Chinese children do far better at school than Pakistani Muslims. Its odd that the worst achieving group in British schools is now Pakistani boys. I wonder if that helps the employment rate?

In many areas, the desire of second generation Muslims to integrate is being stymied by "white flight" from residential areas and white families using parental choice in education to avoid schools with large numbers of Asian pupils.

The desire to integrate from middle class Muslims that also want to set up state funded Islamic schools? Parents using their ability (based on socio-economics) to move from economically deprived areas where the schools are worse? Muslim parents prefering to send their children to schools with a higher Asian (read Islamic) percentage.

Outgoing, confident ethnic communities are built where they find understanding, opportunity and engagement. We need to ask ourselves whether that is what we have provided.

Yes, we have. The Hindus have managed it, why not the Muslims?

Straw’s comments on the niqab escalated into an utterly false implication that Muslims don’t really want to integrate. Television reports ran over pictures of monocultural playgrounds. Ted Cantle’s identification of "parallel lives" in his report on the Bradford riots of 2001 has morphed into a problem that is being laid entirely at the door of a small minority that is impoverished and marginalised. This is ugly.

Whose fault is it that they both improverished and marginalised? No one forces Muslims to live in the same area of a city - they chose to.

The job of a political leader at this historical juncture is to prod our complacencies and prejudices, to open our eyes to recognising how much we have in common; how much of Islam we non-Muslims can appreciate and admire. How much Islam can contribute to the far greater problems we all face? We shouldn’t be hounding those nervous or pious women in their niqabs. Their choice of clothing is as irrelevant as that of Goths. Beware, said Freud wisely, of the narcissism of small differences.

There is so much of Islam to admire... much more to condemn. Only, white people arent usually allowed to. Jack Straw has opened a debate. Long may it run.

Madeleine Bunting is director of the thinktank Demos. This article first appeared in the Guardian. Write to her at [email protected]

[joey2]

There might be a easy solution to this....
just like Islamic Republic of pakistan
make britain Christian Republic of Britain lol. well it'll be democratic but religion cannot enter in anycase where it collids with law.
like u cannot see the facial expression which is very important.

this might be a stupid idea just sayin.

[Ray]

I still feel uncomfortable talking to a wall or a shroud!

Straw is not correct. The Moslem has integrated with the world. The others cannot see this great smooth, slick effort!

Let a million of niqabs and a couple of terrorist act not put you all off.

Variety is the spice of life!

[PubFather]

I still feel uncomfortable talking to a wall or a shroud!

Straw is not correct. The Moslem has integrated with the world. The others cannot see this great smooth, slick effort!

Let a million of niqabs and a couple of terrorist act not put you all off.

Variety is the spice of life!

Me too, it just looks scary!

[joey2]

nothing bad.. but dont the islam ladys wearing niqabs wanna get seen or stuff like tht?
geez its a female human psycology according to genes that the more fertile she is more she wants to get dressed and stuffs.
no wonder why they takes one hour infront of mirror while we 5 mins.

[bandwagon]

I think this issue does represent a clash of cultures. In the UK men and women expect to communicate as equals, including visual cues. To do otherwise is disrespectful. Wearing sunglasses when addressing someone is rude and discomfiting for the other party. Wearing a niqab is much worse; it lends anonymity as well as an advantage through masking visual cues.

Were this to become widespread it would have a negative impact on our culture and should not be tolerated. Jack Straw was right and, if anything, did not express it strongly enough.

I feel we have a right to identify features of an indigenous culture which we wish to protect. We can ask guest cultures to respect these features as a priority over their own traditions, almost as much as we ask them to respect our laws.

Furthermore, they have a much greater chance to be treated as equals if they act as equals.