The fashion police, at least, have already arrived, a decade early and without any help from Islamists. But rather than forcing women to wear the burqa or niqab, their job is to force them not to. Earlier this month Italian police in the northern city of Novara fined a Tunisian immigrant, Amel Marmouri, €500 for being veiled in a post office. Belgian police are likely to be doing the same after the Brussels parliament outlawed the burqa. France expects to pass a similar law by the autumn. Holland could follow suit. The Spanish city of Lleida has forbidden the burqa in public buildings; the Minister of Labour and Immigration Celestino Corbacho has hinted at a national ban. In Canada, the Quebec government has drafted an anti-burqa law. Australian politicians are demanding one too.

The rhetoric accompanying the bans has been as gushing as the oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico. Jean-Francois Copé, leader of the majority UNP party in French National Assembly, has talked of ‘a reaffirmation of our ideals of liberty and fraternity’. For the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, the bans are nothing less than a ‘defence of the Enlightenment’. According to Celestino Corbacho without a burqa ban it would not be possible to protect ‘the values of our society’.

There is certainly something medieval about the burqa and the niqab. The idea that in the 21st century women should be hidden from view for reasons of modesty or religious belief is both troubling and astonishing. Yet, there is also something surreal about the way that this piece of cloth has been turned into a battleground for Western values and about the idea that the burqa poses some kind of existential threat to the West.

The campaign against the burqa is particularly puzzling when in reality so few women choose to wear it. The sight of a burqa in Paris or Brussels is almost as rare as a glimpse of a bikini in Riyadh or Karachi. France has a Muslim population of 5 million. Its government estimates that fewer than 2000 women wear a niqab or burqa. (The original survey, conducted by DCRI, the French secret service, came up with the oddly precise figure of 367; that was so low that the Interior Ministry told the DCRI to count again.) In Holland some 500 women in a Muslim population of one million do so, in Denmark the estimate is fewer than 200 out of 170,000 Muslims.

So why, at a time when Europe is beset by so many fundamental economic and social problems, have legislators become so obsessed by this piece of cloth? There are three main kinds of arguments against the burqa: practical, political and existential.

The burqa, Jean-Francois Copé has suggested, ‘poses a serious safety problem at a time when security cameras play an important role in the protection of public order’. Many worry that the burqa would allow terrorists to evade airport security or provide the perfect camouflage for bank robbers. Others fret that wearing the burqa makes it difficult to perform certain jobs, particularly those that require face-to-face contact with clients or the public – doctors, nurses, teachers, police officers.

There are clearly practical problems that come with wearing the burqa. It is, after all, a piece of clothing designed for feudal life, not the modern world. Practical problems, however, can usually be solved on a case-by-case basis without the need for national soul searching or draconian legislation. Airports already require veiled women to reveal their features when passing through security. Police have no problem demanding to see faces when checking ID cards. And if banks insist that people should not wear bulky clothing, so be it. But that is very different from the state imposing an outright ban on such clothes.

If wearing a burqa is incompatible with the needs of particular jobs, then those particular employers – hospitals, schools, shops even- can legitimately demand that employees not be clad from head to foot. But again, one can impose dress codes for certain jobs without banning a type of clothing for everyone. After all, we don’t have judges and teachers wearing bikinis on the job either.

The practical arguments for a ban on the burqa are weak and shallow. More profound is the political case. The burqa, proponents of a ban argue, undermines gender equality and makes social integration impossible. It is, Bernard-Henri Lévy has written, ‘not a dress, it’s a message, one that clearly communicates the subjugation, subservience, the crushing and the defeat of women.’

The burqa is certainly demeaning to women, and often used to enchain them. Many other practices and rituals that Western societies tolerate are, however, also degrading. Orthodox Jewish women must shave their heads and wear a wig when they marry. The Catholic Church forbids women priests. Many Protestant evangelical churches insist that wives must ‘obey’ their husbands and that the role of women is to breed new evangelicals. Nobody seriously suggests that Jewish marriage rituals be banned or that the Catholic church be forced to accept gender equality or that evangelical wives be saved by state legislation from being baby factories.

A liberal society accepts that individuals should be free to make choices that may not be in their own interests and that, to liberal eyes, demean them. This applies even to particularly distasteful expressions of degradation, such as the wearing of the burqa.

