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Burqa ban debate heats up

8:25am Wednesday, 28th July 2010

Peter Riddel

At 1.5% of the population, Australia’s Muslim community is somewhat smaller than those of many European nations, such as France (10%), Netherlands (6%), Belgium (3.6%) and Britain (3%). It is also generally a younger and more ethnically diverse community, compared with France, Germany and Britain where North African Muslims, Turks and Pakistanis respectively are particularly prominent. Nevertheless, trends among European Muslim minorities usually also emerge among Australia’s Muslims, though somewhat later. So do debates that surround these Muslim minority communities of Europe.
One debate that won’t go away in European countries concerns Muslim women who wear a face veil, in the form of the niqab (which reveals the eyes) or the body-length burqa (a full face covering).
In April Belgium’s lower house of parliament banned face-covering Islamic dress in public. The northern Spanish city of Lleida also recently barred women from wearing such veils inside municipal buildings. France is likely to pass such legislation, with a similar push in some other European countries.
The debate is fiery at times, with both Muslims and non-Muslims internally split on the issue. A Swiss Muslim named Zeina has authored a book, “Sous mon niqab”, about her life wearing the niqab. “Suddenly I wasn’t more than a kind of shadow without name or identity. I also lost my face”, she wrote.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, one of Britain’s mYet some prominent groups stand opposed to a ban, such as the Council of Europe, a leading human rights institution, and Amnesty International.
The debate on veiling has recently reached Australia’s shores. In early May, in the wake of the Belgian ban, Liberal Party Senator Cory Bernardi called for a ban on the burqa, making reference to a thief who disguised himself in a burqa during an armed robbery. Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott, while not giving unqualified support to Bernardi, commented: “I think a lot of Australians find the wearing of the burqa quite confronting and I wish it was not widely worn.”
Fred Nile, Christian Democratic Party member in the New South Wales State Parliament, has introduced a bill to ban the burqa in public places, modelled on Belgium and French laws.
No sooner did such calls for a ban emerge than vocal opposition was heard. The leftist greenleft.org.au website responded with accusations of “racist fear-mongering”, commenting that “A much bigger threat to Australian secularism [than Islam] is the high number of conservative Christians in powerful government positions, such as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Abbott and Bernardi himself, who is a devout Catholic.”
The burqa debate may just be the tip of a large iceberg centring upon ongoing discomfort between Muslim and non-Muslim communities in Western countries.
The burqa issue enables those concerned with a growing Muslim presence to make a stand. While a challenge to other features of Islamic faith and culture are liable to attract accusations of racism, challengers to the burqa are more likely seen as champions of women’s rights.
Though numbers of Muslim women wearing the niqab or burqa in Australia is miniscule at present, the debate surrounding this subject is likely to increase with the steady growth in Australia’s Muslim community.
Dr Peter Riddell is Dean, Centre for the Study of Islam and Other Faiths
Bible College of Victoria