BORIS JOHNSON AND THE BURKA
The ban is a grotesque double standard and has become another state lever of oppression for European Muslims, writes S. MUBASHIR NOOR
FORMER British foreign secretary Boris Johnson's recent opinion piece in the Daily Telegraph newspaper where he compared niqab and burka wearing Muslim women in Europe to “letterboxes” and “bank robbers” made me laugh out loud.
No stranger to controversy, Johnson is the very definition of a “mansplainer”— a misogynist who believes ruling the roost of culture and society are a male privilege.
This facetious logic makes him no better than the average Taliban, since whether conservative or liberal, it is always a man gatekeeping the opposite sex’s freedom of expression.
Johnson and his ilk claim conservative Muslim women who choose to wear the veil are victims of a “strongly oppressive” patriarchy that curbs their intrinsic human rights and treats them as cattle.
He has refused to walk back his words even after fellow Labour party lawmakers heaped scorn on him for “fanning the flames of Islamophobia”, arguing instead his personal views were nobody’s business and protecting the liberal values underpinning modern Europe was a cause worth fighting for.
His article followed news that Denmark had joined a clutch of other Western European nations in outlawing all face coverings for women in public, a law popularly known as the “burka ban”.
Under the new law, repeat offenders can be jailed for up to six months besides paying a hefty fine. Helmets, ski masks and skullcaps etc. are exempted as they serve a “recognisable purpose”. Who defines that purpose? Danish politicians.
This law coincides with the resurgence of hard-right nationalism in Europe, best exemplified by “Brexit”, after years of economic frustration with the EU and the ensuing rise of populist bigots in the Trump mould. Celebrating multiculturalism is now rapidly giving way to “white is right”.
In short, the ban has become another state lever of oppression for European Muslims. Though it touched off a firestorm of criticism from global human and gender rights watchdogs, the fundamental clash here is miles more than public safety versus personal freedoms.
Irreligious Western Europe that is fast losing faith in anything beyond the almighty dollar encourages women to bare all for profit and self-expression, including the so-called “cam girls”, but just cannot wrap its head around the idea they may dress modestly out of choice.
This is a grotesque double standard and cultural imperialism at its worst. Johnson and other European politicians may shout their throats hoarse over how the ban will emancipate Muslim women in Europe, but it won’t.
It will instead paint a giant bullseye over them that incites hate-crimes and discrimination in employment, housing, education, medicare etc. for the mere reason they do not fit the “liberal” European prototype of a 21st century woman.
Now, let us review the many layers of harm to society and gender rights from this law. First, it sets an unwanted precedent for future intervention by governments into Europe’s much vaunted personal freedoms.
For this reason, no Danish woman should celebrate the burka ban.
If today the state has targeted a minority with little political or economic power, they should not feel justice has been served.
Such state intervention into personal freedoms is a slippery slope because women are not a monolithic group, and patriarchy is as well and alive in the West as anywhere else.
Otherwise, male chauvinists like Johnson, who in March ran afoul of parliamentary decorum for sexist comments disparaging a female opposition member of parliament, would never have risen to the upper echelons of government.
Should the right to decide “recognisable purpose” remain with politicians, tomorrow they may conclude gays, punks, transsexuals, non-whites or any other female sub-group with an alternative lifestyle have crossed the threshold of propriety, and hence, in public must conform to a “purposeful” dress code designed by the state.
Simply put, surrendering one personal freedom, in this case of religious expression for Muslim women in Europe because it does not presently impact all female Danes, sets the stage for a broader assault on fundamental rights down the line.
A textbook example is white Christian fundamentalists like the Westboro Baptist Church who cheered the US Patriot Act after 2001 that sanitised mass public surveillance by the state to contain jihadist terrorism.
The very same cheerleaders, however, cried foul when they later discovered Washington had used its domestic spying apparatus to also keep tabs on white extremism that statistically has spawned a vastly greater number of terrorist attacks on American soil.
Second, far from protecting conservative Muslim women from their male oppressors, it jeopardises their personal safety by turning them into an exclusionary “other” at a time when anti-Muslim sentiments across Europe are rising at an alarming rate.
Hence, going forward, any women in Denmark that remotely resemble Muslims in the way they cover their heads or wear loosefitting clothes will be viewed as fair game for public harassment by any number of intolerant individuals or groups.
The more extreme example is of American Sikhs in the immediate aftermath of the September 2001 terrorist attacks, when some fell prey to violent and occasionally fatal “payback” for “looking like Muslims” with their flowing beards and turbans — a caricature perpetuated by the local media.
Lastly, Danish politicians assert the burka ban is critical for deeper cultural assimilation so these women are no longer beholden to the pockets of oppressive patriarchy in progressive European states like Denmark. Unfortunately, this policy will likely backfire in a way that self-fulfilling prophecies often do.
A sustained state narrative that paints conservative Muslim women as social pariahs will likewise reinforce in them a feeling of helplessness and the status of unwelcome outsiders in Europe. As a result, they will retreat from society after facing the scorn of neighbours and strangers alike.
To summarise, while the Denmark burka ban will accomplish little for gender equality, it will surely push an already beleaguered minority further into the fringes of society. And, a state that willfully puts citizens in harm’s way has no right to call itself a democracy.
Johnson and other European politicians may shout their throats hoarse over how the ban will emancipate Muslim women in Europe, but it won’t.