By Asad Zaidi
On 11 April 2011, France became the first country in the world to ban face coverings, this immediately polarized public opinion and was one of the major political events of the past year, with global ramifications. Whilst on one hand supporters of the law argued that it preserved the French values of liberty, equality and fraternity, opponents saw it as a, “ vote-winning exercise by Sarkozy, in other words, pandering to people's prejudices" (Al Jazeera). Using the term ‘Women of Colour’ to define non-white oppressed women, this essay will argue that, regardless of what people believe about the wearing of the burqa itself ( and there is no doubt that for some, it is a form of oppression), the removal of agency and choice for Muslim women is symptomatic of a wider issue: that of the disenfranchisement of women of colour in western liberal states such as France. Moreover, postcolonial feminism will be used to challenge and critique the banning of the burqa by explaining the multiple and interlocking forms of oppression that these women face. Post structuralism will also be used as a mode through which an analysis of power relations can be subsumed before finally, an explanation through the help of theoretical perspectives will be offered on why the ban is unjustified.
The wheels were set in motion for the ban two years ago when Nicholas Sarkozy claimed that the veil was contradictory to the French state’s values and that it oppressed and imprisoned women. It was a symbol of patriarchal domination he said, an archaic remnant of the past that was not compatible with the France’s secular values. Thus, these ‘Lacite’ arguments were used to support the ban; that the separation of church and state was imperative in the maintenance of France’s liberal and free identity (The Guardian), supporters of the bill arguing that they are in fact securing the autonomy of Muslim women and girls by banning the veil. However, those that oppose the ban argue that such action only serves to alienate the Muslim community in France and that the state is in fact sacrificing the rights of the individual for the homogeny of the French Republic. Galelloti argues that when three girls were suspended from school in 1989 for wearing the ‘hijab’ or headscarf in school (the beginnings of the row, although the law outlawing all religious symbols was only enforced in 2004), they were not in fact acting through a lack of autonomy because, “at their age, their religious choice cannot count as autonomous” and was thus the result of family demands. Moreover, this argument is furthered by Wilsher who emphasises how French feminists have traditionally viewed the veil as a symbol of male oppression.
The assumptions that liberalism makes on ‘Black feminists’ will now be deconstructed and a narrative based on post colonial feminism shall be offered. These arguments view women of colour, in this case Muslim women living in France, as oppressed, having neither real agency nor autonomy over their own bodies, let alone their voices. Consequently, they live under multiple and interlocking systems of domination, what Bell Hooks describes as a, “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy”. Western Liberalism (and feminism in particular for that matter), they argue, has ignored and undermined the voice of these women so that their narrative remains on the periphery, dominated by a society that’s identity has been predominantly shaped by the white middle class man. Hence, for Western Liberals, women of colour are an ‘the other’, in desperate need of saving from the patriarchy of their primitive and illiberal heritage. This mentality has its home in the heritage of Imperialism, wherein European colonisers of the global south exploited people of colour under the pretext of a liberalising mission to bring liberty and civilization to the heathens, thereby freeing these women from ‘the sexism that existed within their own cultures.’
Western Liberal Feminists are criticised in particular for their selective amnesia in relation to the struggles of women of colour, a notable feature of the burqa debate. Thus, Mohanty has critiqued the social construction of a homogenised and victimised ‘third world woman’, devoid of any cultural specificity. Ironically, the burqa is a contributing factor to this homogenisation, given that it provides a praxis through which ‘Muslim women’ can be viewed as one, anonymous, mystical-mystified other. The fact that only 2000 out of a total population of 5 million Muslims wear the Burqa is not mentioned by Liberal commentators, or that the majority of French Muslims manage to reconcile their faith and nationality through a complex, yet unified identity. Thus, these women are contained and studied as subjects in Western discourse through both media and politics, but rarely given their own voice. Black and Arab women are famously underrepresented in French civil society and rarely do they take up prominent positions in society. Moreover if they reach institutions of power and influence, they must accept western norms and yet, they are judged by harsher rules than their white colleagues. An example of this is being the sudden rise and fall from grace of former Justice Minister Rachida Dati, ‘the first Muslim woman to hold a major government post’, who was placed under huge media attention not prescribed to her fellow cabinet ministers (Guardian).
Through postcolonial feminism then, one can view the Burqa ban as just one of multiple forms of oppression that women of colour face. The domestic violence that some Muslim women encounter is amplified by gender and racial inequality that all encounter, emanating from a prejudiced media and civil society. By banning the burqa, the French state thereby renounces the agency of Muslim women and it is this that is the fundamental problem with using notions of Western Liberalism in the context of minorities; it assumes a collective identity for those it objectifies. The corollary of this assumption is that, by default, if Muslim women are subservient and repressed, then Muslim men in the eyes of the liberal west are the controlling upholders of patriarchy and sexual oppression.
