Bewitched by the Veil

October 18, 2006  

Inside Iraq . . . as daily sectarian bloodshed, militia anarchy and political incompetence reach unprecedented levels, it seems likely that the worst is yet to come. Simon Tisdall Guardian October 17, 2006.

[The niqab is] a mark of separation and that is why it makes other people from outside the community feel uncomfortable.’  Tony Blair’s answer to a journalist’s question October 17, 2006 

While Iraq sinks into irreversible chaos our political leaders fuss about whether young Muslim women should wear a veil. I don’t recall Tony Blair ever expressing publicly any disquiet about the way the singer Bono is never seen without his dark glasses, despite the fact that the eyes reveal more about the person than any other part of the body. Such talk about the veil serves two purposes. It allows politicians to criticise Muslims while appearing to show virtuous concern for other people, and it allows our political leaders to avoid acknowledging that a hundred or more Muslims are dying each day in Iraq and Palestine.

All the discussion centres not on the veil itself but on the young Muslim women who choose to wear it. What young women choose to wear has always been a matter of controversy. In whatever decade you might happen to be a young woman, whatever you wear will provoke controversy. When I was fifteen in 1946 my friend Betty Crosher arrived at a church function wearing a sleeveless white dress, which was so far ahead in fashion that I could only gasp in astonishment. My mother was horrified. Sleeveless dresses were immoral. Betty was tall, slim and suntanned. She looked lovely. However, she was struggling with the problem young women of all generations struggle with, how to look attractive while appearing to be virtuous.

It is very difficult to achieve both simultaneously. One popular ploy is to follow the fashions of the day while proclaiming that these fashions themselves are virtuous. Thus, my mother would never appear in public without being wrapped in her whalebone corsets. Just like the glamorous Queen Elizabeth (later known as the Queen Mother), her pastel coloured dress floated about her rock-hard exterior. Corset bound, these women showed that they were good women, and  knowing this, they went confidently into the world.

Locking themselves in chains, women declare that they are free. Ignoring the fact that, in a world without men, there would be little call for their services,lap dancers and porno actresses claim that their occupation gives them freedom and self-confidence. In the same way, as the journalist Zaiba Malik wrote, ‘I see Muslim girls 10, 20 years younger than me shrouding themselves in fabric. They talk about identity, self-assurance and faith.’ (Guardian 17.10.06)

All this public interest in the jilbab, the long black robe, the hijab, the headscarf, and the niqab, the veil, gives young Muslim women something they need - other people’s attention. When everybody ignores us we all start to feel that, not only does our existence have no significance, but that we are in danger of disappearing. Many people, whatever their age and gender, prefer to be criticised, even abused, rather than ignored. An attacker at least acknowledges your existence.

Though they don’t always realise it, all young women are beautiful. Youth lends a beauty which age takes away. When a young Muslim woman wraps a hijab around her face she might have a glimmer of understanding how much more beautiful she is than the non-Muslim girl who hides her beauty under an inch of make-up. When a willowy Muslim girl covers her slim frame with a jilbab, she might have more than a glimmer of understanding that sexual attraction lies in mystery, not in revealing all. What could be more tantalising than the glimpse of lovely eyes above the veil? If a girl really wants to hide away from men’s sexual appraisal she should wear a burka, though a glimpse of a slim ankle would entrance men just as it did in Victorian times.

It seems that all this fuss about the veil arises not from political and religious issues but from the ability of a young woman to bewitch a man – particularly an older man. And as we all know only too well, men politicians are easily bewitched.