The Veil and the British Male Elite
Ali Khan

In line with the feminist bumper sticker “Well-behaved women do not make history,” Aishah Azmi, a Muslim woman born in Cardiff and raised in Birmingham, is determined to disobey the British male elite and make history. Azmi fully veils her face in the public, including at the school where she taught young girls and boys. No parents or female colleagues at the school objected to her choice of dress. Over the complaint of a British male colleague, however, Azmi was suspended from the job.  As the controversy grew, some parents joined the opposition to the veil, complaining that students could not hear Azmi speaking behind the veil. Azmi offered to drop the veil while teaching if no male colleagues were present. The school declined the offer. As a woman of will and determination, Azmi too has refused to give up her identity in public spaces. She is in the process of defending her rights through the British legal system. Though she has lost her case in the first administrative hearing, she intends to appeal to the higher courts.

Politicization of Veil

Instead of allowing the system to freely and fairly process Azmi’s legal claim, the British male elite wasted no time in condemning the veil as a profound violation of the British culture. The debate is no more narrow or legal. It is racial and religious.

All over the world, the law permits employers to impose reasonable grooming standards on employees. For example, the police officers may be prohibited from donning hippie hair and the schoolteachers may not be permitted to wear short skirts. Azmi will have a weak legal claim if the school can show a factual linkage between veil and teaching inefficacy. But that is not the point the British male elite, though known for their love of legal formalisms, is making. Their argument goes beyond the grooming standards at workplace. They wish to assimilate immigrant women into a prototypical woman who caters for male sensibilities and makes men feel comfortable.

British Male Attacks

Former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw (who loves to cook puddings in free time) cast the first stone when he requested that Muslim women drop the veil. Straw attempted to intellectualize his request by a louche admission that he watches the facial expressions of women when he engages in conversations with them. The veil prevents him, says Straw, from fully understanding what Muslim women are saying---not because he cannot hear them but because he cannot see their faces. (I wonder if Straw listens to the radio or ever talks on the phone.)

While Straw flirted with unconvincing logic, Mr. Phil Woolas, a local government minister, came down on the veil with a hard hammer. Mr. Woolas minced no words in issuing a forceful fatwa that the veil provokes “fear and resentment” among the British people. Woolas tried to influence the legal debate as well by openly suggesting that Azmi “can’t do her job” wearing a face veil.

While the case was still pending before the tribunal, Prime Minister Tony Blair also entered the furor, smearing the veil as a “mark of separation.” Wearing his familiar postiche smile, Blair argued that the veil “makes other people uncomfortable." Fully exploiting the office of the Prime Minister, Blair supported the school ‘s decision in suspending Azmi from the job. Another male from the British ruling elite, higher education minister Bill Rammell, added prejudicial perspective to his colleagues’ crusade by reminding the forgetful British public that Imperial College in London had already banned face veils in class.

In this perfervid air of British xenophobia, one important voice arose to protest. Trevor Philipps, the head of the Commission of Racial Equality and a man of African descent, warned that the debate over the veil had “turned ugly” and could spark violence.  What is needed, said Mr. Philips, is a gentle and refined discussion. His warning came true within hours when racially charged hoodlums attacked male worshippers at a mosque in Greater Manchester.

Undeterred by these attacks, the British elite continues to trash the cultural identity of a fellow citizen from Cardiff. Meanwhile, history with its inexhaustible ironies offers additional insights into the British resentment against the Islamic veil.