Straw’s unease over veil

TO intrude into how someone chooses to present himself is an act that cannot help but test individual sensitivities. The way people dress is both a matter of personal choice and community tradition and any questioning of it, however thoughtful and well-intentioned, is likely to provoke a reaction.

When the questioner is a senior minister and those whose are being questioned are female Muslim constituents who wear the full veil, the potential for resentment and misunderstanding is extreme indeed. That means that there is undoubtedly a requirement for clarity and consideration. But it does not mean there is a necessity for silence.

Jack Straw is a man of intelligence and discretion who has worked over many years with his Muslim constituents and sometimes shared their point of view, as when, earlier this year, he questioned the publication of Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad. So he will certainly have thought carefully before writing this week in a local newspaper column about his unease at dealing with those of his Blackburn constituents who visit his advice surgery dressed in the full veil, or niqab.

His reference was exact, not to the hijab, or headscarf, worn by many (although not all) Muslim women, but to the covering of the face in a private meeting, something which he found troubled him and which he chose to discuss. He did so in considered tones with reference to specific experiences, although he will have known too that his remarks would be used in a wider context.

His concern about the niqab was partly practical: “I felt uncomfortable about talking to someone ‘face to face’ who I could not see.” But more profound was his fear that the increasing use of the full veil was “a visible statement of separation and difference”. Its spread, he suggested in a BBC interview on Friday morning, was a sign of the rise of “parallel communities”. And that is surely something society should want to discuss and respond to, not hide from.

Mr Straw made it clear that in raising the issue he was not questioning the right of women to wear the niqab if they chose. He accepted that wearers may have made a choice of their own (although social pressures may also be immense). But he pointed out that the use of the full veil has consequences, both for the wearer and for how the wearer is seen. It puts a literal barrier between citizens, an obstacle to interaction rather than a bridge between people and in that it adds to social divides that already exist. Mr Straw’s remarks certainly echo an unease that is shared by many voters, an unease that among some people must have its roots in prejudice. But he was not voicing prejudice and his reasoned comments attempted to lessen separation and alienation, not spread it.

The niqab may bring benefits but for a wearer there may be costs too in terms of contributing to and advancing in society. Mr Straw is no less on such a woman’s side than those who defend her choice. Anger is inappropriate.

Some will argue that a minister who helped plan and execute the Iraq war is not best placed to challenge Muslims on how they behave, and it is true that British and US policy in Iraq and beyond has played a role in fuelling a sense of exclusion and anger.

— The Guardian, London

 

Trying times for women

THE national political scene has not changed very much during the last six months. The country still has an unelected president who continues to rule the roost, backed by the military brass and a rag bag of functionaries who pretend to represent the masses at the grassroots level.

There is still a government of defectors that has on more than one occasion demonstrated that when it comes to discussing really meaningful and important issues, it doesn’t have a mind of its own. The recent bill for the protection of women was a supreme example of this ineptitude.

One has been told that there is also an opposition, united only in name, where the two parties that share certain democratic norms are ideologically opposed to the third prong of the trident — represented by the holy warriors. What complicates matters is that the men of the cloth believe they are the chosen ones to guide the nation out of the darkness and into the light, and that in matters temporal no other political grouping enjoys quite the same licence as they do in interpreting the Holy Scriptures.

The scene is further complicated by the fact that the local political honchos don’t have a free hand when it comes to taking decisions or making statements, and often have to consult, on matters of policy, one or the other of the leaders in exile, both of whom have twice sat in harness and wouldn’t mind a third bite at the national cherry. This explains the recent statement made by Makhdoom Amin Fahim that there is really no need for a united opposition. Could it be that there is after all some truth in the rumour that the president is secretly in touch with the chairperson of the PPP?

But at times the two liberal parties also play games with one another, as happened during the bill designed to protect women against the unpredictable and capricious behaviour of men. The Nawaz faction of the Muslim League kicked off all traces of open-mindedness and sided with the MMA against the PPP.

However, in spite of what has happened, it would be incorrect to say that there hasn’t been some advancement, however insignificant, in political rectitude, even though numerous efforts are being made to sidetrack the ‘empowerment’ issue and to divert attention away from the plight of Pakistani women.

The very fact that the MMA agreed to discuss proposed changes in the Hudood Ordinances, when the recent bill was introduced into parliament, demonstrated that the religious alliance had, by implication, accepted that the Ordinances in question were man made and did not have a divine origin.

This was certainly a step forward, even though as Sherry Rehman so tersely put it in her article published in this paper: “The message of the whole sorry saga is that the regime has caved in with a parliamentary majority and allowed the national agenda to be dictated by forces that could take Pakistan back into the dark ages.”

