[Marxism] The niqab

[Louis Proyect]

Not exactly a radical analysis, but useful reading:

NY Times, October 21, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor
Covered Faces, Open Rebellion
By PAUL CRUICKSHANK

ON the streets of London and other cities in Britain, an incongruous 
sight has become increasingly common: young Muslim women covered from 
head to toe in black robes, including the niqab, a veil that obscures 
the face except for the eyes.

The niqab sets these young women off not just from most passers-by, 
but even from Muslim women who choose to wear the simple headscarf, 
or hijab, which covers only the hair and neck. And it is causing 
discomfort even in multicultural Britain. When Jack Straw, the former 
foreign secretary, declared earlier this month that the niqab made 
positive relations between Muslims and non-Muslims more difficult 
because it was "such a visible statement of separation and 
difference," he struck a chord with many British voters, only 22 
percent of whom think that Muslims have done enough to fit into 
mainstream society.

Having spent time getting to know young British Muslims, I believe 
that comments like Mr. Straw's will be counterproductive. That is 
because the niqab is a symptom and not a cause of rising tensions. 
Few young Muslim women in Britain are forced by their families to 
wear the niqab. British Muslims come predominantly from South Asia, 
where the prevalent school of Islam, Hanifi, makes no insistence on a 
woman fully veiling herself. Indeed, only one of the four schools 
within Sunni Islam, Hanbali, which is followed in Saudi Arabia, 
requires women to completely cover up.

The young British South-Asian Muslim women who veil Saudi-style are 
rejecting not just mainstream British society, but their parents' and 
grandparents' accommodation with its values. Ghulam Rabbani, an imam 
in East London, told me he was proud to be both British and Muslim 
but that some "misguided" youngsters in his congregation did not 
share that view. Khalil Rehman, one of Mr. Rabbani's congregants, 
told me he was worried about his children's generation. The young 
women who choose to wear the niqab, Mr. Rehman told me, are 
"rebelling against what their parents tell them to do, they're trying 
to differentiate themselves."

Frustrated by unemployment rates more than double those of members of 
other religious groups, put off by stereotyping in the news media, 
and estranged from British foreign policy, many alienated Muslims 
have turned to more overt forms of religiosity to express a 
contrarian identity. Says Murad Qureshi, the only Muslim councilor in 
London's Assembly: "Girls are choosing to reaffirm their Muslim 
identity because the community feels a sense of besiegement."

That sense of besiegement, not wardrobe decisions, is fueling the 
real problem that British politicians should be addressing, which is 
the creeping fundamentalism and Islamist radicalism of a significant 
portion of Britain's Islamic youth. In a recent poll, more than a 
quarter of British Muslims under the age of 24 said that the July 7, 
2005, attacks on the London Underground were justified because of 
British foreign policy. Thousands of young British Muslims have been 
influenced by fundamentalist organizations like Hizb ut-Tahrir and 
militant groups like Al Muhajiroun.

These are the groups that have persuaded some Muslim girls that it is 
their religious duty to adopt the niqab. Kemal Helbawy, the 
influential founder of the Muslim Association of Britain, says that a 
very different message is coming out of the country's mainstream 
mosques, where most imams advise their congregations that the hijab 
is sufficient.

Calls by British politicians for Muslim women to stop wearing the 
niqab will only enhance the political symbolism of this act and make 
its practice more widespread. Instead, what is needed is an ambitious 
program to address the core grievances of Britain's young Muslims, 
for example by creating economic opportunities and tackling discrimination.

Britain's young Muslims need to be brought into the country's 
political process. More Muslims should be encouraged and selected to 
run for Parliament and to aspire to high office.

It will then be much harder for radicals to claim that the British 
government is at war with Islam. And then we will start seeing far 
fewer young Muslim women fully veiled.

Paul Cruickshank is a fellow at the Center on Law and Security at New 
York University School of Law.