Category Archives: Hijab

Authoritarian currents swirl in debate on veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

 

Authoritarian currents swirl in debate on veil

By Haroon Siddiqui

Toronto Star, 22 October 2006

The controversy over women’s veils is the latest example of Muslim religious/cultural practices being held up to disproportionate scrutiny.

This is a reflection of the fear-driven paranoia about Muslim terrorism and, mistakenly, all Muslims. Or, it is part of a political strategy to divert attention away from the catastrophic failure of the “war on terrorism” in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and the Israeli Occupied Territories.

It’s easier to blame a minority than confronting our complicity in the killing of tens of thousands of civilians abroad and, second, our gnawing panic that rather than curbing terrorism, we are fanning it.

It’s also hard to accept that the niqab — the garment that covers the woman’s body, including the face — is not a Muslim issue alone but rather one central to democracy.

That a majority of Muslim women do not wear the niqab, or even the hijab, the head scarf, does not nullify the right of those who do.

Otherwise, a democracy ends up emulating either tyrants (Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan, or the late Shah of Iran and the late Kemal Ataturk of Turkey) who persecute hijabis, or unforgiving clerics (the Taliban, the mullahs of Iran and Saudi Arabia) who persecute non-hijabis.

The only sound democratic approach is to leave the decision to the sovereignty of the individual woman.

Those who argue that Muslim women may be under male pressure to conform are being as patronizing as the men who assume women are incapable of independent judgment even in free and democratic societies.

Some Muslim women might face social and religious pressures but we can’t know that they are subjected to any more of it than women in other religious communities. They may face less, given the lack of a central authority in Islam.

Continue reading →

Muslim family shot at in west London

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Muslim family of four were shot at when their car was hit by a bullet while out shopping in west London, The Muslim News reports exclusively in this week’s issue of the paper.

The incident, which is believed to be the first of its kind in the latest wave of Islamophobia attacks in the UK, took place, when the family from Bosnia were loading items in their car at Denham Car Boot Sale, near Uxbridge. The local police described the shooting, which happened on October 14, as a racial and religious hate crime, but were unable to comment further.

The father of the family told The Muslim News that he was in the car at the time but that his wife and two infant children were standing outside. “I was more concerned about the children. We adults might not die from a badly aimed bullet, but the children, it could easily have killed them,” the 45-year-old father said.

The shooting comes amid a series of attacks, mainly against Muslim women, documented in The Muslim News, which have been blamed on House of Commons leader Jack Straw and other ministers making demands on Muslims, including the removal of the face veil.

The Bosnian father also criticised Straw for provoking the shooting, saying that people like him “who incite religious hatred in people are also criminals”. “You can see we are Muslims through our dress, and my wife was wearing the niqab. It is amazing how these people could have such monstrous minds and such hatred within,” he said.

Muslim News, 23 October 2006

Ignorance behind veil uproar: Ridley

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Yvonne RidleyAward-winning British reporter Yvonne Ridley has blamed the ignorance of Western politicians and media for the ongoing debate about the face-veil and other misconceptions about the status of women in Islam.

“Having been on both sides of the veil, I can tell you that most Western male politicians and journalists who lament the oppression of women in the Islamic world have no idea what they are talking about,” Ridley, who reverted to Islam two years after a brief detention by Taliban, wrote in the Washington Post Sunday, October 22.

“It is with disgust and dismay that I watch here in Britain … Straw describes the Muslim niqab as an unwelcome barrier to integration,” said a mocking Ridley. “Even British government ministers Gordon Brown and John Reid have made disparaging remarks about the niqab – and they hail from across the Scottish border, where men wear skirts.”

IslamOnline, 22 October 2006

Hmm … given that George Galloway is reportedly considering standing for Respect in Scotland, I’m not sure he’ll regard that as an entirely helpful comment.

See also Washington Post, 22 October 2006

Veiled prejudice

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Veiled prejudice

By Jamil Hussain

Morning Star, 23 October 2006

LET’S face it, Muslim-bashing is newsworthy. Politicians now feel that it’s a sure-fire way of getting noticed

In the last month, MPs have pumped out timely and much-publicised polemics about Muslims, packaged as a “new and honest debate” about multiculturalism.

Jack Straw kicked off the latest furore with his veil comments, the timing and subject of which seemed opportune.

He could have talked of other pressing issues, such as the report by the equal opportunities commission which found that Muslim girls have fewer job opportunities, despite overtaking white boys at GCSE level.

Instead, Straw picked on the minuscule number of Muslim women wearing the veil, attacking an iconic Islamic image to gain maximum exposure.

