Veiled threats?

There's a debate going on at The Sharpener, and over at Not Saussure's place, and on many other discussion boards, and in the papers, about Jack Straw's recent comments about his personal difficulties meeting his Blackburn constituents when they are concealing their faces with full veils, or naqab. He stressed that he was not making a demand when requesting women remove their veils when talking to him. He was making a polite request, in the interest of enhanced communication. He pointed out the difficulties in communicating with people when you cannot see their faces. (Particularly for him, as he is partially deaf.) Well, he wanted a debate and he has got one. Good, because it's a way of discussing integration and seperation, whether veiled Muslim women are oppressed or not, and whether non-veiled women are oppressed by a culture that sets so much store by what we look like. And that is an interesting debate to have. Sexism, multiculturalism, terrorism/extremism, fear, racism, religion and freedom of speech all in one debate. How timely is that?

Listening to the BBC's Asian network programme on the subject you can hear a huge variety of views. Several callers pointed out that if a woman can't meet Straw's eyes and show her face to him, why doesn't she speak with him on the phone instead? There were discussions about the Koranic meaning of ''dressing modestly''. There was anger at a perceived ''insult to Islam'', and there was frustration about the debate about integration and multiculturalism centering once more on what women wear.

There was a lot of talking about ''respect'', the respect accorded to a woman who is veiled, or fully veiled, or flashing flesh; the respect or lack of respect shown to Muslim culture and Islam in general, the respect or lack of respect shown to the non-veiled people amongst whom you live and work by opting to screen yourself off from them and to totally hide your face and body in public life.

It's a lightning rod, this debate, and of course it runs the risk of turning into yet more Muslims vs. Everybody else polarisation, adding to a sense of grievance, persecution and resentment all round. But the debate doesn't have to be framed in those terms. There are many voices to hear. There aren't ''sides''; how can there be, when Muslims are just as diverse a group of opinionated individuals as anybody else?

It's sad that Straw's respectfully couched ( albeit politically astute) debate opener has been greeted with such extreme reaction by some. Tabloid headlines like '90% back Jack' are not helpful, nor is rampaging about calling it an ''attack on all Muslims'', or ''race-hate''. It isn't. Straw just said that he found it hard to have an equal face to face conversation with someone when you couldn’t see their face at all. Some people have said that as a politician, he shouldn't be discussing religious things, which is daft. Such an extreme declaration of modesty is a political statement in this country, just as tattooing or piercing your face or walking around naked is a political statement. It presents a challenge, because it is so very different to the norm.

We have a lot of free expression in this country. Your can wear a headscarf, or salwaar kameez, or a sari, or traditional African robes, or the black clothes and fur-lined streimel of orthodox Judaism round the streets where I live and it's pretty much normal, in a way that in some other European countries, it isn't. People will look. But people look anyway. That's what happens when you walk about the streets, humans look at each other. They interact. Get over it.

There are plenty of ways of dressing modestly and in accordance with your religious and cultural traditions. School uniforms have been adapted so that girls can fulfil their faith requirements of modest dress, in tunics and trousers that allow them to cover up whilst playing sport and attending lessons. Sikh boys can wear their turbans. No problem. What we culturally understand as ‘modest dress’ does not mean you have to cover up in what is effectively a giant bag with, in some cases, even your eyes hidden. You can signal 'modesty' and 'religious beliefs' very effectively without making such a big deal about it. Surely the point of modest dress is so that the woman’s intellect, opinions, faith, character can come through 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.

Is there a danger that the all-enveloping niqab actually detracts from the woman’s active witness to her faith? By focusing only on one aspect of it - exaggerated ‘modesty’ - covering herself from ‘lustful gaze’ - does she thus miss out a far more important part, which is her witness to her faith lived out through her life; an active witness surely best served by fully engaging with her fellow humans, believers and non-believers alike, as a beloved daughter of God living out her full potential?

Is this Koranically-unnecessary 'competitive' modesty actually immodest? Modesty for me is about fitting in gracefully, rather than trying to stand out to prove your piety. (And making others uncomfortable in the bargain - including some Muslim women who don't cover their faces. )

A woman letting her God-given character, intellect, sweetness, intelligence, etc shine through and making her sexual allure a non-issue other than to the person she wants to have sex with, is, I can see, a woman liberated in that it gives her a freedom from the endless judgements we get about our appearance, body shape, fashion sense and so on. Lots of women dress modestly, for lots of reasons. Sometimes I go about with my hair covered in a headscarf. A headscarf is warm in winter, protects my skin and hair from the hot sun in summer.It's comfortable, practical, and yes, it's modest. Sometimes I like to wear long, loose clothes for similar reasons. Other times I like to dress up more provocatively. I am mindful when dressing of the effect that I will have on others, and I am aware that I am expressing something about myself with the clothing I choose to wear. And honestly, I don't think there's a woman in the world who doesn't think the same way when she gets dressed, even elderly nuns. Of course your clothes are a statement to the world. And the woman who covers herself so that not even her eyes are visible is making a pretty extreme statement. One that the majority of her Muslim sisters do not choose to make.

