No Liberté in Fraternité

"The burqa confiscates a woman’s existence. By and large, those who wear it are victims," said Fadela Amara, France’s Secretary of Urban Policy, and a Muslim woman herself. This is the going attitude toward the Islamic veil in France these days. Since 2004, French girls have been banned from wearing headscarves in state schools, and in January of this year, a French parliamentary commission recommended a partial ban on women wearing Islamic face veils in government offices, schools, on public transportation, and in hospitals. Such a ban would be discriminatory toward Muslim culture, and the implications of its reasoning would be far-reaching and undemocratic. Currently in drafting, the bill that would enact these changes should not be passed.

It is true that certain forms of the Islamic veil, such as the burqua, physically limit a woman’s existence. It would be much harder to play soccer, go shopping or do other vigorous activities when so covered. In a society where the superficial changes brought by the feminist revolution are highly resonant—fifties women were hemmed in by those tight circle skirts, but now we can all wear pantsuits!—the burqua can seem inherently opposed to "girl power."

However, even if one takes the view that all veils are physically limiting in some way—and there are highly popular types of Islamic veils that seem to limit nothing but shaking your hair in the wind—who is Amara, or anyone else to say that these women are limiting themselves because of oppression and are thus "victims"? Women all over the world change their appearance in ways to reflect the opinions of other people, whether they be men, other women, or their families, and we certainly don’t see all these other forms of shape-shifting as rooted in oppression. High heels are awfully painful, and in a gender-neutral world I probably wouldn’t wear them that often. But I do choose to confine my existence as such from time to time, and it’s for myself as much as for my formal date.

For that matter, will other sartorial forms of person-to-person obligations that could be termed "submissions," such as wedding rings, ugly jewelry made by your children, and uncomfortable business suits, be targeted next? Wearing such devotional symbols is an indication of the happiness of your life, not the unhappiness. No one can say that a woman is being unwillingly forced to take on a certain appearance except the woman herself, and to assume otherwise in the case of a certain culture is wrong.

But the commission was not only worried about women’s rights when they proposed the veil-ban, they were also worried about the growth of Islamic radicalism within France. The same parliamentary commission recommended that foreign women exhibiting such signs of "radicalness" (presumably, like a veil) be denied residency, asylum, and citizenship. France has five million Muslims, more than any other country in Western Europe, and has had problems assimilating immigrants in the past. Therefore, fears of a London subway bombings-style act of violence by disenchanted Muslim youth are resonant Again, there is some truth to the idea that that veils often mark out some—although by no means all—Muslims who feel especially strongly about their faith. But just like it is unfair to assume that a veiled woman is oppressed, it is unfair to assume that a religious woman is a radical. In the 2004 law governing religious symbols in state schools, in addition to veils France banned large Christian crosses, Sikh turbans and Jewish yarmulkes. Yet none of these symbols are being considered dangerous indicators of radicalization.

Right or not, France’s actions against veils have set the tone for the rest of Europe. Now, Austria, Denmark, and the Netherlands are also considering banning the veil. But this is not the solution to acrimony between religions, or the problems of integrating immigrant Muslims into European cultures. Rather, European countries must expand their conceptions of liberalism to include aspects of Muslim culture—and that includes the veil.

Anita J Joseph ’12, a Crimson associate editorial editor, is a social studies concentrator in Leverett House.