That bastion of free exchange of ideas and progressive thought since Colonial days, the Marsa Sports Club, which many old-timers still refer to as il-Marsa tal-Inglizi, has banned a Muslim woman from swimming in their swimming pool wearing a costume that is compliant with Sharia law.
To be precise, I'm not saying it is or is not compliant, just that the woman concerned chose to wear it. From what one glean from the story, it is designed to be swim-wear and is made from materials that are appropriate for that. To this extent, it sounds pretty much like the long-sleeved garments worn by those of fair complexion whose delicate skins are unable to withstand the rigours of the sun. Or what nuns wear when they take a dip.
I've never heard of the delicate-skinned being banned from anywhere on the basis that their clothes are unhygienic.
Times of Malta spoke to club president Mr R Axiaq, who was quoted as saying that the "burkini" was against club rules "anyway". He also apparently said that it was not recognised by Sharia law, though the extent of his qualifications in this regard were not made known to us. He did, not from the report carried, quote chapter and verse, either of Sharia law or the club rules, to uphold his statements.
Asked what the woman concerned was wearing, he was quoted as saying "what these Muslims wear, Muslim clothes, not a bathing suit".
His language is telling: he chose to say "these Muslims", not simply "Muslims", indicating clearly to anyone with even half an ear for nuance that Muslims, at least where Mr Axiaq is coming from, are seen as some sort of "other race", not part of the mainstream. Not "like us".
Mr Axiaq went on digging: the woman concerned, we are informed, was not even an Arab, she was Maltese. Why this point was felt to be relevant, in a country that espouses the freedom to choose what religion to adopt, is not entirely clear, though some light on the lack of clarity was cast by another of his statements, that a "proper" (ie Libyan) Muslim had chosen to wear a "normal" bathing suit.
Let me be clear: I dislike the thinking behind fundamentalist interpretations of proper Muslim wear for women.
That said, if a woman chooses to dress that way, as long as she is not endangering public safety (going masked into a secure area, for instance) and as long as hygienic issues do not arise (which they don't seem to here, Mr Axiaq's club's perceptions being left aside) then bully for her, compared to other areas of fundamentalist thought (and not only Islamic fundamentalist, either, other religions are just as bad) this is a non-issue.
The Marsa Sports Club is a private club but it is not entitled to legislate in a vacuum. Frankly, if they want to ban people from swimming who are not wearing bog-standard swim-suits, they can do what they like but they would have to follow through and ban people from swimming wearing the sort of long-sleeved and long-legged arrangement that protect against the sun. Or falling into the pool in a t-shirt, for that matter.
They might also decide to choose aesthetic grounds on which to ban people from disporting themselves around the pool, I suppose, which would mean that people like me will have to forebear from partaking of the pleasures of a dip and sampling the purity of the water.
What they certainly can't do, getting back to the serious issue, and what their spokespeople should be vigilant against doing above all else, is make decisions based on what "these Muslims" or "proper Muslims" choose to do or not to do or on the perception that this woman was "trying to make herself a martyr or something".
And this is even if some yahoo or other propping up the bar drunkenly applauds the decision and spews some racist crap about people respecting "our" traditions if they want to live here, don't you know? It's only a few (well, quite a few, but in the greater scheme of things, not many) decades since if you were Maltese, you were only allowed in as a servant.
The irony of the woman at the centre of the story being Maltese and having this held against her is supreme.