BY SARAH STEPHEN
On November 20, arch-reactionary Christian fundamentalist NSW MP Fred Nile seized the opportunity presented by the federal government's vague warnings of terrorist threats to raise "concerns" that the Muslim chador (religious attire that fully covers the body) could be used to conceal weapons.
Nile called on the NSW government to "consider a prohibition on the wearing of the chador in public places, especially railway stations, city streets and shopping centres". On November 22, Nile told Channel Seven's Sunrise program: "It's only extremists who wear the chador... I'm just saying normal Muslim women don't wear it".
Nile claimed that Muslim women are forced to wear the chador by their husbands, implying that it should be banned in the name of freeing women. Two weeks earlier, Nile had called for an inquiry into the impact of female Muslim students wearing the hijab (which usually is a headscarf, with or without the veil, rather than the chador) in state schools, suggesting it should be banned to "discourage divisiveness and promote unity and tolerance".
Initially, Prime Minister John Howard refused to reject Nile's bigoted comments, saying that "Fred speaks for the views of a lot of people". Asked on Sydney radio if Muslim women should, through their attire, make themselves less conspicuous, Howard said, "Well, obviously, consistent with their religious belief."
While Nile's main aim was to whip up racist and religious hatred, it also raised important questions about religious freedom. Does Australia's respect for religious freedom allow the undermining of women's rights?
One woman certainly thought so. In a letter to the November 26 Daily Telegraph, she argued that she could not accept that the chador or burqa had any place in Australia, and that to be "intimidated and coerced" into accepting the right of women to continue to wear the garments would represent a dilution of the freedoms Australian women have fought hard to win.
However, women's social position cannot be changed simply by outlawing practices and ideas which are deemed oppressive. Furthermore, to identify a piece of clothing as the source of Muslim women's oppression is superficial and patronising.
The chador, veil and headscarf are not the source of women's oppression and inferior status. It is merely a visible symptom of the partial or complete exclusion of women from public space and public life. Raising the status and social value of women and their contribution to society cannot be done by decree or legislation alone. Women must be given economic independence and the ability to make a full range of choices about the way they live their lives.
Choice
The central issue is freedom of choice/religious expression. Restricting this freedom has had a negative outcomes in every instance. In the name of secularism, a number of countries have outlawed Muslim dress. The consequences are best illustrated by Turkey, which has experienced a resurgence in support for Islamic parties.
In 1999, Turkey banned headscarves in schools, universities and public offices on the grounds that they symbolised a politicised form of Islam. Three-hundred teachers who refused to follow the new policy were fired. An MP who wore the headscarf was expelled from parliament.
This legislation echoed the changes imposed in the 1920s under Mustapha Kemal, also known as Ataturk. In the name of Westernisation, Turkish society was secularised, with sharia (religious law) abolished in 1926. Islam was removed from the constitution as Turkey's official religion in 1928. Kemal championed the role of women, introducing a range of progressive reforms. However, secularism was forcibly imposed, crudely elevating Western dress, music and etiquette.
Islamic forces campaigned against the 1999 ban by appealing to the violation of their democratic rights. Alongside popular resentment at the repressive enforcement of "secular" policy, there was a deep resentment of the arrogance of the corrupt "secular" elite, which propelled the Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP) into government in the November 3 general election. One of the AKP's first pledges was to lift the ban on headscarves. The wives of 16 ministers in the 25-member cabinet wear the headscarf, a record number.
The example of Turkey's reinforces the point that while separation of church and state allows for freedom of thought and religion, it is ridiculous to talk of outlawing religious behaviour in the name of secularism.
In France, young women have been expelled from public schools for wearing the chador or other forms of hijab. The expulsions were justified with the argument that it was a violation of the French principle that religion is a strictly private matter and public institutions are meant to abide by the rules of strict secularism.
Yet this strict monitoring of religious symbols and clothing has generated a backlash against the forcible imposition of western cultural values. Many Muslim migrants choose to wear the chador or hijab in defiance of the authorities, even though they had never worn it before.
In 2000, a German court ruled that the headscarf was a "political symbol" and "a symbol of cultural demarcation" and removed a teacher for wearing it. Singapore also bans headscarves from schools, with its prime minister claiming that the ban is aimed at promoting racial harmony.
In many countries with Islamic governments or strong Muslim traditions, such as Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Morocco and Iran, women are required — to differing degrees — to follow a strict code of behaviour and dress. In Saudi Arabia, Muslim women are not allowed to drive cars or work in places where they are likely to encounter men. Women are largely confined to the house and all forms of interaction between the sexes are prohibited.
After visiting Iran in 1995, Nina Lansbury wrote in the May 15, 1996 issue of Green Left Weekly: "A young couple will often be stopped in the street and asked for details of their relationship. They risk both charges and public exposure if they are not married... Although not all Iranians are Muslims, adherence to the Islamic dress code is required and mixed social contact limited.
"The distinctive chador is commonly worn over modest clothing. Clothing must hide the shape of the body, including neck and ankles. Chadors were worn as an option prior to the revolution, but they were brightly coloured and floral, unlike the orthodox black... With the 1979 revolution, initially the religious police 'committee' patrolled the streets with canes to enforce the dress code. Today, women incur a fine and instruction if they neglect the correct hijab."
Wars waged 'for women'
Women will only be able to contemplate true free choice when reactionary laws that impose dress codes in many countries have been removed, and when there is no societal or religious pressure for women to behave and dress in a certain way. But the outlawing of religious dress, such as the chador and hijab, only replaces one set of restrictions with another. To see it as a step towards greater freedom for women is misguided.
In an article in the September 21 British Guardian, titled "Feminism as imperialism", Katharine Viner explored the way Western conquest and imperialist wars have been waged in the name of women. Viner referred to Lord Cromer, British consul-general in Egypt from 1883 to 1907.
"Cromer was convinced of the inferiority of the Islamic religion and society ... But his condemnation was most thunderous on the subject of how Islam treated women. It was Islam's degradation of women, its insistence on veiling and seclusion ... The Egyptians should be 'persuaded or forced' to become 'civilised' by disposing of the veil. And what did this forward-thinking, feminist-sounding veil-burner do when he got home to Britain? He founded and presided over the Men's League for Opposing Women's Suffrage." Cromer had "wanted merely to replace Eastern misogyny with Western misogyny".
As Leila Ahmed writes in Women and Gender in Islam: "Colonialism's use of feminism to promote the culture of the colonisers and undermine the native culture has... imparted to feminism in non-Western societies the taint of having served as an instrument of colonial domination, rendering it suspect in Arab eyes and vulnerable to the charges of being an ally of colonial interests."
Viner adds: "Indeed, many Muslim women are suspicious of Western-style feminism for this very reason, a fact which it is crucial for feminists in the West to understand, before they do a Cromer and insist that the removal of veils is the route to all liberation."
From Green Left Weekly, December 11, 2002.
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