The Veil A Symbol of Oppression, Emblem of Modesty or Affirmation

of Identity?

Mervyn Claxton

With a mixture of anger, frustration and fear, thousands of Arab women who, shoulder to
shoulder with their Arab brothers, risked their lives to overthrow dictatorial Arab regimes,
are helplessly witnessing the Arab Spring turn into their winter of discontent, from the side
lines. The election victories of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the Islamist Ennahda
party in Tunisia, the Islamist Justice and Development Party in Morocco, and the
significant electoral gains of the Muslim Brotherhood party in Libya, are rolling back the
little progress that North African Muslim women have made in recent years, under
undemocratic governments. Those Islamic electoral victories find a parallel in Iran, with the
stolen election "victory", in 2009, of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's ultra conservative party, the
Alliance of Builders.

In a very poignant cri de coeur, Mona el Tahawi, the Egyptian American feminist and
activist, expressed her great disillusionment with the "rewards" of the Arab Spring", in a
recent article in Foreign Policy Magazine. It is a chilling analysis of Arab misogyny and a
shocking litany of acts of female humiliation by male Arab clerics and legislators. Her
article is well worth reading in its entirety. The following is a short excerpt:

"When more than 90 per cent of ever-married women in Egypt - including my mother and
all but one of her six sisters -- have had their genitals cut in the name of modesty, then
surely we must all blaspheme. When Egyptian women are subjected to humiliating
"virginity tests" merely for speaking out, it's no time for silence. When an article in the
Egyptian criminal code says that if a woman has been beaten by her husband "with good
intentions" no punitive damages can be obtained, then to hell with political correctness.
And what, pray tell, are "good intentions"? They are legally deemed to include any beating
that is "not severe" or "directed at the face." What all this means is that when it comes to
the status of women in the Middle East, it's not better than you think. It's much, much
worse. Even after these "revolutions," all is more or less considered well with the world as
long as women are covered up, anchored to the home, denied the simple mobility of
getting into their own cars, forced to get permission from men to travel, and unable to
marry without a male guardian's blessing - or divorce either." ("Why Do They Hate Us?")
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/04/23/why_do_they_hate_us

This is a brief (4 minute) youtube summary of Mona Eltahawy's article, recounted

powerfully in her own words. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M-
hPUiNVks&feature=related

The veil is at the very centre of the current struggle between conservative Islamist forces
and liberal movements, in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. No issue so inflames
discussions of gender relations in Islam as that of the veil (hijab) and veiling (ihtijab). "It
liberates. It represses. It is a prayer. It is a prison. It protects. It obliterates. Rarely in
human history has a piece of cloth been assigned so many roles. Been embroiled in so
much controversy. Been so misjudged, misunderstood, and manipulatedFor non-
 2

Muslims, it is perhaps the most visible, and often most controversial, symbol of Islam."
("Behind the veil: Why Islam's most visible symbol is spreading", Caryle Murphy, The
Christian Science Monitor, http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-
East/2009/1213/Behind-the-veil-Why-Islam-s-most-visible-symbol-is-spreading

In an article published three years ago, the Economist succinctly summed up the very
potent symbolism of the veil in Western and Muslim societies, alike: "LONG or short,
sternly pinned or silkily draped, the Islamic veil is the most contentious religious symbol
today, in the West as much as in the Muslim world."

It is in such a context that a flyer (see inset on the next page) to advertise the programme
for the launch of a magnificent book on Africa ("Amazing Africa") at last month's Frankfurt
Book Fair intrigued me very much. The programme for the book launch was a series of
talks by five specialists (including myself) on Africa and the Diaspora, on different African
and Diaspora issues, each expos delivered on one of the five days of the Frankfurt Book
Fair. As the world's largest Book Fair, it attracts more than 7000 publishers from over 100
countries and 300,000 visitors, including professionals of the book trade.

Pascal Matre, one of the world's great photographers, is the author of Amazing Africa.
The book, published by an Austrian publisher in association with Unesco, is a
compendium of thirty years of his photographic work in Africa. It is a vibrant homage to
Black Africa, to its people and their traditions. Amazing Africa captures the essence, the
rhythm, the spirit of Africa, as well as the innate dignity and inner strength of its diverse
peoples. It portrays their joys, sufferings, and the traumatic experiences of women in
certain countries. One double-page spread shows a group of women who had been raped,
holding the babies of those rapes in their arms. Juxtaposed to that photo is one that
portrays a group of irregular soldiers, with Kalashnikovs in their hands, laughing heartily.

In view of the very lively controversy that the veil provokes everywhere, which has
significantly increased in tempo since the Arab Spring elections this year, it was something
of a shock to see, prominently displayed at the top of the flyer, a veiled figure whose face
and head are completely covered, except for the eyes, much like the niqab veil. The niqab
covers the entire head and face, with an opening left for the eyes. The fact that the veil is
worn by a small of minority of African peoples, principally in the Sahelian countries,
underlines the puzzling nature of the publisher's choice of a veil to symbolize Black Africa.
On a second look, however, one recognizes the veiled figure as that of a Tuareg, a semi-
nomadic group of peoples who have lived in the Sahel and Southern Sahara for thousands
of years and practice a syncretic form of Islam.

It means that the veiled head and face are a man's, not a woman's. Among the Tuareg, it
is the men who wear veils, while the women do not. It then dawns on the viewer that the
publisher's objective in choosing that image is to show that one cannot generalize about
the veil, for it embodies different values, conveys different meanings, and symbolizes
different things in different societies. In short, the veil should be judged only in terms of
the particular tradition's social and cultural values, rather than from a Western or other
socio-cultural perspective.
 3

This book is unique

in its photographic vision of Africa
as the lifetime achievement of Pascal Maitre, one of the best photographers of our time

in the emotion it triggers

as a testimony to the last 30 years in Africa

in its thematic mix of tradition, landscape, environment, conflict, everyday life, night
for grasping Africa
AMAZING AFRICA
24 x 33,3 cm
348 pages, 147 photographs
ISBN 978-3-901753-41-1 as evidence of the energy of the African continent
September 2012
EUR 59,-
edition.lammerhuber.at EDITION LAMMERHUBER

COME AND SEE US. WE WILL INFOTAIN YOU!

AMAZING AFRICA
UNESCO ON STAGE

On the publication of Amazing Africa the essence of 30 years of photojournalistic work for GEO and National Geographic by French
photographer Pascal Maitre Edition Lammerhuber hosts eminent UNESCO representatives at its booth to discuss Africas situation today.

Wednesday, 10 October, 13:00, 15:00

Mervyn Claxton
IS AFRICAN CULTURE AN OBSTACLE TO THE CONSOLIDATION OF DEMOCRACY IN AFRICA
OR A FACTOR ESSENTIAL TO ENSURING IT?

