Are face veils a symbol of free expression, misogyny or devotion to faith?

In July 2005, Yassin Omar put on a full veil when running away from London after his failed bombing attempt. Now Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed, who was under surveillance due to his connection with the Somalian terror group which bombed a Kenyan shopping mall, has done something similar. This has opened up the discussion on whether the UK should follow the example of France and Belgium and ban full face coverings. It will no doubt provide an opportunity for right-wing bigots and racists to crawl out of the woodwork, but it’s also an uncomfortable topic for those of us on the left in politics.
 
Let’s start with a few definitions. The niqab is a combination of a head covering and scarf that covers all of a woman’s face except for her eyes. The burqa covers the whole body from the top of the head to the ground, covering the entire face, including the eyes - with just a mesh cloth to see through. The hijab, which is the most common type of headscarf worn by Muslim women in the UK, covers the head and neck, but leaves the face clear.
 
As an atheist, I have no empathy for any religion, but I accept the right of others to believe absurdities if they wish to do so. So why is this topic uncomfortable? Because, at first glance, it doesn’t seem compatible with equal rights for women, which has always been a goal of the British left.
 
Writing for ‘Left Foot Forward’, Lejla Kuric said: “My grandmother and great-aunts described their own experience of wearing the burqa in the 1930s and 40s as physical and mental slavery”. The Australian Muslim cleric Sheik Taj Aldin as-Hilali uses offensive language to justify ‘covering up’ because he blames women for rape: “If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside… without cover, and the cats come to eat it… whose fault is it, the cats’ or the uncovered meat’s? The uncovered meat is the problem.” Assuming that males are sex-obsessed beasts, with no control over their animalistic instincts, is also demeaning to men, and arguably leads to a rape culture in which women are blamed for their own violation and sexual abuse.
 
Kuric argues that the face veil should be opposed because it is an inherently sexist and misogynist concept at odds with all precepts of an egalitarian society. She continued: “Despite the best effort of many to present face veiling as harmless, it depersonalises women and assigns them an existence different and separate from men, burdened by social norms such as a woman is the custody of her male guardians, strict gender segregation, non-essential conversation with men is prohibited etc. It is, by design, a device of exclusion and apartheid.”
 
Bina Shah, a Pakistani writer, notes: “Many people use blackmail to convince women to wear the hijab or niqab: you won’t be a good Muslim, you’ll go to hell, you’re pleasing God, you’ll be subject to harassment and molestation if you go outside without a veil. By playing on women’s vulnerabilities, by bringing up the imagery of women being sexually violated or bringing shame upon their families by walking around unveiled, by implying a woman’s morality is linked to how she dresses, women are coerced into believing they are making a free choice in the thousands and millions, every day of their lives.”
 
In 2006, Jack Straw, former minister and MP for Blackburn, asked female Muslim constituents who wear veils to remove them when they come to see him. Arguing that watching facial expressions was important for contact between different people, he said: "Communities are bound together partly by informal chance relations between strangers - people being able to acknowledge each other in the street or being able pass the time of day. That's made more difficult if people are wearing a veil. That's just a fact of life.” More recently, former justice secretary Ken Clarke has said that the Muslim face veil is a “peculiar costume for people to adopt in the 21st century” which should be banned in court. He added that women should be able to wear “what the devil they like” - but in a courtroom the judge and jury “have got to be able to see the face of the witness”.
 
So what’s the answer? Journalist Nabila Ramdani argues that ever since France introduced its ‘burqa ban’ in 2011, there has been a constant stream of cases involving the handful of Muslims who choose to wear such garments. She claims that “not only are perfectly upstanding women being fined for their choice of dress, principally the full-body niqab, but an increasing number of defendants are being tried for attacking them. The legislation introduced by Sarkozy's government not only stigmatised Muslim women, but somehow legitimised physical attacks on them. The ban in France is a hateful assault on basic freedoms, one that has been seized on by an unlikely alliance of right-wing politicians and feminists.”
 
Kuric comes to the following conclusions on this dilemma: “A blanket ban on the face veil would be wrong – based on a liberal principle that adults can make lifestyle choices that are self-restrictive and that state should interfere as little as possible. However limited, context based bans are right and justified, based on the following egalitarian principles: the state must assert gender equality within its institutions; religious freedom is not absolute, other concerns such as security or identification must be taken into consideration; the state must protect those coerced; the state must protect children not old enough to make an informed choice.”
 
