Much Ado About......

Issue isn't the hijab, it's the choice
by Antonia Zerbisias

Jonathan Kay: Banning the Niqab/Burqua is wrong

Posted: June 23, 2009, 6:09 PM by Jonathan Kay

French President NIcolas Sarkozy says that Burquas and Niqabs represent a "debasement" of the Muslim women who wear them, and shouldn't be welcome in France. He's also voiced support for the creation of a Parliamentary panel to study the matter. The outcome could be a legsislated ban on garments that cover an woman's entire face and body. In this regard, Sarkozy is at odds with Barack Obama, who declared in his Cairo speech that Westerners should "avoid dictating what clothes a Muslim women should wear." I agree with Sarkozy that Buqas and Niqabs are creepy — and that they are inherently debasing. But as a matter of government policy, I'm taking sides with Obama — for three reasons:

(1) The right to wear what you want, pray how you want, and generally conduct yourself as you please — providing you don't harm others — is part of the liberal tradition that we're supposed to be fighting for in the war on terrorism. (If Muslim women residing in Western nations are being forced to wear black tents out in public, that's a matter for the police, not the clothing cops.)

(2) Once you start dictating religious practices, you never know where it will lead. Many Chassidic Jewish women, for instance, are treated in more or less the same degrading chattel-like manner as many Muslim women (though the details are different — shaven heads instead of Niqabs, etc.). If you ban one, how can you justify not banning the other?

(3) The Burqa and Niqab are actually the best advertisment we have for the retrograde, dehumanizing nature of militant Islam. As far as I'm concerned, these peole are walking sandwhich boards for the necessity of continuing the war in Afghanistan.

jkay@nationalpost.com