Harmless custom or threat? A lot has been made of Muslim women covering their faces with garments. Some think the custom should be banned in Western socities because they believe it hampers integration.

A cabinet minister in the United Kingdom started a controversy over the wearing of the veil by Muslim women. In early October 2006, Jack Straw, Leader of the House of Commons and MP for England's Blackburn, asked constituents wearing the niqab (full covering with just the eyes showing) to remove the veil from their faces when meeting him. He said he felt the head covering was a barrier to good community relations.

Blackburn is in northwest England with a large Muslim population of mostly Pakistani origin.

Phil Woolas, another cabinet minister, also said the garment provoked fear. In addition, he felt a Muslim teacher in England who refused to remove her niqab should be fired. The U.K.'s Prime Minister Tony Blair supported the teacher's suspension. He weighed in with the comment that the veil is a "mark of separation" that makes others feel uncomfortable.

Earlier, there was a big fuss in France over a ban on the wearing of headscarves by Muslim students.

In Italy, a politician who said the coverings are not required by the Koran (they aren't) is now under police protection. The country is considering a specific legal ban on face-covering Islamic clothing, even though it already has a national law, dating back to 1931, banning masks and other face covering in public.

In November 2006, the Netherlands announced plans to introduce legislation to ban face-covering clothing in public. Schools and other institutions previously enforced their own bans on Islamic dress (usually not the headscarf though), but the proposed legislation would apply nationally. The cities of Amsterdam and Utrecht have gone so far as to propose cutting social security benefits to unemployed women wearing a burqa; they make the argument that it makes them unemployable in a non-Muslim country.

As another example, some Belgian municipalities have used municipal bylaws on face-covering clothing to ban public wearing of the niqab and burqa.

Several observers have pointed out that the issue is less about the veil and more about what it represents. To some, it's a symbol of the repression of women in highly intolerant societies. Others see it as an expression of extremist attitudes.

Those who wear it say it is an expression of respect for Allah and submission to his will, which is fundamental to Islamic belief.

According to one Associated Press report, the government of Egypt, a Muslim country, has launched a campaign against the veil. The country's largest government-backed daily newspaper, for example, carried an article that said "Wearing the niqab is as outrageous as wearing a bathing suit or pajamas to the office." Another paper described "the niqab vogue" as "an imported innovation, used by the political extremists." And, that's what concerns opponents of the veil, which has been growing in popularity in the Arab world and among Arab Muslims in the West since the 1980s, after falling out of favour 50 years earlier.

In response, Helwan University on the outskirts of Cairo banned students who wear the niqab from living at the university's hostel. Around the same time, the head of the Islamic department of the women's college at Al-Azhar University, received death threats after she said she was "disgusted by women in niqab."

Some who wear the veil say it's nothing more than a personal religious choice.

While some scholars claim the Koran requires women to completely cloak themselves, critics disagree, saying the passage they quote is open to interpretation. They say the veil may be an ancient custom but it is not required.

Concern that immigrants who do not integrate into their new country might pose a threat is not new. James Laxer, a political science professor at York University in Toronto, says Canadians have had reservations about immigrants blending in on several occasions. In a Globe and Mail article in October 2006, he wrote that in Ontario, for example, in the 1850s and 1860s, there was a wave of Irish Catholic immigrants escaping the Irish famine. At that time "people wondered if the Irish would be unruly, un-British, a mass that could never adopt our ways. Would they join with the Fenian terrorists who were plotting to attack Canada (and actually did attack) in a campaign to liberate Ireland from British rule?" And, he says, two generations later, in the early 20th century people wondered about Russian, Ukrainian, and Jewish migrants to Winnipeg. There were concerns they would try to plot a communist revolution. Professor Laxer adds that, more recently, Chinese immigrants have been similarly subjected to suspicion and doubt.

He believes the current debate over the niqab is really a criticism of Muslims in general, which reflects the fear that they might be dangerous and perhaps even a source of terrorist recruits. While he says it's not unreasonable to question the social implications of particular religions, setting any group apart is a dangerous pastime in itself. Focusing on a piece of clothing he says is just an excuse to target Muslims in this case. If clothing was really the issue, he asks, what about Old Order Mennonites, Sikhs, Orthodox Jews, nuns, or even the Pope and Dalai Lama?

Besides, few women actually wear the veils. It's a rare sight in Canada. And, according to The Economist, although the number is increasing, it's estimated that between 10,000 (considered the more likely estimate) and 40,000 of Britain's 800,000 Muslim women wear one.

Not surprisingly, some Britons suspect that the government might be using the issue simply to divert attention from the unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As one newspaper report saw it, the fight against terrorism shifted to challenging the values of multiculturalism, when the veil became such a big issue. And that, in turn, has made most Muslims, even those opposed to wearing the veil, suspicious of the government.

Here's what Azzam Tamimi, at the Institute of Islamic Political Thought, had to say: "I don't even support the veil, but I think politicians are trying to make it an issue because they want to find a scapegoat for their failures. They are losing in Iraq, in a quagmire in Afghanistan, and started a war in Lebanon."

FACT FILE

An October 2006 poll found that 69 percent of Britons think Muslims make a valuable contribution to society, up 10 percent since the summer, but 60 percent also said Muslims are viewed with suspicion by other Brits.

FACT FILE

Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, believes that not only should Muslim women remove their veils, but that immigrants should learn English and familiarize themselves with the Magna Carta.

FACT FILE

In 2003, Sultaana Freeman sued the state of Florida for the right to wear a niqab for her driver's license photo. But, the court ruled against her, saying if was legal for the state to require her to show her face to a camera in a private room with only a female employee to take the picture, in exchange for the privilege of driving.

A DIFFERENT VIEW

Here's a BBC report from October 2006: "Australia's most senior Muslim cleric has prompted an uproar by saying that some women are attracting sexual assault by the way they dress. Sheikh Taj el-Din al-Hilali said women who did not wear a hijab were like 'uncovered meat.' But, he has now apologized for any offence caused by his comments, The Australian newspaper reports. Leading Muslim women condemned the comments and PM John Howard said the remarks were 'appalling.'"

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES:

1. Discuss how far you think a liberal society is obliged to go in accommodating attitudes and behaviour that seem hostile to it. Is it reasonable to demand that members of all minority communilies integrate with the majority?

2. One British official defined non-negotiable British values as respect for the law, freedom of speech, equality of opportunity, respect for others, and responsibility towards others. What values do you think should be nonnegotiable?

Websites

Muslim Canadian Congress http://www.muslimcanadiancongress.org/20061108.html

Progressive Muslim Union of North America http://www.pmuna.org/archives/2006/11/pmu_urges_musli.php

BBC News (Lawyers can wear veils in court) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6134804.stm