In response to
this post from the Frustration thread, where ZeaLitY wrote:
Ugh, tired of hearing that it's "women's choice" to wear hijab in France, in regards to the possible ban. It was not their choice to be born into a Muslim family in which, as children, they had no real choice but to accept and be conditioned by the religion of their parents. A brainwashed "choice" is an oxymoron. I would only debate the ban in terms of how effectively it will erode religion and whether it will have any counterproductive effects. Otherwise, it's a smashing attack on religion, no matter if it's partially motivated by xenophobia.
Big matter that it's partially motivated by xenophobia. When you find yourself in pursuit of a worthy cause but are attracting the alliance of villains, it's extremely important to own the terms of the debate and to explicitly distinguish the good motives from the bad. If bad people are on your side, you can't help that, but you can do the cause a lot of hurt by ignoring it, downplaying it, or excusing it. I am categorically against blurring the line between humanistic and xenophobic motives for banning the public use of the veil. You need to remember that in terms of world power structures the more dangerous people are still the Christian fundamentalists, not the Muslim ones.
At any rate, because this is a very difficult issue for Western sensibilities, I offer some more explanation beyond what ZeaLitY hinted at. But first I point out that his use of the word
hijab is incorrect. This popular misuse of the word is perhaps allowable from the position of ignorance, for the meaning is understood, but to use it this way deprives us of the correct word for other aspects of Islamic dress. A more correct word would be
niqab, which means "mask." More to the point: France's ban, and the remainder of this post, pertain to face-covering veils. While face-covering veils tend to be a part of hijab, the reverse is not true. I tend nowadays simply to call it "the veil," which is both accurate in conveying the meaning and sufficiently generic as not to avoid misrepresentation of any specifics. Now, then, on to the topic at hand:
Usually when we talk about the evils of sexism, we're talking about the violation of people's dignity, safety, and opportunity. But to conceal a human
face, which is an essential source of cues to anyone with eyesight, is a deeper violation, for it dehumanizes the individual to whom that face belongs...and a person without a face is a person without an identity. To be conditioned into wanting to wear the veil does not change any of this. To make such a choice, and to be allowed to make such a choice by society, is not empowering. It
is a function of freedom, but only the freedom to live in oppression by embracing a familiar prison. Being able to execute the choice may or may not subjectively improve the quality of a person's life, but such improvement would only be possible if her spirit is already bent or broken, or if her worldview is severely warped because of the religious dogma. As far as I have been able to explore, there is no credible line of logic whatsoever in support of encouraging or forcing a person to wear the veil in order to "protect" the religious virtue of both her and any males who might see her. This premise in Islam is totally without external justification.
In France the main rationale for banning the veil in public is that it deteriorates social cohesion, but for me that isn't a compelling line of argument. Though I appreciate the risks to social cohesion, I'm much more concerned about the wellbeing of the people behind the veil. I've read about self-determining Westerners, some right here in my own city, who, as adults, converted into Islam and took to the veil. Such a decision baffles me completely and speaks to the corruptibility of human character, but presumably it is a choice made freely and with some information. Yet these are the minority, as most freethinking adults are not sick enough, fool enough, or under pressure enough that they would ever seriously consider such a self-limiting act. In stark contrast, it simply isn't the case that children reared under the heel of fundamentalism are likely to be able make an informed decision about the veil when it comes time for them to wear it. They don't have the information. They don't have the objectivity. They don't have the maturity. But what's worse is that they may not even have the
ability, the mental competence, to chose against what they have been conditioned to need. We would talk about it in terms of psychological disorder, but what it amounts to qualitatively is a broken spirit. Adults who "choose" to wear the veil under such realities are not really making a choice. They are obeying their programming. And I'm not even talking about those even poorer souls who don't have a choice at all, the ones who would face serious retribution by not wearing the veil. Even in France there are those for whom family and community ties are so strong that the will of these local interests supersede the liberty to which we assume all citizens of the developed nations have ready access.
Thus, whenever I see someone wearing the veil--more often in the news than in person--I know there is a strong likelihood that they never had the opportunity to make an informed decision. I also understand that they may no longer be fit to reevaluate their circumstances. These factors, I think, are much more relevant to the justification of a public ban on the veil. What I am arguing, essentially, is that the decision to wear the veil is seldom made freely, with good information, and sound mind. Together with the fact that the veil is physically so deleterious to an individual's humanity, because of its identity-erasing power, I cannot in good conscience support the right to wear it in public. This kind of absolute ban is very hard for me to support, but the conditions are such that I end up supporting it very strongly. In my view, this is a freedom not worth having. Even those who would lose nothing that they are not knowledgeably willing to lose, should not be able to wear the veil in public, simply because it is so destruct for so many people. The argument about social cohesion is but an exclamation point to all that.
It's an ugly thing to indoctrinate children for the purpose of breaking their spirit. There are many evils within Islam so profoundly deplorable that each one of them alone would discredit the entire religion. Among these great evils is the power to erase identity and break spirit: the veil.
Niqāb.