Thursday, 11 October, 11:00, 16:00

Maria Elisa Velasquez Guttierez
AFRICA AND LATIN AMERICA: NETWORKS, SILENCES AND GOALS

Friday, 12 October, 11:00,16:00

Augustin Holl
THE HUMAN CAREER AND AFRICAN GREAT CIVILISATIONS

Saturday, 13 October, 16:00

Ali Moussa Iye
BEYOND RACIAL PREJUDICES: RECOGNISING AFRICAN CONTRIBUTION TO THE PROGRESS OF HUMANITY
UNESCO
Sunday, 14 October, 11:00, 14:00 Publishing

Alexis Florence United Nations

Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization
FROM MODERN TO CONTEMPORARY ART IN AFRICA

Edition Lammerhuber 5.0 E 932

Frankfurter Buchmesse 2012
 4

The Tuareg veil (anagad) is a defining symbol of male identity, the importance of which is
revealed by the numerous terms in the language to describe its different features and the
technique of veil wearing. Thus, the Tuareg veil is an affirmation of male, rather than a
female, identity. Among the Tuareg, taking the veil is a rite of passage into manhood. The
type of veil, and the manner in which it is worn, indicate the status of the wearer and the
degree of respect that is due to him. ("Le Voile chez les Touareg", Jeremy H. Keenan,
Revue de L'Occident musulman et de La Mditerrane, Vol.17, 1974).

Tuareg men wear the veil in different ways, in different social situations. When the nose
and mouth are covered, it signifies respect in the presence of chiefs, older persons, and in-
laws. In certain Tuareg groups, a man does not unveil, even in front of his family - a
custom that, in some ways, mirrors that of women in very conservative Muslim societies,
who do not unveil at home in the presence of men who are not close family members. Veil
wearing was, and still is, not an exclusive Muslim religious custom. Historically, it is found
in many societies Ancient, Medieval and Modern.

The historical background

Veil wearing predates Islam by at least two millennia. The first recorded instance of veiling
for women is an Assyrian legal text from the 13th century BC, which restricted its use to
noble women. The Assyrian veil signified class distinction and Assyrian law prohibited
peasant women, slaves, and prostitutes from wearing it. Women who infringed the law on
veil wearing were punished. In the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, Siduri, the divine
barmaid who lives by the sea at the edge of the world and guards the vine in order to
make sacred wine, wears a veil. (E. A. Speiser, "The Epic of Gilgamesh," in James B.
Pritchard (ed), The Ancient Near Eastern Texts, Vol. 1, 1958).

Face veiling in ancient Greece was a custom in both the Classic period the fifth and
fourth centuries B.C. (Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, "Aphrodite's Tortoise: The Veiled Women of
Ancient Greece", 2004), and the pre-historic Homeric Age. Discussing the travails of
Ulysses' wife, Penelope, during the long years of his absence, Lucinda Alwa, the American
classical scholar, writes "whenever she appears before the abusive suitors, Penelope
covers her face with her shining veils (lipara kredemna)The kredemnon, as the veil of a
married woman, obviously conveys the notion of chastity." ("Veil and Citadel in Homer",
International Journal of the Humanities Vol. 6, Issue 8, 2007).

When the Persians conquered Mesopotamia (of which Assyria was one of the kingdoms),
they adopted the Assyrian custom of veil wearing for their women. The women of ancient
Persian noble families had to wear a veil when they went out in public. That adopted
Persian custom was noted by the Greek historian, Herodotus, who mentioned in his book,
"The Histories", that the wealthy Persians had a peculiar custom of hiding their women
behind veils and curtained carriages. The veil subsequently spread throughout the Middle
East, in the wake of the Persian conquests.

The veil in the medieval and early modern era

 5

In the medieval Middle East, male Arab suitors and the female subjects of their courtly
(non-physical) love developed a language of the eyes to overcome the physical obstacle
that the veil posed in the game of courtly love, and the social ban on two unrelated people
of opposite sex being alone together. In his treatise on courtly love, "The Ring of the
Dove", Ibn Hazm al-Andalusi, an 11th century Arab poet-philosopher from Cordoba,
included a chapter entitled "Of Hinting With The Eyes". It contained detailed instructions for
male suitors that would allow him to interpret the woman's eye language during courtship.
The following is a two-paragraph excerpt:

"AFTER verbal allusion, when once the lover's advance has been accepted and an accord
established, the next following step consists in hinting with the glances of the eyes.
Glances play an honourable part in this phase, and achieve remarkable results. By means
of a glance the lover can be dismissed, admitted, promised, threatened, upbraided,
cheered, commanded, forbidden; a glance will lash the ignoble, and give warning of the
presence of spies; a glance may convey laughter and sorrow, ask a question and make a
response, refuse and give-in short, each, one of these various moods and intentions has
its own particular kind of glance, which cannot be precisely realized except by ocular
demonstration. Only a small fraction of the entire repertory is capable of being sketched
out and described, and I will therefore attempt to describe here no more than the most
elementary of these forms of expression."

"To make a signal with the corner of the eye is to forbid the lover something; to droop the
eye is an indication of consent; to prolong the gaze is a sign of suffering and distress; to
break off the gaze is a mark of relief; to make signs of closing the eyes is an indicated
threat. To turn the pupil of the eye in a certain direction and then to turn it back swiftly,
calls attention to the presence of a person so indicated. A clandestine signal with the
corner of both eyes is a question; to turn the pupil rapidly from the middle of the eye to the
interior angle is a demonstration of refusal; to flutter the pupils of both eyes this way and
that is a general prohibition. The rest of these signals can only be understood by actually
seeing them demonstrated." ("The Ring of the Dove", Chapter 8).

Until the late twelfth century Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman women in England wore veils,
such as the wimple, which covered their hair, and often their necks up to their chins. It was
unseemly for a married woman to show her hair but there was no social obligation for
young unmarried girls to do so. In his Canterbury Tales, Chaucer depicts both the Wife of
Bath and the Prioress wearing a wimple. Veils of that type became less common during
the Tudor period (15th century) when hoods became popular. Wearing a wimple was also
a practice among women in early medieval Europe.

The Veil in the Major Religious Traditions

The veil is associated with all the major religious traditions Christianity, Judaism, Islam,
Hinduism and Buddhism. In all five traditions, the concept of covering the head was
associated with propriety and modesty. However, it is only in the three patriarchal
Abrahamic traditions that the veil assumed a religious significance. Most traditional
depictions of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of Christ, show her veiled. During the Middle
 6

Ages, married women in Byzantine and most European societies covered their hair rather
than their face, with a variety of styles of wimple kerchiefs and headscarfs.

