http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/06/12/153011.html
In 2004, the French parliament passed a law that prohibits “conspicuous” religious symbols in public schools. Since those symbols were not specified, the law was understood to apply to crosses, skullcaps, and of course the most conspicuous of them all—the headscarf.
Despite the wide scope of religious manifestations it covered, the law was understood by many as targeting the Islamic veil in particular and that is why the biggest row over it was stirred by Muslim countries and Muslim communities in the West. Muslims, I believe, realized that they are the group that would sustain the biggest losses when the law was enforced since Christians and Jews were compensated by being allowed to wear “discreet” religious symbols like small crosses and Stars of David. Following suit for Muslims wouldn’t make sense because wearing a pendant with a verse from the Quran for example will not do the same job as the headscarf since the latter is considered a religious obligation and therefore nothing else can replace it and it can never be less conspicuous. The ban, legislators in favor of the law argued, is meant to protect the secular character of France, which is compromised by excessive display of religious affiliation.
If I were a religious Muslim living in any of those two countries, I would be extremely mortified. If I am a veiled woman in France, I would see the law as an infringement not only on my religious beliefs, but also on my personal freedom since my hair is my private property and whether I cover it or shave it or trade it for fleece is my own business. I would think that placing a scarf over my head hurts no one and if it does that’s their problem, and I would assume that if Indians can walk around in saris then I can also stick to wearing what I believe defines my identity. I would also be struggling with the guilt of not abiding by teachings of my religion for no good reason. Minarets are not as personal and not as religiously ordained, but if I were a Muslim in Switzerland if I don’t feel insulted I would at least feel very unwelcome and totally out of place. In both cases, I would be really bewildered about the bastion of human rights Europe claims to be and how contradicted those procedures are with the fact that Paris houses the continent’s third largest mosque and that Switzerland has for years been known for nothing—apart from chocolate and watches and trains that run like clockwork— more than its neutrality and detachment from political squabbles and religious prejudices.
If I were a Muslim in my homeland, I would be equally hurt that my brethren are treated as intruders in countries where they are full-fledged citizens and would, as similar discriminatory incidents recur, start developing a feeling which borders on conviction that I and my people are a target of an organized tarnishing campaign and might even subscribe to that Islamophobia theory that renders Muslims the most persecuted group in the world. I might take part in protests calling for the rights of Muslim minorities and exposing the double standards of the so-called “civilized” West and nobody can blame me for doing that or call me fundamentalist or anti anything of those terms we’ve been hearing lately in this alleged “clash of civilizations” that gained special momentum after the September 11 attacks.
But as I take up the role of the democracy advocate and wave the banner of justice for my expatriate co-religionists, do I ever ask myself if I have done my job toward my compatriots and if there are not other minorities that deserve the same support and maybe more? In Egypt, we have two main football teams, one called Ahly and the other called Zamalek, and Egyptian football fans, who are a lot, treat their team affiliation very seriously and sometimes don’t mind fighting or beating each other up over one game or another. One day I was talking to a friend, a fanatic Ahly fan, about how I find it strange that people make it look like the team they like as important as their country or religion or any of those traditionally irreplaceable facts of life.
“Yes,” he replied very confidently. “If Israel is playing against Zamalek, I would cheer for Israel.”
This enlightening phrase hit me like a thunderbolt when I saw how angry Egyptians were about the French and Swiss laws and I asked myself a question whose answer should have been more enlightening than my friend’s response, yet I have not till now found one. “What if Egyptian Copts go to war with Indonesian Muslims?”
Born a member of the majority, I have always had access to the full picture as far as how the minority is perceived and how far people would go to defend Muslims who live hundreds of miles away and for whom this support might not make much of a difference and what their reaction would be like if Copts were subjected to the very same injustices and who are in dire need of every kind of support. I wondered how many times Egyptians took to the streets to protest the restrictions imposed on the construction of churches and demand that all places of worship be subject to the same laws. I was thinking that maybe giving Copts a citizenship right as basic as going to Mass whenever and wherever they want should be slightly more important to Egyptians than a minaret in some small town in northern Switzerland not because the latter is not important but rather because the former is extremely crucial to the wellbeing of a country that has for long been suffering from sectarian tensions, ones that could have easily subsided had enough solidarity been shown from the other side.
In fact, I was quite shocked to see the exact opposite happening and to hear for myself people—educated and sometimes even academic—flatly support those acts of discrimination under the pretext that it is normal for the minority to succumb to the will of the majority and that this happens anywhere in the world. “Why then do you get so exasperated when Muslims abroad are discriminated against?” I ask. Silence. “Do you defend the rights of minorities or only the minorities you choose?” More silence. “Who is closer to you? The Muslim in Europe or the Copt next door?” And the silence turns into resentment as I find myself crowned the queen of the damned.
I was once talking to a colleague who lives in Europe and she kept complaining about the looks people in public places give her because she is veiled. She went on for hours slamming the double standards of the West and decrying the blatant persecution of Muslims. I was really amused by what she was saying because I kept recalling how shocked she was to see my knee-high skirt and I imagined how she, too, must look at those same people she accuses of disliking her outfit. I was not surprised, though, because that’s how a large portion of veiled women look at their unveiled compatriots—another minority that has emerged recently in the country—all the time now and whenever this happens I remember the French ban and the complaints of veiled women in Europe and I wonder if it is only indecent to look at a veiled woman and it is totally fine to stare at an unveiled one. One day at the grocery story I was so annoyed by the way the woman next to me at the fruit display was staring at me that I finally decided to ask her, “Is something the matter?” She pretended not to hear and I guess I would do the same if I were her because I would find nothing to say. “I am staring at you because you are different and I can’t accept difference” would be the only honest answer and I personally don’t think I would have the nerve to say so. I wished I could ask her what her reaction would have been had I been the one who stared like that. I wonder how she will feel if she is stared at in the same manner in a place where she becomes the minority.
Why is it so difficult for us to put ourselves in other people’s shoes and see how shameful it is to do to others what we do not accept to be done to us? Accusing the West with “double standards”—regardless of how true this is—will not get us anywhere because had we known the real meaning of this phrase we would have detected all its symptoms in ourselves. How can we expect—and actually demand as our right—that people accept us when we are the “other” and make a big deal when they don’t even though we take every possible chance to show our own “other” the exact opposite. I am not by any means implying that the West is perfect because it’s not, but I am just hoping that before hurling accusations at other parties we should check if we’re not a replica of them—only in a different way.
It is your absolute, indisputable right to support the women who want to keep their veil in France and to feel sorry for the minarets that won’t see the light in Switzerland, but I don’t see how a right stays valid when it is emptied of all the duties attached to it. Maybe the veils and the minarets were a blessing in disguise, an alarm bell that alerts us to the fact that maybe it’s time we get a little bit consistent and realize that a noble cause starts from home because otherwise it will lose breath and die by the time it crosses seas and travels across continents.
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