The niqab has entered the realm of law and politics in Canada. At issue is the question of what Islam requires in the way of female garb. The main terms to
\n\tbe understood here are the hijab and niqab. The hijab is a garment that covers the hair, at a minimum—perhaps also the neck and ears. The niqab covers the
\n\tface and goes with a hijab.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tThose who look at the Quran for guidance read that in Surah 24:30, 31 it calls on women \u201cnot to display their beauty except what is apparent, and they \n\tSo what does this seventh-century passage mean in the twenty-first century? In short, there are a wide variety of understandings. In Ottawa, Canada, there \n\tIt is apparent how this particular surah could also be seen for face covering. In fact, some hadith—sayings that are less authoritative than the Quran, and \n\tA word is in order about a couple other pieces of female attire, which are very uncommon, if not unknown, in Canada. The chador is a loosely fitting \n\tWhere does all this leave us in Canada today? Some Muslims wear the hijab, and some do not. A very few wear a niqab. It could be said that all comes down \n\tIn 2013 the secessionist Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois proposed a Charter of Values, which set down a dress code, more or less on the French model. No \u201costentatious\u201d \n\t Then came the 2014 Quebec election. The Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois was defeated by the Liberals, led by Philippe Couillard. Before the election, he vigorously \n\tNow, the justification for that opposition has changed. Minister of Justice St\u00e9phanie Vall\u00e9e argues that the legislation is necessary because of the need \n\tSo what is the need for legislation against this \u201cthreat\u201d? Here I must speak largely from personal observation, as someone who has in fact encountered \n\tCouillard\u2019s view about the role of women\u2019s clothing may have merit at a psychocultural level, and the same might be said about the separation of men and \n\tQuebec politicians are making a big thing about a very small matter, and one could foresee problems with what is proposed. Let\u2019s take a hypothetical case. \n\tOn a related matter, there was a Supreme Court ruling in a case in which a rape victim refused to remove her niqab in court, as demanded by the defense. \n\tIn 2011 then-Immigration Minister Jason Kenney issued a directive making all candidates for citizenship to appear with face uncovered. Pakistani immigrant \n\tThis was a case of one woman demanding the right to take the oath wearing a niqab. She was prepared to take it off for a citizenship employee in private, \n\tAnd here is where Australian Lynton Crosby came into the picture. Crosby serves right-wing party election campaigns. He is known as the master of what is \n\tIn 2011 he aided former Australian prime minister John Howard\u2019s re-election campaign, with such slogans as \u201cWe decide who comes into this country.\u201d In aid \n\tIn the end, his strategy of appealing to anti-niqab and anti-Muslim sentiment was only partially successful, and Harper lost. The Liberals won enough seats \n\tThe NDP is a social democratic party which in the 2011 election came from virtually nowhere in the province of Quebec to 59 seats out of 75, largely on the \n\tIn his victory speech Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke of a hijab-clad woman in St. Catharines, Ontario, who attended his rally there. She went up to The niqab has entered the realm of law and politics in Canada. At issue is the question of what Islam requires in the way of female garb. The main terms to be understood here are the hijab and niqab. The hijab is a garment that covers the hair, at a minimum—perhaps also the neck and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[312],"tags":[144],"class_list":["post-6356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-may-june-2016","tag-may-june-2016"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6356\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\tshall place their kumar<\/em> over their bosoms.\u201d Kumar<\/em> is understood to be a scarf. This apparently means that the cloth that covers the head
\n\tshould also cover other parts, perhaps neck and ears as well as bosom.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\twas a gathering recently at which an imam (Muslim cleric) honored a girl for refusing to remove her hijab for a soccer game. Her teammates refused to play
\n\twithout her, and the team was penalized. Incidentally, the referee who made the call on the hijab was also a Muslim. When the girl\u2019s mother was asked why
\n\tshe did not wear a hijab, she replied, \u201cI have not had the call.\u201d After the session the imam told me, \u201cI don\u2019t let my wife and daughters wear the hijab.\u201d\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tsometimes contradictory—are much more explicit in calling for face covering. So much for politicians who boldly assert that Islam does not require the
\n\tniqab. The matter is hardly that clear.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tIranian garment that covers a woman\u2019s body, hiding the hair and giving no hint of body shape. It does not cover the face. A burka goes further, completely
\n\tcovering the face, with a mesh through which a woman can see somewhat.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tto a matter of custom and personal understanding and choice. But then it also comes down to law and politics.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\treligious symbols for government employees or those seeking government services. A large crucifix—no; a small one, OK.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\topposed the Charter of Values, but he did nevertheless promise legislation to outlaw the niqab, burka, and chador. His reason was that these items of dress
\n\tare instruments of female repression.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tto verify the person\u2019s identity. The proposed law would require people working for the government or seeking government services to have their faces
\n\tuncovered.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tMuslim women with face coverings and has attended some Muslim events, both in Quebec and across the river in Ottawa. I have never encountered a woman
\n\twearing a chador or a burka. I have seen a few who hid their facial features behind a niqab. That is the key—a few, very few. I have attended occasional
\n\tservices in mosques, and no woman I have ever seen at a mosque wore a niqab (an observation requiring diligence, since men and women worship separately).
