Sociability and religious attire – less is better

(Picture from the article at reference 1)

Look at the picture above and imagine yourself to be the obviously Caucasian lady in it. Would you know you are talking to the intended burqa clad obviously Muslim woman among the five? I guess not.

This doubt about who you are talking to cannot be sustained in normal European sociability, or is it sociality, France has argued. What sociability/sociality?

To get clarified on this we need to go to the referenced article at [1] and through it to excerpts from and opinions on a judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, Strasbourg. The judgment arose in the context of a “challenge to France’s 2010 edict banning the public from wearing religious symbols, including crucifixes, yarmulkes and burqas.

But, France did not have clear sailing in this case. The court rejected France’s contention that the burqa promotes, or at least sustains gender inequality. Martha Nussbaum had something to say about this in an article [2] sometime back: “…society is suffused with symbols of male supremacy that treat females as objects.” So, the burqa ban can be seen as religion-specific. The court has side stepped the religious side of the argument.

The second issue on which France faced defeat at the hands of the court is its contention that burqa poses a security threat. The court “rejected the idea that faces should be uncovered in the interests of public security”. Then where did France win? In the third point that a burqa comes in the way of its citizen’s sociality.

It is not socializing but something called sociality or sociability, used almost as synonyms as far as I could discern.

French government’s assertion was that “an unveiled face in public is one of the “minimum requirements of life in society.” What seems to be missing in the assertion is the specificity of the society – France. The court felt that France is justified in standing for one of its foundational principles - fraternity (without the gender specificity, I hasten to add).

I remember very distinctly, around the time of discussions on a pan-European constitution some years ago, France took severe exception to any reference to Christian ethos in the context of European culture. Is it the case of that-was-then-but-it is-now? OK, the law is not exactly religion specific because along with the burqa it has also banned people sporting crucifixes and yarmulkes (good for the Hindus, as the marks they sport on the forehead appear to have escaped the axe!). Yet, the effort at universalizing the ban has to be taken with a pinch of salt. Had France stuck to only one point, this fraternity aspect, in this case I believe it would have been viewed less cynically; particularly bringing in security aspects – so vigorously and pointedly denounced by Nussbaum [2] – dilutes France’s cry for universal fraternity.

The other aspect that is quite uncomfortable in the judgment is the lack of definition of “sociality”. Yes, France claims that in its society open face is essential to be perceived as sociable and we cannot take exception to it. Then, we need to ask how a French citizen will feel walking down Chicago’s Lakeshore Drive in mid-winter [2]. Will Chicagoans in winter lacking in sociability? If winter allows one to cover his or her face, why can’t one’s religion? If I wear an obvious religious mark on my forehead like Vaishnavites and Saivities do, do I suddenly become less sociable? Boxes of Pandoras are opened in this line of questioning, with or without the court’s judgment.

While agreeing that France can do what it wants as regards the burqa, it adding on to the reasons for the burqa ban in reality dilutes its core argument.

Raghuram Ekambaram

References

1.    http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/sociality-and-the-burqa-question/article6284746.ece

2.    Veiled threats, Martha Nussbaum, The New York Times Opinionator, July 11, 2010 (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/veiled-threats/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0)