The Buddhist tradition

During the time of the Buddha, some women wore a veil although it was worn more to
cover the head than to conceal the face. Around the beginning of the first millennium, it
became a custom for upper-class women and those in royal households to veil their faces.
The Lalitavistara is an early biography of the Buddha, composed in Sanskrit prose and
verse. It recounts the story that, after she was selected to become Prince Siddhattha's
wife (Siddhattha Gotama was the Buddhas name), Princess Yasodhar was criticized for
not veiling herself in the presence of her father-in-law and mother-in-law. That act was
considered a sign of immodesty and wilfulness.

The Hindu Tradition

According to Albrecht Weber, the 19th-century German Indologist and specialist in vedic
literature, neither the Vedic or the pre-Vedic period has any record of the veil or
ghoonghat. The veil appeared for the first time in Hindi literature, in the 16th century. In
most northern Indian states, women are obliged to cover their faces, in public as well as in
the privacy of their homes. In contrast, there is no social obligation for women to wear the
veil in Southern India, which accounts for its general absence in that part of the country.
The appearance of the veil in Northern India followed the conquest of that part of India, in
1526, by the Mughals whose Muslim Dynasty ruled over most of India until 1757. The veil,
which is associated with the seclusion of Hindu women, was adopted by Northern Hindus
as a measure of protection for their womenfolk. It had no religious significance. The
Mughals did not conquer the whole of South India and, in the parts of the South they
conquered, their rule was rather tenuous, hence the general absence of the veil in South
India.
Leigh Minturn, a professor at Banaras Hindu University in the Northern Indian state of
Varanasi, has the following comment on male attitudes to women in that part of the
country. the dichotomy between virtuous and immoral women is reflected in the
behaviour of Indian men towards any woman not observing traditional custom Because
women are expected to be cloistered and veiled, and to travel only in the company of a
male relative, men have no norms of restraint for women who do not observe these
customsYoung men in their 20s behave like junior high school boys in showing off and
teasing passing girls. ("Sita's Daughters: Coming Out of Purdah", 1993).

As a consequence, women in that part of Northern India who do not cover themselves
completely, from head to toe, are often pursued and hassled by young Indian men, making
it difficult for women to go out in public unaccompanied. That is why many Northern Indian
families do not allow their daughters to travel, or go shopping without a male relative. Male
harassment of women in that part India also discourages families from enrolling their
daughters in coeducational colleges. (Minturn,1993). Such Male harassment, particularly in
the North led the Indian government to introduce female-only trains in four cities, two of
which (New Delhi and Palwa) are situated in the North. ("Indian Women Find New Peace
in Rail Commute")
 7

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/world/asia/16ladies.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

The Jewish Tradition

The veiling of women is an ancient Jewish religious tradition that was associated with
female modesty. It was the custom of Jewish women to wear a head covering when going
out in public, which would occasionally conceal their entire face except for their eyes.
"During the Tannaitic period the Jewish woman's failure to cover her head was considered
an affront to her modesty. When her head was uncovered she might be fined four hundred
zuzim for this offense." (Menachem M.Brayer, "The Jewish Woman in Rabbinic Literature:
A Psychosocial Perspective" 1986). Brayer added that the Jewish veil was not always a
sign of modesty. It had also been a symbol of high social status, a distinguishing feature
for noble Jewish women.

Susan Schneider observed that, because the veil signified a Jewish woman's self-respect
and social status, lower class women often wore the veil to give the impression that they
belonged to a higher social class. Prostitutes were not permitted to cover their hair in the
old Jewish society, consequently, they often wore a special headscarf to look respectable.
("Jewish and Female", 1984). The Orthodox Jewish community still requires its married
women to cover their hair.

The Christian Tradition

In the Christian Tradition, the veil is more firmly rooted in religion than it is in the Judaic
tradition. St. Paul addressed the following stern admonition to 4th century Christian
women:
"Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the
woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. Every man who prays or prophesies with his
head covered dishonours his head. And every woman who prays or prophesies with her
head uncovered dishonours her head A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the
image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from
woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.
For this reason, and because of the angels, the woman ought to have a sign of authority
on her head" (I Corinthians 11:3-10). St Paul made it very clear that the veil is also a sign
of woman's submission to man's authority, for which reason, she should wear the veil as a
sign of her acceptance of male authority.

The Islamic tradition

Prior to the establishment of Islam, wearing the veil was not an Arab custom, although
some Arab women did so. At the time of the Hegira (622 A.D.), the official date for the birth
of Islam, the veil was worn in Greco-Roman, Judaic, Persian, Byzantine, and Balkan
societies. As the Persians had done before them, the followers of Muhammad adopted
veiling as a result of their exposure to the culture of the last four of those societies, which
they conquered (Guity Nashat, "Women in Pre-Islamic and Early Islamic Iran" in Nashat
and Lois Beck (eds) "Women in Iran from the Rise of Islam to 1800").
 8

The following two verses in the Quran are the most cited on the subject of the veil:
"Say to the believing men that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty...And
say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that
they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what ordinarily appear thereof;
that they should draw their veils over their bosoms...." (Quran 24:30, 31).

"O Prophet, tell your wives and daughters and the believing women that they should cast
their outer garments over their bodies (when abroad) so that they should be known and
not molested" (Quran 33:59). Although neither verse states explicitly that Muslim women
must cover their face and/or hair with a veil, those two verses are the source of
conservative Islam's insistence that women must be veiled whenever they leave their
homes.

Observing that the two citations from the Qur'an have played a central role in the
contested debate on the veil, Ashraf Zahedi contends that they raise questions as to
whether the reference is to the veil or merely to modesty in clothing. "These citations
emphasize modesty and covering the bosom and neck. There is no reference to covering
female hair or to the head veil." She added that, as part of the Persian Empire, Iran had
practiced the custom of veiling but that the practice was restricted to the upper classes.
Thus, as a social and religious requirement for all women, Islamic veiling was a new
concept one that took a long time to become institutionalized. Wearing the veil was, for
the most part, an urban practice. ("Contested Meaning of the Veil and Political Ideologies
of Iranian Regimes", Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, Vol. 3, No. 3, Fall 2007).

Shaykh Gibril F. Haddad, a confirmed Muslim traditionalist, expressed a very different

opinion: "Today we find the Muslim community most divided on one subject: the veil or
hijab. Despite the clear rulings of Sharia on this subject, many people claim that the order
for women to cover all but their faces and hands is not found in Islam." He then proceeded
to "cite proofs from the source texts of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) from which the
obligation of veiling is derived." ("The Veil In Islam"). But his interpretation of such "proofs"
is tortuous, stretched, and unconvincing.
http://spa.qibla.com/issue_view.asp?HD=7&ID=514&CATE=2

Caitlin Killian, an American sociologist, points out that, in the past as in the present, the
tradition of veiling was influenced by different religious interpretations, as well as by politics.
(The Other Side of the Veil: North African Women in France Respond to the Headscarf
Affair. 2003). Those different traditions have given rise to different types of veil in different
Muslim societies. There are four types of veil worn in Islamic societies.