What of the suggestion that women are forced to wear the burqa, and so need protection from the law? It is true that in countries such as Saudi Arabia or Yemen women have little choice but to cover up their face. That in itself is a good reason for liberal societies not to impose coercive dress codes.

If women are forced to do something against their will, the law already protects them in democratic countries. But what evidence exists, suggests that in Europe most burqa-clad women do not act from a sense of compulsion. According to the DCRI report in France, the majority of women wearing the burqa do so voluntarily, largely as an expression of identity and as an act of provocation. A second French report by the information authority, the SGDI, came to similar conclusions. Burqa wearers, it suggested, sought to ‘provoke society, or one’s family’, and saw it as a ‘badge of militancy’, and of ‘Salafist origins’. The burqa ban will only deepen the sense of alienation out which the desire for such provocation emerges.

The burqa is a symbol of the oppression of women, not its cause. If legislators really want to help Muslim women, they could begin not by banning the burqa, but by challenging the policies and processes that marginalize migrant communities: on the one hand, the racism, social discrimination and police harassment that all too often disfigure migrant lives, and, on the other, the multicultural policies that treat minorities as members of ethnic groups rather than as citizens. Both help sideline migrant communities, aid the standing of conservative ‘community leaders’ and make life more difficult for women and other disadvantaged groups within those communities.

What of the impact of the burqa on social integration? The veil has been rightly described as ‘ghetto walls that a person wears’. It often inhibits normal social interaction – that, after all, is its very purpose – and may preclude those who wear it from integrating into society. But given that virtually no Muslim woman actually wears the burqa, it can hardly be held responsible for creating a sense of social separation.

The real significance of the burqa is that it has become a symbol of the anxieties that have come to beset Western nations. What does it mean to be French? Or British? Or Swedish? Most Western nations have undergone a crisis of identity as both traditional values, and trust in the institutions in which those values were invested, have become eroded. Unable to define clearly the ideas and values that characterize the nation, still less to win people to those ideas and values, politicians have taken the easy step of railing against symbols of ‘alienness’. In this sense the burqa bans are similar to the prohibition imposed last year by the Italian city of Lucca on kebab shops ‘to protect our culinary tradition’ or to the decree by the mayor Rome that schools can no longer serve couscous or Chinese fried rice but only ‘regional cuisine dishes’. They are attempts to define ‘Western values’ or the republican tradition by showing what such values or traditions are not at a time when politicians find it increasingly difficult to express what they are.

And this takes us to the existential argument against the burqa. ‘This is not about the burqa’, Bernard-Henri Lévy claims. ‘It’s about Voltaire. What is at stake is the Enlightenment of yesterday and today, and the heritage of both, no less sacred than that of the three monotheisms. A step backwards, just one, on this front would give the nod, all fanaticism, all the true thoughts of hatred and violence.’

The idea that the entire weight of the Enlightenment tradition should rest on banning a piece of cloth worn by a few hundred women shows how absurd has become the debate about the burqa. Certainly, it is important to defend liberal social values, the secular society and the heritage of the Enlightenment. But we cannot do so by promoting illiberal policies, stigmatizing immigrants, or banning symbols of ‘otherness’. The very values that Lévy believes are undermined by the burqa demand that we oppose any attempt by the state to ban it.

This is a very interesting take on the hijab debate – a video about a British Muslim woman who decided to take off the hijab after realising she was wearing it not for personal pious reasons but political ones – contrary to what Islamists claim. She is of the opinion that it’s better for society that men learn how to function appropriately around unveiled women than that society shroud women from men and place the blame for men’s behavioural inadequacies on women’s shoulders.

Watch it through as she visits various Muslim women around the world and investigates their attitudes towards the hijab.

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Hat tip: Averroes Press

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The Times recently gave space to Fatima Barkatulla to present a hopelessly misleading defence of the niqab (or, as the Times fawningly describes it, “[a]n insider guide to common misconceptions”). Fatima attempts to address seven issues that have been raised around the Niqab.

The piece is here for all to see. I would like to respond to her points one by one.

1) The Niqab is a symbol of female subjugation.

