No Burqa, Quebec Says

There they go, challenging and targeting women again. Foreign customs bothering home-grown Canadians once again. Well, it is socially challenging to come face to niqab with a woman. How to respond? Since the woman, wearing an almost-total covering reveals only her eyes, she wishes to see, but not to be seen. One looks away. Little purpose in offering a smile since one cannot detect a response. And the response could very well be alarm that in noting the presence of a burqa-garbed woman, you are in a sense invading her privacy by acknowledging her presence.

It is a bit of a social dilemma. But it is not a threat. It is, rather, a very sad commentary on ancient tribal taboos of women being seen in public. Their presence was to be discreet to the point of invisibility. Their physical discomfort and constraints on social interaction labelled them some man's property upon whom this restraint was imposed. That very small segment of the immigrant population living in non-Muslim countries and preferring to continue social segregation in deference to religious beliefs, mistakenly ascribe that need to absolute cover-up to Islam.

Just as many religions retain more ancient practises, incorporating them into the formalized religious practise, so too, evidently does Islam. But, we are informed Islam does not insist that its female followers be anything but modest in their public appearances, not severely invisible as, lifeless objects to be avoided. In the interests of accommodation to minorities and immigrants Canada has gone far in encouraging incorporation of diversity due to tradition and heritage into the larger community.

But there are always limits to toleration of customs that impede social integration and complicate society's embrace of the needs of all its citizens. In the case of the Egyptian woman who adamantly refused to put away her niqab while obtaining French-language instruction, and who insisted that she be treated vastly differently from all other students, asking her to leave the program was appropriate. Because she interfered with the rights of other students through her insistence on exceptionality.

But when out of an immigrant population of several hundred thousand Muslims where no more than a few dozen women might wear the niqab, to enact a law forbidding it - why? Bill 94 insists that the government has 'drawn the line' on accommodation: "If you are someone employed by the state and you deliver a service, you will deliver it with your face uncovered. If you are a citizen who receives services, you will receive them with your face uncovered", according to Premier Jean Charest.

Was a law needed to accomplish this? A law aimed specifically at one identifiable group whose vast numbers have no intention of wearing this face covering? Isn't this like swatting an amoeba with a concrete pylon? Could this not have been handled less confrontationally? The head of the Muslim council of Montreal was quite right when he wondered why Quebec legislators worried about a practise that was so marginal within the Muslim population. Little wonder the Muslim population feels targeted.

On the other hand, in the fourth-largest Muslim-populated country in the world, Bangladesh, its largest hospital, the Bangabandhu Medical University Hospital in Dhaka, ruled that its staff may not wear full-face burqas in recognition of an increase in thefts of mobile telephones and wallets from wards. Yet only a small number of women working at the hospital wear a niqab.

"We decided to enforce our uniform regulations after discovering instances of stealing by veiled staff", according to one hospital authority, adding, "some burqa-wearing staff had been secretly sending unqualified proxy workers to cover shifts for them. And doctors working in the hospital claim that burqa-clad women travelling to work on crowded public buses, who do not on arrival change into regulation uniform could potentially carry diseases into the hospital.

Bangladesh is a Muslim country, where a very small minority of women wear a full burqa. Montreal is a secularist province with a sizeable Muslim minority, very few of whom wear a full burqa. Is Montreal racist in targeting burqa-clad women? Is Bangladesh? And can anyone claim that wearing full face covering is not a challenge to security, identification and communication?

Having said which, it's a touchy, delicate matter. Mr. Elmenyawi's argument that "If we are talking about integration, then this is actually much worse, because it will prevent them from integrating or changing their ideas. We should leave society to self-adapt, let them either explain themselves to their fellow citizens or adapt and change their ways", seems to get to the heart of the matter.

It is a social conundrum, however, and does without doubt reveal a touch of condescending bigotry to target women already socially marginalized within general society.