All in favor of the Burqa Ban party

Those in favor of Merkel’s call for a Burqa Ban not only include the extreme right, right and center of the political spectrum but they also include a large section of white and brown feminists, leftists, atheists, and other shades of ‘progressives’. That’s a lot of my organic community coming out in support of, or not opposing, the legislated removal of burqa being implemented by various conservative governments.

I am not in favor of burqa/purdah, but i’m dead against governments who are legislating or calling for a ban on it in Europe, America, Canada, Australia, and in the similar etcetras because all the burqa ban moves in these places are used to fan the ‘national security’ hysteria to take people’s attention away from the real issues of disparity and prejudice they face, and allows these governments to continue their brutal aggression and interference in various Asian and African countries. The burqa bans further stigmatize Muslim women and Islam, and, validate the undercurrent notion that the legislated removal of burqa in the ‘democratic’ societies would or could lead to the liberation of Muslim women. This is sick, and sickening.

The colonizer mindset continues to present colonization to be ‘enlightening’, ‘liberating’, and ‘civilizing’ for the colonized, and many people believe this because that’s what all the media outlets are giving out 24/7- the world view of the colonizer as the Civilized Saviour or the Saviour of Civilization. The ban on burqa is just one entry in the long list of ‘gentrification’ policies carried out against stigmatized populations, for example, Indigenous children were taken away and families were torn apart in the name of education, and their headdresses, dresses and ceremonies banned in the name of civilization.

This colonial mindset is easier to market when wrapped in a burqa because of the fact that burqa/purdah indeed IS something that is used by the male Muslim culture as one of the tools to control women’s lives. Now, here is an interesting thing about it: Vocal against the opposition to Merkel’s burqa ban, are some of those privileged White and Brown women who are neither threatened with the violence that comes with such racist and misogynist legislation nor are they forced to wear burqa in their immediate environments. Fanon’s quotation about the colonizer was ‘frustrating’ to them also(!) because it happens to find something ‘positive’ in the assigned total negativity of burqa, a woman. A mysterious and romanticized woman perhaps, but a woman, a person, nonetheless. While the gaze thrown on burqa and burqa-wearing woman by the ‘frustrated’ progressive individuals is a gaze full of assumptions and prejudices. Just like the colonizer, this group believes that a woman wearing burqa is a backward and uncivilized low-life who has no opinion, no voice and no unique personality. If this assumption was true, we could say that all bikini-wearing women were forward-looking, educated and civilized, but we know it’s not true either. Burqa frustrates the colonizers because it’s a control mechanism the colonizers cannot use, if they move to break it, it’s not to liberate the controlled population, it is to control that population with their own tools of sexism, racism, hatred and violence.

I can understand the passion that can bubble up from a woman living for example in Pakistan, at the mention or sight of burqa as we have all confronted that barrier in our lives and we may still confront it, but it’s better to not confuse that passion against burqa with the politics of Western burqa bans. If a government in a Muslim majority country such as Pakistan called for a burqa ban or went on to legislate one, i would support it with all my heart because it would mean that women in Pakistan have gained enough power to outlaw one of the major tools and symbols of male hegemony. I would support it because it would be a step taken by Muslim women themselves (All power to Muslim women living in Muslim majority countries).

But the same policy of legislating a burqa ban changes shape when implemented in a country and continent where Muslim men and women are a minority, the country is not ruled by Muslim legal or cultural systems, it was/is part of historic oppressors of people in Muslim majority areas, and the time is after 9/11 when Muslims face stigma, racism, hatred and violence in these parts of the world. In this environment, a government places a burqa ban on Muslim women- you think it’s going to liberate us?

If anyone was interested in supporting the ‘liberation’ of burqa-wearing Muslim women in Western countries, they would show some respect and make way or at least get out of the way to allow women their own process to arrive at a stage where they choose to not wear it.

Opposing West’s burqa ban does not mean support for burqa/purdah or the use of it; it means these governments must stop dictating to Muslim women, stop stigmatizing and endangering an already vulnerable population, and, to stop marketing their colonial perspectives about Muslim women and women’s liberation through burqa bans.

Supporting or not supporting such hate-filled policies must need more than a tantrum against burqa.
..