Islamophobia: Robbing women of rights in Canada

CHRIS MIKULA / CANWEST NEWS SERVICE Enlarge Image

I have been reading in horror and sometimes nervous laughter the many tirades against the face veil that a tiny number of Canadian Muslim women wear in public. The argu­ments against the niqab range from the despicable to the ridiculous. Read the blogs or comments in major newspapers in Canada and you would think that we live in the most bigoted, intolerant nation in the world. 

Of course that is not the case and I am encouraged by the voices of reason, however few and far between.

As a Muslim woman and spiritual counsellor, I see the pain, anguish, and the sheer paralyzing fear that Muslim Canadian women are feeling. We have been dismissed, stigmatized and relegated to the position of a sub-citizen. As one young woman stated to me, "I do not wear a veil but this attack is very personal, under the guise of empowering us they have totally shredded our confidence."

Muslim women are human and deserve to be treated with dignity regardless of whether we agree with their choices or not.

We must ask why Naema Ahmed, a Quebec mother of three, is being put through this agonizing public lynching for exercising her right to wear her niqab to language classes, her right to practise her religion as she sees fit.

Imagine what her children must be feeling to see their mother denied the right to an education, not for any crime she has committed, but for the way she dresses. The pain we have inflicted on this family is unforgivable.

Furthermore we should be ashamed at how we have been bullying and demonizing Ahmed in particular and Muslim women in general almost on a regular basis. It is almost as if Canada has declared war on its Muslim women.

Now we have Quebec's Bill 94, essentially barring veiled women from receiving public services.

In Canada, all citizens have the right to personal freedom as long as it does not infringe on another's right. However, when it comes to a Muslim woman, we have convinced ourselves she is a victim of her husband's dominance and so we do not believe her when she says, "This is my choice."

What a cunning, circular web we weave. First we discredit her as an intellectual being, ridicule her claim to be a free-thinking woman, demonize her for practising her faith, and then smugly claim to be emancipating her.

As for the argument that some women are forced by their male guardians to wear the niqab, I am sure there are such cases. However the solution being offered by some to ban the niqab is to banish these women to a life of house arrest. The Canadian response should be to respectfully empower them through social interaction and education.

The claim that to teach language the teacher needs to see her mouth is to state that blind people cannot teach or learn language and that online language classes are bogus. If the issue is pronunciation, then guess what, we all have an accent. Ask someone from France if they approve of Quebec French.

As for the issues regarding the veil being a security threat, how many niqab-wearing women have held up banks? Note should be taken that women who wear the niqab are also obligated to remove their niqab for security and identification purposes, and they do.

Unfortunately the frenzy around this whole issue is taking on Islamophobic undertones. The holier-than-thou slogans chanted by so-called pure Canadians that "our values are better then theirs" has serious social consequences. What law gives us the right to impose our biases, transfer our ignorance and juxtapose our fears on these women?

And the argument based on comparisons between some Muslim countries and Canada is also a red herring. Do we really want to model Canada on the standards of human rights in Egypt or Afghanistan? We claim to be better than the Taliban because we do not force women to wear certain clothing -- we would rather tell them what not to wear. What hypocrisy!

This outrage is not about a piece of cloth on my face or head, it is about what I believe and the lifestyle I have chosen. It is about my refusal to be exploited for my physiology, my refusal to fit in a frame that society imposes on me, and my courage to demand my right as a Canadian.

For this we are being punished, deprived of our basic human right to choose.

Unfortunately, it is becoming socially acceptable to belittle Muslim women, treat them as sub-human, and to make political gains at their expense, but this is not something to be proud of or to celebrate.

On the contrary, it is time to mourn the Canada we might be losing.

Winnipegger Shahina Siddiqui is president of the Islamic Social Services Association. Inc. Canada.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition April 3, 2010 H6