What not to wear
Imagine if a Muslim MP declared that he had asked his female visitors to cover-up if they were ‘inappropriately’ dressed. We would be deluged with outraged articles of Muslims trying to “Islamicise” Britain no doubt.
Either way, whether Muslim women with veils are requested they drop them, or women with mini-skirts are asked to cover up, we are faced with really silly debates over these issues.
In order to cut through some of the emotional outrage being hurdled about, there are a few points to be made.
1) Slurs. Jack Straw’s comments cannot be construed as racist or Islamophobic; the latter would imply he has something against Muslims or Islam when, given his comments everywhere, that does not stand up. One may however call Jack Straw opportunistic, in a bid for leadership, but that’s really about it.
2) Understanding. We also cannot pretend that people have different cultural norms. At a Guardian discussion on ‘Muslim opinion’ (see here) earlier this year many participants declared they had trouble mingling with their non-Muslim peers because it was usually around alcohol. It was met with some amusement, but the point is simply the same: different perception.
So one is perfectly entitled to ask Rajnaara Akhtar that if she wants Jack Straw to show some understanding – would she also apply the same principles to herself when asked to socialise with her non-Muslim peers? This bridge of understanding cannot be only one way.
3) Debate. I also feel the usual band of Muslim “representatives” are shooting themselves in the foot by trying to shut down the debate over this issue because it will only bubble underneath until it explodes into something idiotic, like voting for the BNP. Far better to have an honest discussion about it.
4) Liberty. Despite the hostile debate it is also unavoidable that the government has no real right to legislate what ordinary people can or cannot wear (other than through public indecency laws). So it is a rather harmless debate.
5) Identity. This is inevitably tied to issues around identity, making the debate more shrill than it needs to be. Non-Muslims see it as an attack on their values because they don’t understand or want to accept the idea behind the full veil (Niqab). This also makes many on the right feign an interest in the rights of Muslim women when, if they cared, they would be more interested in their economic underachievement.
On the other side people such as Rajnaara Akhtar will view this debate as a personal attack on their faith because it has become a form of an identity rather than a way of life and thus leads to an instinctively defensive reaction. Ideally she should use the debate to inform others of her thoughts and ideas than start accusing others of ignorance.
6) Boundaries. As my friend Arif said, people make their boundaries differently. “Some wear niqab and that contributes to minor tensions in society. Some pass judgment on them and contribute tensions themselves. We’re still mostly good people trying our best.”
So how shall we proceed? I don’t believe having emotional debates help. Is this an issue of liberty? Is this merely a debate where a politician is airing his views on the Niqab? Or is this simply an attempt by some groups to couch their xenophobia into relevant debates.
It would also help if people on all sides were not so hypocritical in their ‘understanding’ for the other. Yesterday we had the non-issue of PC Basha being made front page when he was simply worried for his relatives in Lebanon were he to be photographed protecting the Israeli embassy.
The death of informed debate continues.
Update: More interesting commentary by Rachel, Jai, Thabet, Satirical Muslim, Holly Finch, Suspect Paki and Not Saussure.
“The death of informed debate continues.”
How many times can debate die before it’s dead?
“I don’t believe having emotional debates help. ”
Agreed.
Either way, whether Muslim women with veils are requested they drop them, or women with mini-skirts are asked to cover up…
I think the comparison with the polar example (i.e. people revealing too much) is pertinent here. Straw raised the issue that communicating with someone in a veil is difficult. Likewise, cmmunicating with someone in a miniskirt might be difficult too. Neither the veil or the mini-skirt are wrong per se, and in some cases they might be appropriate (e.g on a beach, or in a mosque).
But if your appearance causes a distraction then it is likely that the services you recieve from (say) your MP are going to be curtailed. I think this message was failrly clear from what Jack Straw said. His ‘request’ is not the same as an obligation.
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“Imagine if a Muslim MP declared that he had asked his female visitors to cover-up if they were ‘inappropriately’ dressed. We would be deluged with outraged articles of Muslims trying to “Islamicise†Britain no doubt.”
Not a good parallel.
Tell you what. Imagine moving to abroad to a Muslim country and claiming the right for you and your descendants to wander half-dressed through the streets. And be drunk as well if you feel like it.
I think that’s the kind of thing which is frowned on as culturally insensitive and not really a good idea as it offends local sensibilities.
The difference being ?
“””Imagine if a Muslim MP declared that he had asked his female visitors to cover-up if they were ‘inappropriately’ dressed.”””
In a majority-Muslim country this would be an entirely reasonable thing to request. In Britain, it wouldn’t be.
