Muslim women unveil their true feelings

LONDON, Nov 3, 2006, 2006 (IPS/GIN via COMTEX) -- When British leader of the House of Commons Jack Straw remarked that he often asked Muslim women to remove their veils when they came to see him on constituency matters, he sparked off a storm over religious rights.

And on cue to pushing the debate into the limelight, if not herself, was Aishah Azmi, the teacher in Dewsbury in north England who was suspended for refusing to take her veil off in class.

The question of a woman's religious right to wear a veil was pitted against that of the rights of children in the classroom to be educated by a normal looking teacher. In effect, the controversy has left behind an unusual question of rights: do you have the right to see who you are talking to when face to face with her?

"You see, faces are very important, faces are the index of the mind, because if you can't see somebody's face, it's very hard to take them seriously and gauge their expression," Rami Ranger, chair of the Pak-India Friendship Society told IPS. "Also, I think it's not fair that I can see your face, you can't see me."

Straw, he suggested, had spoken for the rights of the women to not wear the veil rather than wear it.

"I think first of all we have to understand the concerns that we are now a part of mainstream British society," he said. "Jack Straw has not been disrespectful to Muslims or Muslim women, all that he has been trying to project is that they must take centre stage rather than stay on the fringes of society."

It was all right to wear a headscarf, he said. "But just to cover your face completely will inhibit you from doing a proper job like a member of parliament, or a doctor, or a nurse or an accountant; it will just give an impression that you are not equal to men when you are."

The right to dress as you please is not a right "if that causes me problem, leaves me at a disadvantage with other people. Then I must look at that human right which is working against me. We use our human rights which don't work against ourselves."

Inevitably, Muslim women don't see it quite that way. Seema Bukharee, a pharmacist, wears a headscarf, not a veil, but defends the right of women to wear a veil if they so wish.

The veil is not an obstruction to communication, she told IPS. "Many people speak to people on the phone, they don't see expressions then, they correspond through letters, they don't see expressions then, and they're still able to conduct business."

The distinction Straw made between the veil and the headscarf is not a valid one, she said. "People's interpretation of their covering up is different. He is distinguishing between the headscarf and the veil, he is also saying that we can maybe tolerate that belief but we can't tolerate this belief."

It should be left open to personal interpretation, she said. "Like many religions there are many, many schools of thought to many things within Islam, as you have Roman Catholics who are different from Protestants, who are different from Greek Orthodox. There are differences in schools of thought within Islam as well, and there are different interpretations of modesty."

It is a problem with the viewer of the veiled woman, she said. "She's not harming anybody, why should there be an issue about how she's dressed. And especially if it's a religious issue, then why should there be an issue of how she's dressing."

Muslims fear this could be the beginning of worse to come in Britain, she said. "I never expected to see a ban on the hijab in France, and I hope and I pray that this is not something that would happen in England, but is this the beginning of something?"

Muslim women are feeling targeted, she said. "This was a non-issue before, suddenly it's become an issue. We had really felt we were free, free to act out our choice, freedom of religion, freedom of choice. It's starting with the veil, if we comply, and consider it, and start doing it, then what next? Will it be that men should shave off their beards?

Very few women are forced by men to wear the hijab, she said. "The majority of us are wearing it because we wish to. We feel that that is something within our religion; that is our interpretation of our religion, and we are happy to wear it ourselves."

Muslims feel alienated each time something like this happens, she said. "We do feel, O, another nail in our coffin, so to speak, and yes, our knee-jerk reaction is I think to see it as a part of a pattern."

Islam itself is not clear over the requirement of a veil, Dr. Ashraf Chauhan, vice-chairman of the British Asian Conservative Link, told IPS.

"There is a lot of controversy within Islam on what is the actual form of purdah or veil," he said. "Some people think that the purdah is enough if you have covered your hair and ankle, whereas there are a few people, only a small minority, who cover their whole body."

Across the Islamic world many people wear nothing on the head, he said. The veil is more prevalent at some places because "there is a shyness in people in some areas, where women are not as outgoing and they cannot really go out without covering their whole body."

Straw's remark, he said, "was not offensive to Islam, but offensive to Muslims; it was a snubbing remark suddenly coming out of somebody's mouth without prior consultation and without prior discussion. He should have consulted people, particularly Muslims, he said.

Straw was more wrong in the manner of his suggestion than in what he said, according to Dr. Chauhan.

"I feel that he has a point somewhere in what he said, but did not put it forward in a proper fashion. It looks very offensive suddenly if some patient comes to me in my practice and she is wearing mini-skirt, and I suddenly, abruptly say, you know, why are you wearing mini-skirt."

Copyright (c) 2006 IPS-Inter Press Service. All Rights Reserved.

(C) 2006 Inter Press Service. All Rights Reserved