[This is a response to “A Perspective on the Niqab Ban” in the March issue of Ultra Vires]
I really do not understand why the banning of the niqab is really an issue. How many niqabi’s actually live in Canada? A couple hundred, at most? Yet, certain Canadians feel the need to fashion any possible excuse to ban these few women from a clearly charter-protected religious freedom. Does it make any sense that it is so fundamental to the functioning of Western society that these women should be stripped of their rights? I understand that no rights are absolute, however, when a right is to be violated it needs to be demonstrably justifiable in a free and democratic society.
What is free and democratic about telling women what they can and cannot wear? How can it be demonstrably justified? On a notion of Equality? It is ignorant to say that the women wearing the niqab have a lack of equality with respect to her male counterparts. You would be hard-pressed to find a single Canadian niqabi who is wearing the niqab out of coercion, or out of the belief that she is inferior to a man. The concerns around the niqab may stem from experiences in foreign countries were unfortunately some women are coerced to adopt certain practices, religious or otherwise. But this is Canada. We value religious freedom. We value a women’s agency and her right to choose how to practice her religion. The banning of the niqab cannot be based on a notion of equality. In fact it sends the message of inequality amongst religious practices in Canada.
Furthermore, to attempt to justify this ban as a means to protect women is inherently paternalistic and displays both ignorance of the reasons why some women choose to wear the niqab (it simply assumes that nobody would choose to wear the veil) and lack of trust in women’s abilities to make choices about their own religious expressions and about their bodies. Indeed, it is not the place of anyone to make these determinations: Muslim women are no less capable of making these decisions as their non- Muslim counterparts.
It is getting to the point of being nonsensical to say that Western society requires people to have face to face communication and that the inability to see people’s faces will lead to a greater lack of understanding between people. I would like to know how many of those in favour of banning the niqab have actually spoken to a woman who wears the veil. Have they made an honest effort towards understanding? Or is the solution to force them to remove it so that Western society can function. Banning the niqab sends a strong message. It sends the message of exclusion of the other. It sends a message of intolerance. Instead banning of the niqab, why don’t we just include the niqabi in Western society? Societies are meant to evolve. I hope and pray our society evolves to a point of mutual respect and understanding, and not of exclusion of those who are different. Why can’t white women and white men live in harmony and understanding of brown women and brown men?
Abbas Kassam
