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October 25, 2006
The traditional metaphysical relationship between identity and difference is not just a topic of discussion amonmgst philosophers. It is also embodied in every day life, where it becomes a political issue. It signifies separateness for some.
These meanings around the veil mean that it won't go away as a political issue. The French have banned not only the full veil but also head scarves in schools. Some German regions have banned the head scarf for civil servants, and they are not permitted in Turkish universities at all. The British are debating and fighting over it, and slowly the issue is coming to the United States. Debate about the veil inevitably leads to discussions of female emancipation, of religious freedom, and of the assimilation, or lack thereof, of Muslim communities in the West.
Anne Applebaum has an article in Slate that picks up on the issue that I mentioned here ---Muslim women wearing a veil that covers the whole of the face except the eyes (niqab) in western liberal democracies.
In the article she says:
And yet, at a much simpler level, surely it is also true that the full-face veil---the niqab, burqa, or chador---causes such deep reactions in the West not so much because of its political or religious symbolism, but because it is extremely impolite. Just as it is considered rude to enter a Balinese temple wearing shorts, so, too, is it considered rude, in a Western country, to hide one's face. We wear masks when we want to frighten, when we are in mourning, or when we want to conceal our identities. To a Western child--or even an adult--a woman clad from head to toe in black looks like a ghost. Thieves and actors hide their faces in the West; honest people look you straight in the eye.
If Western tourists can wear sarongs in Balinese temples to show respect for the locals, so, too, can religious Islamic women show respect for the children they teach and for the customers they serve by leaving their head scarves on but removing their full-face veils.
Is it that cut and dried?
Jodie over at Long Sunday says that 'the emphasis on the face as the single element marking Western-ness seems arbitrary. If there are a variety of practices of display and concealment, practices that change over time, then covering or revealing the face should be understood within this larger field of variation.' Secondly, Jodi argues that Applebaum runs tourism and citizenship together.
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