Banning the veil won't integrate Muslim women – it will force them out of public life
Europe seems to be obsessed with the attire of Muslim women. Last month, the European Court of Justice ruled against two Muslim women from France and Belgium, upholding the right of their employers to ban them from wearing headscarves. This Monday, Ukip announced that it would fight the 2017 general election on a platform of banning religious face coverings. And now Germany's parliament has drafted a law preventing civil servants, judges and soldiers from wearing full face veils at work – after Angela Merkel called last year for a more complete ban.
In many cases these bans will affect people, who aren't Muslim women, but in reality they will primarily affect Muslim women. These bans will be touted as an accomplishment by the far Right across Europe, who decry headscarves not only as oppressive but as a threat to social cohesion which is incompatible with secular vehicles. Their actual effect, however – whether they ban the full face veil or merely let employers ban the headscarf – will be to force Muslim women out of public life.
Map: Which countries have banned the veil?
When faced with this quandary, many women who observe the headscarf because of religious convictions and personal choices will not in fact choose to turn their back on these beliefs. In many cases they will be left with no alternative but to choose their conscience and walk away from employers who don't accept them because of their religious identity. That will mean many people switching jobs, and companies losing out on talented employees, but if enough companies adopt discriminatory policies it could also mean women dropping out of the workforce altogether. How ironic it would be if laws patronisingly intended to liberate Muslim women from their "oppressive" religion instead forced them to succumb to the choices made by others.
As a Muslim woman, I know I would not work in a place where I was told that I could not wear my headscarf. In fact I would find it dehumanising if an employer wished to exert such control over my personal expression. They would be depriving me of my individuality, which is a basic human quality and indeed human right. Women wear the headscarf for different reasons; for me, it is an integral part of my religious identity, and I do not believe that identities can or should be suppressed. I do not cease being a Muslim when I am at work, and just because someone does not accept my interpretation of Islam or does not like the headscarf it does not mean they can use the law to consider me to be unacceptable in a ‘tolerant and democratic’ society.
Indeed, religious plurality is a core principle of constitutional democracies. To ban any form of religious symbol, be it the Sikh turban, the Jewish kippah, or the Muslim headscarf, is a kind of narrow-minded secular fundamentalism which erodes this important value. A liberal democracy, which is the bedrock of Europe, is one which extends individual liberty and respect to any culture or religion. Surely in such a society one must have the autonomy to choose, and not be forced to conform.
Thankfully, our Prime Minister, Theresa May spoke out in the Commons during PMQs to defend the right of women to wear a headscarf, saying that "it is the right of all women to choose how they dress", and adding it was not for the government to dictate what women "can and cannot wear". She is right: taking away essential individual choices is not a victory for democracy. Non-Muslims as well as Muslims need to remember that freedom requires recognising and upholding the right to do things with which you may profoundly disagree.
Banning headscarves or face veils, or letting employers ban them, would also have a darker effect. Those who advocate banning the veil usually justify it by appealing to integration; everyone must feel that they are part of the same nation and share a common culture. But how does it help integration to tell devout Muslims that this country won't tolerate their faith? How does it help integration to wilfully create an "us vs them" dichotomy, and sow the seeds of intolerance and resentment? This is a recipe not for integration but for further polarisation, and it feeds the narrative of extremists who want young Muslims to believe that the West will never tolerate them as proper citizens.
Yes, it is disempowering to coerce women to dress against their wishes. But it is equally disempowering to strip them of their freedom to dress according to their wishes. Banning the headscarf is just as oppressive, illiberal and totalitarian as forcing women to wear it and those who wish to ban it will only isolate and marginalise the women they claim they want to liberate. Instead of being "confined" in their headscarves, Muslim women would be confined in their homes. That really would be an affront to the ardent struggles of the feminists.
Europe is entrenched in a multitude of social, economic and political conflicts that have a greater impact on society than a simple piece of cloth worn by Muslim women. Why then is Europe so stoutly besotted with it?
Sajda Khan is a writer and academic
