The Veil Issue Revisited
Adam Enright | 28.10.2006 04:33 | Analysis | London
The statements by Blair and Straw against the wearing of veils have been received positively in the pampered and sheltered filter of contemporary western sensibilities. In the Arab world, after five years of images of dead women in blood-splattered veils during two wars of conquest by these same sensitive liberators, such tasteless declarations will be taken as an extreme insult on top of grievous injury.
The Veil Issue Revisited
Jack Straw and Tony Blair's recent condemnation of a Muslim woman's right to wear a veil in public has achieved a callous goal at home: It was met with approval from those of a contemporary western mindset. To help Muslim women free themselves from their traditions, and we can only assume to begin shopping at Wal-Mart, are the only ways they can be liberated. That propaganda mechanism was a resounding success before the start of the war with the Taliban in Afghanistan five years ago. Raining bombs on Afghanistan would free the women from the veil and bring about a neo-liberal wonderland. This carried echoes of Vietnam: of William Calley of My Lai fame, that “we had to kill them to save them.”
These sentiments have also appealed to those Britons most prone to xenophobia, to misguided soft liberals, to feminists as well as to the ignorant sops who have been sleepwalking through the last five years. Of course, to play this card again now to the dumb underbelly of the country will only moderately help the Labour Party in the polls. Nonetheless, it could end up costing us all very dearly. In the West, these opinions of Blair and Straw have been received positively in the pampered and sheltered filter of contemporary western sensibilities. In the Arab world, after five years of images of dead women in blood-splattered veils during two wars of conquest by these same sensitive liberators, such tasteless declarations will be taken as an extreme insult on top of grievous injury.
To have members of the present Labour Party venturing social critiques is inappropriate enough after having abandoned their traditional base with a huge swing to the right. But how the statements of these two men can somehow simultaneously attack Islamic traditions as well as the western traditions of freedom of expression and freedom of religion is a truly mind-boggling coup. They have positioned themselves in the same ideological mindset as the Mullahs, Ayatollahs, and dictators they are supposedly protecting us from. Have they forgotten in England there has been enshrined since the sixteen hundreds the right to wear anything on one's head, be it a blue mohawk, a bowler hat or a bowl of spaghetti for that matter? From the vantage point of their high offices in Westminster, Jack Straw and Tony Blair would be able to peer out and see examples of headwear from every corner of the globe, some worn for tradition, some worn for style, and some worn to shock and provoke. But all, all those things worn on one's head would be perfectly legal in such a free and democratic society. One may be offended by a punk's crown of purple spikes, or may be offended by a giant foam hat emblazoned with a football team logo. But a multitude of headwear must be expected and tolerated in a 21st century globalized civilization.
These statements will be played out very differently in the Arab world. It will be taken as the west rearing again the desire to instigate a clash of cultures, to fan the flames of a new Crusade driven by big oil imperialism, the radical right and dangerous evangelical Christianity. Keep in mind the Arab media has not been as squeamish to graphically expose these last five years of daily carnage on the bloodied streets of Kabul and Baghdad in place of sanitized images served up to us by the likes of CNN and the BBC. In place of blurry night vision images, the Arab media shows the mutilated corpses of women and children. As we watched the flight of “smart” bombs to their glowing rectangle targets, the Arab media displayed the gruesome aftereffects of villages ripped apart and bodies strewn about. As we watched sequences reminiscent of video games, the Arab media revealed bloodstained houses. As we listened to West Point grads using the terminology of surgeons: Collateral Damage, Insurgents, Surgical Strikes, etc. the Arab media played the wails of widows and orphans. To have these same men Blair and Straw, who pushed the proverbial buttons of war making in the Middle East now making social proclamations against the veil, it is tragic and nears sighted.
After two bloody and scandal-plagued oil wars in succession, these statements will come as a slap in the face, and may reverberate like a blow to an already very riled hornet's nest of resentment. Radicals will become even more radicalized, and moderates will have their suspicions confirmed. Instead of trying to undo the obvious mistakes in the Middle East and getting the troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan as well as dealing with pressing issues such as climate change and ozone depletion, these two men have decided to make a cheap play of the xenophobia card one more time.