The truth is that the nail that sticks up gets hammered down. We might wish that it were otherwise, but that’s how it is; people are always going to have a tendency to distrust people who are different. Therefore it would help relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in Britain if female Muslims didn’t wear extreme versions of Islamic clothes such as the full veil.
Listening to the BBC Asian Network debate about this I can hear many voices with many views. Which is good.
It does seem to me that the niqab does the opposite of freeing its wearer; her ‘modesty’ practically SHOUTS at you and it is hard for me to get past what is effectively a great big barrier. It affects eye contact, facial expression, all the things that make dialogue between people easier. It is a handicap to social discourse – you can’t easily eat in public, it makes identification of who you are talking to difficult – it can take over the whole interaction. (In a way that a hijab obviously doesn’t.) Women have covered their hair for centuries, there are plenty of ways of dressing modestly without making your clothing the whole issue. What we culturally understand to be ‘modest’ does not mean you have to cover up in what is effectively a giant bag. Surely the point of modesty and modest dress is so that the woman’s intellect, opinions, faith, character can come through loudly and clearly and truthfully – the niqab seems to take that away by acting as an ostentatious mask – and masks are usually worn to disguise the person wearing them. I’m not comfortable with a niqab because I am not comfortable with why someone would want to make such an extreme political statement that they must know acts as a barrier and unsettles people. I wouldn’t walk round in a Muslim country drunk, or bare-shouldered, in a mini skirt, because it would upset and unsettle and offend people. I don’t see why the hijab and generally covering up isn’t enough to fulfil Koranic tenets. It seems incredibly political to make such a statement, and yes, you can do that ,but what is the point if it takes over everything that you are and gets in the way of meaningful interaction with your fellow humans?
Jack Straw was simply saying that he felt uncomfortable trying to talk to a person whom he cannot look in the face. to be hobest, so do I.
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Tell you what. Imagine moving to abroad to a Muslim country and claiming the right for you and your descendants to wander half-dressed through the streets. And be drunk as well if you feel like it.
Well we don’t like in a ME country, and I’m glad of that fact too. So the comparison to another country is a straw-man. Let’s stick with the UK.
Jack Straw was simply saying he was uncomfortable with the veil and I think it is his right to say that. I don’t know if this is a bizarre route to a leadership bid but it doesn’t look like it.
http://rachelnorthlondon.blogspot.com/2006/10/veiled-threats.html
got me thinking some more…
AFAIK, Jack Straw has said two things at two different times. First he wrote an article in which he said that he’d prefer women not to wear veils when speaking to him. That’s a personal preference, but it seems reasonable. It’s much less trivial than a lot which gets into ‘Comment is Free’ (not you Sunny).
Then he said on radio 4 (which I missed) that he’d prefer women not to wear the veil at all (my preference is similar here too).
However, via Chris Dillow, Straw is also partially deaf, and veil-wearing is a clear barrier if he relies on lip-reading to complete sentences he doesn’t fully hear.
Now Sunny, you may be better informed than I am here. But the veil in worn in the street as a way of making women invisible to strange, unwelcome men. It isn’t worn in the home, or when talking in private. AFAIK women in Islamic countries don’t wear the veil when reading the news or in parliament. Taking the thing off when visiting someone to talk to them does not seem like a hardship.
The sensible comparisons seem to be the old habit of taking one’s hat off when one goes indoors. If I visited a mosque they’d expect me to remove my shoes.
“simply an attempt by some groups to couch their xenophobia into relevant debates”. couldn’t agree more. for all his bumbling courtesies, JS is simply trying to win votes here. is the niqab really the most pressing issue to face the Leader of the HoC? what about iraq? afghanistan? no votes there i guess
Andrew, I couldn’t disagree more. Sure JS is trying to win votes: he’s a politician, that’s what they do.*
JS has not said that the niqab is the most pressing issue. This started in a the column he writes weekly in the Lancashire Telegraph. I too would like to see him discusss Iraq and Afghanistan; but he should also discuss other issues. This is one of those.
*When a politician stops caring what the voters think, and starts appealing to history or the US Senate or whatever as Tony Blair has started to do, then we’re in trouble.
It’s just basic common sense, uniforms or vails just put up barriers to communication whether we like it or not.I suspect Jack Straw is trying to encourage the best rapport he can with all peoples.That way he can achieve more.
Sunny ji:“This is inevitably tied to issues around identity, making the debate more shrill than it needs to be. Non-Muslims see it as an attack on their values because they don’t understand or want to accept the idea behind the full veil (Niqab).”
“Non-Muslim values”? What on earth are those? The “non-Muslims” I know range from people who hold sophisticated views on metaphysical naturalism, to those who hold to a very literal bibilical fundamentalism. They’re totally different people.
