Hijab ban protects women’s rights and Turkey’s secular constitution

Farzana Hassan, Freelance

Published: Monday, November 03

Secular Muslims are welcoming the decision of the Constitutional Court of Turkey to disallow the lifting of the ban on hijabs as a significant triumph for secularism over repressive Islamist practices. The court recently ruled that amendments to the constitution by the ruling AKP to permit hijabs in universities, would amount to rendering “nonfunctional the basic features of the republic.”

At the core of this decision is the realization that the hijab continues to be a tool of oppression for Muslim women, severely restricting their right to express their faith in their own unique and personal way.

Faith and its expression must be a matter of personal choice rather than a “categorical imperative” handed down through a system of belief that might be deemed by some as  repressive and outmoded in its various manifestation.

While the decision of the Constitutional Court of Turkey might restrict the rights of women claiming to have adopted the hijab of their own free will, one must question the authenticity of such claims through a process of unearthing some of the religious undercurrents of such decisions. In the same suspicion over the validity of such claims, European lawmakers have chosen to restrict the use of religious headgear in public institutions.

One would need assurances for example, that women who reject the hijab would not be subjected to coercion in the matter, simply because the orthodoxy considers it a religious requirement. The lifting of the ban in Turkey would have empowered the fundamentalist Islamic forces, resulting in the almost certain marginalization and oppression of women, reducing their role in society to one of subservience and subjugation. This would be tantamount to providing leverage to the religious right in their ceaseless attempts to enforce compliance for the practice where it is not voluntary.

Traditional Muslims often bristle at such criticism by downplaying the social pressures faced by women who reject the hijab. This, however, is a gross  misrepresentation of reality. Even women who supposedly choose it, do so because they are rarely if ever exposed to an alternative analysis on the issue, which does not consider the hijab a religious requirement.

Women’s “choice” in the matter can be considered authentic only if they are exposed to alternative narratives on modesty, which do not prescribe the covering of the hair or face.

Turkey as a modern state and last bastion of secular Islam, must continue to uphold its tradition of the separation of religion and state. The headgear or hijab is a political tool and a threat to Turkey’s long secular tradition. Currently, there is tremendous pressure on secular women to cover up according to orthodox requirements, even in large cities. The present government has also attempted to eliminate the secular dress code in government offices. It has taken a slower, steadier path, careful not to jolt the establishment too quickly while at the same time floating an occasional trial balloon for social reforms to advance the Islamist agenda.

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Asia Sentiel

Muslim Tears Depress

Muslim Tears Depress – Stop Non Compatible Immigration

By Dick Field

“It is unfair to depict us Muslims as potential terrorists.” “I am so upset that people avoid me in public or stare at me just because I wear a hijab.” “Why is it we Muslims can’t just be treated like anyone else?” “The border authorities are obviously stopping me because they are racially profiling me.” “It is pure racism; all Americans and Canadians are racists, just because we are different; you people think it is OK to insult our religion; but you wouldn’t allow anyone to insult your religion?” “We are not all Jhihadists, you know.”

More and more we become depressed with Muslim complaints about how they are wrongly depicted in North America.  Many of these complaints about our open societies come from Muslim leadership, rational or radical, but we also have to bear them from countless ordinary Muslim men and women.  The latter complainants are almost always levied by those who insist on deliberately flaunting their religious dress in all public places at all times and insist on challenging our laws to accommodate their peculiarities.

Tears appear as they cry that we are unfairly “Islaphobic,” (a new buzz word supposedly meaning an irrational and prejudicial view towards the believers of Islam).  We are said to be racist, discourteous, unwilling to accept differences and labeled with a hundred other unpleasant names.  “We are after all, Canadians just like everyone else,” they insist.

We are told that Muslims don’t like our dress, our laws, our religion, our form of dating, and our form of marriage relationships.  They cannot stand the idea of a family member marrying outside their religion.

None of their home countries, where Islam is in the majority, are free and democratic yet they still push everywhere to institute their religious law in one form or other in the West.  Frankly, we have yet to see a western non-Muslim suicide bomber?  Or a western wife executed by the State for being found in a car with a strange man.  Or a western daughter killed by her father for disobeying her father by dating a non-Muslim schoolmate.

