Sunday, October 22, 2006

The Veil Controversy

The controversy over the Niqab, the veil worn by some Muslim women, is turning out to be the latest development in the clash of civilizations. The whole question is very interesting to me because, as a religious Jew whose wife covers her hair, I see the Muslims' point to a certain extent. Modest dress is indeed preferable to immodest dress, and it is quite easy to point to the crassness of modern society, the demeaning aspects of beauty contests, women with poor body-images, the family in a shambles, etc. The question seems to be, however, how far this argument goes. What if a woman's appearance is obscured to the point that family portraits become pointless?

One writer to weigh in in favor of veils is one of our favorite providers of blog-fodder, Yvonne Ridley, who appears in the Washington Post. (I wonder if they will print her "I'm not an anti-Semite--my hairdresser is Jewish" essay?). Here is one of her arguments:
I didn't know whether to scream or laugh when Italy's Prodi joined the debate last week by declaring that it is "common sense" not to wear the nikab because it makes social relations "more difficult." Nonsense. If this is the case, then why are cellphones, landlines, e-mail, text messaging and fax machines in daily use? And no one switches off the radio because they can't see the presenter's face.
Again, one wonders how far these arguments go. Does her inclusion of fax machines and text messages mean that she would defend a culture that required women to write their communications on little notepads instead of speaking?

In contrast to Ridley, who tries to picture the Niqab as just another form of liberating, voluntarily assumed modesty, Egyptian blogger Big Pharaoh is critical:
So why do so many Muslim women decide to wear such a repressive attire. There are three reasons. One, the culture that the woman was raised in. Saudi Arabia is a good example. Many Saudi women wear the niqab just because every female member in the family does so. Two, orders from family and husbands. Three, conviction, the "thus said the Lord" rule. These women are told by ultra ultra radical Muslim preachers that God orders her to cover her face or that she will earn extra points (above the ones she'll get if she covered her hair) if she buried herself inside a niqab. And as you all know, nothing is as powerful as the words "God said so".
Muslim Blogger Indigo Jo provides an account of a panel discussion and a lengthy rebuttal of Melanie Phillips here.

Phillips insists on the political dimension of the veil:
On the Moral Maze last night, which discussed the place of religious symbols such as the Muslim veil and the Christian cross in public life, one of our witnesses was Nai’ma B Robert, a convert to Islam who wore the niqab or full-face veil. She spoke well, although I thought naively, about how she chose to wear the niqab as an ‘act of worship’ — naively because she was unwilling to face up to the political purpose of the veil and its role as a symbol of the jihad which is used to recruit more people to the cause of Islamising society and to demoralise and intimidate its victims. That is why not just the niqab but also the hijab has been banned from public places in Turkey and Tunisia. Talking to her brought something else home to me: the radical imbalance of power in the encounter, due to the fact that while she could see my face I could not see hers. The situation was, in short, utterly preposterous, made all the worse by the fact that we are all currently sitting around solemnly discussing whether it might be wrong to object — and that some of my fellow panellists thought it was. Truly, this is where liberalism disappears up its own fundament.
This is all probably bad news for the Jews. Anti-Semitism is probably more rampant among the Niqab-wearing Muslims than among the Muslim population in general. Tzniuskeit--modesty in dress--is indeed a beautiful thing. It will be a great pity if if becomes associated in the public mind with anti-Western fanaticism.

New developments.

Cathy Young weighs in.

No comments: