The Attack on the Veil (contd....)

At such a time the world debated how the Muslims in Nigeria hated women, citing the example of the recent stoning verdict that had been passed over a case of fornication by a young Muslim woman in Nigeria. Coupled with such examples as well as the debate of women in Afghanistan and their apparent 'unveiling', the rulers of the Muslim world took it upon themselves to distance themselves from these realities. They purposefully promoted the western ideals of personal freedom being prevalent in our lands by putting forward Muslim women who seem to have liberated themselves from such notions of covering and embodied everything modern. So examples such as Meraj Khan who works for an NGO in Peshawar, has in recent weeks been used by both the western and Pakistani media to present the face of a liberated 'deveiled' Pakistan versus Hijab clad sisters in the North West Frontier Province who seem to have no names or identity, and resemble the women of Afghanistan pre 'liberation' are commonplace. This can now be put against the backdrop of home grown beauty pageants in Malaysia, the evident westernisation of the wives of all the Premiers in the Muslim world, the booming fashion industry in India etc giving us a clear insight into the way the West has effectively demonised the Muslim woman in her normal attire and made her something who, if not extinct, is alienated and unwanted in her society.

These are just some examples of the recent vilification of the Khimar and Jilbaab, the modern day 'Attack on the Veil'. In addition to such public statements, many Muslim women who cover in accordance with the Shari'ah face on a daily basis a barrage of comments and criticisms regarding their Islamic attire, these range from shows of sympathy for the 'poor oppressed covered woman' to abuse and threats hurled at the woman who dares to cover in the Western society.

Post 9/11 Muslims living in the West have witnessed an onslaught against the Islamic identity and a blatant policy of integration; calling upon Muslims to embrace the decadent values of capitalism, and to abandon the pure concepts of Islam. This call is designed to bring about a new European-Islamic identity, an amalgamated individual who calls himself a Muslim by belief, yet detaches that belief from life's affairs and instead adopts the Western views on life whether related to marriage and family life, clothing, education or politics. This was highlighted in a statement by the Foreign Secretary Jack Straw; "As British Muslims and their European counterparts become more and more integrated into the fabric of our democracies, we may over time see the emergence of a distinctly European Islam" (Oct 2002).

It should be known that the Muslim woman has not been spared from this conspiracy of the integrationists. The quest to see the Muslim woman truly integrated into the Western society is a quest to strip her of her distinct Islamic identity and to distance her from Islam. The overall aim of such an attack has resulted in the obvious and apparent frustration that is being felt by Muslim women in the West, who are desperately fighting a view that is continually presented of her, thereby almost having to justify her identity. As will be highlighted later on, this is itself a no win situation for her, as her attempts to assert that she is not 'stupid' or voiceless, are ignored and the same old stereotypical, tired depictions of her and 'that veil' are churned out on documentaries, and drama's verging on the ridiculous if not laughable image of her, which harp back to a time where the suntan lotion and the fake beard were a valid substitute to depict the Muslims as a whole.

The Western capitalist society values and holds sacred the ideals of freedom; personal freedom of an individual, to do as he or she pleases, to wear what he or she desires, to behave as he or she sees fit. The West regards itself as the pioneer of freedom and the liberator of the woman, shown clearly by the arrogant words of G W Bush at his 2002 State of the Union address (in reference to operation 'Enduring Freedom'); "We went into Afghanistan to free people, because we believe in freedom.. Today (in Afghanistan) women are free..."

The Western nations pride themselves on the fact that their societies are a place where the woman is given the freedom to make her personal choices of how she treats her body or her own personal property. However, Western societies are plagued with a culture dominated by sex, which promotes a degraded view of the woman as a commodity and formulates the predominant view of the woman as an object to satisfy the desires of men.

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