The Burqa: Another Media Scare-Tactic? * – Mourad

Thanks, Chris, for the link to Bill Maher’s “Burqa Fashion Show.” An interesting video, I must say, although it reveals more about Maher’s inelegance and his cheap comedy than about the burqa. Like some of his other shows on religion, this one has yet again proven to be void of taste and lacks perceptiveness of the subject matter. I watched Religulous when it first appeared. The only ridiculous thing I found in it was Maher. At least, George Carlin knew what he was talking about when he would attack religion, regardless of the flaws of his arguments. More importantly, he knew how to portray it in a humorous, but tasteful manner.

Nothing is new about the adverse criticism of religion. Its mounting intensity in the recent decades is due to many reasons that cannot be discussed here. However, the first and perhaps the main question which adherents of religion ask their opponents is: how much do they know about religion, and how deeply have they gone researching it? Muslims have an old proverb in this regard: “a knowledgeable (’ālim) enemy is better that an ignorant (jāhil) friend.” As Oskar Pfister has put it in one of his letters to Freud, “a powerful-minded opponent of religion is certainly of more service to it than a thousand of useless supporters.” There is absolutely no ground of comparability between Freud and Maher, for the latter is anything but a ‘knowledgeable’ and ‘powerful-minded’ opponent of religion.

The way some Western media reflects on the question of the burqa reminds me of Malek Alloula’s seminal work, Le Harem Colonial, where he examines the representation of Algerian women in French colonial postcards. The parallels between the two contexts—the colonial depiction of Muslim Algerian women and today’s political discourse on the burqa, niqab or hijab—are many. But what is more grippingly disappointing are the individuals who occasionally appear on TV or radio to talk about the burqa and its religious, political and social implications. These are usually people who have the least to offer on the subject.

Three weeks ago, a born-Muslim journalist from England was called by CBC radio to comment on France’s MPs’ report on the burqa. Unconditionally supporting the ban, she claimed the burqa is spreading like a virus in today’s Europe and must be prohibited immediately. Spreading like a virus! Let us not forget that from the 65 million people living in France, only about 1900 wear burqa, while there are only 50 in all of the Netherlands where the niqab was banned early. Observing the ongoing political debate on issues of religion in/and the public sphere, what it really seems spreading like a virus is a systematic discourse of hatred and fear which only deepens immigrants’ feelings of marginalization and exclusion. A recent example is the fierce campaign (led by Daniel Streich) to ban the building of mosque-minarets in Switzerland. A quick glance on the journalistic literature produced during this time gives a clear idea on the fear they deliberately intended to instigate in people’s minds and hearts so they vote for the ban. The biggest irony is Streich’s conversion to Islam after the ban was passed, while mainstream Western media has remained totally silent about it.

What Maher does not understand is that for many Muslims the problem lies not in the ban or allowance of the wearing of the burqa, but in reducing Islam to it. The burqa substitutes Islam neither in its whole nor in its part. Unfortunately, this reality is misunderstood by many Muslims. The girl who appeared on CBC’s “Connect: I choose to wear this niqab: Ask me anything” (video is commented on by Nick in an earlier posting) is one example. Like many of the commentator’s on the video, the girl herself confuses what is religious and what is cultural about wearing the niqab.

Why has it always been difficult to understand the religious and cultural manifestations of the ‘Other’? Is it because we do not take them seriously enough? The symbol of the Cross is just a joke for some Muslims, and so is the Qur’an for some Christians. The minarets and the headscarf scare us because they are different and unfamiliar. And if all one knows about Islam and Muslims are news images of rubble and destruction in a used-to-be Afghanistan, the buqa, by analogy, means real terror. But is it not this difference that we should accept and appreciate about the ‘Other’?

Seyyed H. Nasr lists three elements, he called ‘realities’, that must be taken seriously before any attempt to understand another religion. The first is the reality of art, or the visible expression of that religion. The minarets and calligraphy are two examples in the case of Islam. The second is the reality of its doctrine. The theological and metaphysical value of any religion can be appreciated only through a close reading of its creed. “Religions,” writes Nasr, “have sacred books, not ‘pagan ramblings’” (2007: 6). The third is the reality of persons of saintly character. Without a grasp of these three truths about other religions, misunderstanding and intolerance will continue to prevail.

After all has been said and written about the politics of representation from the perspective of many disciplines, there seems to be no real change in the way we look at the ‘Other’—the other that we have created and capitalized its first letter. Reading Edward Said’s preface to his 25th edition of Orientalism, one can feel Said’s grief when he wrote, “I wish I could say, however, that general understanding of the Middle East, the Arabs, and Islam in the United States has improved somewhat, but alas, it really hasn’t” (1978: xviii). Like Said, I also continue to have “a very high regard for the powers and gifts of the peoples of that region to struggle on for their vision of what they are and want to be” (p.xix).

* This article is not about whether the wearing of burqa should be banned or allowed. It is, rather, about the way certain Western media has taken on this issue.

1. Alloula, Malek. Colonial Harem. Trans. Myrna Godzich and Wlad Godzich. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987.
2. Chittick, William C. Ed. The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Bloomington, In: World Wisdom, 2007.
3. Freud, Sigmund and Pfister, Oskar. Psychoanalysis and Faith: The Letters of Sigmund Freud and Oskar Pfister. Eds. Heinrich Meng and Ernst L. Freud. Trans. Eric Mosbacher. London: Hogarth Press, 1963, (letter dated October 21st, 1927).
4. Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books, 1978. 25th ed.