What nobody seems to have brought to the notice of the high-ups in the Muslim clergy is that until the obscurantist dictator Ziaul Haq appeared on the scene, the Hudood Ordinances simply did not exist. The establishment seemed to manage quite well with the existing codes and regulations some of which had been fortified by Ayub Khan’s judicious Family Laws. In this respect Ayub Khan showed considerable enlightenment and was the very antithesis of Ziaul Haq.

What people in the 1960s felt, without actually saying so, was that the absence of repressive, punitive laws did not necessarily mean that Muslim men and women were adrift on a sea of permissive wickedness. It meant that in those days there were laws to deal with all kinds of cases, and nobody felt the need to deliberately misinterpret Islam.

Once the issue had been tossed out of the window by the parliamentarians, with the promise that it would be discussed at some future date, one would have thought that progressive elements in the media would have taken up the crusade and kept the momentum going. Nothing of the sort happened.

One became aware of the fact that hardly any male columnists considered the topic worthwhile. And those television channels that were persuaded to give the issue some coverage, possibly because the subject was topical, put up the regular props — an enlightened mullah, a representative from one of the more vocal of the women’s organisations, an attractive lady journalist who is invariably photographed in profile, and an all-purpose retired mandarin who is frequently thrown in to make ambivalent statements and, after exhausting all angles, eventually presents the establishment’s point of view. It was one of these talk shows that this writer found particularly irritating.

In previous programmes the host always came across as a pretty solid sort of fellow, well read with an excellent command over the vernacular, eager, probing and anxious not to cause too much offence. But he must have gotten out of the wrong side of the bed on the day when Majida Rizvi and Maulana Bhutto sparred in front of the cameras and represented opposite ends of the political spectrum.

Women’s rights is a very serious subject. And the theme deserves serious discussion. One cannot afford to be whimsical about issues like a victim getting pregnant and ostracised while her rapist goes scot-free and carries on as if nothing had happened, or a man slicing off his wife’s nose because she happened to sit on the same bench with a stranger in a government hospital. But anybody watching the show in question might have gotten the impression that the people around the table were discussing the sort of punishments that should be meted out to landlords who steal peasants’ buffaloes in Vehari.

In the space of five minutes the viewer saw the host’s face dissolve into weariness, astonishment, shocked incredulity, surprise, amazement, bewilderment, amusement and finally deep shock. When the programme was over one couldn’t help getting the feeling that women’s rights will never be restored unless the draconian edicts that were imposed by the country’s most retrogressive leader are fully reversed. The kind of plastic surgery that the MMA has been proposing is not going to solve anything. The president must issue an ordinance completely abolishing laws hostile and unjust to women. Nothing short of an ordinance will set the record straight.

In the meantime the struggle must continue and women’s groups should, in addition to holding seminars, try printing and distributing posters, outlining the reasons why the Hudood Ordinances should be abolished. Here are some pointers which have been culled from Ms Rehman’s article.

‘The Constitution of Pakistan prohibits any laws that discriminate against women and members of the minorities... The Hudood Ordinances were introduced 26 years ago without conducting any public or parliamentary debate... The laws are entirely man-made and have no divine origin...

‘More than one national commission on the status of women has recommended their repeal... Many jurists have stated that these laws are not in conjunction with the principles of the Holy Quran and Sunnah, and were drafted in a hurry...

‘Prior to the Ordinances, children under the age of seven bore no criminal liability. Now they do...Despite the fact that Islam forbids discrimination on the basis of sex, colour, caste, or creed, this law makes minorities victims of double jeopardy...The Ordinances are used to keep poor, dispossessed women in police lock-ups without access to defence counsel or speedy justice... They encourage ‘honour killing’ and injuries because they allow these crimes to be compoundable offences...

‘These laws discriminate against women as they de-link puberty from adulthood. Is a girl of 10 expected to tell the difference between paedophilia and rape? So far hadd has never been executed but it has been awarded. That means that these laws have little utility except to keep our superior courts busy in overturning their sentences...’

Most jurists and experts on law have concluded that the defects in these ordinances are so basic that amending them would serve no useful purpose and will cause more miscarriages of justice. If the delivery of justice is the objective, the only option is to abolish the ordinances in their entirety. All it really takes is one stroke of the pen.

And finally, only Pakistan and Saudi Arabia accept these laws in their totality. All other Muslim countries have rejected or amended them in the interests of justice and equality. This should certainly give people food for thought.

Anwer Mooraj