This month, the Danish parliament passed a law banning garments that cover the face in public such as the Islamic niqab and burqa. Lawmakers approved the law presented by the center-right governing coalition. The government said it is not aimed at any religion, as the law does not ban headscarves, turbans, or the traditional Jewish skullcap. And although the law bans any article of clothing covering the face, whether it be religious or not, it is widely considered and referred to as “the Burqa Ban.” Denmark now joins Austria, France, and Belgium who also have similar laws in the books.
When we get past the emotional outcries and unsubstantiated talking points, this debate reveals itself as far more complex than it seems at first glance.
I am myself pulled on this issue between two aspects of my character which have so far never been in conflict: I am both a small-government classical liberal and an equality-supporting humanist who regards equality between the sexes not only as utterly necessary for a prosperous society, but as a moral imperative as well. These two positions seemed to be in perfect synchronization, until now.
On the one side, I cringe at images like the one of a French police officer penalizing a woman on a beach for the sole crime of wearing a bit too much fabric and at the thought of having the state regulating the outerwear of its citizens. On the other, I secretly yearn for our Western government to firmly assert full legal equality between man and woman. What is to be done?
Being a student of religion and having read both of Islam’s sacred texts, the Quran and the Hadiths, I am well aware of the tenets of the Islamic faith which preach, and indeed demand, the covering of women, as well as their inherit misogyny (Surah 7:26 and 24:31, and Hadith Sahih al-Bukhari, for example). Some of the passages are inscribed into the governing Sharia, currently the sole legal infrastructure in about a dozen Arabic countries.
Everything we know about humanism and human ethics tells us that these doctrines on societal gender relations are not conducive to human happiness in the least. They are, on the contrary, ideas dating back to the Bronze Age that, if followed to the letter, actively perpetuate a viciously violent patriarchal society which treats woman as equivalent to cattle. These divisive and primitive systems of thought are similar to the ones seen in the Old Testament of the Bible, with the sole difference being that the Bible today is no longer interpreted literally among the majority of Christians worldwide.
However, unlike the Bible today, these Koranic passages are inscribed into the law books of a dozen Islamic countries around the world. Dissidence from these tenets is not taken lightly, one must only look at the fate of women in Iran, for example, who in the past months have disobeyed Islamic morality laws and removed their covers in protest.
According to the BBC, “Since December 2017, more than 35 female protesters have been arrested in the capital Tehran alone. The police have warned that women who participate in demonstrations against the hijab could face up to 10 years in prison.”
In Masih Alinejad’s book, The Wind in My Hair, Masih writes about growing up in a strict Muslim family in a small village in northern Iran. Her freedom of expression, or lack thereof, has forced her to exile herself in the U.S. since 2009, unable to travel back to her home country by fear of arrest. Her family is likewise forbidden from leaving the country. Masih reports that her father now refuses to talk to her and that she regularly receives death threats.
Both in the Arabic and Western worlds, there is no doubt that some women wish to wear the veil, burqa, or niqab out of their own free will. However, we can say with relative certainty that they are a minority. The exercise of finding out the exact number is a trivial one, given the severity of the social or legal punishment inflicted upon a Muslim woman who chooses to discard such garments.
Denmark, France, and even the U.S. do not have governments accustomed to regulating the clothes of its citizens or visitors. Yet, these same governments are under the obligation to maintain complete equality between the sexes, while ensuring that freedom of religion and expression is simultaneously respected.
The unpleasant, but necessary conclusion, is this: I personally despise the doctrine of the burqa in all its forms and all its applications, but will not look to government to outlaw its use. As a liberal, I consider liberty above all else, and the risk of having the liberty of women who do wish to wear such garments infringed upon because of my intellectual and moral convictions is contrary to my values and to the liberal doctrine, even if they are a minority.
This takes nothing away from my profound disdain for these tenets, or from my recognition of the harm this doctrine does to women and societies all over the world. We simply must find another way to combat these practices without relying on Big Brother to come up with a top-down solution that will most likely render the problem even more clustered and political than it already is. The greatness of Western democracy lies in its reliability on laws and principles, and not authoritarian governments. If we are to fight these intolerant doctrines in the West, we need different weapons than those of our opponents actively perpetuating them.
The empowerment of women is one such weapon. If Muslim women living in the West do not wish to wear such garments, they must be made to feel confident and secure enough as to circumvent their social pressures and independently emancipate themselves. We shouldn’t seek to emancipate women, but to have them emancipate themselves, re-enforcing existing laws against coercion and setting up programs to financially and physically protect women from their hostile social pressures can be put in motion by both public and private infrastructures.
Muslim women living in the West who wish to walk around with their “hair in the air” must be constantly reminded (through targeted publicity campaigns for example) that in France, the U.S., or Belgium, no one (not even their father or brother) is allowed to force upon them the slightest clothing restriction.
Our goal in the West should be to ensure that women who do not wish to wear these garments are not forced to against their will. The goal should not be to outlaw these garments in their entirety. I do not think that sending police officers to fine women wearing the veil on the beaches of Normandy is the way to properly ensure their emancipation. The West must be morally better than those it is fighting against by remaining loyal to the values that earned it its ethical superiority in the first place.
Louis Sarkozy is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a student in philosophy and religion at New York University. He is the youngest son of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