So, is this about misogyny, freedom of expression, refusal to assimilate or just devotion to faith? Ramdani warns that in France “it is mainly ‘patriotic’ men who rally around the burqa ban, viewing it as a legitimate reason to persecute a religious minority”. She concludes that what Muslim women wear is “a petty issue blown out of all proportion, one that ultimately creates nothing but hatred and violence”. Do you agree?
 
Sources used:-
 
http://www.leftfootforward.org/2013/09/progressive-case-against-the-veil/
 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5411954.stm
 
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ken-clarke-muslim-face-veil-2673812
 
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/21/dont-ban-veil-in-uk
 
Further reference:-
 
http://www.theweek.co.uk/uk-news/55892/labour-calls-inquiry-al-shabaab-suspect-flees-burka#ixzz2jmLDzCeg
 
http://theconversation.com/no-point-in-knee-jerk-burqa-ban-after-suspect-has-bolted-19847

Ivan, what a time to bring up such an emotive subject, especially when there are so many factors to take into consideration. ie religion, political,women's equal rights,and their husbands and families treating them as slaves or bad muslims. My initial knee jerk reaction was to ban it straight away, especially the niqab and burqa,as they are the ones that cover the face totally except for the mesh for the eyes in the one case. It is totally pathetic to suggest that to leave the meat uncovered then it is their fault if they get raped or molested. How stupid is this person to suggest this? and the veil certainly does segregate females and depersonalises them for sure,and is a form of apartheid. It is one one of the most disgusting things ever to enter the U.K.

It's certainly a huge issue. to start with it seems to be a question of interpretation where 'modesty' has become invisibility and something that started out as a tribal custom has been used to oppress women ever since. i think the pressure to conform must be tremendous and along with a life long indoctrination just about wraps it up for most women subjected to it. one of the things i learnt that has influenced me greatly is that if the full niqab and burqa were outlawed many women would no longer be allowed outside of the home and that is a very depressing thought. how many women would become pretty much life-long prisoners in their own home? if wearing the 'full kit' is the only way they can get out of the home and out into the general public then i have to say go for it and make the most of whatever you can. it's typical that some concept of religious freedom actually means religious repression but somehow it's okay! in a supposedly secular society some people's lives are completely dominated by a religion to which they have no control over.

It makes me uncomfortable when you see a couple where the woman is wearing the face veil and traditional clothing and the man is dressed in totally 'conventional' western attire. You see that a lot as well. I wouldn't really be happy with a situation where the UK banned the wearing of the veil (or just about anything else, with some exceptions obviously) in public but I would be equally unhappy if it became the norm for most Muslim women in the UK to wear them. I also think it's symptomatic of a wider problem.

Like you say Timeout,if wearing them is a means of the female getting out of the home then it is better than being a prisoner in her own home. Also as you say Dan it is only the tip of the iceberg so to speak when it comes to the problems of muslim women.

A mark of intelligence is to acknowledge opposing points of view.

In her recent book, Do Muslim Women Need Saving? (Harvard University Press £25.95 pp324) Lila Abu-Lughod, a Professor at Columbia University in New York, says that "The West" is deluded in thinking that Muslim women are oppressed by their customs. She argues that poverty, war, corruption and the global inequality of women are controlling factors.

Among the points Professor Abu-Lughod makes are that in Afghanistan the Taliban enforced wearing of the burqa, but even after their defeat many women continue the custom from choice. She uses the expression "portable personal seclusion" to describe that choice.

More polemically, she believes that the supposed wrongs done to women have been intentionally mis-represented in the West to provide justification for the wars against Muslim men. Adding a comment that this is convenient in allowing westerners to disregard domestic problems of sexual violence and social failures.

The book defends Honour as part of a complex and rewarding social code which has fierce commitment from Muslim women.

I wonder how much luck she would have had getting that book written and then published if she'd spent the last few decades living in Afghanistan.

I don't think you're stupid enough to have missed my point by accident.

Dan he can sometimes pick and choose which points suit him like a lot of posters mate.

Unless he was agreeing with me. That list suggests getting a book published in Afghanistan isn't all that easy

Agreeing? No, I just thought it might be lacking in subtlety to repeat a previous exchange along the lines of "Was it an unintentional oversight on your part to ignore the main thrust ....?

Interesting to learn that book-publishing in a war-zone might have its practical difficulties.

oftenwrong wrote:Agreeing?  No, I just thought it might be lacking in subtlety to repeat a previous exchange along the lines of "Was it an unintentional oversight on your part to ignore the main thrust ....?

Interesting to learn that book-publishing in a war-zone might have its practical difficulties.