I worry about the message sent out by the increasing adoption of the niqab by the young women of Blackburn. Isn't it insulting to say that a woman must cover herself totally from the risk of strangers' lust, as if that is all men are, lustful animals? Do we - all of us - and men especially, since they are assumed to be the predators - not deserve more trust and respect than to be assumed to be lascivious, uncontrollable rutting ‘brute beasts without understanding’ as the Book of Common Prayer puts it? If not, then what hope is there for any of us? It seems so negative… and so unnecessary. And, I think, contrary to the spirit of the faith, if you read the whole thing in context. Yes, of course you can get past it and talk to the lowered eyes behind the black sack. But why put the barrier up to that extent in the first place?

Of course I'm not a Muslim scholar. But I can still look at the Koran, the Hadith, can't I? Just as I can read St. Paul telling women to cover their hair and dress modestly in a strikingly similar injunction to the Koranic one. There is of course, no definitive account of the life of either of these men, who lived so long ago and who made such an impact. You have to pick your way through many different theological and critical interpretations of their words, just as you do with many other religions, and as usual it boils down to interpretation, informed by cultural and societal issues.

It strikes me that Mohammed was surprisingly modern for his time in his dealings with women. I cannot believe that he would have wanted women to walk about silenced and 100% covered, as if they are too dangerous and inflammatory to be seen or heard. I think he would have given them, and all of us, more credit than that. In the Prophet's time, women wore loose dresses and head veils but left their necks, throats and shoulders exposed to some degree. The Koran tells women to pull their veils down to cover their chests and to dress modestly. And so the vast majority of Muslim women worldwide don't wear the full veil; they simply dress modestly, wearing the hijab headscarf or some other covering of their hair and decolletage, and they go about their lives with more important things to worry about.

There is, after all, zilch in the Koran to indicate that women disappearing entirely from public view is the way forward favoured by God. And this is the paradox, by wearing the billowing tent-like naqab rather than the hijab which shows the face, but modestly covers the hair and chest you are, I think making the debate all about the body and the lustful gaze of strangers.

It is an exaggerated modesty that SHOUTS at you, and yes, it does get in the way of normal communication in a country where face- to-face contact is the polite, accepted norm of discourse between neighbours, colleagues and friends. Motorbike couriers take off their helmets when walking into buildings, because it is frightening to many people when a masked person enters your space. If a woman is wholly covered, you can't communicate as well, she can't eat with you, drink with you, you can't see her face at all, though she can see yours. It's excluding, and it says something unavoidable to the non-veiled person. You are forbidden to look at me. And that of course, just makes people look more. It makes things uncomfortable on both sides.

If a woman feel so at risk from male sexuality that they must cover up in full , then the problem lies with the menfolk around her, surely? (As if wearing a burqua stops women being raped and mistreated anyway. Go look at Afghanistan under the Taleban, rural Pakistan). You can dress it up as 'cultural differences, just like you can dress up female circumcision as 'cultural differences'. But mutilating women's bodies and shrouding women's faces and bodies is taking something away from them. If its only women who have their movements curtailed, their freedom impinged and their sexual response deadened, because of honour, or shame, because of the behaviour and dictates of men, then, sorry, but yes, it is sexist and unfair. Yes, I know the Koran also tells men to dress modestly and lower their eyes. But look at the way that the injunctions of the Koran are carried out by different groups, countries, societies. And look at who gets more choices, more education, more freedom and more power.

The countries where women cover up head to toe in naqab or burqas tend to be the countries with the worst human rights records and the nastiest treatment of women. That tells you something, as does the fact that most Muslim women, all over the globe, choose not to wear the naqab. Globally, the woman wholly covered tends to be the woman with the fewest rights and choices to speak out and to live freely. I don't think liberal sensitivity to ''cultural differences'' and freedom of speech should wilfully blind us to that. I am sure there are women wearing the naqab in the UK for all sorts of reasons, and as a free choice to make a statement about themselves. But I wonder why they are doing so. You can assert your right to do it, just as a submissive can assert their right to be beaten by their partner. But then to get cross when people stare or look uncomfortable, or debate why you are doing it, is a bit daft. Tolerance, politeness and respect, after all, go both ways.

UPDATE: An interesting article. The Dutch Commission of Equal Treatment passed a verdict that allowed high schools to prohibit Muslim girls to wear the headscarf in physical education classes if this would compromise safety precautions. Muslim girls were advised to wear a swim cap and a high turtleneck instead. A non-Muslim Dutch designer designed sport-hijab coverings, after Muslim schoolgirls were found to be dropping out of PE classes.

More hijab links from IslamOnline