I thought this article on the Guardian’s blog site ‘comment is free’ was fascinating. The article may well have come from the Observer (Sunday version of the Guardian) newspaper, so it’s not really a blog post. Henry Porter discusses Jack Straw’s recent comments about he would prefer Muslim women not to wear full, covering, headdress, and how ‘our’ Western secular societies are largely capitulating to pressures from some religious groups not to conform and adapt to living within these communities:

He didn’t quite say that the veil has no place in a liberal secular society, but if that was his intention I agree with it. This is not to persecute Muslims for their beliefs or deny them rights: it is simply to say that the veil, like it or not, has become increasingly regarded as a symbol of separatist aspiration and of female subservience. Many wear it voluntarily, but it does not stop this being a symbol of women’s oppression which stretches back to the times of classical Greece.
Several official, as well as the self-appointed, spokesmen who have entered the fray since publication of the Lancashire Telegraph last week have suggested that Muslims are being discriminated against. ‘Would he say to the Jewish people living in Stamford Hill that they shouldn’t dress like Orthodox Jews?’ asked Reefat Bravu, chair of Muslim Council’s social and family affairs unit.

The answer is that wearing a veil in a largely secular society says something about the woman’s position in her marriage and probably prevents her from engaging with that society properly and so enjoying the rights of other women. It is fundamentally different from wearing, say, a sari or any of the traditional clothes of the Hassidim because it erects a barrier between her and the people around her.

I couldn’t agree more with the assessment. I find it doubly troubling, the wearing of the burkas themselves but also the reaction to the comments because there is an implied separation between societies. When so many communities can successfully cooperate and celebrate that melange of cultures, having certain groups intentionally remove themselves from the conversation, establishing and enforcing restrictive, divisive practices is disappointing. And prolonging the ‘outrage’ seems, honestly, petty. Women should not be treated, whether voluntarily or not, in the manner a burka or such garments implies. Not anywhere, but certainly not in societies that espouse individual rights and freedoms. These may clash with religious practices but eventually, one must take the upper hand and in the UK, we haven’t apported religion that dominant standing for decades.

Guardian CommentIsFree: Jack Straw should be praised for lifting the veil on a taboo

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