Banning the Burqa: The Surprising Argument Surrounding Islamic Veils and Dress for Women

An argument has sprung up from France to Egypt surrounding women's Islamic dress, including the full body veil known as the burqa.

The governments of both France and Egypt have expressed an interest in banning burqas in school and in public places. The arguments for banning certain articles of Islamic clothing differ from country to country, but the counter-argument is the same: some Muslim women want to wear the burqa. They want to wear the veil, they say, and it is their right to wear a burqa if they so choose.

Tell Me More, an NPR program, recently covered the story of what is happening in Egypt, where the government suggests that in single-gender, all-female schools, the burqa is unnecessary. The Egyptian government, according to Tell Me More, believes that the choice to wear the full-body veil - or any veil at all - in a single-gender situation is to take the law of Islam (as it relates to women's dress) to extremes.

As we know, extremist Islam is rather directly connected to notions of terrorism and conflict in many part of the world.

In France the argument centers on a respect for women. At least, when parliament discussed the proposition to ban burqas, their argument was that the full-body veil is disrespectful to women. Given the tension around the globe associated with Islam, it is difficult to believe that the "disrespect argument" tells the entire story.

The subject at hand here - government intervention in the conduct of dress of its female citizenry and banning the burqa - is odd, interesting, and surprisingly difficult to sort out.

On one side, the governments of France and Egypt are seeking to maintain hard-fought advances in women's rights, in liberal, progressive, social thought - advances that took decades upon decades to achieve. The governments are taking the role of Big Brother in a way that makes them seem like a good big brother, trying to steer the younger sister toward a prosperous and respectable path.

On the other side, women have a right to wear what they want, if it's a burqa or a mini-skirt. That is a very real facet of the social, progressive movement with which the governments of France and Egypt would seem to align.

It is a form of oppression to enforce a dress code and it is a special form of oppression when that code only affects one half of one religious group, i.e., female Muslims.

An analogy comes to mind. Indulge me, if you will: Banning the burqa would be akin to forcing women to leave the house on Friday night.

If a girl's family says, you shall stay in on Friday night, always, every Friday. It is a rule. Then the government comes stepping in to say, young ladies of the land shall no longer have the option of staying home on Friday night.

What if a girl wants to stay home? What if the rules that the government sees as repressive are really not at all repressive in the mind of the girl?

If she wants to stay in but her Big Brother the government says she must go out, then what is more repressive - the "you shall stay at home" rule or the "you shall not stay at home" rule?

As we hinted earlier, the motives of the French government and the Egyptian government in banning the burqa are more complex than the relatively simple concept of women's liberation.

To ban the burqa is to limit the scope of valid forms of femininity, is it not? To ban the burqa is to make a statement about how far a religion will be allowed to influence the mind of the citizenry.

In the last several decades on planet earth, we have seen some results of the influence of extremist Islam. So it would make sense to curb that influence where possible. However, who is to say that the burqa or any garment is a sign of extreme or radical beliefs?

Further Reading...

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/france-ban-veil-public-buildings-france-niqab-burqa-ban-2563160.html

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=46