We need to talk

This post by Nick Seddon on the Civitas website makes some interesting points about the debate about the veil worn by some Muslim women.

First of all, some Muslims have welcomed Jack Straw’s intervention:

…by expressing concerns about the potential divisiveness of the niqab, Mr Straw has evidently spoken on behalf of a wide range of people identifying themselves as moderate Muslims. Notably, on Monday, Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, leader of the Muslim Parliament of Great Britain, endorsed the intervention, saying: ?Mr Straw has opened a debate within the Muslim community and encouraged interaction. Muslims themselves have failed to create a mechanism to discuss these issues. That is why they have had to be discussed out in the open.?

Seddon refers to the article in The Times by Saira Khan (see my post of 11 October) and says:

Saira Khan argued that the veil is not a religious obligation but a symbol of the subjugation by men of their wives and daughters. She contends that the growing number of women veiling their faces in Britain is a sign of radicalisation ? or Talebanisation ? because it is an extreme practice based on culture not creed. For her, the veil should not even be a matter of choice. ?It is never right for a woman to hide behind a veil and shut herself off from people in the community,? she states. ?But it is particularly wrong in Britain, where it alien to the mainstream culture for someone to walk around wearing a mask.?

“But,” Seddon continues

perhaps the most illuminating comments have come from Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, not a person I always find myself agreeing with. In the Independent on Monday she declared that she found herself ‘agreeing with his [Jack Straw's] every word. It is time to speak out against this objectionable garment and face down the Islamicists.’

Seddon says (and I agree) that Alibhai-Brown’s reasons for supporting Mr Straw, as outlined in an article for Time magazine, “warrant” closer inspection. In summary, they are:

1. practicality (and I would add humanity)
2. non-Muslims have a right to object to Muslim principles
3. the veil is divisive and its removal promotes integration
4. Britain should be a place where Muslim women are genuinely free from pressure to cover up

Do read the Time article to get the full flavour of Alibhai-Brown’s objection to the veil.

Says Alibhai-Brown:

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 niqab rejects human commonalities. The women who wear it want to observe fellow citizens, but remain unseen, as if they were cctv cameras.

Alibhai-Brown refers to herself as a modern Muslim woman who fasts and prays, but rejects the hijab “or to an opaque black shroud”. But in Afghanistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia women are forced to cover up to a greater or lesser degree:

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.

Alibhai-Brown concludes:

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.

As Seddon makes clear in his Civitas article, this is not about banning the veil, but it is about freedom of speech and freedom of expression. Some Muslim commentators have thanked Mr Straw for opening up the debate in the Muslim community itself, and non-Muslims clearly should be able to discuss these things too, since they affect all of us in various ways.

Seddon’s conclusion is this:

To say that a practice is alienating or makes you uncomfortable is not unreasonable ? but to close down the debate is. Closing down the debate will enforce the very separatism that Mr Straw is trying to avert, and the fuss created by his comments shows how timely they were. In a democracy rights operate in a dynamic tension: the freedom to ask someone to remove the veil is surely the correlative of the freedom to wear it.

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