I never dreamt I would ever see the day when Civil Rights Minister Helena Dalli and Nationalist Party justice spokesman Jason Azzopardi would become political bedfellows, though very uncomfortable ones.
Dalli hectored Azzopardi that he has no right to remain in the same bed with her as he is now proposing to do what the Nationalist Cabinet said should not be done.
Dalli and Azzopardi cozied up to fight the mother of all evils: the burqa and the niqab. The former is a full-face garment that even covers the eyes behind a mesh, while the latter just leaves the eyes uncovered. These garments are worn by only around three per cent of women in the secularised states of Tunisia, Turkey and Lebanon. In retrograde Saudi Arabia the percentage shoots up to 74. A small group of ultra-orthodox Jewish women wear it as well to prevent men falling into temptation.
A controversial speech delivered in 2009 by the erstwhile French President Nicolas Sarkozy heralded the onslaught. He described women wearing burqas as “prisoners behind netting, cut off from all social life, deprived of identity”.
He added that the burqa is “a sign of subservience”. His immigration minister compared the garment to a “walking coffin”.
Sarkozy framed his rhetoric within the ideologies of feminism, secularism and nationalism. But his latent intentions were probably different. It was a period of economic problems and the popularity of Sarkozy was on the wane. He needed a scapegoat and a distraction. This was provided by the less than 2,000 French women who opted for the burqa and the feeling of Islamophobia that can be easily and conveniently fanned on such occasions.
A law was passed through the National Assembly. This was contested by a 24-year-old French woman described by her lawyer as “a perfect French citizen with a university education... a patriot” and who wears the burqa of her own free will.
If the wearing is not voluntarily done then it becomes an issue of domination and should be resisted.
The European Court of Human Rights said the French government had acted within its rights and threw out her case.
On the other hand, the international NGO Human Rights Watch argues against a ban: “A legal ban in Europe on the wearing of the burqa in public life would be just as much a violation of the rights of those women who wish to wear it as is the forcing of the veil on those women who do not wish to wear it in, for example, Iran or Saudi Arabia.”
Why should we make a mountain out of two- or three-dozen Maltese women wearing burqas?
One of the arguments raised by the French government was national security; as if 2,000 French women wearing such garments were akin to weapons of mass destruction! The European Court of Human Rights did not buy this argument. There is no need for a blanket ban to address any legitimate concerns about security. These can be addressed by making the wearer show her face when serious issues of danger to property, people or identify fraud exist.
The ‘security’ argument is being repeated in Malta. When, on rare occasions, I have walked near women wearing the niqab I never felt threatened. But I do feel threatened whenever I have to pass through a particular neighbourhood where a group of unsavoury Maltese characters, with their faces fully exposed, prefer to congregate.
The national security argument is being stretched to comical lengths. We have just been informed that because of national security, our University, State and Church schools will be closed during the meeting of Commonwealth heads, and that we cannot be informed about the programme of roads maintenance linked to the CHOGM. I never thought there were so many covert suicide bombers among the academic staff! Nor do I think children should go to school carrying hand grenades in their lunch boxes.
The authorities should have come clean, admitting that they have lost all control over the traffic problem, and that in an attempt to prevent their faces being covered with egg during the CHOGM they prefer to give special leave to hundreds of workers to have fewer cars on the roads.
Another argument against these garments is the so-called principle of living together in an open society in which eye-contact and facial expressions are said to be a must. We are a society based on tolerance towards, and safeguarding the rights of minorities, but when these rights clash with the so-called liberal agenda or latent fears of others these rights become verboten.
When people in positions of trust post anti-Semitic comments on Facebook or spew hatred against immigrants, or are downright paternalistically sexist the powers-that-be tell us they have a right to their opinion.
People also have the right to roam the streets in different modes of undress and sunbathe semi-naked. Any Tom, Dick and Harry will soon be able to vilify the Almighty. If the Nisa Laburisti get their way, parents will soon have the right to throw in the rubbish bin frozen embryos that are not ‘viable’.
Then if a Maltese woman voluntarily wants to wear a burqa or a niqab, the liberal lobby goes ballistic. It then joins an unholy alliance with the other end of the political spectrum. Why should we make a mountain out of two- or three-dozen Maltese women wearing burqas? These women are no security threat.
I feel that deep down, the opposition to the burqa results from the arrogant belief shared by many that the way we do things in the West is the best and that anything different is second best or not good at all. Besides, for a number of reasons, people find it difficult to tolerate the different other.
It will surely not be banned for my security.
joseph.borg@um.edu.mt