I really dislike the use of “non-Muslim”. Though I’ve used it myself in the past, I now try and avoid using it in either written or verbal format. It’s a totally bogus “classification”.
a: “Imagine moving to abroad to a Muslim country and claiming the right for you and your descendants to wander half-dressed through the streets. And be drunk as well if you feel like it.”
We’re talking about Britain and not “some foreign Muslim country”. Do keep up.
Straw’s point is about separteness. Unfortunately he wants it both ways. In one breath he’s saying this item of clothing worn by this particular group is a problem – i.e. THEIR problem; THEIR responsibility.
In another breath he’s extolling the virtues of seprateness when it comes to faith schools.
Could it be that separateness embodied by faith schools is not a subject Jack feels uncomfortable about because with faith schools cutting across other religions – including fundementalist Christian schools which finance the governments policy to privatise schools and sell them off to religious fanatics to teach creationism in this country – you cannot pin the separateness down to one particular group?
Why is Jack and others jumping on this bandwagon when just up the road from Jacks constituency the police have found the largest haul of chemical and explosive equipment and matrials ever actually found in a domestic property.
http://www.pendletoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=8&ArticleID=1806619
Why is Jack not talking about this? It could not possdibly be because this find – as oppossed to the non-finds we have become used to – was NOT the responsibility of Muslims but (allegadly) EX members of the BNP – i.e. White people.
Indeed, you cannot ev en find this in the news. Its what Orwell woul;d have recognised as a non event. Something that officially did not happen and is being airbrusdhed out so we can hysterically talk about an item of clothing worn by a small minority of a community because it’s ,their turn on the roster to be scapegoated and villified.
No wonder Muslims are pissed off with this constant fixation on every trivial thing about them whilst this Lancashire bomb factory and attacks on a Windsor mosque go virtually unreported and unremarked.
Would it perhaps be a good idea to try applying the samer standards to ourselves as we do to others or is that considered to be non-British now?
Thanks for the link Sunny. I have to say I think it’s all a bit of a politically motivated, carefully timed, storm in a teacup. Since when have we dictated in this country what people wear? My only concern is when women are not wearing a full veil by choice but through male opression. I would be fascinated to see some statistice on how often this does take place in the UK. Trouble is it’s the abused wife syndrome and most will probably say they are wearing it out of choice even when they’re not.
See ….
http://lecolonelchabert.blogspot.com/2006/09/sight-gag.html
It’s a fact that women in muslim countries have less rights than men – those countries haven’t signed the convention on human rights, but have their own Cairo convention, which explicitly excludes equal rights for women.
Before islamic law, a women’s witness counts only half that of a man’s.
The realities for women under such regimes are easy to read about online.
In the UK since 9/11 and 7/7 folk are starting to read and understand mnore about the islamic world.
And that new awareness makes us nervous of just why women choose to dress that way in the UK – we worry that within their communities they are not being treated equally… the police now have a dedicated ‘hounour killing’ team I understand, and estimate >100 such deaths of women a year.
For someone born in this country, and without experience of islamic society here or abroad, it’s really hard to understand the culture behind such killings.
But the fact that full-veiling says that it is women’s responsibility to cover up due to a male failing for uncontrollable lust, makes the ‘it’s just clothing’ argument very weak.
observer from kent
” We would be deluged with outraged articles of Muslims trying to “Islamicise†Britain no doubt.â€Â
Surely there is a legitimate difference here. Immigrants to Britain should expect change more to fit into the host community than vice versa. When in Rome …. is merely good manners & a community having decided move should alreadybe psychologicly prepared for change.
It may be that the 2nd generation have more trouble with this idea than the first.
There seems to be two polar views: one that says that it is okay for me to wear a niqab because I do not wish to reveal myself to strangers. One that says that the niqab is a foreign dress and is discomfitting to strangers.
Isn’t there a middle ground? It makes sense that a woman should be allowed to wear a niqab by choice in public, where communication with strangers is not necessitated. But, does it make sense for women to cover their faces while teaching? I think standards have to be set for professions that are based on communication, including teaching, which ban clothing that covers the face. Facial expressions are just as important as the voice in teaching children.
Just take the court ruling today on a teaching assistant, Aishah Azmi, who wears the niqab as an example. Azmi can’t be an effective teacher if she hides such important visual cues as her face from her students. If you disagree with this remark, consider this.
Extensive research on early child development has demonstrated infants develop their social skills by watching adults in their surroundings. Imagine that a day-care assistant covers her face while attending to a three or four-year old. The child’s social development is at risk. As a teacher, you accept partial responsibility for a student’s learning.
I wonder what if teachers were allowed to wear hijabs, and not niqabs, to school? There is a line there because the former close off another line of communication and the latter does not. I think the Muslim community must make it clear where it stands on this issue.