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Lifting the veil on some issues in the ‘Burka debate’

March 30, 2010 in Islam, Politics | Permalink

For the unfamiliar, the BBC guide to Muslim veils.

The somewhat polemical:
Assuming ‘God’ has recommended or even ordered that women wear burka, assuming that burka has no impact on a woman’s ability to communicate or quality of life, as has been suggested by its supporters, then here’s a suggestion – to all men, who haven’t been ordered by ‘God’ to wear burka, and who don’t see a downside to wearing it, why not voluntarily commit to wearing the burka, since no law opposes such a voluntary act, to show solidarity with the women. My sense is that even the French would come to support the burka if men en masse chose to wear it.

More considered:
“The interior ministry says only 1,900 women wear full veils in France, home to Europe’s biggest Muslim minority” (BBC). If the problem is interpreted solely in terms of women wearing the veil, then it is much smaller than the dust in its wake.

There are three competing concerns at the heart of the debate – Protecting rights of women who voluntarily want to wear it, protecting rights of women who are forced to wear it, and protecting (French) ‘culture’. Setting aside ‘cultural’ concerns for the moment, let’s focus on the first two claims.

People are incredulous of the claim that women will voluntarily choose to wear something so straight forwardly unpleasant. Even when confronted with a woman who claims to comply voluntarily, they fear coercion, or something akin to brainwashing at play. There is merit to the thought. However there is much evidence that people do many unpleasant things voluntarily – such as wear high-heels (which may also be seen as ‘coercive’). So it is very likely indeed that there is ‘voluntary compliance’ by some women.

Assuming there exist voluntary compliers, and ones forced to wear the niqab, wouldn’t it be pleasant if we could ensure the rights of both? In fact, doesn’t the extant legal framework provide for such a privilege already? Yes and No; mostly no. While it is true that women forced to wear the niqab can petition the police, it is unlikely to happen for a variety of reasons – going to the police would mean going against the family, which may mean – doing something painful, and risking financial and physical well-being. Additionally the laws governing such ‘coercion’ are likely to carry modest penalties, and unlikely to redress the numerous correlated issues including inadequate financial, and educational opportunities. Many of the issues raised here would seem familiar to people working with domestic abuse, and they are, and the modern state hasn’t (tried to) found a good solution.

Perhaps both camps will agree that wearing a niqab does dramatically limit the career opportunities for women. Of course people in one of the camps may be happy that there are limits to such opportunities but let’s assume that they would be happy if the women had the same opportunities. Part of the problem here then is the norms of dressing in business environments in the West. Entrepreneurs in Saudi Arabia recently brought to air a television talk show in which both of the hosts wore the niqab. The entire effect was disturbing. However that isn’t the point. The point is that there may be ways to not reduce career opportunities for women based on the dress code, which after all is somewhat pointless.

Time considerations mean a fuller consideration on the issue will have to wait. One last point – One of the problems cited about the burka is that it poses a security threat, which has some merit, given its long history in being used a method of escape, including by militant clerics.

Response to Dominique Moisi

February 7, 2007 in Islam, Middle East, Politics | Permalink

This article is in response to Dominique Moisi’s article, ‘The Clash of Emotions – Fear, Humiliation, Hope, and the New World Order (pdf) in Foreign Affairs.

In 1993, merely a year after Francis Fukuyama, a former student of Huntington, had announced the ‘end of history’, Huntington took to the pages of Foreign Affairs to describe his vision of the world riven with cultural cleavages. He argued that post-ideology- capitalism had already won the battle – culture would prove to be the organizing force within the world.

Huntington’s flawed work has attracted numerous adherents, especially in influential policy making departments of the West – for it fits nicely the racist stereotypes that they hold and works as a wonderful political tool – and spawned a kind of policy making that has turned Huntington’s naive theory into a self fulfilling prophecy.

Dominique Moisi, adds ‘emotion’ to Huntington’s idea of culture, and argues that its not really clash of civilizations as much as a ‘clash of emotions’- Asia displays a ‘culture of hope’, West a ‘culture of fear’, and the Arab world a ‘culture of humiliation’. Regardless of the theory itself, Moisi’s essay ends up looking like a product of his self-described West’s ‘culture of fear’.

Moisi’s analysis appears to be old wine in a new bottle. The new terminology Moisi cloaks his arguments in is often nothing more than a rehash of arguments made by Huntington or Bernard Lewis. What Moisi is really arguing about when he talks about Arab ‘culture of humiliation’ is that the Arab culture is stuck in historical paralysis, recounting the glory days of Islam and deeply resentful of West’s rise and yes, the formation of Israel.

Analyzing world by ascribing ‘emotional’ charges to entire regions of the world is at best a deeply flawed enterprise and to do so to make an often made point about how the West must work to end Israeli-Palestinian conflict seems like too much unnecessary exertion. Nations, let alone regions, are much more complex organisms. We cannot group together Egypt and Iran, with their significant pre-Islamic histories and large cosmopolitan populations with the largely urbanized Kuwait or Bahrain or Oman. Neither can we straddle Lebanon, with its French occupation and outward looking population, with Saudi Arabia, for little meaningful analysis will result from it. And while it is easy to get carried away with sloganeering, important forces that still shape foreign policy are still the hustle for resources and military supremacy.

If Moisi’s analysis about this ‘culture of humiliation’ is correct, I fail to see why countries in Asia would be so insulated from it. After all, both Indian and Chinese civilizations have seen equally, if not more so, impressive glory days of their respective civilizations. And a majority of Indians and Chinese are equally alienated by the ‘progress’ that has really meant westernization. The rise of Hindu nationalism in India and the associated communal tensions are arguably rooted in the ‘culture of humiliation’. More importantly, Moisi’s assessment of Asia’s culture of hope, seems deeply misplaced given there are more poor people in Asia that anywhere else in the world. It is also important to note that it is terrorists from South Asian country, Pakistan, that were implicated in the bomb blasts in London, and not people from the Arabian peninsula.

The overall point Moisi is interested in making is that the root of Arab ‘culture of humiliation’ is the festering Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Of course Israel has become a important rallying cry for myriad of Arabs but it has become so because criticizing it is the only authorized form of dissent as they live under authoritarian regimes that outlaw demonstrating about say lack of jobs. Even if we agree that Arab-Israeli conflict is an important emotive conflict, and it is – not only on the Arab street but in rest of the developing world for it is seen as an unabashed display of American Imperialism – it is still left to us to figure out why is it that the Arab world needs the West to solve conflict within the region? Moisi conveniently leaves out how Israel has been unabashedly armed, supplied and supported continuously by US and other western European countries.

Lets devote our energies to test the fundamental assumption that underpins Moisi’s analysis – the threat faced by the West from Arabs. Yes, Western Europe and US have seen some terrorist attacks but in terms of sheer number of casualties or damage, the impact has been minuscule. There is little rationale ground for fear of terrorism in the West, if we just predicate it on past incidences. Yes, Europe will have to face important questions about assimilation of Muslim immigrants and the nature and shape of society but to irrationally magnify those fears and make the basis of indulging in spiritless intellectual gymnastics is inexcusable. So perhaps inadvertently Moisi has stumbled on the key truth about global reality – the West fighting imaginary ghosts. Obviously Moisi only sees problem with the Muslim world – whose problems West needs to solve – so that it can live peacefully.