I could have used Saudi Arabia as an equally apt example. Anyway, what was the list you posted intended to demonstrate and how does it relate to my point? Which I can embellish if I was giving you too much credit earlier, just let me know

I wouldn't want to be guilty of denying the World some decent embellishments.

oftenwrong wrote:I wouldn't want to be guilty of denying the World some decent embellishments.

I'll tell you what - you tell me what point you were trying to make when you posted that link and I'll explain the point I was making. Deal?
In fact, I'm more than happy to explain either way and then people can draw their own conclusions if you don't take me up on my offer. Your call.
You can even tell me which arguments you found particularly compelling in the book you cited too, if you like. Because I know you wouldn't have referenced a book that you hadn't even read.

oftenwrong wrote:A mark of intelligence is to acknowledge opposing points of view.

Of course we "acknowledge" opposing points of view. What you didn't say is that a mark of intelligence is agreeing with opposing points of view.

Sure, we acknowledge that opposing points of view exist. We have listened to them, analyzed them, in some cases researched them, and found those views to be dead-bang wrong.

For every book written by someone claiming that women aren't treated so wrongly in the Middle East, there are two or three other books - written by women who lived there - who claim they ARE treated wrongly. That doesn't even count the numerous video footages that are smuggled out and put up on YouTube showing unspeakable acts of brutality. Wearing the burqa isn't the only issue - nor is it the biggest issue.

Brutality from their husbands or at the command of their husbands is probably the main one is it not Shirina.?

"Wearing the burqa isn't the only issue - nor is it the biggest issue."

Maybe, but the wearing of the burqa is the main reason why these women are regarded as less than equal to men - there is no mention of the burqa in the Quran as a dress code for women. Highlighting this discrepancy would unravel the lies that women have been told for hundreds of years. I doubt many Muslims have cared to examine the relevant translations in the Quran which show that covering the breasts does not translate as covering the body from head to toe in black cloth.

Hi Kazza, hope all ok at the homestead, this burqa argument will go on til eternity. The women are not truly allowed to read the quran only their husbands version of it, hence they wear what they are told to wear, is that not so my luv.

Compare and contrast these statements: (5 points)

a) Face veils diminish the wearer.

b) Girls who wear skimpy clothes are "asking for it!"

Contrast these statements -

Face veils are worn by a minority of women to appease men.

Skimpy clothes are worn by women to please themselves.

Face veils do not stop women from being raped by men.

Skimpy clothes do not stop women from being raped by men.


Who are we supporting here, and why?

oftenwrong wrote:a) Face veils diminish the wearer.

b) Girls who wear skimpy clothes are "asking for it!"

The first one acknowledges the fact that stripping someone of their individualism and identity does, in fact, diminish the wearer. When a woman puts on burqa, she becomes indistinguishable from every other woman wearing a burqa, thus she is no longer unique. Friends cannot greet each other in public, store owners cannot recognize regular or faithful customers, even her own family members couldn't recognize her until she took off that veil. Moreover, it must be a real bitch for a child who gets separated from his mother ... holy shit! Imagine being five years old and trying to find your mother in a sea of identical burqas! This is precisely how it diminishes the wearer, and that is indisputable fact.

The second comment is just a redneck ultra-conservative misogynistic perception of rape, a quote often uttered by country bumpkins who have been taught by their "pappy" that women are somehow less than men. Eve was the one who ate the apple, dontchya know! It is a famous excuse for men to rape and has very little to do with the first comment. Most everyone should know by now that rape isn't about sexual gratification, it's about power and dominance. A burqa isn't going to stop a rapist because it doesn't matter what the woman looks like - it's the rape that matters, the feeling of power that some people really crave.

Kazza wrote:I doubt many Muslims have cared to examine the relevant translations in the Quran which show that covering the breasts does not translate as covering the body from head to toe in black cloth.

From what I remember of the Quran, its definition of modesty was not showing the parts of your body that you wouldn't ordinarily reveal. I think we're intelligent enough to know what parts of the body this was referring to, but the men who made the rules decided to interpret that in the harshest way possible.

Quite. Taken from www.quran-islam.org -

"Most of the translators, obviously influenced by the hadith translate the word as VEIL and thus mislead people into believing that this verse is advocating the covering of the head and hair, some even go to the extent of claiming that 24:31 implies the covering of the face!
But the truth is that the word khimaar simply means a cover, any cover is called khimaar in Arabic. The derivative word khamrah, which means intoxicants, is so called because it covers the brain.
In 24:31, God is telling the women to use their cover (khimaar, being a dress, a coat, a shawl, a shirt, a blouse, a tie, a scarf . . . etc.) to cover their bosoms, not their heads, face or hair. If God willed to order the women to cover their heads, face or hair, He would have simply said, “Cover your head, face and hair.” God is neither vague nor forgetful! God does not run out of words. He does not wait for, nor need a scholar to apply the correct words for Him! God confirms that the Quran is complete and fully detailed (6:114/5).
The Arabic word for chest or more accurately the cleavage is jayb and this is the word used in this verse, but the Arabic words for head which is Ra’s, or hair which is sha’r are NOT. The commandment in the verse is clear - Cover your chest."

