Should The Burka be Allowed in Canada

Guelph Mercury/ June 29,2009

Covering the Burka Issue from all Sides
Royal Hamel

Who would have thought that overdressed women could engender intense political controversy? But such is the case in France where just recently President Nicolas Sarkozy has strongly repudiated the burka, a tent-like garment worn by some Muslim women that covers them from head to toe. Sarkozy said, "In our country we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen . . . The burka is not a religious sign, it's a sign of subservience, a sign of debasement . . . It will not be welcome on the territory of the French Republic."

But think not only of France, for a number of Canadian columnists and editorial boards see the burka as a danger to women in our own culture. A recent National Post editorial claims the burka is like "a mobile prison" that nothing in Islam demands, and that it harms women by denying them a face and identity in our open society.

If women want to wear it based on religious conviction, or simply as part of their cultural tradition, I think that any coherent free society has to give its consent. To deny such freedom in a matter of dress would be an attack on the basic rights of women. On the other hand if women are forced to drape their entire body in this manner by a cultural tradition of extreme male dominance I would oppose it. There I've said it. I know, I know, nobody in multicultural Canada is supposed to imply that some cultural values are better than others. But are some cultural traditions in fact undeserving of acceptance?

Oh sure, I can easily enough practise tolerance and live with the burka, but if I examine it somewhat more closely it seems to be largely a case of domineering men saying, "You will hide your form, your personality, and your identity behind this mobile tent because no one outside of this family has any right to know you." Isolating women behind a wall of cloth reminds me of eunuchs in other times standing guard over harems of women by isolating them behind walls of stone. I oppose the burka where it is imposed as dress code because I believe that the female half of the human race is also made in the image of God and is of equal worth to us men. It is neither just nor fair for their identity and person to be hidden and subjugated behind a wall of cloth. The issue of fairness to the hidden woman is crucial. If men in these cultures were similarly garbed there would be no issue since both would suffer equal disadvantages. But men are free to dress as they like.

But there is another side to this issue. If a woman from personal religious conviction wishes to robe herself in the burka, what right has the state to interfere? I would say it has none. And, in the same way, I believe the state has no right to interfere in my freedom as a Christian to carry the symbol of the cross, or in the case of the Sikh to wear a turban, or to oppose a Jewish man donning a skullcap.

At present it is France that is contemplating a burka ban. And since it has already banned the hijab in their state schools they just might pull off the burka in the wider culture. But Islam in its more traditional expressions is growing in many Western nations, including our own. And how deliciously ironic it would be if Canada were to ban the burka. After all our justice system winks at sporting nothing more than sandals at gay pride events in Toronto. How ironic that it might become illegal to overdress in burka fashion while across the street women are allowed to parade topless because the law has chosen not to forbid extremes in under dressing.

Will France ban the burka? Will Canadians in fact join the discussion and move toward the same solution? Your guess is as good as mine. If the world view of secularism tends toward the throwing off of most restraints, the world view of most spiritual people tends to move in the opposite direction seeking to restrain behaviour that causes harm to society. Is there any room for compromise in a liberal democracy between these two sides that are so far apart? My suggestion, let's get someone to design fashionable, see-through burqas.

Royal Hamel is a member of the Guelph Mercury Community Editorial Board.