The Veil and Resistance: Muslim Traditionalism, Western Imperialism and the Left
By Nadeen El-Kassem
In October 2006, British House of Commons Leader and Labour Party member, Jack Straw, sparked a worldwide debate on the niqab, the full veil that exposes only the eyes, which is worn by some Muslim women. Straw revealed in a newspaper article that he had asked a Muslim woman wearing the niqab to uncover her nose and mouth during a meeting at his constituency office in Blackburn. He went on to say that full veiling can “make community relations harder” because he could not communicate with someone when he could not see their face. Prime Minister Tony Blair echoed Jack Straw’s sentiments when he commented to the BBC that veils are a “mark of separation” that “make people from outside the community feel uncomfortable”.
Interestingly, Jack Straw’s position in the Muslim community in Britain was not always one of a right wing, reactionary politician making anti-Muslim racist remarks. In the 1980s, Jack Straw was a vocal spokesperson for the right of Muslim and Orthodox Jewish schools to opt out of the state school system and still receive public funds. Like his comments on the niqab, his position in support of fully-funded religious education sparked great controversy. At the time he argued that people were opposed to his viewpoint because of their ignorance regarding the position of women in Islam. He highlighted the fact that Muslim women were entitled to property rights centuries before European women. Ironically, his arguments then parallel the criticisms that are being launched against him now.
Anti-Muslim Racism after September 11
The change in Straw’s approach to the Muslim community highlights two important points. First, it illustrates the great change that has occurred in the perception of the Muslim community post-September 11 and the resulting barriers to integration of marginalized groups into white, middle-class Britain.
Second, the two positions taken by Jack Straw – one defending the right of Muslims to practice their faith according to their own rules, the other claiming that these rules pose a threat to Britishness – although apparently very different, are coming from the same perspective. Both positions characterize Muslims, specifically Muslim women, as one homogeneous group, with one unchanging set of rules by which they live.
Racism has long been a key tool used to justify and perpetuate colonialism and imperialism. White, privileged males are treated as the norm from which all others deviate (and thus are “deviant”). Since September 11, there has been a sharp rise in anti-Muslim racism. Recently this racism has manifested itself most dangerously in the form of the 2003 Gulf War. Muslim culture is characterized as one which is not only inherently different from Western culture, but poses a direct threat to it.
Muslim Women and Resistance
The primary architects of the war in Iraq, George W. Bush and Tony Blair, have both claimed that one of the outcomes of this war will be the liberation of Iraqi women from oppressive, patriarchal Arab and Muslim traditions. Their assessment of Iraqi women as helpless and passive victims of an inherently patriarchal society does not do justice to the reality of a long, diverse and rich history of women’s movements and resistance in the Muslim world.
To take the example of the women’s movement in Iraq, despite all odds, women have been consistently involving in organizing to oppose the regime. Women’s involvement in oppositional activism even goes back to the 1920 revolt against the British occupation of Iraq when women were involved in active combat.
When Saddam Hussein came to power, there was a crackdown on all oppositional activism. The only official voice of Iraqi women was the General Federation of Iraqi Women (GFIW), whose activities were strictly controlled by the regime. Despite this strict control, many women continued to organize against the regime. Many paid a heavy price for their activities – numerous women were imprisoned and tortured and many fled to other countries, where they continue to organize today.
The women’s movements in the Muslim world encompass a wide variety of viewpoints depending on context and history, ranging from religious to secular, right wing to left wing, capitalist to communist. It is impossible to lump Muslim women into a single homogenous category. Muslim women as a whole are neither victims of Muslim and Arab patriarchy as portrayed by Jack Straw and others today, nor more liberated than their Western counterparts, as Straw portrayed them in the past.
Politics of the Veil
Western imperialists frame Muslim women’s resistance as consisting of challenges to Arab and Muslim patriarchy. On the other hand, dominant voices in Muslim communities worldwide (and their “progressive” supporters) see Muslim women’s resistance as consisting of challenges to Western imperialism. In reality, many Muslim women organizers do not fit either of these models. This is especially evident when it comes to the politics of the veil.
Since September 11, the veiling of Muslim women has become one of the central symbols in the battle being fought between Western Imperialists and dominant Muslim voices. The type of veil that forms this symbol depends, of course, on regional, historical and socio-economic contexts. In some Muslim communities, wearing the veil is the ultimate symbol of a woman’s “Muslimness”. Unveiled Muslim women, both secular and practising, are not seen as authentic Muslims by certain members of their communities.
Dominant voices in the Muslim community see veiling as the only acceptable means of women’s resistance to Western imperialism and anti-Muslim racism. Western imperialism and certain progressive voices in the West see unveiling as the acceptable means of resistance to Muslim patriarchy. Neither position grants a voice or legitimacy to women who do not fit within these boundaries or do justice to the diversity of Muslim women in either the Muslim world or in the West. As is illustrated above in the brief description of the women’s movement in Iraq, these images conceal the diverse and rich history of feminist, left-wing, secular, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist women’s movements that have their roots in women’s struggles throughout the Muslim world, and that have carried over into Muslim Diasporas.
Muslim communities continue to engage in complex debates about what the veil does or does not represent for the Muslim woman. The debate has moved beyond the confines of determining whether or not it is proscribed by Islam.
What these dominant images do illustrate are the boundaries and barriers created by dominant male voices, which dictate what acceptable forms of resistance for Muslim women can be. Both white, privileged males and privileged males in positions of authority in Muslim communities are complicit in limiting the kinds of resistance that are open to Muslim women.
Hearing other voices
Many believe that the veil is not a necessary aspect of Muslim women’s dress religiously speaking. Yet, framing the veil as the ideal symbol of anti-imperialist resistance has further entrenched it as an essential component of Muslim women’s identity. This approach, which has been widely adopted by progressives and imperialists alike, is not helpful in understanding the depth of the impact of anti-Muslim racism in Muslim communities and the diverse forms of resistance against it. Rather, we must seek out those voices that have been marginalized by the portrayal of the Muslim community as a homogeneous group, rather than the rich and diverse community that it is.
Try as he might, Jack Straw – whether speaking from the left or the right - cannot speak for Muslim women.
Nadeen El-Kassem is a Doctoral Candidate at the University of Toronto, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, in the collaborative program of Adult Education and Comparative International and Development Education. Her areas of specialization include women’s NGOs and women’s movements in Iraq, Kurdistan and Palestine. She has worked in the Kurdish Human Rights Project legal department on women’s issues. She is also involved in community activism in her hometown, Toronto, Canada
