1. The Politics of the Hijab
My scarf covers my head, not my brains. (Hayrunisa Gul, wife of Turkish President Abdullah Gul, as cited in Economist, 2007)
What is it about people’s appearances that incite both provocation and perplexity? Clothing fulfills a basic human need in many climates, including Canada’s, where cover-ing up is understandably a life-affirming rule rather than a frigid exception. However, clothing also possesses significant social and political functions as a non-verbal medium of ideological communication—either intended or unintended (Hoodfar, 2003). The symbolic value of clothing should never be underestimated, despite parental admonition never to judge people by their appearances. As a marker of identity and an indicator of status, clothing conveys messages of sharing cultural values with others similarly attired, thus providing a visual means of creating community. By contrast, minor differences in clothing detail may convey individuality. Clothing as an identity and status marker may easily symbolize political expression. For the powerful, clothing is used to reinforce power; for the subdominant group, clothing can be manipulated to shift the balance of power. In contexts where visibly identifiable groups experience rejection or alienation, clothing serves as a symbol of resistance in politicizing both individual and collective identity.
Of those items under contestation, few have been so heavily politicized as the hijab in both the Muslim and the non-Muslim world (Naved, 2007). Political and public reac-tion to the head scarf varies: Dominant voices in the Muslim community see veiling as the only legitimate means of female resistance to Western hegemony; by contrast, voices in the Western world see unveiling as the best means of resisting Muslim patriarchy (El-Kassem, 2007). Neither position does justice for women who fall outside these polemics. At one end of the debate are the religious ideologues: In Saudi Arabia, a woman cannot appear in public with more than her face or hands showing. Under the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, women were mandated to completely cover themselves by donning a burka—the most extreme form of female covering with only a mesh net for the eyes. Al Qaeda operatives in Iraq want women to wear gloves and a niqab, which resembles a burka but with narrow slits for vision. At the other end of the spectrum are secular ideologues such as Tunisia and Turkey. Both ban female civil servants and (until recently) university students from wearing head scarves (Economist, 2007). For example, in 1999, a duly elected woman wearing the veil was removed from the Turkish Parliament, subsequently stripped of her citizenship, and remains in exile in the United States (Kavakci, 2004). The recent decision to lift the head scarf ban in universities has generated controversy, although the struggle may reflect a clash between the resurgent forces of conservatism and tradition and the entrenched interests of modernism and liberal secularism (Economist, 2008).
Veiling in Canada: The Micro-Politics of Identity
How does Canada balance the foundational principle of secularism with the demands and rights of religious minorities to freely embrace religious practices? In the aftermath of the events of September 11, 2001, which spotlighted Islamic dress codes and veiling, many Muslims were shocked and dismayed to find that they were “otherized” as the “enemy within” (Hoodfar, 2003; Karim, 2002). In theory, there should have been little to fear. The rights to free religious expression and freedom from religious discrimination are constitutionally protected human rights issues. Public support is strong: A survey of 1500 adult Canadians in June 2004 by the Centre for Research and Information on Can-ada indicated that two-thirds of all Canadians would oppose laws preventing students from wearing religious symbols or clothing, including the Islamic veil, in public schools (CRIC, 2004). Nor would an official multiculturalism take issue with the hijab; after all, Canada’s official multiculturalism is predicated on the belief that all Canadians have a right to identify with the religious and cultural symbols of their choosing, provided that religious and cultural practices do not violate the law of the land, interfere with the rights of others, or challenge core constitutional values.
So much for the theory; how about the practice?
First, Canada is not immune to pitched battles over religious symbols, including bitter debates over the feasibility of Sikh turbans in public institutions from the RCMP to Canadian Legion halls.
Second, Canada has a history of compromising minority rights when majority interests are at stake. Restrictions on anglophones in Quebec using English as a language of public communication is one case in point.
Third, Canadians indicate a willingness to accommodate others if the concessions are perceived as reasonable. Canadians are much less tolerant of diversity if cultural differences are seen to threaten core Canadian values or erode national security, challenge widely accepted Canadian practices, or impose an unacceptably high cost.
Not surprisingly, Canadian reaction to the hijab debate is mixed: On one side, especially in English-speaking Canada, the practice of veiling is tolerated as part of the multicultural mosaic. On the other side, reference to the hijab has become highly politicized in other parts of Canada (see Chapter 11 and McDonough, 2003 for controversies involving the hijab in Quebec schools), culminating in suspensions and expulsions from both private and public schools.
