Niqab Warz Redux

I think it would be cool if Western women chose to wear niqabs or veils as a show of solidarity with Muslims.

Do you feel at any time that you might be forced into wearing Niqab?

Heh.

"I would be far more impressed if Western men did so. But niqabs are only for women, right?"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8409778.stm

"Hundreds of men have posted photos of themselves wearing Islamic headscarves as part of the "Be a man" campaign to show solidarity with Majid Tavakoli..."

http://www.muhajabah.com/whyniqab.htm

"For Ummahat al-Muminin (rAa), the wives of the Prophet (sAas), niqab is fard. It has been commanded in Surah al-Ahzab ayah 53 and the hadiths confirm that Ummahat al-Muminin (rAa) covered their faces in obedience to the command in this ayah to screen themselves from non-mahram men."

http://www.islam-laws.com/hijabexcuse.htm

"Your body is on display in the market of Shaitaan* seducing the hearts of men. The hairstyles, the tight clothing showing every detail of your figure, the short dresses showing off your legs and feet, and the showy, decorative and fragrant clothing all anger the Merciful and please the Shaitaan. Every day that passes while you are in this condition distances you further from Allah and brings you closer to Shaitaan. Each day curses and anger are directed toward you from the heavens until you repent. Every day brings you closer to the grave and the Angel of Death is ready to capture your soul."

[*Shaitaan=Satan]

http://islamicissues.org/id11.html

"Allaah [sic] is the One Who has commanded women to cover their adornments. This has been enjoined upon women as a protection against abuse and temptation. That is because women are the focus of desire, and the focus of what those who are tempted to look at. So if a woman uncovers her beauty she will provoke desire, and people will become attracted to her and will follow her. This is the cause of many immoral actions such as adultery and the things that lead to it. So hijaab is obligatory for women and was enjoined upon them in the aayah (interpretation of the meaning):

“…and to draw their veils all over Juyoobihinna (i.e. their bodies, faces, necks and bosoms)…” [al-Noor 24:31]

The veil (khimaar) is that which comes down from the head and covers the face, and the jilbaab is an outer garment with which a woman covers herself, leaving no part of her body showing. And Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning): “…And when you ask (his [the Prophet’s] wives) for anything you want, ask them from behind a screen…” [al-Ahzaab 33:53] So it is a protection for women so that there will be no room for people to treat them as playthings.

"Is it necessary to wear hijab in a kaafir country? It is not permissible for you or for any other woman to take off your hijaab in the kaafir countries, just as that is not permissible in any Muslim country. It is obligatory to observe hijaab in front of non-mahram males whether they are Muslims or kaafirs. Allah commands his believing servants to migrate from a land in which they are not able to establish Islam, to the spacious earth of Allah where they can do so."

I love you, Unionist.  Will you marry me?

Ahh! Thanks for the example, Cue.

All societies and countries also treat women like second-class human beings. That's a good argument for change. Not for the status quo.

I believe that we should not interfere in how other societies and countries legislate "modesty" or any other quaint thing. I also believe, however, that we should very much enforce equality of women and men in our society and country - no matter who likes it or not.

No. The obsession with what people -- well, women, eh? -- wear is to me evidence of either bigotry or neurosis.

It's also deeply Protestant. Now, sort that one out, given the places now attempting to legislate how much women should disrobe.

Generally I agree with your take on this, Unionist, though that particular analogy doesn't work.  Foot-binding involved breaking a young girl's metatarsals and bending the broken foot in half, mutilating the foot and crippling the woman for life.  Wearing a niqab/burka doesn't inflict physical harm on the woman.

Your foot-binding analogy would be more applicable to, say, a discussion of female genital mutilation, where again a girl's body is mutilated to suit cultural mores.

Why should I take that at face value? I don't.

Everyone has a right to an opinion about why other people do what they do, but that doesn't mean that you know or can know or should know their version of why they do what they do, and it's their version that matters to their liberty unless they are breaking the law. (Here, of course, we get on to the territory of laws made on the basis of neurosis, bigotry, or paranoia ...)