He has reason to distance himself from Muslim opinion, especially if he wants to become the new deputy Labour leader.

Four weeks after Condoleezza Rice’s visit to his Blackburn constituency, which was overshadowed by protests by Muslims against the US Secretary of State, Straw was dismissed as foreign secretary. Rumours suggest that President Bush put pressure on Tony Blair because of Straw’s perceived reliance on Muslim opinion and votes.

Straw’s comments were also backed by other Cabinet colleagues, including Harriet Harman, another candidate vying for the deputy leadership role.

As a feminist, Harman would, presumably, abhor Muslim men dictating what women should wear, but she saw no irony in backing a non-Muslim man doing the same. Had Straw asked a woman to cover up, would Harman have given him the same support?

She voiced regret that women “whose mothers fought against the veil now see their daughters taking it up as a symbol of commitment to their religion.”

Continue reading →

Zoo stirs up trouble as it follows Star with ‘Muslim’ spread

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Emap’s lads weekly Zoo magazine will this week publish a double-page spread making fun of Muslim law following the Daily Star, which was last week forced to drop a similar idea.

Last week, action by journalists, who threatened a walk out, halted a Daily Star-planned Islamic spoof called Daily Fatwa. The Daily Star idea was overseen by new deputy editor Ben Knowles, who joined the paper from Zoo magazine, and was to have included a “Page 3 Burkha Babes Special”, a reader competition to “burn a flag, win a Corsa”, and a leader column headed “Allah is Great”, entirely blank save for a “censored” stamp. “No news, no goss, no fun” was to be the page’s strapline.

Former colleagues of Knowles liked the idea so much they have imported it to the pages of this week’s Zoo with a spoof headlined “Your all-new veil-friendly Zoo!” As well as throwing itself into the veil debate, other headlines include “Public stonings!”, “Beheadings!” and “Absolutely nobody having any fun whatsoever”. The spread also features a woman in a burqa, covered head to toe with only her eyes showing alongside the headline, “A girl! As you’ve never seen her before!”

It goes on to read: “Maybe shariah law isn’t so controversial after all. Muslims who practise it to the letter are able to divorce their wives (up to four allowed) by text message. Wives are banned from being in a car with a man who is not a blood relative. And – common sense a-go-go – women aren’t allowed to drive cars anyway!”

Brand Republic, 23 October 2006

‘The veiled conceit of multiculturalism’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Australian offers its contribution to the veil “debate”:

“Religious beliefs are by definition sacred, and as much as possible they should be a private matter. But when an individual or a community feels that their personal practices should trump widely held values while also setting themselves apart, the question arises as to whether those people would not be more comfortable in a place where such behaviour is the norm.

“At its heart is the question of where tolerance should end and the old adage, ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans’, should kick in. While tolerance is certainly a positive virtue that should be strived for, it cannot be a cultural suicide pact…. Disappointingly, those who have traditionally been a positive force for the liberation of women against oppression in other spheres have here largely been silent on the question of Islam’s beliefs concerning half of humanity.

“… what confronts the West today is not so much a clash of civilisations as a clash of centuries. The jumbo jets that have enabled the mass immigration from Muslim countries to the West are, in effect, time machines that have brought millions of people from a pre-Enlightenment world – where men are the unquestioned bosses, stoning and forced amputation are punishments rather than crimes, and sectarian differences are worth dying over – to secular, liberal and postmodern democracies such as ours.”

Editorial in The Australian, 24 October 2006

Want to wear the niqab? Go and live in Afghanistan says Tony Parsons

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“It is barmy to claim that the veil is no different from other religious accessories such as Hindu bangles, the Jewish skull cap, the Christian cross or the Muslim headscarf. The veil separates the wearer from the rest of society, and acts as a rebuke. The veil says – I refuse to be contaminated by your stinking world. The veil sticks two fingers up at the rest of us, and the idea of a woman wearing it while teaching children makes my flesh crawl…. Aishah Azmi doesn’t need legal aid – she needs a one-way ticket to Afghanistan.”

Tony Parsons in the Daily Mirror, 23 October 2006

BBC ‘biased in favour of Muslims’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“It was the day that a host of BBC executives and star presenters admitted what critics have been telling them for years: the BBC is dominated by trendy, Left-leaning liberals who are biased against Christianity and in favour of multiculturalism.

“A leaked account of an ‘impartiality summit’ called by BBC chairman Michael Grade, is certain to lead to a new row about the BBC and its reporting on key issues, especially concerning Muslims and the war on terror. It reveals that executives would let the Bible be thrown into a dustbin on a TV comedy show, but not the Koran, and that they would broadcast an interview with Osama Bin Laden if given the opportunity. Further, it discloses that the BBC’s ‘diversity tsar’, wants Muslim women newsreaders to be allowed to wear veils when on air.