How does the hijab play itself out at the micro level? Contrary to public perceptions that it marginalizes, the veil (hijab) plays a critical role in advancing the integration of young Muslim women into Canada (Hoodfar, 2003). The veil allows them to participate in public life without compromising cultural values or rejecting religious morals, while resisting those patriarchal beliefs and practices imposed in the name of Islam. A veiled woman can defend her right to choose a spouse and reject arranged marriages without alienating family and community support. Wearing a veil allows daughters to engage in unconventional practices for Muslim women, such as going to university, mingling with men, travelling long distances, living alone, or seeking non-conventional employment. Insofar as the veil symbolizes a continued commitment to tradition within the context of Canadian society, veiled daughters may be seen as publicly asserting their Muslim Ca-nadian identity without abdicating their involvement in Canadian society. To be sure, the negative portrayal of Islam and Muslims has prompted some Muslim women to don the hijab for the express purpose of openly asserting the presence of a viable Islamic com-munity in Canada. For other Muslim women, veiling symbolizes piety, modesty, and spirituality, as well as individuality and freedom. As Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur (2005, p. 5) writes:
. . . some wear it because they believe it is mandated by God, others to demonstrate solidarity or resistance, and still others to follow familial and community mores . . . Some don’t because they don’t want to distinguish themselves in Western society; others don’t believe that Islam requires hijab of its female followers, believing that modesty is required of all Muslims . . .
For many, then, its demonization as a symbol of oppression is just as unacceptable as its elevation by extremists as a marker of Muslim identity and resistance (Alvi et al., 2003).
That many see the hijab as a symbol of female oppression is beyond doubt. Yet proof is thin that wearing the head scarf is synonymous with backwardness or patriarchy. For young Muslim girls, the symbolic value of the hijab is not the same as that of their mothers or grandmothers who grew up in “the old country.” Many are integrating quickly into Canadian society but, paradoxically, may rely on the hijab and Islam to soften the transition. The hijab allows young Muslim women to maintain connections with their parents through the more progressive aspects of religion rather than through the more archaic and repressive village traditions such as arranged marriages (Heneghan, 2004). To be sure, some Muslim women are forced to wear the veil; such an imposition is to be expected of an internally diverse religion (Coleman, 2006). But many Muslim women don it as a matter of choice and dignity (Kavakci, 2004). They choose to wear the hijab for the sake of modesty, out of religious conviction, from rebelliousness be-cause of parental pressure, and as liberation from sexist and consumerist cultures. As one Muslim woman put it:
There are quite a lot of Muslims who don’t classify themselves as feminists, but they are adamant that at the end of the day, the wearing of the head scarf is a way of choosing to decide who gets to see their body and who doesn’t . . . And it’s a matter of personal conviction rather than a form of oppression or something that’s imposed on them (as cited in Heneghan, 2004).
In short, far from being a static symbol of female inferiority in Canada, the veil can mean different things in different contexts in a lived experience—ranging in scope from religious conviction, resistance to the forces of assimilation, escape from control by men and senior family members, and assertion of identity (Hoodfar, 2003; Meshal, 2003). In some contexts, veiling remains a means of controlling women’s lives; in other contexts, women use the veil to empower themselves, bring about positive reforms within the community, and challenge those cultural and patriarchal practices that have denied, silenced, or excluded women. The decision to wear the veil also reinforces how women use Islam as a flexible resource to support their own views and practices (Predelli, 2004). In other words, while the veil may have originated in patriarchal circumstances to control women, Muslim women have appropriated the symbol in ways that are both empowering and subversive. Reference to the veil symbolizes a turning of the tables—of actively asserting identity and defining themselves in relationship to others as opposed to being identified as different by exclusion or ostracism (Hoodfar, 2003).
Put simply, when it comes to veiling, Muslim women are not passive victims; to the contrary, they increasingly assume a role as active agents who want their difference to be taken seriously in a society that claims to be multicultural in principle but too often is mono-cultural in practice. At the same time, many are growing weary of the hijab debate and look forward to a time when people can move beyond judgments of women with or without head coverings (Abdul-Ghafur, 2005).
Critical Thinking Question: Demonstrate how the expression “appearances are deceiving” or “never judge a book by its cover” appear to be invaluable in describing the politics of wearing a head scarf by young Muslim wome
