The veil that launched a thousand protests
European Notebook by Neville de Silva
It is not raging like an uncontrollable forest fire. But the fires have been lit and whether the ensuing ideological flames could be doused without too much damage to man and materiel would depend a lot on moderation prevailing over extremism on every side.

Aishah Azmi, a Muslim teaching assistant speaks during a press conference in Leeds, England. AP

Small ideological fires have been burning in different parts of Europe. Take the anti- Prophet Mohammad cartoons in Denmark that led to European media republishing them in the name of free speech and sparking off rows in several countries in the continent. Remember also the French ban on conspicuous religious symbols in schools after demands to allow Muslim students to wear the hijab to class.
In Germany seven of 16 federal states have banned hijabs in school.

There have been other instances in Europe in recent years where a new assertive Islam confronts western societies that are becoming increasingly agitated because international terrorism is largely traced to extreme Muslim groups. The result is that consciously or unconsciously Muslims in general are being viewed with varying degrees of suspicion as potential creators of violence and social mayhem.

This reaction of western societies in general has not been helped by the detection and sometimes the arrest, of home grown Muslims for actual or perceived acts of terror as happened in the UK after the July 7 bombings in London last year in which around 50 persons died and again two weeks later. Add to that the earlier 9/11 suicide attacks in the US that precipitated the attack on Afghanistan and the subsequent invasion of Iraq, a recipe with an explosive mix of religion, culture and the politics.

It is against this background that one must view the recent occurrences in Europe where religious symbols have prompted numerous controversies exacerbating already existing tensions.The most recent happened here in the UK when a Muslim school teaching assistant who refused to remove her face veil, niqab, in school was suspended and sought legal redress for discrimination.

Aishah Azmi appealed to a tribunal that dismissed her case for discrimination but awarded her £1000 for "injury to her feelings". Now she is threatening to appeal against the tribunal decision and even considering taking the issue to the European Court of Justice which would doubtless highly politicise her case because of similar controversies over the veil and other religious symbols in several European countries.

What probably heightened tensions and seemed to signify a clash of religions was the fact that she was a school assistant at a West Yorkshire Church of England junior school. The Aishah Azmi case got wide publicity because it was not isolated. Earlier Jack Straw, a former foreign secretary, made a public statement that he had asked Muslim women who come to see him in his constituency to remove their veils so he could speak to them.

Straw drew flak from sections of the Muslim community and support from others including Prime Minister Tony Blair who observed that the veil was a mark of separation. These remarks came while the Azmi case was still before the tribunal and so it drew a last minute observation from the tribunal which said it was "most unfortunate" that politicians and others had commented on a matter that was still sub judice.

There were Muslims who publicly supported the tribunal's ruling that the authorities had not discriminated against their teaching assistant. Shahid Malik, a Muslim and MP for Dewsbury where the school is located, said after the ruling that it was a "victory for commonsense."

Mrs. Azmi, however, was not moved. She said she was determined to fight on. "It is clear that discrimination against me has taken place and I am disappointed that the tribunal has not been able to uphold that part of my claim."

This case and the larger question of Muslim women in modern British society and their status in Islam have opened up a much wider public debate that engulfs the whole question of a theocratic and secular state, the position and future of "faith schools" such as those of various Christian denominations and Muslim and Jewish educational institutions.

As Maleiha Malik, a lecturer in law at Kings College, London wrote recently, "It would be naïve to imagine that the domestic debate about Islam -- and Muslim women in particular -- can be hermetically sealed off from the politics of the "war on terror", as the last couple of weeks have demonstrated."
"Muslim women who adopt the veil in Europe may simultaneously be seeking to affirm their religious identity while being determined to enter the public sphere as full and equal citizens," she wrote.

The fact is that Islam and the increasing resort to the head scarf and face veil by Muslim women are inextricably woven into the social and political problems of the day particularly in Europe where the cultural differences are now beginning to surface as a result of expanded immigration.

Even Islam is not monolithic as some critics of the religion try to make out in the effort to castigate the entire Muslim world as terrorist. The truth is that the immigrants to Europe from Africa, Asia and elsewhere belong to different cultural and social backgrounds and therefore represent diversity. This is true of Muslims who have settled in Europe too. The struggle for ideological supremacy that is going on now is between these groups from different countries and different ethnic backgrounds and religious traditions.
The problem today is that the entire Muslim community -- that is true of Britain and elsewhere is Europe too -- is being judged by the words, preaching and actions of extremist elements that do not represent the whole.

If Europe is to deal with the problem of cultural and religious diversity it cannot do so by tarnishing everybody with the same brush. Today it is the Muslim community, tomorrow it will be all blacks and coloureds. Today it could be the clash of civilisations. Tomorrow it might be the clash of arms. Therein lies the frightful prospect of society in turmoil.

In an article last month Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, warned that divisions created by the recent row over Muslim women wearing the veil risk becoming "the trigger for the grim spiral that produced riots in the north of England five years ago. Only this time the conflict could be worse."

Though the current controversy might be centred round Muslim religious symbols there is a wider debate going on though it is more muted. That is whether Britain should not become a secular state by separating church and state. Here in the UK the monarch, the head of state is also the head of the Church of England. In a recent editorial The Sunday Times said, "Religion has become hot news and high politics. Many of the debates are about freedom of religious expression which should be preserved. But some arise from the fact that other religions have to be given the same rights as the established church. If the Church of England can have state-funded schools, so should other religions…..A system that worked for the cosy C of E may encourage division and intolerance as it spreads."

The Sunday Times asked whether it was time to adopt the American and French models with the separation of the church and state. But this is not the only debate that is going on. There is one within the Muslim community itself as Muslim women become more assertive and demand that they be allowed to pray in the mosques like the men.

A group of young Muslim women called "Impact" was on a TV programme last week campaigning for women too to be admitted to all mosques for prayer instead of keeping them as a male preserve, dominated by older men reflecting the traditions of the Muslim countries they originally came from. There are a few mosques here that allow women into them.

But the tradition-bound men who administer the mosques are determined to resist the winds of modernisation that second and third generation Muslim women are trying to bring to the country of their birth, the United Kingdom.