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The Veil: Demonizing British Muslims
JNV Anti-War Briefing 97
20 October 2006
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THE GROWING FEAR OF MUSLIMS
According to the polling agency YouGov,
the proportion of people in Britain who feel threatened by Islam—not
by violent fundamentalist versions of Islam, but by Islam itself—has
risen from 32 per cent of the population in 2001, to a majority
(53 per cent). In 2001, ‘a majority of two to one thought
that Islam posed no threat, or only a negligible one, to democracy.
Now, by a similar ratio, people think it is a serious threat.’
(Daily Telegraph, 25 August
2006)
The Telegraph also compared polls just after
the 7/7 attacks with August 2006. The number of people believing
that ‘a large proportion of British Muslims feel no sense
of loyalty to this country and are prepared to condone or even
carry out acts of terrorism’ had nearly doubled from 10
per cent to 18 per cent. The number believing that ‘practically
all British Muslims are peaceful, law-abiding citizens who deplore
terrorist acts as much as anyone else’ had fallen from 23
to 16 per cent.
In fact, a poll for the Sunday
Telegraph and an online poll by the anti-racist ‘1990
Trust’ both show that less than 2 per cent of British
Muslims supported the 7/7 attacks.
TREATING MUSLIMS AS FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT
When individual Christians or Jews take
disturbing actions in line with minority interpretations of their
faith, these are treated as exceptions to the rule. When individual
Muslims take disturbing actions in line with minority interpretations
of their faith, these are treated as examples of the unacceptable
norm among Muslims, the true frightening face of Islam.
When Christian protesters tried to stop
the BBC broadcasting ‘Jerry Springer–The Opera’,
were they represented as the mainstream of Christianity? When,
in the midst of the veil controversy, the Exeter University Christian
Union’s habit of excluding non-evangelical students from
its meetings led to it being temporarily suspended, was this seen
as revealing the illiberalism of Christianity? (Telegraph, 18
October 2006, p. 11; Ekklesia
has a slightly different account. No doubt the suspension of the
student group also shows signs of illiberalism.)
MAINSTREAM MUSLIM ATTITUDES
The ICM/Sunday Telegraph poll referred to
earlier showed that only 7 per cent of British Muslims thought:
‘Western society is decadent and immoral and Muslims should
seek to bring it to an end, if necessary by violent means’.
80 per cent thought: ‘Western society may not be perfect
but Muslims should live within it and not seek to bring it to
an end’.
While 97 per cent of British Muslims thought
publishing the Danish cartoons of Muhammad was wrong (and 77 per
cent were ‘very’ personally offended), only 14 per
cent thought it right for Muslims to attack Danish embassies as
a result. 82 per cent thought this was unacceptable. The same
82 per cent also thought it was wrong for Muslim demonstrators
to carry placards calling for the killing of those who insult
Islam.
49 per cent of British Muslims said they
felt ‘very loyal’ to Britain; 42 per cent said they
felt ‘quite loyal’. That’s a total of 91 per
cent feeling loyalty. Only 5 per cent said ‘not very loyal’
and only 2 per cent ‘not loyal at all’. (ICM
poll, February 2006)
GROWING FEAR AMONG MUSLIMS
Jonathan Freedland wrote that the recent
torrent of anti-Muslim reports and statements has created ‘a
kind of drumbeat of hysteria in which both politicians and media
have turned again and again on a single, small minority, first
prodding them, then pounding them as if they represented the single
biggest problem in national life... I try to imagine how I would
feel if this rainstorm of headlines substituted the word “Jew”
for “Muslim”: Jews creating apartheid, Jews whose
strange customs and costume should be banned. I wouldn’t
just feel frightened. I would be looking for my passport.’
(Guardian, 18 October 2006)
THE VEIL: BULLYING MUSLIM WOMEN
It is in this context that we turn to Jack
Straw’s intervention. He stated in the Lancashire
Evening Telegraph (5 October) that he asked Muslim women visiting
his surgery to remove their face veils while speaking to him.
Timothy Garton Ash points out that Straw may have asked politely,
but he was in a position of power, the women had come to him for
help, so ‘the distinction between a request and a command
is somewhat blurred.’ (Guardian,
12 October 2006) In short, Straw bullied these women to break
a religious observance.
STRAW DEEPENS SEPARATION AND DIFFERENCE
Straw also wrote that the niqab was ‘a
visible statement of separation and of difference’, which
made ‘better, positive relations between the two communities
more difficult’. Both statements are true. That doesn’t
mean Straw was right to make them. He knew what would follow.
Attacks on veiled women in the street, growing hostility to Muslims
veiled or unveiled, a deepening chasm between non-Muslims and
increasingly alienated Muslims.
Many communities in Britain choose to make
‘a visible statement of separation and of difference’
between themselves and the rest of society. No politician, however,
is telling yarmulke-wearing Orthodox Jews or headscarf-wearing
Hutterian Brethren or sari-wearing Hindus to change their form
of dress because it hinders ‘community cohesion’.
SIGNS OF DIFFERENCE
Neither the headscarf nor the face veil
are explicitly commanded in the Qur’an (Koran). (BBC)
Nevertheless, they are regarded in many societies as Muslim traditions.
Madeleine Bunting writes: ‘There are two distinct patterns
of niqab-wearing in this country. One group wears the niqab by
cultural tradition. Often they are relatively recent migrants,
from Somalia or Yemen for example, and for the record it is not
a “symbol of oppression” but a symbol of status. The
second group comprises the small but slightly increasing number
of younger women who wear it as a sign of their intense piety.’
(Guardian)
In Northern Ireland, murals, painted pavements,
flags and a thousand other ‘visible statements of separation
and of difference’ have made better relations between Nationalists
and Unionists more difficult. Instead of focusing on these symptoms
of the underlying problems, the Government set the goal of ‘parity
of esteem’ between different traditions. The growth of fundamentalism
and defiant difference in British Muslim communities is a symptom
of a lack of esteem, a symptom of racism and Islamophobia, and
a symptom of the despair, powerlessness and anger caused by British
foreign policy towards Muslims - most notably in Iraq.
FUNDAMENTALISM AND FEMINISM
What is confusing is that the niqab is also
a sign of ‘separation and difference’ between some
Muslim women and most other British Muslim women. Within Muslim
communities there is a struggle by some women and some men against
right-wing fundamentalism and patriarchy, a struggle which is
undermined by the spread of veiling of all kinds.
However, Maleiha Malik urges non-Muslim
feminists to ‘reconsider the disproportionate weight they
are giving to complex symbols such as the veil... By attacking
the veil—as in the colonial past—they may strengthen
many Muslim women’s commitment to it and make it more difficult
for Muslims to have a much needed debate on women and Islam.’
(Guardian, 19 October 2006)
Non-Muslims who support women’s rights
in Muslim communities must consider carefully how they can make
a positive contribution. It will not be made by lining up with
Straw, Blair and Brown, the architects of the invasion of Iraq,
as they bully Muslim women and lecture them on how to behave acceptably.
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