An overview of world history highlights multiple instances wherein an imminent consequence of acts of terror is an attack on civilian rights. The aftermath of the attacks in Sri Lanka during Easter service provide a reaffirmation of this. While the country is nursing its wounds, President Maithripala Sirisena has issued an order that would ban all types of face coverings.
Citing the rationale for national security, the presidential statement emphasized that any sort of face covering which “hinders the identification of individuals in a way that threatens national security” falls under the ambit. Though the presidential statement explicitly states that this ban is not meant to issue a diktat to any particular demographic group, in terms of implementation, it is dangerously close to marginalization and exclusion of members of a religious community.
Countries like France, Spain , Chad, Belgium amongst others have instituted such a ban in the past, with reasons falling under two categories: (1) need to ensure security in public places (2) need to eschew religious symbols in public places. However, a dominant narrative behindsuch bans is the violent display of Islamism of the Islamic state, equating extremism with the everyday rituals and habits of the followers of Islam.
The precedent for this in modern history was largely set by the targeting of Muslims, by the US, post the attack on the twin towers.Earlier, mostly orientalist depictions of oil-rich sheiks dominated the perception of the Muslim identity in the West. But post the attack, there was a sea change in the level of scrutiny on Muslims in the West, specifically in the United States of America. Anti-Muslim sentiment, rhetoric and attitudes that prevailed upon the everyday lives of the Muslim citizens became commonplace, leading to intense marginalization and exclusion of Muslims from social, political and civil life. Scholars have termed this as “Islamophobia”.
Apropos, the idea of the “veil ban”thatearlier found resonance mostly in the legislative echelons of the West, now forms a part of the Asian discourse too. A recent instance of this is the crackdown of the Chinese state on face veils. As part of its policy of systemic oppression of the Uighurs, the Chinese authorities have exacted this ban.
A point that vehemently comes across such policies by the state is the marked transcending of the discourse around the veil. For the longest time, debates centered around viewing the veil as a “symbol of oppression”, in the eyes of the Western observer. Today, the Muslim woman stands implicated in a pathologically violent depiction of the “terrorist other,” similar to the narrative inscribed on Muslim men post 9/11.
In such a context, the goal of ensuring national security stands fallacious, when the very idea of individual autonomy and security stands threatened. Further, this also paves the way for intense exclusion and discrimination of the woman, leading to a loss of their individual as well as societal agency. Amnesty International’s Deputy South Asia Director Dinushika Dissanayake’s reaction to the ban in Sri Lanka is pertinent in this regard, as she asserts that “imposing (such a ban) that effectively targets woman for wearing face veil for religious reasons risks stigmatizing them.”
Any justification in favour of the ban must be counteracted with the quest of upholding the freedom of religion and democratic rights of citizens, within reasonable limits. A niqab at the airport and a burkini on the beach cannot be conflated under one category. Besides, security measures can be put in place that need not impede upon the right of a Muslim woman to cover her face, if she wishes to do so.
Such impositions on people of a religious community effectively institutionalize oppression, a position that no democratic state would explicitly subscribe to. In the case of Sri Lanka, the ban on the veil, helmets etc. is not a permanent move and will be enforced until the attackers have been apprehended. But, it remains to be seen if and how this may go beyond security purposes, in permeating and interfering in other spheres of the life of the Muslim women.
The image used is for representative purposes only.
India Outbound
May 9, 2019
source https://indiaoutbound.org/the-politics-of-the-veil-ban-in-sri-lanka/
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