The Other Side of the Veil: Why We Need to Stop Trying to Save Muslim Women from Themselves
Amar Krupalija
(FR) Plusieurs justifications ont été fournies par les politiciens sur l’interdiction du port du hijab, de la burqa, du niqab ainsi que d’autres vêtements religieux dans la vie publique. Ces raisons se limitent souvent à maintenir la laïcité de l’état, protéger des intérêts de sécurité et de libérer les femmes de leur oppression culturelle. Cependant, ces arguments ignorent totalement les myriades de raisons pour lesquelles une femme pourrait choisir, de son plein gré, de porter une burqa, un hijab ou un niqab. Ces raisons sont soulignées dans cette dissertation en s’appuyant sur des évidences provenant de sondages chez les jeunes femmes musulmanes des lycées québécois. De plus, définir le voile comme un symbole universel de l’oppression chez la femme perpétue une image amalgamée de l’Islam. Cette perception amalgamée de la culture orientale amplifie la division culturelle présente entre l’Occident et L’Orient et ceci en renforçant l’idée que ces deux cultures sont fondamentalement incompatibles due à leurs différences de mœurs. Finalement, l’utilisation d’un discours féministe par les politiciens pour argumenter leurs réglementations vestimentaires est un cas d’appropriation illicite de la cause féministe. Ces soi-disant « interdictions du port de la burqa » remplacent simplement une forme de contrôle sur la femme avec une autre, et continue de dicter les faits et gestes de celle-ci. Malgré l’ouverture d’esprit grandissante de la population envers la cause féminine, la liberté de choix chez les femmes est toujours absente en ce qui concerne leur accoutrement.
The resurgence of nationalism, populism, and xenophobia across Europe continues to manifest itself in troubling ways. Throughout the continent, far-right political parties are gaining support based on rhetoric that presents them as the defenders of European values from the dangerous and incompatible Islam. One of the more recent states to adopt legislation curtailing the rights and freedoms of Muslims is Switzerland, where a referendum in March narrowly determined that full facial coverings, including the burqa and niqab, should be banned from virtually all public spaces (Kottasová 2021). There are always countless excuses for the implementation of such policies; Islamic facial coverings have been portrayed by politicians as subverting state-mandated secularism, security threats, and symbols of the extreme domination of women in Islam. However, the decision to ban the burqa and niqab is the promotion of Western cultural hegemony under the false guise of female liberation. Despite claiming to save women from the supposedly oppressive Islam, this ban simply replaces one form of control over female bodies with another as part of a sustained effort to limit individual female agency and choice. Despite whatever justification is offered to the public, “burqa bans” are Islamophobic, misogynistic, and based on deeply flawed quasi-feminist reasoning.
To those in favour of the ban, veiling represents a threat to the supposedly enlightened European society, as it limits the personal freedoms of women and represents Islamic extremism (Crosby 2014, 46). This perspective suggests that the ban is justified, as it saves women from this supposedly barbaric practice. This justification is what creates the problematic sense of Western cultural superiority. The act of saving implies that there is an evil from which people need to be saved, as well as that those saved are being brought to something better. In this case, Muslim women are being “saved” from Muslim men who seek to control women’s bodies by forcibly imposing burqas and niqabs on them and, being brought to a more enlightened European society that would never subjugate women to the control of men. This reflects perceived cultural supremacy as the West is portrayed as the saviour of Muslim women from their own values (Abu-Lughod 2002, 788-789). In reality, framing veiling as a universal symbol of oppression and Western society as the ultimate liberator of women is flawed.
Framing the burqa, hijab, or any other religious attire which maintains a modest public appearance as universal symbols of oppression ignores the myriad of reasons why women may choose to wear such garments. What is key here is the element of choice. Contrary to popular belief in the West, many women who adhere to Islamic veiling practices do so of their own accord. This has been evidenced through surveys of high school-aged Muslim girls in Quebec, many of whom reported that they had never had the hijab forcibly imposed on them (Eid 2015, 1907). Rather, these girls described the hijab as something that should be worn when the individual is willing and ready to adhere to the values of modesty and chastity which accompany it (1909-1910). Furthermore, veiling empowers many Muslim women to operate in the public sphere, as it creates a sense of security and privacy (Abu-Lughod 2002, 785). If veiling was the oppressive, backwards, and controlling practice it was portrayed to be in the West, why do Muslim women continue to adhere to their usage when given the choice not to, with many even protesting to protect their right to do so? (Crosby 2014, 51). The reason is that veiling is a largely consensual practice. It is important to adjust our interpretation in the West on veiling by avoiding cultural essentialist perspectives which see veiling as the manifestation of an incontrovertible tenet of Islam: the oppression of women. This dichotomy only serves to further the supposed sense of incompatibility between Islam and the West and present the latter as the gold standard of culture that is vested with the responsibility to save those in supposedly more primitive ones.
The framing of the burqa ban as a feminist policy is a misguided attempt to justify legislation that actually reduces the freedom and personal agency of women. The hypocrisy of stating that controlling what women wear is wrong and “solving” this issue by outright banning women from wearing certain articles of clothing should be blatantly obvious. Many women depend on veiling to operate discreetly in public. The ban will thus have the adverse effect of confining women who wish to wear it in public to their homes. This illuminates that the issue is not really about granting women more freedom; if this were the case, veils would not be banned, nor would they be compulsory. Instead, the prohibition of Islamic veils is due to the fact that they do not accord with the cultural norms of Western society, but are instead framed as a barbaric practice (Crosby 2014, 51). Banning the veil is only demanding conformity within Western society by prohibiting women from exercising their own free will. This adherence then reinforces Western ideologies as the global paragon with no room for alternative cultures.
The justifications for burqa bans throughout Western societies are often based on the rhetoric of freeing women from oppressive cultural practices. However, this is a misrepresentation of the practice of veiling and a misappropriation of feminist discourse. It is highly paradoxical to replace the supposedly oppressive and mandated practice of veiling with other obligatory and domineering laws. Doing so is a clear indicator that burqa bans are not truly intended to increase the choices available to women, but are rather meant to impose another form of control that commands adherence to Western norms. This fosters a Western saviour narrative, in which Muslim women are framed as in need of being rescued from their own cultures to assimilate into the supposedly more enlightened society of the West. Banning the burqa and niqab undermines freedom of religion, a human right enshrined in the Swiss constitution, and is clearly unethical (FDFA 2020). It is particularly heinous when it is done under the guise of feminism, in order to further Western cultural superiority and hegemony.