The niqab covers the entire body, head and face, with an opening is left for the eyes. The
two main styles of niqab are the half-niqab consisting of a headscarf and facial veil that
leaves the eyes and part of the forehead visible, the full niqab leaving only a narrow slit for
the eyes. Although those two veils are to be found throughout the Muslim world, they are
more common in the Gulf States.

The chador is a full-body-length shawl, which is fastened at the neck by a pin or held
closed with a hand. It covers the head and the body but leaves the face completely visible.
Chadors are most often black and are most common in the Middle East, particularly in Iran.
 9

The burqa is a full-body veil, which covers the entire face and body. It has a mesh screen
over the eyes, through which the woman wearing can see. It is worn mostly in Afghanistan
and Pakistan. During the period of Taliban rule in Afghanistan (19962001), all Afghan
women were legally obliged to wear it.

The veil is a contested issue within the Islamic radition. In medieval, as in modern times,
Muslim clerics can be found who oppose the practice of women hiding their faces behind
a veil. When the renowned twelfth-century mystic, Rzbehn of Shraz saw a woman
arrive at the mosque, accompanied by her veiled daughter, he asked her mother Why do
you hide Gods beauty with a veil? (Karen Armstrong, "A History of God - From Abraham
to the Present: The 4000-Year Quest for God", p.184). One day in October 2009, Sayed
Tantawi, the Grand Sheikh of al-Azhar, Cairos 1,000-year-old Islamic university, was
visiting one of the many girls schools run by the university when he saw an 11-year-old
student wearing the niqab. He immediately ordered her to remove it on the spot. He then
had the university issue an order banning the niqab in all its girls schools, on the grounds
that covering the entire face is an innovation, which represents too extreme an
interpretation of Islamic modesty.

The Issue of rape in Christian and Islamic traditions

Islamic law states that he rapist should be punished by death penalty if he has married or
be lashed 100 times and ousted at least 1 year if he is unmarried. The victim of a rape has
not committed any sin and, as such) will not be punished. However, there must be at least
four witnesses who can confirm the rape, which is a definite obstacle. In the time of the
Prophet, the rapist was punished on the sole evidence of the woman he raped. (Uzma
Mazhar, "Rape & Incest: Islamic Perspective", Islmic Reflections 2002', September 2002).

The Quran and hadiths are the source authority for Islamic law. Hadiths are the collection
of the prophet Muhammads statements and actions, together with those of his
companions. Here is a hadith on rape. "During the time of the Prophet, punishment was
inflicted on the rapist on the solitary evidence of the woman who was raped by him. Wa'il
ibn Hujr recounts the story of a raped woman who later, identified the man who raped her.
He was seized and brought to Muhammad, who told the woman, "Go away, for Allh has
forgiven you" but, to the man who had raped her, he said, "Stone him to death." (Sunan
Abu Dawud Book 38, Number 4366: http://www.usc.edu/org/cmje/religious-
texts/hadith/abudawud/038-sat.php#038.4366

The Quran is considerably harsher on a man who impugns a woman's honour than the
Bible is on a man who actually rapes her, which is, incontestably, a much more heinous
act. It illustrates the great difference in the esteem in which the two religious traditions hold
women: "And those who launch a charge against chaste women, and produce not four
witnesses (to support their allegations)- Flog them with eighty stripes; and reject their
evidence ever after: for such men are wicked transgressors" (Quran 24:4).

The Bible's relative leniency towards rapists, and its view that the enormous psychological
and physical damage suffered by women who have been raped can be redressed by
financial compensation, are revealed in the following verse: "If a man happens to meet a
virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall
 10

pay the girl's father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the girl, for he has violated her.
He can never divorce her as long as he lives". (Deut. 22:28-30).

The case of the Afghan woman who was sentenced to twelve years in jail for committing
adultery, because she had the effrontery to bring a charge of rape against the man who
had raped her, is a chilling example of the extent to which the teachings in the Quran have
been deliberately distorted by Islamic extremists. Her sentence for adultery would have
been rescinded and she would have been pardoned if she agreed to marry the man who
had raped her. The case drew international attention, principally from Christians in the
West who would have been appalled to learn that that Taliban "justice" was identical to
Biblical justice in cases of rape. "Jailed Afghanistan rape victim Gulnaz is freed"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16179236

For American religious fundamentalists who believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible,
that Biblical verse on rape would appear to inspire their shockingly lenient views on rape.
When asked, in a TV interview, last August, about his views on abortion, Republican
Congressman Todd Akin, emphatically expressed his opposition to abortion under any
circumstances, even in cases of rape. He explained the reasons for advocating an
absolute ban on abortion: If its a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut
that whole thing down. But lets assume that maybe that didnt work or something: I think
there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be of the rapist, and not
attacking the child. ("Akin on 'Legitimate Rape' ")
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKa5CY-KOHc As a religious fundamentalist, perhaps
Atkin considered that an appropriate punishment for the rapist should be a life sentence of
marriage to his victim and to "never divorce her as long as he lives".

Another fundamentalist Republican, Indiana Treasurer Richard Mourdock and candidate

for a Senate seat, considers that a woman who was made pregnant by a rapist, is
"carrying a gift from God", that "it is something that God intended to happen." Presumably,
the raped woman has a divine duty to give birth to the baby. ("Richard Mourdock On
Abortion: Pregnancy From Rape Is 'Something God Intended' "
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yyg7gdTFsoA When he was Governor of
Massachusetts, Mitt Romney vetoed a bill that would have given women, who were raped,
access to emergency contraception the morning after pill. ("Mr. Romneys Version of
Equal Rights" http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/18/opinion/mr-romneys-version-of-equal-
rights.html?_r=0

The Republican Right and American religious fundamentalists believe in the literal
interpretation of the Bible. Both the Bible and the writings of the Early Church Fathers are
replete with misogynist statements. In "Women, Culture and Society, Part 1: From
Antiquity to the Renaissance" (see pages 14-22), I chronicled the overt, and often virulent,
http://www.normangirvan.info/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/15-women-culture-society-1.pdf
misogyny that punctuates the Bible, and the writings of the Early Church Fathers and
theologians, from the very birth of Christianity right up to the 17th century. The historical
thread that links the views of the Republican Right on women and those to be found in the
Bible and the theological writings cited above is both discernible and disturbing. It does not
augur well for American women.
 11

The veil as protection of privacy and symbol of modesty

The wearing of the veil is intrinsically linked to the importance of privacy, and especially
female privacy, in Islamic culture. All Islamic societies share a highly developed sense of
personal privacy, which is reflected, for example, in their traditional architecture where
houses all face inwards, with few windows opening on to the street. Inside traditional
Islamic homes there are two distinct arenas within which action takes place - the space
known in Persian as the biruni or exterior, where guests are received, and the andaruni
or interior where the family and especially the womenfolk may carry on their life in
privacy, insulated from contact with any visitors. Outside the home, such privacy for
women is preserved by means of the veil. The word for veil in Persian, chador, actually
means a tent, as though the home itself were somehow transported into the public
sphere. (Daniel Easterman, New Jerusalems: Reflections on Islam, Fundamentalism and
the Rushdie Affair,1992).

