British Muslims
Deconstructing the veil
Oct 12th 2006
From The Economist print edition
Why Britain is so het up about Muslim women covering their faces
British author Salman Rushdie said this week that "veils suck."
BOOK burnings are rare in Britain. Before 1989, when copies of Salman Rushdie's novel “The Satanic Verses” were incinerated in two cities, anyone searching for a really good literary bonfire had to look back to the religious upheavals of the 17th century. The Rushdie affair became a defining issue for a generation of British Muslims, and the argument over whether free speech is worth the occasional blasphemy has been smoking ever since.
This week Mr Rushdie, whose provocative prose earned him a fatwa and years of police protection, intervened in another row about Islam—over whether Muslim women who wear veils that cover everything but their eyes should take them off in public. His judgment? Veils “suck”.
The row over veils has aroused massive public interest and is starting to resemble the anguished debate that took place in France over the ban on headscarves in schools. It began when Jack Straw, leader of the House of Commons, revealed on October 5th that he asked veiled women who came to see him at his constituency in Blackburn to show their faces.
Mr Straw said that he opposed passing laws on what to wear, but that veils make talking harder and emphasise separateness, and are therefore bad for community relations. He was backed this week by Gordon Brown, the chancellor of the exchequer, who added that immigrants should learn English and familiarise themselves with the Magna Carta.
Compared with previous clashes between the government and Muslims, the response to Mr Straw's plea for visible noses and mouths has been muted. The Muslim Council of Britain said Mr Straw was playing into the hands of people who hated Islam. A few hotheads tried to blame him for an attack on a woman wearing a veil. But there were no banners, marches or burnings.
Relatively few women wear veils. Informed guessers reckon that between 10,000 (the more likely estimate) and 40,000 of Britain's 800,000 Muslim women wear one. That number seems to be increasing, though. An influx of people from Yemen and parts of the Gulf where wearing a veil is the norm is one reason. But the practice is spreading beyond this group, to the 75% of British Muslims who are from Asian families. Many of those now covering up are the British-born children of immigrants, whose mothers do not wear veils themselves.
Two main reasons are commonly given for why more young Muslim women are covering up. First, it is a political statement, an in-your-face version of a “Free Palestine” T-shirt. Ghayasuddin Siddiqui of the Muslim Parliament points out that headscarf wearing blossomed among Muslim women in Britain after the Iranian revolution in 1979, and thinks something similar is happening now.
Second, Muslim women supposedly put on veils for reasons that blend feminism with religion. Though they are often pressed by their own families not to cover up, some choose to wear a veil out of at the amount of flesh on display on television or on the high street, because they dislike being ogled by men, and because a veil makes them feel safer.
“Personality dictates whether women wear a veil or not,” says Salma Yaqoob, a councillor in Birmingham who campaigned against the war in Iraq. Ms Yaqoob cites her own family as an example: she does not wear a veil, her sister wore one for a while but has now taken it off, and her mother wears one whenever she feels like it. Wearing the veil is, she says, a private matter.
Yet whatever the precise reasons for Muslim women covering up, the row has unveiled tensions within Britain. The main worry is about whether a formerly easygoing approach towards integrating ethnic communities is still working.
According to a Populus poll published in the Times this week, 69% of Britons think that Muslims make a valuable contribution to society—up ten points since the summer. But this broad approval is fragile: 60% told the same pollsters then that Muslims are viewed with suspicion by other Brits. The veil hardly helps to dispel such feelings, which is why some Muslims share Mr Straw's concerns. It is also a symbol of a separateness that no longer seems acceptable after London was attacked by home-grown suicide bombers last year.
economist.com
Deconstructing the veil
Oct 12th 2006
From The Economist print edition
Why Britain is so het up about Muslim women covering their faces
British author Salman Rushdie said this week that "veils suck."
BOOK burnings are rare in Britain. Before 1989, when copies of Salman Rushdie's novel “The Satanic Verses” were incinerated in two cities, anyone searching for a really good literary bonfire had to look back to the religious upheavals of the 17th century. The Rushdie affair became a defining issue for a generation of British Muslims, and the argument over whether free speech is worth the occasional blasphemy has been smoking ever since.
This week Mr Rushdie, whose provocative prose earned him a fatwa and years of police protection, intervened in another row about Islam—over whether Muslim women who wear veils that cover everything but their eyes should take them off in public. His judgment? Veils “suck”.
The row over veils has aroused massive public interest and is starting to resemble the anguished debate that took place in France over the ban on headscarves in schools. It began when Jack Straw, leader of the House of Commons, revealed on October 5th that he asked veiled women who came to see him at his constituency in Blackburn to show their faces.
Mr Straw said that he opposed passing laws on what to wear, but that veils make talking harder and emphasise separateness, and are therefore bad for community relations. He was backed this week by Gordon Brown, the chancellor of the exchequer, who added that immigrants should learn English and familiarise themselves with the Magna Carta.
Compared with previous clashes between the government and Muslims, the response to Mr Straw's plea for visible noses and mouths has been muted. The Muslim Council of Britain said Mr Straw was playing into the hands of people who hated Islam. A few hotheads tried to blame him for an attack on a woman wearing a veil. But there were no banners, marches or burnings.
Relatively few women wear veils. Informed guessers reckon that between 10,000 (the more likely estimate) and 40,000 of Britain's 800,000 Muslim women wear one. That number seems to be increasing, though. An influx of people from Yemen and parts of the Gulf where wearing a veil is the norm is one reason. But the practice is spreading beyond this group, to the 75% of British Muslims who are from Asian families. Many of those now covering up are the British-born children of immigrants, whose mothers do not wear veils themselves.
Two main reasons are commonly given for why more young Muslim women are covering up. First, it is a political statement, an in-your-face version of a “Free Palestine” T-shirt. Ghayasuddin Siddiqui of the Muslim Parliament points out that headscarf wearing blossomed among Muslim women in Britain after the Iranian revolution in 1979, and thinks something similar is happening now.
Second, Muslim women supposedly put on veils for reasons that blend feminism with religion. Though they are often pressed by their own families not to cover up, some choose to wear a veil out of at the amount of flesh on display on television or on the high street, because they dislike being ogled by men, and because a veil makes them feel safer.
“Personality dictates whether women wear a veil or not,” says Salma Yaqoob, a councillor in Birmingham who campaigned against the war in Iraq. Ms Yaqoob cites her own family as an example: she does not wear a veil, her sister wore one for a while but has now taken it off, and her mother wears one whenever she feels like it. Wearing the veil is, she says, a private matter.
Yet whatever the precise reasons for Muslim women covering up, the row has unveiled tensions within Britain. The main worry is about whether a formerly easygoing approach towards integrating ethnic communities is still working.
According to a Populus poll published in the Times this week, 69% of Britons think that Muslims make a valuable contribution to society—up ten points since the summer. But this broad approval is fragile: 60% told the same pollsters then that Muslims are viewed with suspicion by other Brits. The veil hardly helps to dispel such feelings, which is why some Muslims share Mr Straw's concerns. It is also a symbol of a separateness that no longer seems acceptable after London was attacked by home-grown suicide bombers last year.
economist.com