Yasmin Alibhai-Brown Says It
Anybody get the Evening Standard? Still got yesterday’s? Hang on to it (and if you feel so inclined, scan an article in it and send it to me). A commenter at Harry’s Place says Yasmin Alibhai-Brown wrote a searing article yesterday.
She relates how a woman in a burqa recognised her…and having followed her home last week, begged for help. She took off her burqa to reveal horrific injuries to her face and body which were inflicted by her father and brothers in their bid to control her desire for independence (She is a chemistry graduate from Bolton). She claimed that the burqa is being forcibly used to cover the injuries of many women she knows, and that her friend had been killed. “She took off her burqa to reveal a sight I shall never forget. There before me was a woman so badly battered and beaten that she looke painted, in deep blue, purple and livid pink, The sides of her mouth were torn – “He put his fist in my mouth because i was screaming” she explained.” Brown now has 12 letters from young British Muslim women with such allegations. She comments: “The pernicious ideology is propogated by misguided Muslim women who claim the burqa is an equaliser and a liberator.” She made a film for Channel 4 and met an entire class at a Muslim school in Leicester who told her that negating their physical selves in public made them feel great. Last week in Southall, Brown watched a woman in a burqa sit while her family ate – she of course couldn’t put food in her mouth. Brown rails against politicians who dare not speak out against this attack on autonomy and equality, and she finds even more baffling the “meek acceptance of the burqa by British feminists who must be repelled by the garment and its meanings. “What are they afraid of? Afghan and Iranian women fight daily against the shroud and there is nothing “colonial” about raising ethical objections to this obvious symbol of oppression..The banning of the headscarf in France was divisive.but it was also supported by many Muslims. The state was too arrogant and confrontational, but the policy was right.” She concludes: “Thousands of liberal Muslims would dearly like the state to take a stand on their behalf. If it doesn’t, it will betray vulnerable British citizens and the nation’s most cherished principles and encourage Islam to move back even faster into the dark ages, when we all need to face the future together.”
Thousands – I should think that’s a conservative number. More like hundreds of thousands of people who don’t like being brutalized, I should think.
My instincts are for a global ban on the hijab(let alone the niqab!) Turkish style but ruefully confess my instincts are not the best basis for social/political policy. In fact they may be counter-productive.
“There is NO REQUIREMENT AT ALL for a muslim woman to wear a hijab or niqab AT ALL.”
Actually this is true but that is not at all the mainstream muslim understanding. We end up at the same impasse.
While i don’t dispute your points regarding abuse at all, i don’t think the hijab/burqa issues is as black and white as you make it seem.
By all means, raise objections about domestic abuse; but to say that the only function of a burqa is too cover up the bruises and cuts is simplistic. by that argument, women shouln’t wear any clothes at all, because clothes can cover up bruises (and yes, even miniskirts can cover up bruises).
I’ve heard both sides of the argument about burqas several times, and the fact remains that there isn’t one single consensus among the Muslim population — there is a spectrum of views even among Muslim women from traditional families.
Banning the wearing of a burqa is not a solution to the problem of domstic abuse, nor is it a solution to the issue of how women are regarded in some fundamentalist and sexist groups. it is the mentality that must change, not the clothes.
Liberation isn’t wearing Western clothes, liberation is being safe from abuse in whatever clothes you chose to wear.
I spent a fair bit of time yesterday making or at least trying to make, just that point at another blog, Irrational. You are completely right that the burka/domestic violence link is simplistic. As simplistic as the Islamist line that scanty clothing invites rape and abuse.
In Europe/UK (as in SE asia where I live) where the burka/niqab is not traditional dress, most women who don the garb do it out of choice, even against family objections. The recent Anthony Andrew article in the Observer which Ophelia linked to made this fairly clear. The situation in places like Afghanistan is vastly different.
Mirax,
“In Europe/UK (as in SE asia where I live) where the burka/niqab is not traditional dress, most women who don the garb do it out of choice, even against family objections. The recent Anthony Andrew article in the Observer which Ophelia linked to made this fairly clear. The situation in places like Afghanistan is vastly different.”
True. But consider the following scenario: the burqa is banned globally. Do you really think that this would put an immediate stop to the oppression or abuse of women, suddenly producing a fully egalitarian society?? Of course not! Because men who regard it as acceptable to abuse women will continue to regard it acceptable whether the women in question are wearing burqas or bikinis.
Your point about the Islamic (and sometimes Western) line that scanty clothing invites rape supports this. NOTHING invites rape, just as nothing invites abuse. if someone thinks scanty clothing invites rape, it’s because they have already denied women their fundamental right to give or withold consent.
the burqa and hijab are not symbols or oppression — abuse and rape are.
No. Abuse and rape are oppression, they’re not symbols of oppression. As for the burqa and hijab, obviously opinions differ on whether or not they are symbols of oppression. I think they are (and I’ve given reasons here, at tedious length, almost as tediously lengthy as burqas themselves), and so do a lot of other people; a lot of others disagree.
Sorry, I should have been clearer. What i mean was that abuse and rape are types of opression. I see “opression” as a broader concept that includes rape and abuse, but isn’t limited to them.