Wearing the veil is also related to the concept of sacred privacy, which is linked to ideas
of identity and cultural pride. In that context, far from disempowering Muslim women, the
veil allows them to participate in the public sphere on their own cultural terms, profiting
from the security and the privacy that it affords them. (Fadwa El Guindi, Veil: Modesty,
Privacy and Resistance, 1999). Moreover, in traditional Islamic culture, a womans hair is
considered an intimate part of her body (not just an attribute of female beauty, as it is in
Western culture), one capable of whetting male sexual desire. Thus, because it covers a
womans head, the veil serves to protect an Islamic womans intimacy, as well as being a
gage of her modesty.

With respect to Indian culture, Bernard Cohn, a British anthropologist, remarked on the
marked contrast, in colonial India, between the different British and Indian conceptions of
the relationship between womens dress and appearance, and female modesty. For upper-
class Indian women in north India, both Hindu and Muslim, modest behaviour centred
around the face and the head, which should be covered. With respect to the rest of her
body, a woman would dress in a manner that is more or less casual or revealing. The
bared midriff of Indian women wearing saris comes to mind. It did not the body itself, as it
was and still largely is for Western women.

If a male person entered the female quarters (zanana) of a Northern Indian home, where
women in colonial times spent most of their time, they would quickly cover their faces with
their sari or a scarf, unless the visitor was classified as a "younger brother. If women had
to go out in public, and were not in a closed palanquin, they would be covered from head
to toe in a wrapper or would wear their saris in such a way as to cover their heads and
obscure their faces completely. British women in India, by contrast, would cover their
heads and their bodies outside the home to protect themselves from the sun, and the latter
also for the sake of modesty, but would make no effort to obscure their faces. (Bernard S.
Cohn, Colonialism and its Forms of Knowledge: The British in India, 1996).

The Veil and the perceived erotic power of women's hair

Ashraf Zahedi argues that "In its totality or in fragmented forms, the female body has been
 12

idealized, theologized, and politicized to suit the prevailing construct of gender. Hair has
been an intriguing aspect of the social construction of the female image: both religion and
politics have assigned meaning to female hair to justify the need for covering or exposing
itFemale hair has been sexualized, theologized, and politicized by men of high social
and religious authority. Drawing on theological and legal texts they have written, these
men have managed to justify the need to conceal female hair and popularized head
coverings and the veil. Central to this justification has been the need to control female
sexual power and, in turn, the male gaze, thus placing the responsibility entirely on women.
Many different societies have fashioned a range of veils and head gear as symbolic control
of female sexuality." (Zahedi, 2007).

Molly Levine, observed that, in ancient Mediterranean culture, the female head cover was
used to conceal the erotic allure of feminine hair ("The Gendered Grammar of Ancient
Mediterranean Hair" in Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, and Wendy Doniger, eds., Off With Her
Head: The Denial of Womens Identity in Myth, Religion, and Culture, 1995). Referring to
Iran's Islamist regime, Parvin Paidar suggested that its obsession is more with female hair
than with modesty. The slightest exposure of female hair, even when women are modestly
dressed, can result in punishment. The law stipulates that those who violate it can be fined
and punished with 74 lashes. Both self-appointed Islamic vigilantes and the Anti-
Corruption Patrol continue to report violations of the Islamic code of modesty to the
authorities. ("Women and the Political Process in Twentieth-Century Iran", 1995).

The other two Abrahamic cultures apparently shared the Islamic view that a womans hair
is considered an intimate part of her body (Brayer, 1986). In ancient Jewish culture, the
uncovered head of a married woman was a form of nudity. Judaic texts from the first
century of the Christian era indicate that the exposure of a woman's hair to a man's sight
was considered a sexual violation. (Mary Rose DAngelo, "Veils, Virgins, and Tongues of
Men and Angels: Womens Heads in Early Christianity" in Eilberg-Schwartz and Doniger,
1995). The tradition of Catholic nuns shaving off all their hair might well have been
originally due to the perceived erotic allure of a woman's hair. As the Brides of Jesus
Christ, Catholic nuns were considered the embodiment of purity.

The veil as a political statement, instrument and symbol

The veil played both a political and an instrumental role for both antagonists in the French-
Algerian conflict. Algerian revolutionaries employed the veil, for example, to conceal
weapons. The veil was transformed into a technique of camouflage, into a means of
struggle. Since any person carrying a package could be required to open it and show its
contents to the French patrols, the Algerian woman used her veil to conceal the package
from the eyes of the occupier. (Frantz Fanon, "A Dying Colonialism", 1967). Joan Wallach
Scott, the American historian, observed that banning the veil was, for the French
colonizers, "a way of insisting on the timeless superiority of French 'civilization' in the face
of a changing world." ( "The Politics of the Veil", 2007)

According to Rod Skilbeck, the terrorising of women during Algeria's dirty war in the
1990s, following the military annulment of the 1992 elections which the Islamic Salvation
Front (FIS) had won, could be seen as an attempt by both sides to gain control of a very
important section of Algeria. Women are considered the custodians of Algeria's "profound"
 13

traditional values. If women take to either the Maghrebi head scarf (haik) or veil (hijab
and/or jilbab) - even out of fear - then it re-affirmed the force of tradition. All the values that
the veil symbolizes: modesty, obedience, sexual probity, conformity - are publicly and
overtly expressed when it is worn. "If the veil is evident and widespread, if women appear
traditional, then the message is sent - tradition is in ascendancy." ("The Shroud over
Algeria: Femicide, Islam and the Hijab", Journal of Arabic, Islamic and Middle Eastern
Studies, Vol.2, No. 2, 1995).

Commenting on the impossible situation in which Algerian women were placed during the
country's "dirty war", where they were the target of both secular forces in the socity and the
radical Islamists, Mona Ghuneim observed: "Algeria is the only nation in the Middle East
where women are killed as women because they are women. Women have lost their lives
for not wearing the veil, as well as wearing it. They appear now as either the symbols of
Islamic authenticity or of modernity" ("Algerian Women", Voice of America radio interview,
28-June 1995).