Me, I could not give a good goddamn whether anyone, certainly any man, and for sure any public official with power to compel (delegated to him/her BY ME), thinks that I am liberated enough, in the right ways or to his/her satisfaction. For that reason, I don't see why anyone else, certainly any other woman, given the creepy fascination with women's dress in every society historically, should have to give a good goddamn either.

skaddle....exactly.

People interested in this subject should read "Infidel" by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somalian who was raised and grew up Muslim and who was unwillingly married off by her father to a distant Somalian cousin living in Toronto...but, while in transit to Canada, escaped to Holland where she sought and received asylum.  I just finished reading "Infidel" and am now half-way through her latest book, "Nomad".

What makes you think that the couple dozen (maybe) people who wear niqabs in Québec are recent immigrants, or insecure, or unsure of their rights?

An excelent question. Thank you for asking it. The answer is no, there is no difference.

I think it would be way cooler if feminist women across the Muslim world all set up bonfires and burned their niqabs and veils etc... to show their contempt for the patriarchy that wanst them to wear such garments - in the same way that women in the west burned bras a generation ago!!

It makes no difference whatsoever, skdadl. I was responding to a post that was trying to make some kind of point about the Assemblée nationale being "male dominated". The point was wrong.

I happen to believe this issue does not belong to feminists. Nor does it belong to Muslims. It belongs to all people and to all of Québec society. So how would it be if I said that non-Quebecers should back off? That would be pretty awful, wouldn't it?

My problem with Bill 94 is essentially the same as Québec solidaire's. It doesn't go far enough, and it targets niqab-wearers for no good reason. But, as I have mentioned before, I do not believe that there is a human right to express oneself through one's clothing, which implies that you must be served by one sex and not the other. I believe that any such right is trumped by society's demand for the equality of men and women. I am NOT talking about whether niqab-wearers are oppressed or not. I do NOT agree that people should be legally prevented from covering their face. But I will never agree that some individual's cultural or religious belief should require the rest of society to divide itself into male and female (or any other division) - like, "send a male cop please, I can't deal with women strangers".

But you know my views on this, skdadl, and we're going to have to agree to disagree. What is very important is that non-Quebecers should make accurate statements about the origin and state of the controversy here if they wish to comment on it at all. That, unfortunately, has not always been the case, as we saw upthread.

PS: Unionist, I hope you know that I will defend Quebecers against the prejudices of anglo Canada, which are very real, and have already proved dangerous to us all (in Harper's propaganda, eg). At the same time, I will not defend your claims of privilege if they violate my understanding of human and civil liberties in any democracy.

I'm saying what I would enjoy seeing - its called EXPRESSING AN OPINION - something we are allowed to do here - much as you don't seem to tolerate anyone ever expressing an opinion you disagree with. Maybe "western women" have their own ideas about how they prioritize their actions as well and don't want to do what "Al-Qabong" thinks is "cool" (ie: wearing niqabs to express solidarity with Islam).

I don't know that I could, in good faith, show solidarity with Muslims on the niqab issue.  I think, at base, it is a cultural oppression of the female, and I can't support that.  I'm sure it's a flawed position that I'm holding, but it comes from the gut.  Nobody should have to hide his or her face for any reason.  Not even religion.

Western men could wear skirts and heels in solidarity with Western women, if such a thing would somehow forward our equality.

Drag shows not included.

Actually, Western mean should do their half of the work of running a household.  That is something which would forward equality.

Yeah, it's also Catholic dominated. And francophone dominated. And non-working-class dominated. Think that's relevant? The right to cover one's face is not a cause that women in Québec have stood up for. Maybe they will. But they have not.

You don't have to be Québécois to understand the issue. You have to be Québécois to have a say in how it is applied in Québec.

For another example, you don't have to be Québécois to understand the fact that there is only one official language in Québec, and that in any sufficiently large workplace, French must be the language of work.

Non-Quebecers have struggled to understand Québec. The point, however, is that they cannot change it.

First tell me whether China should lift its 1949 ban on binding of women's feet.

Look, western capitalistm is in decline for many reasons. One of them being the finite amount of oil. Since there is a lot of oil in the middle east and the middle east has a lot of muslims in it, they have to be vilified so that we can go over there. kill them and take what they have.

This is just one way of doing that.

Another reason is that in our economic decline the left hand has to distract from what the right hand is doing.

