The Politics of the Veil
November 22nd, 2007 by Anindita Sengupta
Over at The Nation, there’s an article on an interesting new book called The Politics of the Veil by historian Joan Wallach Scott, which examines the French obsession with the Muslim’s woman’s headscarf or foulard islamique. Muslim girls in France often face non-admission or expulsion from school when they choose to wear a headscarf. The Politics of the Veil gives us a history of the controversy and Wallach Scott’s research is apparently “broad and exhaustive.The article is a snapshot of what one can expect from the book and gives a brief history of the controversy. It also talks about some of the different factors involved in this debate — secularism, national identity, the idea of a homogeneous European female identity, and sexual liberation. She makes an interesting point about the last.
In reality, both Islamic Sharia and strict French laïcité produced gender systems that essentially deprived women of the right to dispose of their bodies as they wished. Indeed, in Islamic tradition, women are urged to be modest and to steer clear of tabarruj. This Arabic noun has its roots in the verb baraja, which means “to display” or “to show off,” and the noun can be translated as something like “affectation.” In A Season in Mecca, his narrative book about the pilgrimage, Moroccan anthropologist Abdellah Hammoudi uses the term “ostentation” to translate tabarruj, “the invariable term for a bearing that is deemed immodest or conspicuous, a hieratic stance.” Similarly, the French law born out of strict definitions of laïcité warned schoolgirls about displaying “conspicuous” signs of religious affiliation. In short, the battle between the two modes of thinking was played out in women’s bodies.
As usual, individual freedom is forgotten in the bid to fit people into strict ideological moulds. It is disturbing how even ideologies that originally start on the premise of “freeing” a certain group of people end up being restrictive and determining, and therefore ultimately oppressive, in their own way.
The headscarf issue is complex because it is rooted in several questions. How does one negotiate the path between religious freedom and secularism? What does secularism mean? The absence of religion or the freedom to practice whatever you want. If it is the latter, where do you draw the line when it comes to regulated institutions like schools? The Sikh turban, the Muslim hijab, the sacred thread worn by Hindu Brahmins, the Christian crucifix pendant — all of these are religious symbols. Banning one while allowing others is unfair but the more ‘visible’ ones tend to come under more fire than others.
Also, how realistic is it in this age of global migration to hold on to ‘national idenity’ with steely fingers. As people move around more and there are more migrants in every place, there is bound to be upheaval and redefinition of national identity. Whole masses of people cannot be expected to drop all the habits, customs and affiliations that they have been practicing for centuries. They probably would not be able to even if they tried.
In another incident just last month, British MP Jack Straw sparked off an argument around the niqab because he said it was a “visible statement of separation and of difference” and asked women visiting his surgery to consider removing it. The niqab, unlike the hijab which covers only the head, is a veil that covers most of the face, leaving the space around the eyes open. From the BBC report.
Mr Straw was putting women “into a very awkward position by compromising the faith they believe in and that is ill-placed”, Council of Lancashire Mosques chairman Hamid Kureshi told BBC Radio Five Live.
And a political rival - Liberal Democrat constitutional affairs spokesman Simon Hughes - questioned whether it was Mr Straw’s place to question the way that members of the public dressed.
“I don’t think it’s the job for somebody who represents the whole community to say to somebody who comes through the door, ‘Do you mind if you dress differently in order to talk to me?’,” Mr Hughes said.
With time, European countries will need to loosen their construct of national identity and give up on conventional notions of people looking and behaving tidily similar. Diversity does breed some amount of chaos. And chaos is not always bad. We cannot pay lip service to concepts like racial equality and diversity without making space for what that means in real terms. All people come with baggage. People from different races, religions and sexes come with different kinds of baggage. Asking them to leave that baggage at the door is hardly in keeping with the larger goals of unity and tolerance.