Identifying the Intolerable: Niqab and Burqa?

To many, these all-enveloping garments worn by some Muslim women seem alien to western culture and a challenge to our commitment to a tolerant society. We tolerate great varieties of dress and indeed may enjoy individual clothing idiosyncrasies, agreeing to prohibit only those styles which violate decency. Yet the appearance on our streets of women wearing all-enveloping black coveralls is something else, and it certainly arouses unease.

Firstly, how freely was the garment chosen? If it was imposed by spouse or family members, it has clearly violated the woman’s individual freedom. Even if chosen, was it chosen to fend off attack by extremist members of the wearer’s community? This is on a par with the violence of street gangs and equally unacceptable in our society. The garment remains obnoxious to many, even if quite freely chosen by the woman herself. Feminists in particular resent the reduction of an individual to a mere representative of her sex. She is not expressing a vocation or making a statement regarding her training or expertise. She is simply stating that she is female. And her dress raises a barrier between herself and the society she has joined, enough to raise questions about why she has joined it.

Free societies depend upon communication, as well as tolerance, beginning with freedom to converse and share opinions. Conversation is a good deal more than exchange of language; choice of words and tone of voice will modify what we hear, but so too, to a great extent, will facial expression and body language. Why else is Skype with a camera a favoured form of telephone conversation? Why else are the political leaders’ televised debates so powerful? A woman wearing a burqa is saying something important about her relationship to the world around her. She is not engaging with it. She is withdrawing into a private world, refusing many challenges of life. She risks entering a world where lack of intellectual and informational challenge breeds hostility and leads to extremism.

Even if still worn by a few (by an estimated 0.1% of French Muslims) the burqa is highly distinctive. The unease it raises has found political expression in Belgium and France. The Belgian Chamber of Deputies voted on 22nd April 2010 on a draft law to prohibit the wearing of full face veils anywhere in public. The French government has announced that it will shortly be putting a similar draft law before Parliament. The French police anticipated the debate by arresting a 31 year old woman convert to Islam early in April for driving whilst wearing the niqab, which allegedly reduced her vision.

The woman’s lawyers have appealed, claiming infringement of her human rights. Amnesty International urged the Belgian Parliament not to pass its ban, declaring it would ‘violate the rights to freedom of expression and religion of those women who choose to express their identity or beliefs in this way’.

President Sarkosy is undeterred by these reservations. The French government announced in mid-April that by July it would push through a complete ban on the burqa (full length veil) and niqab (detachable face veil). Some 64% of French people are said to support a ban from public buildings such as hospitals and schools. The Government’s attitude has been fortuitously boosted by the discovery that the woman driver appears to be one of the wives of Lies Hebbadj, a butcher and taxi driver, all of whom appear to be claiming benefit as single mothers.

Elizabeth Sidney
Source: The Independent 24/4/10 and 26/4/10