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Veil Is Not So Islamic
Turban’s place in Sikhism is different
WSN Bureau
 Many in the
western world, including some from the Diaspora, have been
inadvertantly mixing up the issue of the Muslim veil and the Sikh
turban. In the light of the recent judicial decision in
India that said
the beard is not so intrinsically a requirement in Islam as in
Sikhism, it is necessary that the Sikh community takes corrective
steps to show that the turban's position in Sikhism is very very
different from the veil's status in Islam.
This has become
all the more important now with an immigrant woman in
France
being denied the citizenship because of what she chose to wear. In
comments after the decision, Faiza Silmi said she was fearing that
her French was not quite good enough or that her Moroccan upbringing
would pose a problem, but finally what landed her in the predicament
of denial of citizenship was her niqab, the Islamic facial veil.
France’s highest
administrative court said 32-year-old Silmi's way of practising
Islam was incompatible with French values like equality of the
sexes. The venerable New York Times said it was "the first time that
a French court had judged someone’s capacity to be assimilated into
France based on private religious practice, taking laïcité — the
country’s strict concept of secularism — from the public sphere into
the home."
"The case has
sharpened the focus on the delicate balance between the tradition of
Republican secularism and the freedom of religion guaranteed under
the French Constitution, and how that balance may be shifting. Four
years ago, a law banned religious clothing in public schools.
Earlier this year, a court in
Lille annulled a
marriage on request of a Muslim husband whose wife had lied about
being a virgin. (The government later demanded a review of the court
decision.)
"So far,
citizenship has been denied on religious grounds in
France
only when applicants were believed to be close to fundamentalist
groups.
"The ruling on
Ms. Silmi has received almost unequivocal support across the
political spectrum, including among many Muslims. Fadela Amara, the
French minister for urban affairs, called Ms. Silmi’s niqab “a
prison” and a “straitjacket.”
“It is not a
religious insignia but the insignia of a totalitarian political
project that promotes inequality between the sexes and is totally
lacking in democracy,” Ms. Amara, herself a practicing Muslim of
Algerian descent, told the newspaper Le Parisien in an interview
published last Wednesday.
Ms. Silmi is
shocked. And her story is on newspaper front pages and in late-night
television talk shows.
Living in La
Verrière, a small town 30 minutes by train from
Paris, she lifts
her facial veil only when no men are present. But says the veil is
her decision. Her defence? "I leave the house when I please. I have
my own car. I do the shopping on my own. Yes, I am a practicing
Muslim, I am orthodox. But is that not my right?”
But she does not
allow her photograph to be taken.
Silmi married
Karim, a French national of Moroccan descent, moved to France with
him, and they had four children, three boys and a girl, ages 2 to 7,
all born in France. In 2004, she applied for French citizenship, but
her request was denied a year later because of “insufficient
assimilation” into
France.
Later, the
Council of State, the judicial institution with final say on
disputes between individuals and the public administration, upheld
the ruling. Silmi, who resides in
France as a
legal immigrant, will not lose her right to stay. She has given
herself until September to decide whether to make another attempt to
acquire citizenship.
Silmis of course
do not believe in political Islam, or any notion of a religion that
approves of violence. But Silmi is clear why she wears the burqa. As
the NYT said: “I don’t like to draw men’s looks...I want to belong
to my husband and my husband only.”
France is home
to about five million Muslims, three out of five of them French
citizens, experts estimate. Criteria for granting French citizenship
include “assimilation,” which focuses on how well the candidate
speaks French. Silmi’s French is fluent.
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In
Denmark, the government barred judges from wearing
religious garments and symbols after a rightist political
party whose support it needs campaigned for such a ban.
Its campaign featured posters showing a judge in a niqab.
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In
Britain last year, a schoolteacher wearing a niqab was
told to go home.
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Several Belgian cities have enacted outright bans on
burqas.
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23
July, 2008
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