Or since the procreation of muslims is higher then christian, the christians need to make some changes before their way of life is changed.

It's more than just a few inches of cloth.  Come on.  It's the idea that women are so inherently evil and destructive that they should not so much as show their faces, have an identity outside the patriarchally controlled religion one adheres to.

If I have to make a choice between supporting religious freedom (not entirely clear in the case of niqab, as a small minority of Muslim women adopt it) and the emancipation of women from patriarchal control, I will opt for the latter.

But then, I see religion as superstitious nonsense at the best of times.

Not to mention that niqabs and burqas and veils have NOTHING to do with Islam in the first place - they are cultural practices that happen to predominate in countries that happen to be majority Muslim. There is nothing in the Koran about niqabs or veils - and if a Swedish woman who converted to Islam started wearing a niqab every day in the middle of Stockholm, it would as ridiculous and laughable as someone thinking that if you convert to Judaism you have to wear a big fur hat!!

There is another angle that I don't see has been explored here, and that is:

Many muslim women all over today are choosing to wear head coverings of all sorts as an act of solidarity with what they see as fellow muslim men and women being genocidally massacred.

And as far as I see it, part of what is informing the trend amongst people wishing to ban this form of mourning, is a wish to put it out of view; in effect put a ban on public displays of mourning.

Any thoughts?

I mean, judging from posts already here, I know some of you will dismiss this angle out of hand without even delving into that side of yourselves.....But I find it somewhat hard to believe that many of you actually support the "freeing" of muslim women, but rather are just in it for "kill some muzzies" as entertainment.

Of course they aren't. They're inherent and inalienable. But it certainly helps to move the whole society forward so that it recognizes and defends those rights, doesn't it? And that recognition ultimately takes place, like it or not, through votes. Even when the judiciary takes the first move, the move can be overridden or confirmed by the legislature.

The elimination of abortion and sodomy from the Criminal Code. Equal marriage. The prohibition of discrimination in employment, accommodation, and public services on the basis of sex, race, religion, sexual orientation, etc. The Bill of Rights and the Charter (et la Charte québécoise). The rights of workers to unionize and not be fired after a strike and not to be scabbed against (here and in BC, anyway), etc. The right to health care and education (to some extent, anyway). The right to health care and education in a secular environment (in some provinces, anyway) at public expense. The right to a little security in retirement. Formal equality before the law between women and men. And I wish I could list a few acquired rights of indigenous people, but they seem too few and far between.

All the above (and many more) are inherent human rights IMO. Many of them apply only to minorities. Yet all have been recognized, or confirmed, by votes - votes which came way too late, after decades of struggle, but they sealed the success of those struggles.

So, if someone thinks they have the right to demand service from males or females specifically (which is the only part that bothers me, as I know you realize because you've been reading my posts, and no I don't mean in situations of abuse or assault etc.), then they had better convince the society that this so-called "human right" exists and is worth recognizing and protecting. It may take decades. But if it's real, then it's worth fighting for.

Unionist:

The foot-binding analogy really is off the mark. If a woman wants to bind her feet, (or have her middle toe removed, to serve the same end, i.e. fit into cute little pointy shoes, which we don't even know whether men have ever liked, so it's really nothing to do with men vs. women. In Chinese culture, it was a class distinction.) nobody's going to stop her. The law is against adults physically mutilating children.  Different kettle of fish altogether.

That is not and has never been my (admittedly limited) understanding. Unless you have some source to the contrary, my information has always been that both the 1912 ban and the 1949 ban were absolute - they banned the practice - not just forcible binding by parents of minors - and those who bound their own feet were subject to fines. Obviously, if I'm mistaken on that, then the analogy doesn't hold.

But I'll ask you: Would you support a ban on foot-binding that was absolute - or do you think women (people) have a freedom to mutilate themselves for beauty and subordination that trumps society's need to oppose gender discrimination and inequality?

Well, I think the question of women covering their entire bodies, while men are free to do what they like, is an easy one as well. We appear to have different opinions here. In fact, I'm far less concerned about ear piercing and tattooing and (male) circumcision than I am about covering up women's bodies - in our society. I'm not talking about other people's societies, where they have their own customs and struggles and rules and (hopefully) sovereignty.