Of course it is. Just because a woman in the UK is not forced to wear niqab does not stop it being a symbol of subjugation. The Salafi men who decided that women should wear niqab did so because it fits in with their idea of how a woman should behave in society – stay in the bedroom and kitchen, if she ventures outside then the mere sight of her face will cause widespread sexual chaos. Most simply, a black sheet covering a woman’s body is a very powerful way of controlling her nature as a sexual being and restricting it to a realm controlled by her family or husband. Fatima speaks about the handful of women she knows who voluntarily donned the Niqab – I admire the freedom they enjoy in this country to decide whether or not to wear niqab. Fundamentally, however, the fact that they are volunteering to wear niqab has no impact on its status as a symbol of female subjugation. They should be grateful that they have the freedom to make such a choice about their dress, a privilege their sisters living in Salafi societies don’t enjoy.

2)  Women who wear the Niqab cannot possibly contribute to society

This depends on your definition of ‘contributing to society’. A niqab wearing women has deliberately made a choice which will restrict her role in the outside world. Many employers would be reluctant to employ women (or indeed anyone) who insisted on covering the face; there are many professions like teaching, healthcare, customer service, law etc. in which the wearing of the niqab severely impedes the ability to perform the job. Indeed, according to Fatima, many niqab-wearing women prefer to work in all female environments so that they don’t have to cover their faces. Doesn’t this prove the point that wearing niqab inhibits a woman’s ability to contribute to society? And how many professions have 100% female environments? Even a school for girls will have male teachers, janitors and other staff. The fact that they can only work in 100% female environments means their contribution to society is severely restricted. It is, therefore, no wonder that Fatima states that many prefer to just be mothers. Of course they will, the niqab has closed off many of the other avenues women can follow to contribute to society.

3) The niqab isn’t in the Qur’an

Fatima comments that some theologians have interpreted Quranic verses as meaning that the face should be covered. I’m sure they have since the Quran has been interpreted by a variety of different people at different times and in different contexts. The fact is the Quran does NOT directly tell women to cover anything except their bosoms. Any other inferences are the result of human interpretation influenced by context and theologians’ personal desires. Clearly we don’t live in a society today where modesty refers to being covered from head to toe in black cloth. If anything it’s much more likely to provoke unwanted attention.

4)   Wearing the niqab implies that all men are predatory

Fatima erroneously claims that the niqab does not imply that all men are predatory and is simply useful for protecting the moral fabric of society. She cites an inappropriate analogy between a house being locked at night and a women being covered. The truth is that the niqab is actually offensive to men in that it suggests that the mere look of a women’s face is enough to trigger an uncontrollable sexual urge which could result in a mass outbreak of sexual assaults. Just as if you leave your house unlocked you can expect somebody (not everybody) to burgle it, Fatima’s argument is that a woman who doesn’t hide herself away can expect to be raped. If the niqab, as Fatima argues, does not presume that women are to blame for provoking men’s aggressive sexual interest and instead is a means of regulating sexuality in general in society, then why don’t men wear it? Why are men’s faces left uncovered? Do they not provoke sexual desire in women? The onus of protecting society from unhealthily expressed sexual desire should not be on women to cover up everything but rather on men to behave themselves.

5)  The niqab poses a security risk at banks and airports

Just as motorcyclists with helmets are expected to show their faces in banks and other places where identification is important, Muslims should be no different. Anyone who enters a bank should have their face on display at all times. It is unfair to expect airport staff in airports all over the world to make special exemptions for niqabis by having a special section for them to unveil which is staffed exclusively by females, especially since Salafis themselves are so inflexible when it comes to respecting other people’s interpretations of Islam. Pure hypocrisy.

6)  Niqab wearers can’t possibly be teachers.

It’s true they can’t unless they remove their Niqab because facial communication is so important in teaching. Again they are severely restricting their job opportunities if they are going to limit themselves to working in schools which have absolutely no male staff at all.

7) Banning the niqab will free those Muslim women who are coerced into wearing it

I don’t agree with a ban either, but extremists Salafis who promote such a bizarre practice for this day and age must be challenged. They are contributing towards the Saudisation of Muslim communities everywhere and are oppressing women by promoting the view that if they don’t cover their faces they will burn in hell and can expect to face aggressive male sexual interest. Empowering women is about giving them choices but it is very disingenuous for Salafis to use this line or argument because it is they who deny such choices to fellow Muslims whom they regularly condemn for not following backward literalist views of Islam.  People should be free to dress how they want but they should also accept that this can create problems for themselves if they choose to adopt bizarre and impractical clothing.

This is a very interesting take on the hijab debate – a video about a British Muslim woman who decided to take off the hijab after realising she was wearing it not for personal pious reasons but political ones – contrary to what Islamists claim. She is of the opinion that it’s better for society that men learn how to function appropriately around unveiled women than that society shroud women from men and place the blame for men’s behavioural inadequacies on women’s shoulders.

