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October 14, 2006 By Raheel Raza Britain's Cabinet Minister Jack Straw took a risk with his political future (his riding is predominantly Muslim) by his suggestion that Muslim women should consider removing the veil from their face. Instead of a knee jerk reaction, Muslims should accept Mr. Straw's comments at face value, take our heads out of the sand and pull the veils off our minds. His intention was to invoke a debate, not start fireworks!??This dialogue is long overdue and it comes at a critical time for Muslims in the West. Unfortunately some ignorant and bigoted people have misused this situation to vent their angst at Muslims (e.g. the person who pulled the veil off a woman's face in England ) and others will use it as a political tool and this has to be addressed.??For better understanding of the issues at stake, let me start the discussion.??Contrary to some peoples view, covering the face is not a religious requirement for Muslim women. The injunction in the Quran is for modesty (for both men and women). Some Muslim women interpret this as covering their head with a scarf or chador,??My understanding of this stems from the fact that Islam is a religion of balance and reason. Our face is our identity and common sense requires for it to be uncovered. Furthermore, Muslim women are not supposed to cover their face when they go for Haj (pilgrimage) or when they perform the obligatory prayer.??Of the 1.2 billion Muslims in the world spread over the globe from Malaysia to Mozambique, approximately half are women who are extremely diverse in their mode of dress. A very small percentage chooses to cover their face.??In parts of the Middle East and the subcontinent, a face covering or niqab, is prevalent as a cultural or tribal norm. Some women have exported this practice to the Western world.??If this is cultural, then there is dire need for discussion about adapting to new cultures. Cultures evolve and change with time and place. When non Muslims travel to Saudi Arabia for example, they're not allowed to expose skin by wearing shorts or skirts. The Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (CPVPV) will arrest them. Many Westerners work and reside in Saudi, so they adapt to the new culture to make life easier for themselves.??Similarly when we come to West by choice, we adapt to many changing factors without compromising our religious beliefs. In Canada the Charter gives us religious freedom to practice our faith in any way we choose. However, we need to let go of excess cultural baggage.??Mr. Straw suggested that a covered face makes communication difficult. He's right. I just saw a video interview of a woman in England on this issue, and her voice was muffled from behind the veil. Furthermore, in Canada there is current discussion in the judicial system about the safety risk of a woman who wants to drive in a burqa because peripheral vision becomes impaired. A covered face is also an identity issue while traveling.??Of course it's a given that women in the West have the right to wear as little or as much as they want. But let's talk about the larger issue.??It's a common perception that people who wear masks have something to hide. Muslim women on the other hand, have a lot to show for the strides they've made in the modern world. They were given freedom and rights 1400 years ago. Today Muslim women are traveling into space and winning nobel peace prizes. So why the need to hide???Perhaps this is symptomatic of a larger issue. For the sake of future generations in the West, we must understand that we are at risk of ghettoizing ourselves and being labeled "the other" if we don't get with the plan and work towards being the mainstream. If we insist that we can't change, then we're entirely to blame when we remain on the fringes of society.??Islam encourages us to progress with time, to reason and adapt to current situations without compromising our faith. By showing our face, the faith is not compromised.??This is my perspective. Let's begin the debate. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown declares in TIME Magazine: "It's not illiberal for liberal societies to disapprove of the veil" ?? Sunday, Oct. 08, 2006 Nothing To Hide By Yasmin Alinbhai-Brown TIME Magazine For years, I have vehemently opposed the politics of Jack Straw, a leading member of Tony Blair's Cabinet and former British Foreign Secretary. He has backed the disastrous war in Iraq and domestic laws that curtail civil liberties. In his north of England constituency, which has a sizable Muslim population, he panders to local Muslim bosses. But last week, in his local newspaper, Straw came out against the niqab, the full body and face veil worn by some Muslim women. The niqab, Straw wrote, makes him uneasy and hampers communication. He now asks women - respectfully - to consider taking it off when they come to seek his help. I now find myself in the unusual position of agreeing with Straw's every word. Feminists have denounced Straw's approach as unacceptably proscriptive, and reactionary Muslims say it is Islamaphobic. But it is time to speak out against this objectionable garment and face down the obscurantists who endlessly bait and intimidate the state by making demands that violate its fundamental principles. That they have brainwashed young women, born free, to seek self-subjugation breaks my heart. Trained creatures often choose to stay in their cages even when released. I don't call that a choice. I would not propose that Muslim women should be stopped from wearing what they choose as they walk down the street, although, to be sure, there are practical problems with the niqab. I have seen Muslim women who had been appallingly beaten and forced to wear it to keep their wounds hidden. Veiled women cannot eat in restaurants, swim in the sea or smile at their babies in parks. But the most important reason for opposing the veil is one of principle. So long as it ensures genuinely equal standards for all, a liberal nation has no obligation to extend its liberalism to condone the most illiberal practices. State institutions as well as private companies should have the right to stipulate that a person whose face cannot be seen need not be served. That would not discriminate against Muslims; it would, for example, also affect men whose faces were obscured by motorcycle helmets. The principle expressed, in other words, would not be anti-Muslim, but one in favor of communication. The example of France is salutary here. In 2004, the government banned the hijab, the headscarf, in public schools. The policy may have been introduced with an air of insufferable Gallic superiority, but it was absolutely right; overtly religious symbols are divisive. Schools and colleges should be places of social integration. Protests against the injunction soon died down and many Muslim French girls were happily released from a heritage that has no place in the modern world. Belgium, Denmark and Singapore have taken similar steps. Britain has been both more relaxed about cultural differences and over-anxious about challenging unacceptable practices. Few Britons have realized that the hijab - now