- which is reasonable, I think.

oftenwrong wrote:Compare and contrast these statements:  (5 points)

a)  Face veils diminish the wearer.

b)  Girls who wear skimpy clothes are "asking for it!"

Couldn't you at least try and be a bit more subtle?

oftenwrong wrote:Agreeing?  No, I just thought it might be lacking in subtlety to repeat a previous exchange along the lines of "Was it an unintentional oversight on your part to ignore the main thrust ....?

Interesting to learn that book-publishing in a war-zone might have its practical difficulties.

 
Of course Afghanistan being a war zone sin't the only reason an indigenous female author might expect to get shot, though picking the correct side to support with your book might be prudent. Of course as woman you'd almost certainly have had to leave Afghanistan to get an education in he first place, or else you'd most likely not be around to write your book, and as I said, if a woman writes a book that takes a pot shot at the misogynistic religion of Islam, well, getting it published would be the least of her worries.

So many expert opinions.

Which to choose?

Can we please remember that the burqa and niqab are cultural customs and not religious requirements although a lot of Muslim men try to use religion as a smokescreen to require their women. The hijab on the other hand is not that different from the head scarves that all women of my mothers generation wore to protect their hair from rain and air pollution [before the clean air act and its like].

The hostility towards the burqa and niqab is down to the fact that it is only those that have ill intent in the west that hide their faces. How women could allow themselves to be oppressed like this is hard to imagine, that is has been a means of oppressing them for a millennium and a half is truly horrible.

The hijab  on the other hand seems to be what them claim it to be, an aid to modesty that only the most idiotic could object to.

I think that the burqa and niqab should be banned if for no other reason than to send a message to the west Islamic world, North Africa and the Middle East that their kind of oppression of half the population will not be tolerated in this country. Maybe their fundamentalist core will no longer find us so accommodating to their sensibilities.

Not all Muslims insist on the need for their women to wear the burqa, niqab or hijab but it is mainly those Muslims that have lived outside the ghettoes and have taken the trouble to get to know us and merge into our civilisation. They are very different to those that created the ghettos and used the cloak we provided them with of multiculturalism to hide from western influence. The Muslims that live outside the ghettos still have their faith and their culture but they take the trouble to get to know us and to be known by us. This I believe is the way forward. We cannot have communities that hate us, are financed by us and are allowed to grow through a higher than average birth rate and an unsupportable immigration policy.

I know this sounds right wing and that is not who I am but a response to the feeling in the community I live in. Liverpool has had a large immigrant population for years, firstly (in fairly recent history) it was the Chinese community that arrived.

Soon after the Chinese came the Afro-Caribbean community and they had a hard time but stuck it out and became an accepted part of Liverpool life. It is often thought that the Toxteth Riots were race riots and that's how parts of the press described them but they were nothing of the kind. Blacks and whites, young and old stood side by side and back to back in protest against a police force that was just out of control [Liverpool A Division].

We now seem to be accumulating an Arab and Pakistani population that is primarily Islamic. These immigrants unlike those that came before them are playing the race card, the Islamaphobe card and seem adept at drawing in funding for any crazy scheme because a refusal is met by a big campaign saying it is anti-Islamic. The rest of the population is getting fed up of it and I don't know how we are going to avoid something really nasty, I really don't.

We have a right wing government that stated that they wanted to cut down the number of interpreters available to immigrants to force them to speak English.

I don't understand why some of these people want to be here, they don't want to learn our language [they especially prize women that do not know our language], they do not like our culture, they want education that is insulated from western influence, they demand their own radio and TV channels they want want they want they want. If they don't like it here so much then they can return to where they came from, if they are a refugee they should live in the country closest to their home that is safe for them. Immigration appeals should be decided before they have put roots down that they use them as reasons to stay.

However, if they come here to participate in our society, to work, to learn, to play to become part of the great big mixing bowl that is Great Britain then we should welcome them with open arms.

