The Veil
There has been a rather insane amount of talk in the British media of late as to the veil- that is the veil worn by some Muslim women for religious reasons. This was all started by Jack Straw suggesting that women should remove it before talking to him, presumably because he likes to look at cleavege like any other lonely lonely politician.Soon after, however, this created an intense debate... in the media at least. Often with issues like this where it is pretty much a storm in a teacup (apparently only 5% of Muslim women wear the veil, although where exactly I got this statistic from I could not tell you), I get the feeling that the media is far more interested in the issue than the general public. Anyway, this led to some calling for an absolute ban on it, which is an intriguing notion- can I wear the veil if it is NOT for religious reasons? Am I allowed to wear it in private, or is this is a uniform ban? And do we have to prevent people from buying significant amounts of material that might well be used as a veil? The daily express put a headline claiming 99% of people wanted the veil banned, although admittedly this was 99% of people who voted on a phone poll, which might, just possibly, not be an accurate sampling of the population.
As to my opinion? Well admittedly there is some trickiness behind this issue- I have no idea whethere the wearing of the veil is always done by people consenting to do it- in the case of women being forced to wear it then it is probably a bad thing, but there have been many anecdotal cases at least of women coming out and saying they want to wear it. Ultimately if you want to be that bloody warm for your faith (and it must get boiling, especially in summer), then good for you. A ban is, as I said, a ridiculous notion, and if we banned every type of clothing that offended people, I'm not entirely sure what we'd all be able to wear anymore.
All in all though, with many serious issues effecting us, and at the same time as this was being reported, a new lancet study suggesting as many as 650,000 people have been killed in Iraq being published, I think there are more important things to worry about.
Although ironically I have now dedicated a fair portion of my time to an issue I claim is meaningless.....
posted by Mr K @ 1:22 pm
2 Comments:
I guess that people really should be able to wear whatever they want - I see plenty of people wearing ridiculous clothing all of the time and it rarely ever bothers me. Well except for 2 cases - one being the man with the huge belly that hung below his tshirt and the other being the guy who thought it was cool to have his jeans round his ankles and for me to see his underpants *shudder*.
Anyway I do however find it makes people less approachable, it's the same reason people don't like hoodies or people wearing hats indoors I guess. It makes communication more difficult when you can't see someone's face - it's why we build robots, machines etc. with faces (even cars when you think about it).
All in all I think for everyone to get along we've all got to speak to each other and if the black/white/asian peeps only stick to their little groups then it'll never work and they'll miss out on lots of interesting stuff.
We had a HUGE discussion of the veil in my post-colonial theory class. The Veil has been traditionally used in imagery of Algerian and Arabic women as a way of depersonalizing them, often accompanied, though in those images, by the fact that the women are otherwise naked, or naked from the waist up ... we're talking mid-nineteenth century imperial exploitation.
However, I was talking to my cousin (who has a political studies degree with a minor in women's and gender studies) and she was telling me that there are all sorts of subversive controls in society that centre on the way we deal with what women wear. According to her, the major teaching these days is that control of women's bodies is connected to all sorts of formal and informal sanctions ... I would say this falls into that category. The example she used was miniskirts, because there are catcalls (especially for her because her legs are three quarters of her body) and assumptions made about the wearer. I also read this article by a muslim woman journalist who wears the hijab (the head scarf) and does so because she feels its a control over her own body. Preventing these women from wearing their veils is an attempt to control their bodies.
But maybe these dudes saw the Battle of Algiers and are worried about what the women are hiding. What I object to, however, is that this is a religious thing ... preventing them from wearing it infringes upon their right to their belief system. We had a problem a couple of years ago in Canada that revealed just how insensitive people are to other people's belief systems. The RCMP allowed Sikh officers to wear their turbans, and it caused this big problem among people who could only see things within an Anglo-Saxon-Christian ideology.
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