more widespread than ever - is, for Islamicist puritans, the first step on a path leading to the burqa, where even the eyes are gauzed over. I have interviewed young women who say they feel so wanton wearing only a headscarf that they will adopt the niqab. Now even 6-year-olds are put into hijabs. Western culture - it is true - is wildly sexualized and lacking in restraint. But there are ways to avoid falling into that pit without withdrawing into the darkness of a niqab. The robe is a physical manifestation of the pernicious idea of women as carriers of original sin; it assumes that the sight of a cheek or a lock of hair turns Muslim men into predators. The niqab rejects human commonalities. The women who wear it want to observe fellow citizens, but remain unseen, as if they were cctv cameras. As a modern Muslim woman, I fast and pray; but I refuse to submit to the hijab or to an opaque, black shroud. On Sept. 10, 2001, I wrote a column in the Independent newspaper condemning the Taliban for using violence to force Afghan women into the burqa. It is happening again. In Iran, educated women who fail some sort of veil test are being imprisoned by their oppressors. Saudi women under their body sheets long to show themselves and share the world equally with men. Exiles who fled such practices to seek refuge in Europe now find the evil is following them. As a female lawyer from Saudi Arabia once said to me: "The Koran does not ask us to bury ourselves. We must be modest. These fools who are taking niqab will one day suffocate like I did, but they will not be allowed to leave the coffin." Millions of progressive Muslims want to halt this Islamicist project to take us back to the Dark Ages. Straw is right to start a debate about what we wear. Prof. Mohammad Qadeer: "Concealment of the face is neither religiously necessary nor socially desirable" ?March 27, 2006 Masking?the truth By Prof. Mohammad Qadeer Queen's University, Kingston Globe and Mail, Toronto If you live in New York, London, Toronto or other cities of Europe and North America, you may have seen an occasional woman with the niqab, the face veil that conceals most of the face except the eyes. The face veil has been appearing in the public space of Western cities since the 1990s, coinciding with the rising consciousness of Islamic identity. Amidst throngs of women in body-revealing clothing, seeing a woman with her face concealed and her eyes peeping out of the wraparound veil is surprising. Though I grew up in a Muslim country, the first time I saw a woman clad in the niqab was in Montreal in 1997. It was an odd sight for me. I could not help doing a double take, asking myself "here of all places?" I have known the burka, a head-to-feet coverall made notorious by the Taliban. It covers the eyes, too, with a thin see-through material. My mother at one time wore a burka, though she discarded it when her daughter refused to don one, and as the custom was fast disappearing from urban Pakistan. I knew the niqab from the fable of the Arabian Nights. Understandably, seeing it on a live person in downtown Montreal was odd, if not shocking, particularly after decades of living in North America. The niqab is beginning to cause some public concerns in Europe. The city of Maaseik, Belgium, has banned it from public places. Other towns in Belgium and Holland are contemplating similar actions. There are some questions of common interest that arise from the spread of this custom in Western societies. The niqab should be differentiated from the hijab, which is just a scarf tied around the head, leaving the face completely visible. The hijab has religious and cultural antecedents in Europe. It is like the traditional head scarf of women in Italy, Greece or Russia. The niqab is another matter. It is a statement of women's self-concealment. Those who wear it consider it to be their religious obligation. The argument about concealing one's face as a religious obligation, is contentious and is not backed by the evidence. Muslim women all over the world overwhelmingly do not wear either the niqab or the burka. There was never a time in Muslim history, not even in the early days of Islam, when a majority of women covered their faces. It was only the practice of some tribes, small orthodox sects and women of the ruling elite. Recent evidence from impromptu TV shots of the tsunami devastations in Indonesia, earthquake victims in Pakistan, street crowds in Palestine, Iraq or Egypt, seldom show any women wearing the niqab. Rural women and women workers in cities have always gone about with their faces visible. The niqab has been the luxury of some puritanical and leisured families. Yes, in conservative and tribal cultures of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia or parts of the Gulf, women conceal their faces. Yet even in these countries, a slight reduction of social pressures brings out large numbers of women without face veils. Even doctrinal Islam has no unanimity about a woman covering her face. For centuries, arguments have raged about the body covering that are obligatory for women's modesty in Islamic society. Those advocating a woman concealing her face are a small and orthodox minority of Islamic scholars and jurists. In Western societies, the niqab is also an assertion of Muslim identity in an environment of felt discrimination. Yet this choice has social implications especially for those living in pluralist societies. From driving or cashing a cheque to boarding a plane, there are a host of activities requiring photo identity, for example. The niqab has led to awkward confrontation in such situations. In Western societies, the niqab also is a symbol of distrust for fellow citizens and a statement of self-segregation. The wearer of a face veil is conveying: "I am violated if you look at me." It is a barrier in civic discourse. It also subverts public trust. Yet the primary victims of the niqab are its wearers. A prospective employer may be justified in not hiring someone whose facial expressions are unavailable to those communicating with her, be they customers, coworkers or the general public. Similarly, the educational experience of a woman clad in the niqab is compromised because of her visual segregation from fellow students, teachers and team members. The niqab necessitates awkward and costly accommodations for its wearers in offices and schools. It has social and personal costs. In pluralist and democratic societies, women have won equality after a long struggle. The niqab is a symbol of self-inflicted inequality and exclusion. Someone may argue that it is a right of an individual to wear what she likes. Yet all rights have limits. Your right to conceal your face infringes others' right to know who you are. Muslim women living in the West can practise modesty with the hijab or in other suitable ways that allow the face to be visible. Concealment of the face is neither religiously necessary nor socially desirable. Muslim communities should reappraise this custom, before a scare about terrorists or a bank hold up raises a public uproar against the niqab. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 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