I sort of got sidetracked there and I'm sure some might accuse me of holding right wing views, I don't. How could someone live in a city like Liverpool and have right wing views, I came to Liverpool because I hated living in a middle class ghetto like Gloucester. The people in Liverpool are 'real', they allow no pretensions, you cannot  be anything than what you are because they can spot a fraud from a mile off which is why we have no tory MP's or councillors and after the fiasco of the Liberals Democrats alliance with the Torys I suspects we will lose them from our political scene. The Liberal Party [Not Liberal Democrats] are still welcomed in Liverpool and have been stronger here than anywhere else in the country. I was in the strange position here in one election where I knew personally the candidates for the Liberal Party [Steve Radford], the Socialist Labour Party [Kai Anderson], the Nation Front [Peter Tierney (sometimes called Peter Quiggins after a shop he once owned)], Paul Rimmer [British National Party] and Mike Lane [UK Independence party] and voting for none of them, I ended up voting green because I disliked the Labour candidate (Our Current Elected Mayor, we also have a Lord Mayor which seems a bit of a waste to be honest.

Politics is a complicated business which is why I normally stick to the rather more serene subject of religion. Say what you like about religion but you are reasonably sure that people are telling you what they really feel. Party Politics is a dirty dirty world which needs massive reform but real politics which is usually called 'Single Issue Politics' is for the most part clean except where backed by commercial interests.

I'm sorry for the rant but I think I've said what I needed to say. I know I've drifted off the point and back again but these things are not as easy as we might want them to be.

Heretic

You THOUGHT about that before posting. Is that allowed in a thread exhibiting mostly knee-jerk reactions, Heretic?

oftenwrong wrote:You THOUGHT about that before posting.  Is that allowed  in a thread exhibiting mostly knee-jerk reactions, Heretic?

Did I think about it particularly tonight, no. Have I thought about it before, yes I have.

I find that if you react with your heart then you frequently don't go too far wrong. It is a very hard opening post to respond to but we need to find responses to these difficult questions but as they are about real live people living here, sometimes very near to us. To respond with the heart only may lead to bad answers which is where our intellect comes in, a sort of filter to what our hearts say.

This filter can seem like a sensor and of the worst kind. We must be free to think what we like and the censorship we have in this country seems to the type where words are being almost deleted from the language. You will know the words I mean but our grandchildren will not. We must be free to think because when we are not free to do that then we have no way to express ourselves properly and the result will scare the powers that be, it will be rage, pure unadulterated rage. I don't like to think of myself like that but sometimes we need to look in the mirror.

Heretic

There was a group of men outside an Islamic whorehouse. Various women were looking out of the window when one one of the men shouted, "Come on, come on, show us your nose!!".

Heretic

Off topic, Channel 4+1 programme at 11.45pm about FGM, including an interesting reaction from Muslim boys when confronted by the reality. Unsurprisingly, within Muslim communities, men are mostly ignorant of how women and children are adversely affected. The programme is presented by Leyla Hussain, a Muslim woman who has started a campaign against FGM, and has petitioned the government to stop this barbaric practice for good.

#stopFGM

Interesting topic, everybody should be free to wear what they feel is my first reaction. When somebody migrates to another country then they need to integrate with the local people not ostracise themselves. Britain is mostly a secular culture based on Christian values (argue that if you want) and we rely on facial expression and body language for between 70-90% of everyday communication (depending on which book you read). Anybody wanting to integrate themselves and become part of the community should be made welcome, anybody that insists on bringing over the concerns and problems that caused them to leave their own land initially should maybe ask themselves why they came here in the first place.

Ivan, thank you for re-directing me to the relevant forum. This particular topic will, no doubt, go on for some time.

Hi stu, sorry I missed your post yesterday, I've been rushing around lately with little time to read them all. I hope you are well and enjoying quality time with your daughter. I notice you've given up smoking recently, not an easy task I'm sure, so good luck with that and well done. You won't regret it. Had a quick peek at the old forum this morning, lots of squabbling with spin somewhere in the middle of it all, surprise surprise.  all the best, K.

I had a quick peak yesterday and started a squabble with spin easy enough done Kazza haha  lol: 

stu wrote:I had a quick peak yesterday and started a squabble with spin easy enough done Kazza haha    lol: 

Spin said last night that he believes "only a doctor of ones own gender can relate, in human terms, to ones medical issues."

He's now in full spin cycle mode trying to qualify the remark, it's hilarious.

Hi stu and Doc

Sorry about the kafuffle on the other forum. and thanks for your support. I think I am better off here. The people are nicer and actually stick to the topic and don't resort to insults at the drop of a hat or 'hate' me for my opinion.

That ET is an idiot. I know you are 'friends' with Anita but I get the feeling she doesn't like me there.

Maybe snowy it is cos you are a bit too bright for her love.  ET SHOULD BE SHOT, Snowy.