A similar scenario between tradition and (secular) modernity is currently playing out in Iran,
whose Islamist regime has conducted a major campaign to institutionalize the wearing of
the hijab. Secular and modern women resisted hijab, without success. Women who
opposed the hijab were arrested, warned, fined and, on occasion, imprisoned. One of the
primary occupations of the Iranian police is enforcing the hijab. Despite the regimes efforts,
"compulsory hijab" did not, in practice, lead to the imposition of the traditional veil or
chador, the reason being that the female proponents of the movement for culturally
authentic Muslim women had already popularized modest Islamic clothing. Iranian women
had been wearing the headscarf along with the manteau or rupush, an oversize long coat
that is meant to conceal womens curves. A code of modesty also applied to the colour of
the scarf and coat, which had to be black, brown, grey, or navy blue. In a short period of
time, the rupush and the rusari (headscarf) became the national uniform, along with the
chador. "For secular women, the headscarf served as a form of resistance to the veil.
Once again, the scarf mediated between modernity and tradition." (Zahedi, 2007).

The sexual undertone of the Iranian regime's political policy to force women to return to
their traditional role and status has not gone unnoticed in the secular West. Last month,
Foreign Policy magazine devoted an entire issue, entitled "The Sex Issue" to it.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/The_Sex_Issue
Its introduction explains that the issue is dedicated "to the consideration of how and why
sex -- in all the various meanings of the word -- matters in shaping the world's politics" and
declares that "Women's bodies are the world's battleground, the contested terrain on
which politics is played out." Given the Iranian regime's policy towards women, and the
considerations driving it, it comes as no surprise to see two articles with, titillating titles,
devoted to the regime's actions and policies in that domain - "The Ayatolla under the
Bed(sheets)" and "The Bedroom State".

No issue so inflames discussions of gender relations in Islam as that of the veil (hijab) and
veiling (ihtijab). From Malaysia to Morocco, the choice of dress for Muslim women, both
married and unmarried is a complex political statement." (Eickelman & Piscatori, 1996). In
 14

some societies it is a matter of personal choice; in others it is virtually prescribed by

government, social convention, or peer pressure. In 1923, the modernizing Egyptian state
legally obliged Egyptian women to unveil, although the law has rarely been enforced. The
adoption of Islamic dress, in Egypt, in the late 1970s, was confined to Islamist students
on university campuses, but by the 1980s, a large number of lower middle-class women
had also adopted Islamic dress. Subsequently, veil wearing began to assume political
significance. Having come to regard veiling as an act of defiance towards the largely
secular identity that they were tryiing to promote, in the late 1980s, the Egyptian authorities
barred Muslim women with veils or headscarves from access to university premises.
(Eickelman & Piscatori,1996).

Egyptian women's increasing voluntary recourse to the veil had little to do with re-
Islamization. It was not a sign of reinforcement of their faith, which had remained strong.
Islamic dress conveyed the social message that a woman could hold a job without
abandoning her roles of wife and mother: Wearing hijab showed respect for the
boundaries of a well-ordered, moral society without inhibiting social change. Veiling is thus
a means for women to assert some control over the ambiguous moral situation created by
new economic and social pressures. Also, by blurring distinctions between lower middle-
class dress and the expensive and unaffordable Western clothes of better-off Egyptian
women, wearing Islamic dress became a way for lower middle class women to assert their
respectability in difficult economic times, thus contributing to their empowerment and
enhancing their claims to status in society". (Eickelman & Piscatori, 1996).

The veil as a religious refuge from Male sexual chauvinism

Mona el Tahawi begins her article, "Why do they hate us?", with the following excerpt from
a short story by Alifa Rifaatn an Egyptian writer:

"In Distant View of a Minaret the late and much-neglected Egyptian writer Alifa Rifaat
begins her short story with a woman so unmoved by sex with her husband that as he
focuses solely on his pleasure, she notices a spider web she must sweep off the ceiling
and has time to ruminate on her husband's repeated refusal to prolong intercourse until
she too climaxes, "as though purposely to deprive her." Just as her husband denies her an
orgasm, the call to prayer interrupts his, and the man leaves. After washing up, she loses
herself in prayer -- so much more satisfying that she can't wait until the next prayer -- and
looks out onto the street from her balcony. She interrupts her reverie to make coffee
dutifully for her husband to drink after his nap. Taking it to their bedroom to pour it in front
of him as he prefers, she notices he is dead. She instructs their son to go and get a doctor.
"She returned to the living room and poured out the coffee for herself. She was surprised
at how calm she was."

The veil as an affirmation of identity

The struggle over womens dress in France's former North African colonies began long
before their immigration to France in the 1970s. French and British colonizers encouraged
Muslim women to remove the veil and to emulate European women. As a result, in Algeria
and other North African and Middle Eastern countries, the veil became a symbol of
national identity and opposition to the West during independence and nationalist
 15

movements.

In the 1970s, dissatisfied with rapid social change and ever-increasing Western influences
in Iran, many Iranians turned to religion for a new social paradigm. (Haideh Moghissi,
"Populism and Feminism in Iran: Womens Struggle in a Male-Defined Revolutionary
Movement",1996). A similar reaction to the increasing Westernization of their society also
occurred in Turkey and Egypt. Many Muslim women have adopted the head scarf to show
pride in their faith, particularly in times like these when Islam is under attack from non-
Muslims. Its a way for women to say, Im proud to be a Muslim and I want to be
respected. This is an especially strong sentiment in Muslim countries where people feel
their Islamic identity is threatened by the global spread of Western culture. For many
women in these countries, being authentic means wearing the Islamic head scarf.
("Behind the veil: Why Islam's most visible symbol is spreading", Caryle Murphy, The
Christian Science Monitor, 12 December 2009). http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-
East/2009/1213/Behind-the-veil-Why-Islam-s-most-visible-symbol-is-spreading

In certain Muslim societies where the veil is not legally imposed there is, however,
voluntary recourse to it by sections of the population, among whom are some who had not
previously worn it or who had done so only intermittently in the past. The black chador
gained popularity among Shiite women in Lebanon in the 1980s for, in the destabilizing
atmosphere of civil war, it augmented their sense of belonging to their traditional
communities. In Kuwait, where women are not obliged to wear the veil and where they
enjoy more liberty than women in any of the Gulf States, a large proportion of the female
population of all social classes wear the veil voluntarily. (Murphy, 2009).

