What is wrong with wearing a burqa?
Boris Johnson has one time over again got into hot h2o, and again his comments take provoked furious reactions on both sides—agreeing and disagreeing with him—merely I wonder how may actual read what Johnson said? It is worth reading (and worth the trouble of registering on the site) if only to know what it is that people are debating. The central line of his reasoning is that information technology seems to him paradoxical that in a country like Kingdom of denmark, which appears to pride itself on a radical agreement of freedom that protects things we in the Uk would observe distinctly odd, the burqa is banned when that would be unthinkable hither.
But of course Johnson hasn't only offered an argument; he has offered an argument using his swashbuckling and confident style of writing, which makes it very interesting to read but also makes it easily offensive. The offending phrase came in the description of the perception of those wearing burqas in the U.k.:
If you tell me that the burka is oppressive, then I am with y'all. If you lot say that information technology is weird and bullying to look women to encompass their faces, then I totally agree – and I would add that I can detect no scriptural authority for the practice in the Koran. I would go further and say that information technology is absolutely ridiculous that people should cull to go around looking like letter boxes; and I thoroughly dislike any attempt by any – invariably male – authorities to encourage such demonstrations of "modesty", notably the extraordinary exhortations of President Ramzan Kadyrov of Chechnya, who has told the men of his country to splat their women with paintballs if they neglect to cover their heads.
Here Johnson sandwiches a brassy insult in between two or three pretty serious points, and this is where the main problem lies. Rowan Atkinson came to his defense, on the grounds that all views, including the religious, should be open to mocking in a free society:
As a lifelong beneficiary of the freedom to brand jokes about religion, I practise think that Boris Johnson's joke well-nigh wearers of the burka resembling letterboxes is a pretty adept ane. All jokes nearly religion cause offence, so it'southward pointless apologising for them. Y'all should actually only apologise for a bad joke. On that basis, no apology is required.
I think Atkinson is quite mistaken hither, non least considering I think his parodies of Christian belief accept been quite offensive even when they have been entertaining. And what both he and Johnson ignore is the bear on that these flippant remarks past powerful men actually have on the women concerned. As my friend Anna Alls commented online:
I'g conflicted on this consequence, yes I'thousand all for robust chat and fence, I think jokes about Christians are funny and Frankie Boyle makes me howl in fits of inappropriate laughter. Withal I think in that location's something deeply agonizing about a directly, white, educated, male making derogatory statements about Muslim women because they're a minority group facing persecution. My caput scarf wearing friends avoid public send, get verbally driveling while shopping regularly, I think the institution figure of a politician should exist looking for ways to make GB a safer identify for headscarf wearing women than looking for means to further incite mischief confronting them. This is a question of ability to me and the fact that we have another 'powerful' person telling us we all need to arctic out a bit really makes me uncomfortable, he'southward already the winner in this situation.
And several regime ministers protested that Johnson'southward comments made Muslim women feel threatened.
Apart from the directly impact that both Johnson's comments and the debate about them have on groups of people within British order, there are three singled-out aspects to the underlying event at pale here: the religious, the cultural, and the personal.
On the religious, Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, claimed that the row near wearing the burqa was like to controversies most Christians wearing crucifixes. But, equally Adrian Hilton pointed out, all this did was highlight Davidson'due south ignorance.
A burqa is worn past Muslim women, non men, because throughout the patriarchal Islamic globe women are invariably viewed and treated every bit inferior to men. A crucifix is worn by both Christian women and men, because in Christ there is neither male nor female. The burqa is a symbol of oppression and misogyny; the crucifix a symbol of liberty and equality. The burqa dehumanises, covers the face and conceals identity; the crucifix personalises, looks at God face up-to-face and reveals truthful identity. The burqa has no quranic legitimacy; the crucifix is the nexus of biblical potency. The burqa symbolises Islamic extremism, militancy and divine separation from guild; the crucifix symbolises passion, devotion and God'south participation in humanity. The burqa divides Muslims because it segregates and aggravates; the crucifix unites Christians because it saves and sanctifies.