“At the secret meeting in London last month, which was hosted by veteran broadcaster Sue Lawley, BBC executives admitted the corporation is dominated by homosexuals and people from ethnic minorities, deliberately promotes multiculturalism, is anti-American, anti-countryside and more sensitive to the feelings of Muslims than Christians.

“One veteran BBC executive said: ‘There was widespread acknowledgement that we may have gone too far in the direction of political correctness. Unfortunately, much of it is so deeply embedded in the BBC’s culture, that it is very hard to change it’.”

Mail on Sunday, 22 October 2006

Three cheers for Peter Oborne

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Peter Oborne“Until only a few months ago, mainstream British politicians were extremely cautious about articulating the fears and resentments felt by many ordinary people on the subject of mass immigration. Those who spoke out publicly (Enoch Powell’s ‘rivers of blood’ speech is the notorious example) were ostracised. Political parties which raised the issue were thrust beyond the outer margins of debate – the fate of the National Front and the BNP. This self-restraint has now vanished. Practically every day for the past two weeks, another minister has insulted the customs, habits or religious beliefs of Britain’s Muslim minority….

“It is now clear that Jack Straw’s comments on women who wear the veil were not, as seemed likely at the time, the result of some random rumination. He surely set out with the intention of putting in motion a national campaign. In other words, Labour has made the extraordinary decision to place the politics of religious identity at the centre of public discourse, in the same sort of way that Jorg Haider’s Freedom Party does in Austria and Pim Fortuyn’s List Party did in the Netherlands….

“There is a whiff of the lynch mob about the wave of attacks over the past fortnight, and it is no surprise to learn that the new national mood sparked by Jack Straw and sanctioned by Tony Blair has indeed led to a number of assaults on British mosques, including one firebombing. There have also been reports of a sharp rise of physical assaults on Muslims. It is nothing short of appalling that the Blair government has been ready to countenance this change in public culture….

“In the wake of last year’s London atrocity, the Prime Minister promised to engage with the mainstream Muslim community. He never really tried to do so – the ‘working parties’ set up in the wake of the July bombings met just two or three times, they were not listened to, and their recommendations were ignored.

“Now Tony Blair has allowed a campaign that is bound to undermine moderate Muslims and encourage extremism, whether from white supremacist parties like the BNP or within Islam itself. It is quite the nastiest and most irresponsible politics I have seen from a mainstream political party in my life, and we will all pay a horrible price for such cynical opportunism.”

Peter Oborne in the Daily Mail, 21 October 2006

Covered faces, open rebellion

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Having spent time getting to know young British Muslims, I believe that comments like Straw’s will be counterproductive. That is because the niqab is a symptom and not a cause of rising tensions. Few young Muslim women in Britain are forced by their families to wear the niqab. British Muslims come predominantly from South Asia, where the prevalent school of Islam, Hanifi, makes no insistence on a woman fully veiling herself. Indeed, only one of the four schools within Sunni Islam, Hanbali, which is followed in Saudi Arabia, requires women to completely cover up….

“Frustrated by unemployment rates more than double those of members of other religious groups, put off by stereotyping in the news media, and estranged from British foreign policy, many alienated Muslims have turned to more overt forms of religiosity to express a contrarian identity. Says Murad Qureshi, the only Muslim councilor in London’s Assembly: ‘Girls are choosing to reaffirm their Muslim identity because the community feels a sense of besiegement.’

“… Calls by British politicians for Muslim women to stop wearing the niqab will only enhance the political symbolism of this act and make its practice more widespread. Instead, what is needed is an ambitious program to address the core grievances of Britain’s young Muslims, for example by creating economic opportunities and tackling discrimination.”

Paul Cruickshank in the New York Times, 23 October 2006

This is a lot more informed than some of the condescending rubbish you read in the UK press from the likes of Johann Hari, who sees in the veil only a “misogynistic cultural practice” forced on oppressed Muslim women by tyrannical men. But Cruickshank still takes a negative view of young Muslim women who have chosen reaffirm their Muslim identity, in the face of a hysterical and increasingly violent racist campaign against Muslim communities, by wearing the niqab. At the very least, he could give them credit for their courage. Cruickshank has also swallowed the nonsense about how a quarter of British Muslims supposedly agree with the 7/7 bombings – when, as the recent 1990 Trust poll has confirmed, the actual figure is between 1% and 2%.