An increasing number of young Muslim women, who are members of second or third
generation North African immigrant families and have lived all their lives in France, have
adopted the veil although their mothers have never worn it. It is a reaction to what they
rightly consider a rejection of Muslims by French society which has not made a place for
the Muslim population. France's Muslim nationals face strong discrimination in every
sphere of life. Their job applications are systematically rejected when recruiting agencies
or private sector firms see the Muslim name of the applicant. They also face social
discrimination and also when they want to rent an apartment. There are French Muslim
PhD's working as bus drivers or security personnel in super-markets, on the lookout for
shop lifters, because they cannot find work commensurate with their qualifications.

Wearing the veil is, for Muslim women in France, an affirmation of Muslim identity, as well
as a statement that they no longer seek to be integrated into French society. When I first
came to live in Paris in the late 1970s, the only women I saw wearing the veil were upper-
class women from wealthy Gulf state families who were on shopping sprees in Paris. They
were seen only in those parts of Paris with the most expensive shops. It was only in the
mid- to late 1990s that I began to see a few but growing number of women residents
wearing veils. French authorities became quite alarmed by the rapid increase in the
number of women wearing veil during the past decade, particularly since several of them
wore the niqab, the head-to-toe covering that leaves a narrow slit open for the eyes and
which is traditionally found in the Gulf states.
 16

Prior to introducing legislation to ban the niqab, the government appointed a commission,
which contained a number of prominent members of the Muslim community, to consider all
aspects of the problem. In the course of the commission's hearings, it received from
evidence from a French female Muslim anthropologist, who told the commission, that most
of the women she saw wearing the niqab are young and that some 1,900 women wear the
niqab in France, ninety per cent of whom are under 40. Two-thirds of that number are
French nationals, fifty per cent of whom are second- or third-generation immigrants.
Almost a quarter of the women wearing the niqab are converts to Islam. Most French
Muslims originate from north Africa, where Muslim traditionalists cover only the hair, not
the entire face. Ten years ago, the niqab was virtually unknown in France. One cannot
avoid the conclusion that the niqab is a powerful visual statement by young French Muslim
women, whose own mothers did not cover their faces, as well as an affirmation of identity.

In the book she published in 2009, Marnia Lazreg, an Algerian-born professor of sociology
at the City University of New York, took issue with Muslim women, in both the West and
countries throughout the the Arab world, who have chosen to wear the veil in increasing
numbers. She explored the adverse psychological effects of the practice on women who
wear it as well as those those in their immediate entourage, paying special attention to the
negative impact of veiling for young girls. Lazreg critically examines the various arguments
advanced by those (female and male) who defend the veil - that it is a form of modesty
imposed by the Quran and an expression of piety; that it offers protection from sexual
objectification and harassment; that it is a political statement and reassertion of Islam; that
it is a badge of pride in an Islamophobic world.

Lazreg criticizes academic feminists on Western campuses who argue that the veil is a
form of empowerment for Muslim women, and who dismiss charges of sexual oppression
as elitist, Western concepts. She argues that Muslim intellectuals, particularly men, exploit
such arguments to justify reveiling educated young girls who are confused about their
identity. She suggested that attempts to present the veil as a tool of empowerment rest on
a dubious post-modernist conception of power according to which whatever a woman
undertakes to do is liberating as long as she thinks that she is engaged in some form of
resistance' or self-assertion, no matter how misguided. ("Questioning the Veil: Open
Letters to Muslim Women", 2009).

The very lively controversy over the veil obscures an essential fact of life, namely, that
different "life forms" can and do exist in the same society, each of which is valid for the
particular group that has adopted it. According to Hans Henrik Brydensholt, the term Life
form differs from lifestyle. Where the latter term is based on the outward appearance of
different groups in the population, life form is a topology that is utilized to classify people
according to their internal value system. (Toward Self-Governance in a Culturally Diverse
Setting: A European Perspective, in Donald Rothchild (ed), Strengthening African Local
Initiative: Local Self-Governance, Decentralization and Accountability, 1994).

Studies of life forms in Denmark suggest that laws and rules, which have definite positive
value for people of one life form, have been found to have an equally definite negative
value definite for people who belong to another life form, and an obstacle to their own
fulfilment. Danish legislation has, as a consequence, acknowledged that a uniform rule
system has become an obstacle to development. (Brydensholt, 1994). It is therefore
 17

unrealistic, futile and counter-productive to either oppose or support veil-wearing. Muslim

women should be allowed to choose, for themselves, whether they wear the veil or not,
without provoking the voiced approval or disapproval of individuals and organizations in
non-Muslim societies. Women who live in Muslim countries experience enormous difficulty,
as it is, negotiating around the many obstacles and dangers they face, whether they
choose to wear the veil or not.

Islam's Crisis of Confidence and Identity

Islam is currently undergoing a crisis of confidence and identity, which has provoked
religious extremes, particularly against women that are not dissimilar, in their barbaric
nature, to those Christian women experienced during the Counter-Reformation, when
hundreds were hounded, arrested, tortured, and burnt at the stake for allegedly practising
witchcraft. Indeed, one is struck by the parallel trajectories of Catholic Christianity and
Islam. The Counter-Reformation, which lasted from the Council of Trent (1545-1563) to the
end the Thirty years War (1648), occurred between twelve and thirteen centuries after the
official establishment of Christianity in the fourth century A.D. (311 or 380, depending on
the authority chosen). Islam has a similar trajectory. Islam was officially born with the
Hegira (622 A.D.) and the "Counter-Reformation" it is currently engaged in began thirteen
centuries later, with the foundation of the Muslim Brotherhood in Ismailia, Egypt in March
1928. The Catholic Counter-Reformation was a violent reaction to the threat opposed by
Protestantism. The Islamic "Counter-Reformation" is a reaction to the threat posed by
Western values and their growing influence in Muslim societies.

Why have women been at the centre of both Counter-Reformations? Women embody a
culture's identity and are the principal transmitters of a culture's values and traditions from
generation to generation. Indeed, they are a culture's mitochondrial DNA, which is
transmitted from generation to generation only through female progeny. Thus, when a
culture or major cultural tradition feels threatened, its efforts to reinforce traditional values
begin with the position, role, status, and activities of women, who become the lightening
rod for the culture's frustration. Women are perceived as a culture's Achilles heel -- its
most vulnerable asset through which alien values could penetrate and undermine the
culture from inside. Hence the witch craft accusations and condemnations. In a 15th
century document entitled Malleus Maleficarum (The Witches' Hammer), the Catholic
Church's Dominican inquisitors accused women of being the channel by which the Devil
enters the minds of men. Islamists wage a similar crusade against Muslim women, who
are perceived to be influenced by Western secular values, particularly in the way they
dress. Wearing or not wearing the veil is considered a litmus test, in that particular respect.

