A challenging debate over our values

With recent Canadian controversies raging over hijabs, niqabs and the state of religious or ethnic garb, it’s time for a serious discussion among Canadians. And, on this one, maybe the politicians should watch from the sidelines.

First, let’s dispense with even a debate over the hijab. It’s a head scarf, worn by many Muslim women around the world as a gesture of modesty. Women and girls who wear the hijab often call themselves “hijabis”.

Not all observant Muslim women wear hijabs but many do. Little different from Ukrainian babushkas or other head coverings, hijabs range from the plain to the ornately beautiful.

The judge in Quebec who refused to hear a woman in court because she was wearing a hijab deserves to be criticized for intolerance.

Now, to niqabs and their various derivatives which cover not only the head, but the entire face, revealing only the eyes. It is this form of dress that has ramped up the rhetoric. Certain women follow the same Islam and attend the same mosques as the Hijabis, but take modesty further by wearing niqabs. These women are called “Niqabis”.

Whether niqabs are a religious requirement is an open question. The Muslim religious issue is female modesty; how it is interpreted dictates the amount of covering up.

The debate began in late 2011, when the federal government decreed that during citizenship ceremonies, in order to promote transparency and openness, anyone with a covered face would not be permitted to take the citizenship oath.

At the time, I wrote a newspaper column admitting how badly I’d misread public opinion on the issue.

I came to the debate believing that in a free, democratic and tolerant Canada people should be able to walk down the street minding their own business, free to wear whatever they please, so long as they aren’t breaking the law or risking public safety.

But how wrong I was; a number of mainly young women weighed in, saying unequivocally that clothes that obscure a woman’s face, like the niqab or burka, are simply not acceptable in Canadian public places.

The argument went that as a cultural practice dreamt up and enforced by men, the covering of women isn’t consistent with Canadian values of equality and tolerance.

The women were blunt: there is no place in Canadian society for symbols that discourage equality, negate identity and make it easier to treat women like second-class citizens.

This is where the politicians have entered the fray in one upmanship and pre-election posturing.

Early in the week Liberal leader Justin Trudeau managed to invoke Godwin’s law — the Internet rule that the longer a debate goes on, the more likely someone will bring up Nazis — when he accused the prime minister of sowing fear and anti-Islamic sentiment, akin to the way Jews were treated by Canada during the Holocaust.

The next day, in the Commons, the prime minister defended his government’s citizenship oath policy by saying “why would Canadians, contrary to our own values, embrace a practice at that time that is not transparent, that is not open”. The “at that time” reference clearly confines his comments to niqabs in Citizenship Court.

But then Harper went further by saying that niqabs are “frankly, rooted in a culture that is anti-women”. This has ignited a firestorm: is this what niqabs represent?

Critics like Opposition leader Thomas Mulcair call Harper’s words “divisive, irresponsible and undignified”. Others claim it furthers Harper’s “war” on Muslims.

But, how does this statement resonate with average Canadians?

If niqabs are indeed a metaphor for the elements of traditional Islamic Society that prevent women from being in public without a man, banned from voting, schools, driving and even, in extreme cases, subjected to torture and execution, then Canada as an enlightened society is justified in saying that niqabs have no place here in public.

Otherwise, who are we to judge what women wear?

If politicians could crank down the rhetoric, it could be a good debate for Canadians: striking the correct balance between tolerance, equality, security and our national values.