One more (incensed) hijab-related post

Check out my further ranting on the subject on Slate.com.

In July, I wrote about France’s proposition to ban the burqa.

Yesterday, that legislation passed. 

The vote was led by President Nicolas Sarkozy’s center-right party on the grounds that covering one’s face is an affront to France’s “republican values.” Earlier this year, Sarkozy said the burqa is “a sign of enslavement and debasement.”

This is appalling and disgraceful legislation. And as I wrote in July, it treats a symptom and not the cause: the niqab is both a side effect and a symbol of the resurgence of ultra-conservative Islam, but it is not the cause of that resurgence; it is not fueling the spread of those ideas.

Banning the niqab because you don’t like conservative (or radical, violent) Islam is like banning wearing the Peace Sign because you don’t like Hippies.

The tiny minority of conservative Muslim women in the West who wear the niqab (an estimated 2,000 total in France, which has the largest Muslim minority in Europe) have either been forced to wear it by their husbands or fathers, or are choosing to wear it out of social pressure, fear, tradition, or their desire to express their piety. But banning the burqa in a misguided attempt to protect Muslim women’s rights will only have the effect of further alienating them, since they will not be allowed to go to school, to the store or to public meetings without their faces covered. What these conservative, often uneducated women need to to be embraced by liberal society — not marginalized by it.

Here’s another way of looking at the whole issue. Why is it that we don’t ban the Confederate Flag in the United States? That too is offensive to some people and a symbol of “enslavement and debasement” to others. So why do we allow conservative Americans to drive around with this symbol — which, like the niqab, many associate with violence, intolerance or hateful organizations — on their trucks?

Because of republican values. Because of the Bill of Rights. Because, specifically, of Amendment #1 (freedom to say, wear or fly anything you want) and #3 (freedom to believe whatever crazy shit you want to believe). Because that conservative American dude in his pick-up truck does not have conservative, Confederate beliefs because he flies the Confederate Flag. He flies the Confederate Flag because he has conservative, Confederate beliefs.

This Burqa Ban not only doesn’t address the problem of hateful, radical Islamic terrorism, it debases Western society by playing by those hateful, radical terrorists’ rules.

Hateful, radical Islamic terrorists believe there is no room in the world for tolerance. It’s an “either you’re with us or against us” sort of world view. So are we really going to play that game, too, by alienating, stigmatizing and marginalizing Muslims on the grounds that their outfits are an affront to our “republican” society’s world view? Isn’t the entire point of a republican society — to be more tolerant than our totalitarian foes? What do you think?

(And a side note, I should mention: I am not a friend of the niqab. In fact, after living in Yemen last year, I grew to hate it. I too thought of it as the means through which men controlled their womenfolk, and a means through which fiery imams kept their female congregations fearful. Still, even given my personal opinion about the niqab, I still disagree with legislation that bans it, for all the reasons I mentioned above. We’ve got to keep our under-educated (often illiterate) niqabi sisters in school, in public spaces, and interacting and seeing other Western women. We must not stigmatize them for embracing a traditional dress that either they are forced to wear, or are not in a position (financially, socially, politically) to choose not  to wear. The West should empower these women, and then let them decide what to wear on their own.)