"Monkey see, monkey do. Soon after France's National Assembly passed a law making it illegal to wear a full-face veil in public, British MP Philip Hollobone announced a private member's bill last weekend that would make it illegal for people to cover their faces in public in Britain. Neither bill mentioned Muslims by name, of course."
I just read the above quoted article about plans to ban the niqab in the UK after seeing France recently do so. It seems to me that the author has overlooked what I think is the single most powerful element making the niqab offensive. It is briefly alluded to, but never quite taken head on. The niqab is about power and submission and represents one of the ugly aspects of the Islamic faith. I would hope that in modern western countries that the "choice" to wear the niqab be a voluntary one, though I have my doubts about that. Regardless of whether there are women being persuaded, either by force or otherwise, to wear it in western nations, the fact remains that in many Islamic nations this is not the case.
For example, I have read much about the infamous Saudi Arabian "morality police" (the mutaween) that go around issuing tickets (or worse) for perceived breaches of sharia law, as defined by the state. In addition to enforcing a strict dress code, the mutaween enforce dietary laws, the closure of stores while prayers are taking place, and the sale of western CDs and DVDs. Socializing between members of the opposite genders is illegal if those offenders are not related to one another. The practice of any religion other than Islam is strictly forbidden.
For me, the niqab represents a much greater injustice. I would feel much better about a woman in London (or Paris or Toronto or Saskatoon...) wearing the niqab if there weren't these places where she wouldn't have the freedom to go unveiled.
Beyond missing all of that in his analysis of the niqab debate, the author of the above article then steers into a familiar debate tactic. Moral equivalence. Read:
"I grew up in regular contact with women wearing traditional Middle Eastern costumes, and it didn't make me uneasy at all. They were Catholic nuns, wearing the head-to-toe shroud and with not a wisp of hair visible. Their faces were not covered, but in other respects they were dressed just like the women that Philip Hollobone finds so offensive. Indeed, becoming a nun was colloquially known as "taking the veil."
The veil is not Islamic at all. Indeed, it predates all the Abrahamic religions. They all come from the Middle East, and that's why they all -- Jews, Christians and Muslims -- used to be obsessed with female "modesty."
I think that trying to draw a comparison between a woman wearing the niqab and a nun wearing a veil is a bit of a stretch. There is no compulsion to "take the veil" in our greater society, or in any society for that matter. Becoming a nun has always been a voluntary choice made by that woman. This is a common thing that I have been noticing, and I think denotes a sort of intellectual laziness among many people. Rather than honestly look at the actions of one, they decide to point at another perceived offense of another. This sort of diversionary tactic takes away from debate and progress towards resolving any disagreements.
The fact remains that regardless of where the veil came from, and regardless of any past "obsession with female modesty," Islam is the only religion in the 21st century that is still at that point. Shouldn't we be more concerned about that, rather than worry about what our forebears did hundreds of years ago?