Jack Straw and Tony Blair's recent condemnation of a Muslim woman's right to wear a veil in public has achieved a callous goal at home: It was met with approval from those of a contemporary western mindset. To help Muslim women free themselves from their traditions, and we can only assume to begin shopping at Wal-Mart, are the only ways they can be liberated. That propaganda mechanism was a resounding success before the start of the war with the Taliban in Afghanistan five years ago. Raining bombs on Afghanistan would free the women from the veil and bring about a neo-liberal wonderland. This carried echoes of Vietnam: of William Calley of My Lai fame, that “we had to kill them to save them.”
These sentiments have also appealed to those Britons most prone to xenophobia, to misguided soft liberals, to feminists as well as to the ignorant sops who have been sleepwalking through the last five years. Of course, to play this card again now to the dumb underbelly of the country will only moderately help the Labour Party in the polls. Nonetheless, it could end up costing us all very dearly. In the West, these opinions of Blair and Straw have been received positively in the pampered and sheltered filter of contemporary western sensibilities. In the Arab world, after five years of images of dead women in blood-splattered veils during two wars of conquest by these same sensitive liberators, such tasteless declarations will be taken as an extreme insult on top of grievous injury.
To have members of the present Labour Party venturing social critiques is inappropriate enough after having abandoned their traditional base with a huge swing to the right. But how the statements of these two men can somehow simultaneously attack Islamic traditions as well as the western traditions of freedom of expression and freedom of religion is a truly mind-boggling coup. They have positioned themselves in the same ideological mindset as the Mullahs, Ayatollahs, and dictators they are supposedly protecting us from. Have they forgotten in England there has been enshrined since the sixteen hundreds the right to wear anything on one's head, be it a blue mohawk, a bowler hat or a bowl of spaghetti for that matter? From the vantage point of their high offices in Westminster, Jack Straw and Tony Blair would be able to peer out and see examples of headwear from every corner of the globe, some worn for tradition, some worn for style, and some worn to shock and provoke. But all, all those things worn on one's head would be perfectly legal in such a free and democratic society. One may be offended by a punk's crown of purple spikes, or may be offended by a giant foam hat emblazoned with a football team logo. But a multitude of headwear must be expected and tolerated in a 21st century globalized civilization.
These statements will be played out very differently in the Arab world. It will be taken as the west rearing again the desire to instigate a clash of cultures, to fan the flames of a new Crusade driven by big oil imperialism, the radical right and dangerous evangelical Christianity. Keep in mind the Arab media has not been as squeamish to graphically expose these last five years of daily carnage on the bloodied streets of Kabul and Baghdad in place of sanitized images served up to us by the likes of CNN and the BBC. In place of blurry night vision images, the Arab media shows the mutilated corpses of women and children. As we watched the flight of “smart” bombs to their glowing rectangle targets, the Arab media displayed the gruesome aftereffects of villages ripped apart and bodies strewn about. As we watched sequences reminiscent of video games, the Arab media revealed bloodstained houses. As we listened to West Point grads using the terminology of surgeons: Collateral Damage, Insurgents, Surgical Strikes, etc. the Arab media played the wails of widows and orphans. To have these same men Blair and Straw, who pushed the proverbial buttons of war making in the Middle East now making social proclamations against the veil, it is tragic and nears sighted.
After two bloody and scandal-plagued oil wars in succession, these statements will come as a slap in the face, and may reverberate like a blow to an already very riled hornet's nest of resentment. Radicals will become even more radicalized, and moderates will have their suspicions confirmed. Instead of trying to undo the obvious mistakes in the Middle East and getting the troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan as well as dealing with pressing issues such as climate change and ozone depletion, these two men have decided to make a cheap play of the xenophobia card one more time.
Adam Enright
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