How dangerous is a piece of fabric over a women’s face to the cohesiveness of society? British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw sparked controversy recently by publicly condemning the face veil (niqaab), and his words have led to a debate over the compatibility of Islamic and British values.
One wonders, if Mr. Straw’s sensitivities had been directed toward immodest rather than modest attire, whether the U.K. would be in the midst of a parallel fervor. Had Jack disapproved of the mini-skirt worn by one of his constituents, would we be having a debate about the appropriateness of minis in British society? I daresay feminists would be burning their bras all over again at such a suggestion. The supporters of the niqaab are similarly outraged. Since when is British-ness defined by Mr. Straw’s sensibilities towards modesty? At what point did our liberal society cease to acknowledge the right of every individual to dress according to her desires? It is the same law which protects the right of British women to wear tank tops and miniskirts that ought to protect the right of a British Muslim woman who wishes to cover her face. Where are the feminists when you need them?
If you were fooled into thinking that Straw’s remark was a one-time blunder, you’ve been missing the bigger picture. The niqaab issue is a microcosm of a broader issue: the refusal of Western governments to accept the legitimacy of Islamic values. Acknowledging the niqaab as a facet of British culture would be tantamount to conceding that Islamic values are on an equal footing with liberal values. And Allah alone knows where that might lead us.
Mr. Straw’s remarks lead into the de rigueur debate concerning integration, whereby Islam is considered incompatible with British-Western values. The debate gets a little more complicated when it comes to defining British values. Whilst the epoch of the British Empire may have provided for a neat categorization in simplistic binary opposition between the values of the colonizer and the colonized, contemporary British values are harder to define. Is British culture tea and tweed. Or is it beer and football?
Current discourse bears an uncanny resemblance to the Empire’s antiquated policies of integration and hinges on uncomfortable assumptions grounded in the unequal power relations of the colonial era. Where did this idea that ‘white’ British culture has supreme status that allows it to override other values actually originate?
Muslims are now British. Britain is now Muslim just as much as it is secular or Christian. What the current debate draws our attention to is the refusal to accept this reality or to concede equal status to British Muslim perspectives on par with their non-Muslim counterparts.
So what we may ask of Mr. Straw is some good old-fashioned honesty. If he has the right, which surely he does, to assert his discomfort with face veils, then surely British Muslims should also be able to express their discomfort with, say, the alcohol consumed in British society. Considering the fact that we have, of course, evolved from the colonial mind-set, these two statements ought to carry equal weight.
