Challenge #6: Veiling

            Our topic today is not a challenge I personally face as a pretty nonreligious teenager, but it’s one that Muslim women across the world struggle with every day. In my English class, we’ve started to read Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi, which is an incredibly insightful book into the world of post-shah Revolutionary Iran, circa the 80s and 90s. One of the major internal struggles that Nafisi faces in her memoir is should she acquiesce to the new laws requiring her to wear the veil in public and while she teaches, or should she silently protest the oppressive law by refusing to teacher?

            The debate over wearing the veil has recently become a political one, not a religious one, which I find upsetting. With countries like France enacting a full-scale ban on burqa’s and other face-covering veils in public places and others implementing minor bans in airports and citizenship ceremonies, while still other Islamic countries in the Middle East take the flip side and require women to be veiled in public – see Saudi Arabia and Iran – it’s hard to determine how the arguments over the veil should be resolved.

Map of Veiling by country

            I think a crucial step would be to de-politicize the matter, while still allowing the women to have control. Any type of veil that is going to be worn should solely be a personal, religious decision, not one that is clouded by the perspective of a women’s government, family, or husband. While in certain countries where the line between religion in politics is blurred this will be difficult to enforce, the women’s rights and democracy enthusiasts should focus their efforts on their, instead of in Western countries.

            “Now the chador was forever marred by the political significance it had gained. It had become cold and menacing, worn by women like Miss Hatef and Miss Ruhi with defiance,” (p. 192). Nafisi comments this when describing her memories of her grandmother, a devout, religious women who chose to wear a chador (see chart below) when women in Iran were free to wear whatever they wanted under the shah. They key word is ‘chose’ – she had a choice, unlike the present day Muslims.

A educational graphic showing the physically differences in veiling by country

            I understand the principles behind ‘burqa-bans’ – they might hinder integration into a new country, and it could be a potential security threat at airports, etc – however I am far more persuaded by the case a women,  S.A.S, is making in Europe. She is suing the French government for impeding her freedoms of religion, expression, association and prohibition of discrimination and the case is being handled by the European Court of Human Rights. As someone who’s always grown up hearing all the positives of freedom of religion, I’d like to preserve those benefits.

            Western women should be more open to the veil – assimilation is two way street. Both sides should make the effort, and the government should acknowledge some of the statistics working in Islam’s favor, like in England where less than 2% of the population weekly attends church while the number of Muslim converts is growing. We need to work on looking beyond the veil and beyond restrictions to let the religion be how it should be. 

             Cia♀,

            Charlie