The many faces behind the veil - in today's Independent

The Independent published this double page spread today, with stories from 5 different Muslim women about why they wear the hijab, niqab or not at all, including yours truly. It's a colourful and varied piece of coverage. The opening introduction runs as below.

"The many faces behind the veil
A symbol of female subjugation? These women believe their Islamic headwear is a
liberating way of expressing their identities.

Jilbab. Niqab. Al Amira. Dupatta. Burqa. Chador. Even the language used to describe the various kinds of clothing worn by Muslim women can seem as complicated and muddied as the issue itself. Rarely has an item of cloth caused so much consternation, controversy and misunderstanding
as with the Islamic headscarf or veil. For those Muslims who literally wear their religion on their sleeves, hijab (from the Arabic for curtain or screen) can be many things. For some it is a cultural practice handed down through the generations, an unquestioned given that is simply adopted. For others the need to dress and behave modestly can define a person’s relationship with God, their
religious devotion or even their politics. For others still hijab is a complicated journey, one with twists and turns where veils are briefly discarded on the ground or taken up with willing fervour.
“Muslim women wear hijab for many reasons including piety, identity and even as political statements,” says Tahmina Saleem, the co-founder of Inspire, a consultancy which helps Muslim
women become vocal members of their communities. “Most do so willingly, some unwillingly."

To its detractors
the headscarf – and in particular its more visible cousin the face veil – is
simply a form of oppression, regardless of whether modest clothing has been
adopted willingly or not. Why, the abolitionists ask, would any woman ever
voluntarily choose to hide her hair or face in public?
Later this month
France’s ruling party will debate a law that could see the face veils banned in
public, meaning any woman caught wearing a niqab or a burqa (the Arab and Afghan
versions of a full face
veil) could be fined £700. If the law is passed it
would represent a watershed moment in Western Europe’s relationship with its
Muslims citizens and could encourage politicians in neighbouring countries to
promote similar legislation.

In the
argument over whether to ban or not to ban, the polemicists usually reign
supreme. Hijab is either good or evil, wrong or right. The voices of the women
whose lives would be monumentally affected by any sort of curb on Islamic
clothing are rarely seen or heard from.
Today The Independent speaks to five
British women from different walks of life about what form of hijab they choose
to wear and why they wear it. From a graduate who became the first one in her
family to cover her face entirely, to the mother of four who chose to take
off her headscarf and sees no problem with remaining a devout and practising
Muslims – their stories are as varied and colourful as the scarves on their
shoulders. "

Now, regular readers of my blog will know that I have been advocating more recently (here and here) that we don't need to get "behind the veil" as much as we just need to get past it. However, whilst others want to talk about it, there is a duty to respond, explain and communicate. I think this piece makes a good effort to do so by letting Muslim women tell their own stories. By using their own
words, at least the thinking and decision-making behind the choices - the women's own free choices - is apparent.

It's quite a different approach to Yasmin Alibhai Brown's comment piece last week in the Evening Standard. I'm generally an admirer of Alibhai-Brown and have great respect for the trail that she has blazed in the media. I enjoy her writing, and her commitment to say it how it is. But in this particular case, I need to politely disagree. In this piece, she warns women that they should be "wary of romanticising Islam". By 'romanticising Islam' her concern is that these women are saying they are finding moral certitude in Islam from lives they see as having lost their compass.

She gives the example of Boris Johnson's ex-wife Allegra Mostyn Owen, who is now married to a British Pakistani man. She says about her: "... she is going for complete surrender, an uncritical acceptance of the most regressive practices of some of my co-religionists. " This is an assumption about this woman, her beliefs and her choices. We don't actually get to hear from Mostyn Owen about the nature of her marital relationship, the details of why she made the choice to (one assumes from Alibhai-Brown's article) become Muslim and what her feelings and thoughts are about various practices along the vast spectrum of liberal to orthodox Islam. The reasons for choosing to marry her now husband are also obscured. These are huge assumptions about someone's personal choices and beliefs.

Alibhai-Brown concludes: "Mostyn-Owen and other such submissive converts may think their new lives are excitingly exotic but their choices drag the faith back to the dark ages."

The notion that converts must be 'submissive', despite the fact that they have to generally create great change in their lives and in their personal relationships is absurd. Alibhai-Brown herself describes Mostyn-Owens as "clearly not a woman to shirk challenges". I only wish we'd actually got to hear Mostyn-Owens telling her own story, rather than assumptions about her motivations and beliefs.

Update (15-01-10): Allegra Mostyn Owen has come by the blog and left a comment for clarification (thanks AMO). You can read it for yourselves below, but she clarifies that she has not become a Muslim but has a "serene relationship with Allah ".

My point, however, still stands. She has her own story, beliefs and motivations and these were huge assumptions about these things without letting the woman tell it for herself, and let her explain for herself why she has made those choices.