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I wear a hijab because I believe in non-conformity

Women who wear hijab in Egypt just have a bad reputation.”

We were diving in and out of Cairo weekend traffic, heading towards a hotel by the pyramids for dinner, when the driver mindlessly blurted out this comment. I was the only one in the car wearing a hijab.

What made this remark different from previous one-liners about my hijab is that it came from an upper-class, educated Arab. He was old-money, educated in the West and a self-proclaimed liberal. The type who wears authentic GAP clothing, swings Gucci totes and has inherited an exclusive country club membership from grandparents.

I started wearing the hijab 10 years ago, when I was 18, in my hometown, Ottawa, Canada. It was a scary yet exhilarating decision to make. I knew I would be making a proclamation to the rest of society that I was different. At a time when other kids were piercing and tattooing their body parts, I was choosing to become more religious in a faith that was misunderstood – even before September 11.

I would be the second to wear a hijab in my family; my mother took the plunge in her late thirties. Even though I was born in Kuwait to Iraqi parents and spent my childhood in Abu Dhabi, by the time I was 14 my family was ready to call Canada home and I was growing up learning how to embrace Canadian values.

Nevertheless, my name was foreign, I spoke both Arabic and English at home and I stood out like a sore thumb in my Wasp-ish high school, where I was one of about five Arab teenagers. But I never felt resentment; I was proud of being different. By university, I was just another teenager trying to carve out an identity and looking into my heritage for answers. I read and talked to others about why they were Muslim. And soon, I felt as if I was actively following my faith; before, it had seemed as if I was only born into it. I wanted a way to express this choice outwardly and make it public and the hijab gave me this option.

I talked to women about why they wore it. They told me about their experiences as Muslims living in the West. I knew it was going to be a struggle, but one that I wanted to go through. My first hijab was a black hand-me-down from my mother. I wore it as a sign of rebellion, religiosity and deference.

But I found it difficult from the outset. There was always the idiot on the bus who yelled “Terrorist!” at the top of his lungs, or the woman who disgustingly stared me down at the mall, or the old guy breathing “go back home” in the grocery line. It gets tiring always having to justify your actions. But, in my experience, where more enlightened classes mixed I was given a space to lead by example and an opportunity to express my abilities without condescending judgement. By the time I was 25, I was reading the news and reporting for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. I was engaged with my community at large and I felt accepted.

I brought this attitude with me to Egypt in late 2006. What I was not ready for was the switch – while I blended in without harassment on the street, it was among Westernised liberal Egyptians that I experienced prejudice. Much like the old man in the shopping line, or the guy yelling on the bus, it did not matter to them what my accomplishments were. I was wearing a veil and it disgusted them.

The first time I was hit with this was when I introduced myself to a famous Egyptian cartoonist. I wanted to look over his shoulder as he drew his latest sketch and tell him I enjoyed his work. Instead he looked me up and down and asked where I was from. When I answered “Canada”, he asked if I wore the hijab there. When I answered yes, he pointed a finger at me and said, “Well, you are aware that this is how the servants dress”. In a classist society such as Egypt, calling someone a maid is another way of saying that person is uneducated. He did not ask me my name, or what my story was. Instead, he felt he was totally within his rights to insult me, because of my scarf.

In a country where there exists a culture of shaming women into taking on the hijab to conform with local ideas of modesty, there is also a culture of shaming educated, upper-middle class hijabis. I was made to feel backward, brainwashed and a symbol of political Islam instead of a woman who had made a choice.

Having come back to live and work in the Middle East, I have been forced to re-evaluate my identity. I knew I did not identify with many of the ways Egyptians practised their faith. I am a Muslim who was raised in the West, so I practise my faith differently. Equally, I do not identify with the way some of Egypt’s elite define being Western. I respect non-conformity. Even though I have to field personal and often rude questions from so-called liberals here, I still feel it empowers me to have control over my body. And while it is not as exhilarating to wear it as when I was 18, I still like surprising people when they are unsure of what to make of me in a hijab.

I also now know life as a woman is not going to be that easy. We are judged no matter what we do. So if I am to be labelled, I am determined to define my category. And while the struggle I face because of my hijab can get very tiresome some days, I am just not ready to give it up.

Hadeel al Shalchi is a writer for The Associated Press, based in Cairo.

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