\n\tSome women in Canada choose to wear a niqab, and some husbands are in fact embarrassed by their choice, feeling that it reflects on them, leading people to
\n\tthink it is something they impose.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\twomen in Orthodox synagogues and the role of women in the Catholic Church. Obviously, he is not about to take on Orthodox Jews and Catholics by bringing in
\n\tchallenging legislation for them.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tQuebec winters can be rough. A woman wearing a niqab slips on the ice and breaks her leg. What happens when she gets to the hospital and refuses to remove
\n\ther niqab? Couillard is a physician: Do no harm should be the mantra.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Supreme Court more or less ducked the issue, returning the matter to the lower court to figure out how to decide the question in that particular case.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tZunera Ishaq challenged the ban in court, and in 2015 the Federal Court of Appeal ruled in her favor. The decision did not address the issue of religious
\n\tfreedom. Rather, it held that Kenney acted beyond his authority, that such a directive required cabinet approval. While this decision was a defeat for the
\n\tgovernment, it gave the Conservative government just what it wanted in the 2015 election campaign, a hot-button issue.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tfor identification prior to the ceremony. There is one other woman asking for the same arrangement, but Prime Minister Stephen Harper seemed to see the
\n\tcourt decision as a gift.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tcalled dog-whistle politics. A dog whistle emits a sound that is not audible to the human ear but that a dog can pick up. Its meaning in politics is that
\n\tone says something that appears innocuous on its face but that a target audience will interpret and appreciate.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tof the British Conservatives in 2015, he used the line \u201cIt\u2019s not racist to impose limits on immigration.\u201d In these two examples the message particularly
\n\tappeals to racists and xenophobes. In addition to the dog-whistle effect, there is the wider impact on the subconscious and deeper unconscious feelings of
\n\tvoters. Crosby also had his finger in the pie in Canada during the recent campaign.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tto form a majority government. It seems, however, that the niqab issue had enough impact to seriously injure the New Democratic Party (NDP) in Quebec,
\n\twhere anti-Muslim sentiment is much stronger than in the rest of Canada.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tcharm and charisma of Jack Layton, their leader, who died during the campaign. In the 2015 election Liberal Justin Trudeau was the charmer, much as Obama
\n\twas during his first campaign. Both the NDP under Thomas Mulcair and Trudeau opposed the niqab-bashing and its hidden anti-Islamism, but the NDP were the
\n\tones with sitting members and the ones on whom the dog-whistling appears to have taken its toll. After the election they were down to 16 seats in the
\n\tprovince.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\thim, placed her baby girl in his arms, and said that she would vote for him because \u201cshe wants to make sure that her little girl has the right to make her
\n\town choices in her life and that the government will protect those rights.\u201d Voices in the crowd shouted, \u201cNiqab! Niqab!\u201d This surely is not the end of the
\n\tstory.\n\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"