Here it would be useful to engage further in just how ‘power’ is used in the debate over women of colour and the burqa ban in particular, through the use of post structuralism. If Michel Foucault were alive today, he would have viewed the banning of the burqa and the liberal pretext that it freed Muslim women from the patriarchy of conservative Islam as inherently fallacious. The liberal perspective that the State was removing patriarchal power from Muslim women would have been rejected due to the ubiquitous nature of power. Thus, power would not be removed, but it would exist in another form (for example the further entrenchment of ultra Conservative Muslims seeking to defy the ban or through the implementation of French laws to the maintain it). A post-structuralist critique on the Burqa ban would therefore view the Western Liberal concept of what is and what role a woman should play in society as fundamentally flawed due to the binary opposition it creates; either French Muslim women ascribe to a very particular definition of what they are as set out by the white liberal man, or they risk being rejected from society. Thus, a post structuralist argument, as with a post colonial critique, would deem that there is a plurality in the forms that society can take, multiple cultures, experiences and narratives that cannot be subsumed under universal categories.
Power for Foucault is not just repressive but productive due to the fact that it produces social relations. Hence the Western Liberal discourse that the Burqa inhibits the partaking in classical French society is a self fulfilling discourse; it discounts the extant, real social relations in which subjects of multiculturalism find themselves. However, if we view the Burqa through the eyes of the women that wear it, then the relations that are produced through this action may allow her to harness an emancipatory space within her community. Thus, if we take the law as it exists in reality, not as we would like it to exist in the ethereal, we have to ask how ‘free’ she is now that her agency is restricted. Is she, for example, able to leave the house to meet her friends now without her Burqa if she lives in a deeply conservative community or will she be further confined and oppressed?
Now the theories have been analysed, one must consider the essential debate that lies between Western Liberals and Post Colonial feminists on the Burqa ban. Does the facial covering prevent or facilitate liberty?
On one hand, it can certainly be argued that the covering of one’s face is not feasible in a society with security and identity issues. The fact that the very nature of the burqa is that it conceals the entire body creates problems of communication and trust in a society where those two are, at times, in dearth between the minority and majority communities. Secondly, it can also be argued that the burqa confers an ownership of women that de-individuates them to a commodity.
However this assertion can be countered wholly and utterly. Although the burqa does not necessarily facilitate liberty, the banning of it prevents liberty. In this way, the plurality of experiences of women of colour as a belief, need to be assessed. Of course if the Burqa is worn by force then it certainly constitutes a form of oppression. However, fundamentally the judgment of who is and who isn’t oppressed cannot be easily ascertained, and when it can, it should not be for the role of the state to decide. Indeed, one could make the point that, just as some Burqa clad women are oppressed, others wear it out of choice. An example of this is the use of the burqa as a mode of protest by Turkish Muslim women, protesting the encroachment of secular values on private faith. Secondly, with so few actual Burqa wearing Muslim women in France, the debate itself far exceeds the actual ramifications of the ban. This leaves the French government open to the allegation that it was knowingly using the sensitive issue of ethnic minorities to play on to secure support during the economic downturn. Thus, it is undeniable that issues on immigration and integration of ethnic minorities are valid issues to be debated in a civil society. However, the burqa debate itself is an example of a patriarchal, racist and imperialist mentality still existing within a country that has never fully come to terms with its bloody colonial legacy, nor the fact that its very own imperial projects were the catalysts for the waves of immigration that succeeded it.
One can hint at the French government’s nefarious intentions in that, if this policy was grounded in a broader calibration of attempts to integrate the Muslim minority within France, perhaps there would be more truth to the ostensible emancipatory claims of this law. However, it remains a populist, solitary top down imposition that French Muslims must work around. The French revolutionary ideal of positive liberty that, ‘we will force you to be free’ is one that resonates here; the freedom to wear the burqa is negated in favour of a very particular, restrained freedom that sets boundaries on what you can wear.
The burqa ban is a self defeating ruling which, while seeking to bring Muslims kicking and screaming into the secular fold, has only served so far, to alienate, objectify and anger. However, the permeation of racist and sexist stereotypes and assumptions that have characterised the debate has only served to further marginalise women of colour in France. What the ban essentially does is to scrutinize the place of not just Burqa wearing but all Muslim women in French society and this scrutiny, built on layers of stereotypes and assumptions, must be fought by all, for all.
‘I cannot afford the luxury of fighting one form of oppression only. I cannot afford to believe that freedom from intolerance is the right of only one particular group. And I cannot afford to choose between the fronts upon which I must battle these forces of discrimination’
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