Disturbing similarities between fundamentalist Republicans and radical Islamists

There are disturbing similarities between modern Islam and fundamentalist Republicans, in
respect of their respective attitudes to women. In her Foreign Policy article, Mona el
Tahawi illustrates how such male contempt is enshrined in Egyptian law: "When an article
in the Egyptian criminal code says that if a woman has been beaten by her husband 'with
good intentions' no punitive damages can be obtained..."). In another passage of her
article, she declared: "I'll never forget hearing that if a baby boy urinated on you, you could
 18

go ahead and pray in the same clothes, yet if a baby girl peed on you, you had to change.
What on Earth in the girl's urine made you impure? I wondered. Hatred of women."

In two passages of her Foreign Policy article ,Mona el Tahawi remarks on the obsession of
Muslim males, laymen and clerics alike, with women's sexual organs: "Then -- the 1980s
and 1990s -- as now, clerics on Saudi TV were obsessed with women and their orifices,
especially what came out of them." She recounts a conversation with another Egyptian
activist: "Do you know why they subjected us to virginity tests?" Ibrahim asked me soon
after we'd spent hours marching together to mark International Women's Day in Cairo on
March 8. "They want to silence us; they want to chase women back home. But we're not
going anywhere."

Bible-touting Republicans in America are equally obsessed with women's orifices. Last
February, the Republican-dominated Virginia Senate debated a bill that required women
seeking an abortion to undergo an invasive transvaginal ultrasound, before finally
adopting an amended version, in March, following nation-wide protests by women's groups.
"Virginia's invasive new ultrasound law went into effect on Monday, meaning women in the
state now have get a medically unnecessary procedure and wait 24 hours before they can
get a (legal, constitutionally protected) abortion. There was major hubbub earlier this year
when Virginia lawmakers debated the bill requiring all women to get an ultrasound before
having an abortion. The majority of the outrage, however, was directed at the fact that the
original version of the bill would have required women in the earliest stages of
pregnancyless than 12 weeks post-conceptionto have a sonogram probe shoved up
their vaginas in order to achieve the desired effect of producing an image of the fetus."
("Still-Terrible Virginia Ultrasound Bill Now in Effect")
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/07/still-terrible-virginia-ultrasound-bill-now-effect

Republicans and radical Islamists, alike, are accused of waging a war on women. In a
recent article, drawing on her own personal experience of growing up in Iran, Roya
Hakakian, an expatriate Iranian author described the Islamic war on women in a chilling
manner. "Thus far, the Arab Spring has brought a severe frost to womens rights. In Libya,
women are grossly underrepresented in the new government. In Egypt, the image of a
female protester, her blue bra exposed as she was dragged through the streets of Cairo in
December 2011, has become a new symbol of brutality against women. The March 2012
acquittal of a military doctor accused of carrying out virginity tests on female detainees
attests to the prevalence of state-sponsored violence toward women." She pointed to
Tunisia's new draft constitution in which, unlike its 1959 predecessor which held men and
women are equals, a woman is defined as the complement with the man in the family and
an associate to the man in the development of the country.

"At the school gates every morning, we were greeted by our own Taliban, members of the
morality unit, in charge of 'preventing vice and promoting virtue.' They rubbed the face of
my rosy-cheeked classmate to the point of bleeding to make sure she was not wearing
rouge and pulled at the long eyelashes of another to see if they were real. We missed
months of math that year because schools were newly segregated by gender and there
were not enough trained female instructors in the country to teach in the girls-only
classrooms. Two months before the end of the year, a few of us signed up for private
lessons given by a man who stared at the ceiling while teaching, lest he violate
 19

segregation laws by looking at us." ("How blaming the West hides a war on
women")http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/irans-war-on-
women/2012/10/19/e4d13a4a-1954-11e2-bd10-5ff056538b7c_story.html?hpid=z3

Referring to the case of the 15-year old Pakistani school girl whom the Taliban had tried to
kill because of her public opposition of their policies on women, Roya Hakakian concluded:
"The real enemy is misogyny. Malala Yousafzai is not just a teenager in Pakistans Swat
Valley but a victim of the greatest apartheid of our time, and a wounded warrior in
feminisms newest front line."

Numerous articles have appeared in the American press on the Republican "war on
women". The misogynist words and deeds, uttered and carried out by Republican
politicians in their war on women, are no less chilling than those uttered and carried out by
radical Islamists, in their own war on women. The following are excerpts from two of those
articles: "Conservatives like to pretend there is no war on women, so PoliticusUSA
developed a running list of legislation to prove that there is indeed a war on women. The
proof is in the policy, and policy trumps words. Included in Hrafnkell Haraldssons monthly
updates to the Dirty Thirty (a list of egregious legislation proposed or passed) is a surreal
list of legislation that proves the war on women is very real. ("Proof of the GOP War on
Women") http://www.politicususa.com/proof-war-women-2

"Despite the persistent gender gap in opinion polls, and mounting criticism of their hostility
to womens rights, Republicans are not backing off their assault on womens equality and
well-being. New laws in some states could mean a death sentence for a pregnant woman
who suffers a life-threatening condition. But the attack goes well beyond abortion, into birth
control, access to health care, equal pay and domestic violence. "The Campaign Against
Women" http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/opinion/sunday/the-attack-on-women-is-
real.html

The ultimate objective of radical Islamists is widely known - Muslim societies must be
governed according to the teachings in the Quran. However, it is not widely known that
American religious fundamentalists, many of whom are Republican politicians, cherish a
similar objective in respect of the Bible. "America's Providential History" (1991), published
by the (American) Providence Foundation, is a school textbook that was written for the
fundamentalist faithful. It is based on the thesis that all history is providential, and has
become so popular that the Conservative Book Club in America boasted: "This volume
seems destined to become one of the best selling Christian books of our time."

Chapter 1 of "America's Providential History", is entitled "God's Plan for the Nations". The
first paragraph reads as follows: "The goal of America's Providential History is to equip
Christians to be able to introduce Biblical principles into the public affairs of America and
every nation in the world, and in so doing bring Godly change throughout the world. We
will be learning how to establish a Biblical power and form of government in America, and
we will see how our present governmental structures must be changed. Since the
principles we will be learning are valid in every society and in any time in history, they will
be able to be applied throughout the world and not just in America. As we learn to operate
nations on Biblical principles, we will be bringing liberty to the nations of the world and
hence fulfilling part of God's plan for the nations."
 20

https://www.wordsearchbible.com/products/32954/sample_text

That chilling fundamentalist project which, like its mirror image, the corresponding radical
Islamist project, is universal in scope, confirms the frightening similarity between the
extremist religious visions and projects of American fundamentalists and those of radical
Islam. In their attempts to impose their respective apocalyptic visions on the entire world,
not only women but everyone will become the "battleground".
 21

"As the most common type of Islamic veil, the Islamic head scarf now occupies a
prominent place in both Western and Muslim majority countries as a statement of
religious values."