So you would "have no problem" telling Muslim women, in Canada or Québec or both, that they can no longer have their sons circumcised - but the good news is that they can cover themselves from head to foot at all times and demand to be served by women whenever they need to remove their face veil.

Just let me know if I have correctly understood your view.

I agree with absentia, except I don't expect to see infant circumcision actually outlawed in Western societies any time soon. There are too many circumcised adult males around who would object -- it's not a culture-specific practice. As with piercing (of some kinds) and tattoos, the mutilation seems minor, and I believe there is disagreement among doctors about whether or not harm is done in each of those cases. (I have listened to a doctor tell horror stories about ear piercing -- I got mine done anyway.)

Are you seriously suggesting you would legislate that Muslims and Jews can't circumcise their boys - that they must wait until the boys are adults? And you think it's just already-circumcised males that would object? Do you honestly not know the significance of male circumcision in both these religions?

I personally would love to see such practices banned. But I would also like to ban the right of any adult to indoctrinate a child in a religion - e.g., sending them to a religious school, forcing them to engage in any religious practices or dress, forcing them to attend services...

Or do you consider male circumcision to be an infringement on the rights of kids, but not psychological mutilation?

Let me ask you one question at a time. Would you legislatively ban parents from requiring children to wear hijabs or niqabs?

ETA: Crossposted with absentia - yeah, thanks for that, you're quite right that you can't ban male circumcision of children, at least not in our lifetime. But I'd still be interested in your answer to my last question above.

Isn't religious dogma tied into this issue?

I realize that there is some grey area of culture vs religion when it comes to the niqab, but it's also a facet of the culture upheld by a sect or faction of a religion.

This is why this is a sticky, contradictory issue for me.  I feel like I have to compromise one facet of what I believe in to support another part - ie: emancipation vs not dictating anyone's attire.  I have trouble getting past the cultural conditioning of woman as evil/cause of sin. 

ETA:  Male circumcision of infants:  I recognize the importance of this custom to Muslims and Jews.  However, I still think it's barbaric to dock anyone's genitals in the absence of their consent.  Especially a child.  I guess I just don't care what religious argument you can make for it.

Antispin: "I find feminist-based arguments against the niqab ironic as feminism itself has fractured and split largely on the issue of cultural identity and the desire of women to be seen as heterogenous... I prefer to see the niqab as just another piece of clothing, no different than any other, and that women have the freedom to choose as they see fit"

Yeah, post-abortion-rights, the feminist questions are reduced to the right to cover their faces (in deference to the household male's sense of honour, as interpreted by some women of faith).

I'll just suggest that some women who fought the fights of the 70s and 80s for women's rights do not now understand how naive the following generations have become regarding the sanctity of those hard-won rights. Their interest in that history and the legal gains made by their mothers' generation may yet be re-ignited by the ascension of Steve and his Christian followers.

Taking the argument into comparison of customs in Chinese history is simple obfuscation of the central issue: If women feel the threatened loss of any degree of equality, the only rational (insubordinant) response is a political one. Give us a break from post-modernist relativism, please.

First tell me whether Canada should ban women wearing hats.  Because that is a much closer analogy (still a little out there, of course, but that is the goal of these rhetorical games, to try to associate two things so as to imply that supporting one thing is logically the same as supporting else which is bad, is it not?)

No, genstrike. The real issue is this: How does an instrument of suppression, subordination, and dehumanization somehow morph into a clarion declaration of individual choice and emancipation?

Should we reconsider the ban on human slavery because one individual really really really wants to be looked after by another in exchange for doing whatever the other commands?

In Québec, since 1980, women who marry are not allowed to become Mrs. Husband's-Last-Name any more. They keep their birth name - like it or not - with certain exceptions. Feminists led the charge for that law, because simple standards of equality (like the right to vote - or the right to serve on a jury (1970!) - or the right not to be baby-making machines) came later here than elsewhere. Should we reconsider that law if someone comes along and says, "But my religious belief requires me to lose my name and take on my husband's name"?

Not in my book.

As for wearing of hats, if you convince me that it embodies the subordination of women to men, and it requires that women can only remove their hat in the presence of another woman, I'll have a look at lobbying against that as well.

