I do not have issues about religious headgear. Turbans, yarmulkes, hijabs, or whatever, but I draw the line at full veils or niqab. I don't think they should be made illegal but still much needs to be done not only to discourage Muslim fundamentalist women to dress up like Darth Vader, but to help them integrate into Canadian society and distance themselves from the more destructive elements of how they interpret their religion and culture. I have no idea how this would look, especially given that some Muslim women willingly and intentionally go in public veiled. They are generally well educated, cultured and in their way feminist. I have read about this and these are women who want to embrace their Muslim faith with zeal while protecting themselves from the male gaze.
Fair enough, but they still need to be discouraged from dressing in a way that promotes shame, oppression and segregation. On the other hand is this really any worse than young Western women who go around almost naked but for a little token covering in the private areas on a hot day at the beach? Or the way many dress leaving little to the imagination flaunting their bodies in tight this, short that and plunging something else.
I am reminded of once a few years ago on a hot summer day when I was walking downtown. I had spent the afternoon in Burnaby Lake Park where I spent two hours trying to find my way out of a forest on maddeningly maze like trails and where I ate the last three salmonberries of the year. It was July 23, a Saturday. I arrived downtown on my way home and noticed a middle age Muslim man, likely Middle Eastern, dressed in traditional garb, white skullcap and beard. He was surrounded by his four adolescent sons, all dressed very much like Dad, minus the beards, of course. All over the sidewalks like models on a catwalk strutted scantily attired beautiful young women, clearly unaware of the Islamic family group of males and the feeling appeared to be mutual. Or was it? I still wonder what the experience must be like for traditional, even fundamentalist, Muslims who live here, seeing in full view more young womanhood than any seventy-two virgins could offer them in Paradise. Perhaps the teenage boys thought of trying to date the girls once Dad wasn't looking. Maybe Dad wanted to mention to his boys, "I only wish your mom would dress like that."
My experience of Muslims, though limited, has always been positive. I have found the ones I've known to be lovely people, spiritual, devout, and very involved with the community and very compassionate and caring about the less fortunate. This is why the very idea of violent and murderous Jihadists is something very strange and alien to me. It absolutely does not square with my own observations of Islam.
In a way I can understand a Muslim woman wanting to wear the veil if for no other reason than to deflect the male gaze. On the other extreme, Western young women often dress like harlots. It is as though all the fighting that was done by their mothers, grandmothers and great grandmothers to secure equal rights and respect has gone down the toilet and this current batch of young woman has backslidden to equating their value with the male gaze. A little dignity can go a long way.
Today I noticed a young Muslim woman wearing the hijab, not because of her headgear but because she was seated at the front of the bus, on one of the seniors' courtesy seats, completely absorbed in her I-pad and elderly passengers standing around her. I tried to offer an elderly Chinese woman my seat. She politely refused. An elderly Chinese man seated next to me commented what a disgrace it is that in the front of the bus it should take an elderly passenger to offer his seat to another elderly passenger since the young people are too selfish and self-absorbed. It rather surprised me to be referred to as elderly, but I am approaching sixty so what better time than now to start getting used to it. I don't quite agree with him about selfish young people given that I have seen many give up their seats for older passengers and at least once a week a young person tries to give up their seat for me.
I chose not to argue since it appeared more seemly to agree with him and offer him support. The young woman in the head scarf didn't budge. I was reluctant to say anything to her, suspecting that she would attribute anything I might say to her to Islamaphobia. Sigh, everyone's a victim these days. But I spoke. "Miss, I'm sorry but you are sitting in the seniors' section and there are people needing to sit down here." She looked at me as though absolutely gobsmacked that I would talk to her, went poker face, then got up and stood. I thanked her most graciously.
And now here is where I take off the gloves. All you people who like to wear your religion, and I mean all of you: Muslims, Sikhs, Jews, Christians, priests, Buddhists, monks and nuns. No one really gives a goddamn what you believe in or how you choose to believe or express it. What I have to say to you is this: when you are wearing your religion you are opening yourself to the public gaze and you are putting yourself under our judgment. Fairly or unfairly you are going to be watched and noticed and commented on for your behaviour. According to the Apostle James, one of the first Christians, "True religion is this: to look after and take care of orphans and widows and to keep yourselves unstained by the world."
Yes, he was writing this to Christians. But I also like to think that it applies to all of us.
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