Watch it through as she visits various Muslim women around the world and investigates their attitudes towards the hijab.

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Hat tip: Averroes Press

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Sohaib Saeed, a leading light of the Scottish Islamic Foundation and a former spokesman for the Muslim Association of Britain, has publicly expressed his opposition to countries and individuals that believe that women should be forced to veil or wear hijab.

In a letter to The Metro opposing Sarkozy’s suggestion that the Burka should be banned, and which was published on the Scottish Islamic Foundation’s website last week, Sohaib wrote that that “Forcing a lady to remove a garment is as abhorrent as forcing her to don it.”

Although Sohaib does not spell it out, his uncompromising defence of liberal values can only be seen as a blunt criticism of countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia that force all women – Muslim and non-Muslim  - to wear the hijab, as well as a criticism of opposition Islamist groups around the Middle East and elsewhere that aspire to similarly force dress codes on women.

Many organisations have previously accused Sohaib Saeed and the Scottish Islamic Foundation of being hard-line Islamists – Sohaib’s clear opposition to forced veiling makes it clear how far this is from the truth.

In Britain, freedom of consciousness and liberalism thrive. Women can choose to wear the hijab (headscarf) or not, and so Katharine Quarmby can ponder at will its aesthetic and fashion implications. In Iran, however, such a luxury is unimaginable. A woman’s worth and modesty is dictated by misogynist Islamist clerics who force women to wear the hijab and throw feminists in jail for daring to protest for equal human rights.

Unfortunately, some do not appreciate the freedoms held in Britain. In a recent talk I attended, Alastair Crooke, a former MI6 agent, labels what we see in Iran as ‘Muslim values’, praising Iran’s leaders for using their ‘creative imaginative faculties’ to construct a society based on collective ‘Islamic’ norms. Most Iranian women recognise this as Khomeini’s politicisation of religion. Crooke rejected the idea that the Iranian regime abuses a woman’s human rights, as these are a ‘Western’ construct – Christian, capitalist and rooted in individualism.

Worryingly, a female member of the audience drew an analogy between the state imposing the hijab on women and society allowing breast enlargement adverts in London’s tube. Such an analogy is false: the British state is not forcing her to get bigger breasts. She will not be lashed 80 times and thrown into jail for refusing. Iran’s former prosecutor general, Abolfazl Musavi-Tabrizi, said “anyone who rejects the principle of hijab in Iran is an apostate, and the punishment for an apostate under Islamic law is death.” No government official in Britain says this about not adopting, in principle, ‘Western values’. State-enforced moral prescriptions can only remind us of the last century’s totalitarian experiments.

Of course, in some social circles, there are pressures to wear the hijab. In Qatar, where I grew up, the law does not require the hijab for women. Instead, society expects it: for local women to not wear it in public is social suicide. My Qatari friends wore it, and though I am not Qatari, I felt pressurised to wear it too, thinking this was required for Muslim women to be more pious. I moved to London for university and took it off; I felt guilty doing so, thinking I would be punished. I even pretended to some friends that I still wore it; they would have thought that I was immodest and my faith in Islam was weak!

Meeting diverse Muslims in this country—some of whom like me removed their hijab—made me realise that there are other Islamic interpretations that say the hijab is not required. This interpretation is not less valid, even though it may not be mainstream opinion. Modesty and virtue, a justification often cited, comes from within – if I can achieve this aim without the hijab then I am no worse for believing that it is not required by God. In fact, I get annoyed when Muslims – and non-Muslim – define or measure my ‘Muslimness’ on a metre of cloth.

However, when women are not afforded this choice, and are forced to abide by only one religious interpretation of female modesty, of course they will express their individuality by wearing Bengali or Indian fabrics as hijab. Women expressing themselves thus in Iran is a microcosm of political protest against the very clerics who demand a uniformed appearance on their version of morals. To say one does not like wearing it out of vanity is belittling the hijab to those who choose or are forced to wear it.

Religion is a personal matter; there is a difference in choosing how to express religiosity as opposed to being forced to by a state that defines morality through narrow and rigid religious interpretations. Accepting that human behaviours differ even within one society or religion is a basic tenet of human rights. Britain’s liberal society protects my right to practice my faith however I see fit. Such rights are not, as Crooke thinks, solely Western; but are the rights of all.