This leads to the 2d event: that the burqa is non so much a religious symbol but an expression of a particular culture, a subset of the civilisation of Islamic countries. Its use does have some ground in the Qur'an:
"O Prophet! Tell thy wives and thy daughters and the women of the believers to describe their cloaks close round them (when they go away). That volition be better, so that they may be recognised and non bellyaching. Allah is ever Forgiving, Merciful." (Surah 33 verse 59)
"And say to the faithful women to lower their gazes, and to guard their individual parts, and not to display their beauty except what is apparent of information technology, and to extend their scarves (khimars) to cover their bosoms (jaybs), and not to display their beauty except to their husbands, or their fathers, or their husband's fathers, or their sons, or their husband's sons, or their brothers, or their brothers' sons, or their sisters' sons, or their womenfolk, or what their right hands rule (slaves), or the followers from the men who do not feel sexual desire, or the small children to whom the nakedness of women is non apparent, and not to strike their feet (on the ground) so every bit to brand known what they hide of their adornments. And plough in repentance to Allah together, O you lot the faithful, in club that you are successful". (Surah 34 verse 31)
An obvious response to these verses is to note that the responsibility for sexual temptation is apportion to women as the temptresses, rather than men equally the tempted. But the interpretation that this requires the wearing of the burqa is based on the idea that a adult female's confront is the about bonny part of her of all, and therefore modesty requires roofing the face as well as everything else—thus leading to a fairly consummate social segregation between men and women in public. This estimation belongs to the Salafist co-operative of Sunni Islam, which is closely related to Wahhabism, both of which are seen as literalist, fundamentalist and puritanical, and in both of which 'jihad' is understood to include violent attacks on non-Muslims. Information technology is therefore no wonder that many of the countries that have banned the burqa take done and so in response to the threat of jihadist Muslim violence. This connection makes Johnson'due south flippant annotate that women in burqas 'look like bank robbers' highly inappropriate.
The third result is one that Johnson has come up slightly closer to getting right.
As for individual businesses or branches of government – they should of form be able to enforce a clothes code that enables their employees to interact with customers; and that means human being beings must be able to see each other's faces and read their expressions. Information technology's how we work.
In Western civilisation, we are used to see people's faces, and facial expression is a vital role of communication and interaction. In our civilization, considering those who encompass their faces typically just practise and so considering they offer some sort of threat, or are in a situation of conflict and need to remain bearding, and then we naturally feel threatened, and the other seems depersonalised. Just in this regard, our civilization is surely in line with basic realities of human life. Recognising facial expressions, and learning what they hateful and imitating them, is the most principal grade of development in infants. And those who are non able to recognise facial expressions and interpret them appropriately struggle through life.
And this is where the British conversation about 'credence', 'diversity' and 'inclusion' runs into deep trouble. All cultural and religious traditions actually express, in an embedded way, values about what information technology means to be man. If you think information technology is humanising to be 'inclusive', but your 'inclusion' has no actual content, should you be 'inclusive' of things which are dehumanising? Fifty-fifty more than basically, what does it mean to have a national identity, and what does it mean to be hospitable to other identities? I must confess to being rather baffled by attribute of the current BBC British Asian civilisation season. One of the trailers asked 'Is British civilisation flexible enough to embrace Asian culture?' and the obvious answer is 'no'. If to exist British ways also to be Asian, African, American and every other civilisation in the world, then information technology doesn't actually mean anything. The question should exist 'Is British culture hospitable enough to welcome and adjust other cultures?' and the question and then arises: how do liberal values of what information technology ways to exist human chronicle to cultures (like that of Salafi Islam) which appear to dehumanise one part of their own guild?
The ideas of welcome and inclusion need to have bodily content. In Denmark they appear to understand what that means, and then that some aspects of other cultures are welcomed in the country, merely others are non. In U.k. (perhaps because of our purple past and our lingering guilt nigh that?) we appear incapable of making the same judgements. As long every bit nosotros remain incapable, we will have these irresolvable arguments nigh Johnson's comments—and those defenseless in the middle will continue to suffer.
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