Unionist, with respect, it is none of your business, nor of any government's, nor of any feminist's, why I chose to add my husband's name on to my own when I married. I didn't have to say it was because of "my religious belief" -- any such requirement would be, in my view, offensive to the point of being obscene. Screw your stupid law, and I would certainly work against it if I were in Quebec. Where the hell do you get the notion you know what I will find liberating as a woman?

To me, secularism (anti-religion) is every bit as much an ideology as "religion," whatever the hell that is -- they're all ideologies, and people are free to indulge in them in their private lives. They're just not free to force me to live that way. Stalin, McCarthy, Attaturk ... All yours, Unionist.

No one claimed that refusing to bully people from other cultures is a "clarion call" to anything. It is a negative virtue -- as in "do no harm."

You are proposing active "correctional" measures to be imposed on people whose consciences don't match yours. There is no virtue in that, and that is not the way democracy works or is supposed to work, in spite of the Attaturkist elite in Turkey and some elites in France and Quebec. Artists and historians in all those countries at least understand the problem. No one needs politicians writing the history books. (Everybody wave at Mr Kenney.)

MY stupid law? Were you aware that this has been the law in Québec for the last 30 years? Were you aware that it was enacted after massive lobbying by feminist organizations? Do you think it was the MEN of Québec who said they didn't want their wives taking the man's name any more? Where the hell do you get the notion that your personal opinions count for the women of Québec???

And why don't you come here and lobby against this terrible law that says that women (and men, by the way) must keep their own names and not dissolve into their partner after marriage? Do you know how many women are lobbying to change this 30-year-old law, because it breaches their so-call freedom to take their husband's name?

That's correct.

If you don't like the law that says that women keep their own birth name, you don't have to come live here. If you do, you'll have to obey the law - or work to change it. As hinted above, it'll be a long lonely battle. First you'll have to convince women here that it's fundamental for their self-worth and individual freedom to be able to call themselves "Mrs. Jean Charest" instead of (her actual name) Michèle Dionne. And to cover up when they leave the house. And maybe this mandatory jury duty for females is bad too - why not leave it to the individual woman to choose!?

What about our language laws? Bad idea? Too Stalinist?

I think, skdadl, that our notions of freedom are fundamentally different, maybe irreconcilable. Too bad.

I forgot to add, in fairness, i don't know of any religion or culture or tradition that requires only women to restrict their behaviour while allowing men total freedom. The prerogatives of males generally come with a set of responsibilities, just as the duties of females come with some privileges. It's usually an assignment of roles that worked for some tribe, in some particular geographic and economic environment, at some time.

People are loath to let go of traditions, but they do, once those traditions are no longer practical. But they have to do it in their own way, by their own small, incremental choices, through their own intramural battles. If the change isn't organic, it won't take: if people feel cornered, they'll either fight or fall back, pretend, pay lip-service, go underground.....

I'm sure posterity will show appropriate gratitude.

Really?  When were Christmas trees or female genital mutilation ever "practical" cultural or religious traditions.  Practicality, as far as I can see, has never been a particluarly effective standard for measuring the abandonment of traditions.

Oh dear! I should pick my words more carefully. Just because a practice has no obvious present utility, that doesn't mean it never had a purpose or wasn't invented/ adopted for a reason. If the practice either still serves some purpose (not necessarily the original or intended one) it will be continued. If it's detrimental, it will eventually be dropped.

Christmas trees were paractical when a people believed jn the sacredness of a particular kind of tree, and the Catholic church wanted  the people to abandon their stupid tree in favour of the one true cross, couldn't burn them all for refusing but could burn a few, so the people paid lip-service and the church pretended the tree was part of Christianity.  Female circumcision was practical when a people considered it very, very important that no sperm got there before the husband's. And so on. Everything in context, and not one scrap of it needs to make the slightest sense to you or me in order to matter, or to have at some time mattered, to the people who own it.

Another false analogy, hidden even from your own self, by your own clouded ulterior motives.

Under the law you mention, a woman would STILL be able to take her husbands last name if she so desired.

Would a woman still be able to wear a hijab under a hijab ban if she so desired?

See Post #21 above (re books by Ayaan Hirsi Ali for one woman's perspective).

How about YOU give me your opinion: Since when did Tarek Fatah, his disciples, lapdogs and envoys to Babble care what "the deluded left" thinks?

Sorry that some here implied support to your cause, carry the white (Western) man's burden and "liberate" Muslim women, or rather implement the US sponsored Rand Institure report to "reform Islam". A booming business, media made accessble thanks to the invisible hand, prominence guaranteed, travels and speech circuits. Money is no problem. 

Have you asked your guru feminist Minister Ambrose about her government's record vis a vis the status of Canadian women? You are here to propagate your islamophobia and that of your right wing masters who don't give a rat's ass about women.

Ok, my apologies to Unionist.

My assumption was that under the Quebec law, although a woman would not AUTOMATICALLY have her last name changed to her husband's,  she could subsequently apply for a Legal Name Change and be granted it.

Upon preliminary reading it seems that even Legal Name Change requests in Quebec are not that easy but are subject to arbitrairy decision by a clerk.

So it does seem that the problem here lies in not allowing a person to freely change their legal name as they wish.  It seems the technology is advanced enough that it could handle often and multiple name changes by a single person, so that the only limiting factor then is the person's ability to pay the administration costs of a Legal Name Change application.

If the Hijab/niqab is banned?   Would the free choice of wearing one also be subject to arbitrary decision by an appointed clerk?

@Sven, I was suggesting that instead of people here theorizing about why Muslim women wear the niqab (they wear it in solidarity, or they are forced to wear it, or they wear because they don't understand the religion, ..etc) why don't you ask somebody who wears it why she does it?  Wouldn't that be the simplest shortest path to a real answer, if one was truly interested in the real answer.  The author of the book "Infidel" doesn't sound like somebody who is speaking FOR niqab wearing women, even if her name is Husein Ali. Isn't she the one who was deported from Holland for anti Islam racism? That's like trying to learn about Jewish culture by reading Nazi propaganda books.

No, she was not deported from Holland, for anti-Islam racism or otherwise.  She was born in Somalia and was raised Muslim (she also lived in Kenya, Saudi Arabia, and Ethiopia prior to age 22).  She was subject to genital mutilation and was forced into an arranged marriage to a distant cousin living in Toronto by her father.  She expresses an opinion worth reading.

You can call yourself whatever you like. But here in my home, in Québec, women were treated like little pieces of shit - by men, by the government, and especially by the Church - until the Quiet Revolution. Since then, we have gone far - much farther than the rest of Canada. Google QPIP, for one of a thousand examples. Here in Québec, we have had to take RADICAL steps to ensure that the hegemony of the Male Priests and Bishops shall never again prevail. That means forcing women (HORRORS!!!!!!!) to keep their own name, and not to submerge their identity into a man's - even if they plead, "Oh, really really, I want to be Mrs. So-and-So, so our kids will all have the same name - DADDY's NAME!!"

It's Stalinist, McCarthyite, and I can't remember the third thing you said. But it's ours. And we love it. Your system is good for you. Live and let live.

Likewise with secularism.

Unionist, I am hardly unaware of your old law. I just don't think it's a very intelligent basis for a defender of democratic principles and structures to argue from, so I don't.

Could you avoid the paternalistic pat on the head? Ta very much.

slipped

I highly recommend her book "Infidel" and then suggest reading "Nomad".  Despite being beaten very frequently by family and "clan" members as a girl and as a young woman, being married off unwillingly to a stranger (her father knew the fellow for all of two hours when he promised her in marriage), and being "cut" (genital mutilation) as a girl, her memoirs are surprisingly free of bitterness and anger.  In fact, she writes with great empathy, although critically, about those in her past.  These are very thoughtful books.

cabbie. Welcome to babble.

I find it interesting that you start this thread, and don't contribute until post #92, and when you do post, it's about something entirely unrelated to the issue, except in the minds of non-Muslim Westerners who can't distinguish the difference. Oh yeah, it also happens to be Islamophobic.

I've found this thread quite challenging. I've been reading it and not contributing. For the reasons stated by cruising turtle. If anyone starts a new one it would be interesting to think about that significant gap.

Closing for length.

LOL!