I didn't realize how man different Islamic dressings there were for women. The hijab, niqab and burka are the most well known. The others I am now informed are the Al-Amira, the shayla, the khimar and the chador. Go to this BBC article if you want to see what they look like.
I think like most people, if they are honest with themselves, find the burkha disturbing. It is the most visible symbol of 'otherness' you are going to come across in the West and it always makes me feel uncomfortable regardless of setting but especially on public transport. Its not that I think that I am in imminent danger of being blown up but it does make you remember the many terrorist atrocities that have been committed by Islamic fundamentalists on public transport all over the world.
When I see these people, I realize that they are fundamentalists too. They may not have the intention of murdering other citizens but anyone who would go out dressed like this believes in things that are completely different from what I believe. That's OK. We live in a democracy (for the moment) however what I ponder over is the intent of those wearing this outfit. By all means you are entitled to your have your beliefs but to display these beliefs as ostentatiously as this tells me something about them;
They don't want to conform or integrate
They are part of another tribe - and they want me to know this
They don't care how it makes anyone else feel
They don't want to interact with anyone outside their tribe in an equal way
They don't mind being associated with extremism and perhaps they want to to be associated with it
In a democracy you are not compelled to engage in any of the things listed above but I just think to myself this; if I was part of a club and that club wore, say green armbands or green shirts every time they went out and then that shirt - rightly or wrongly, for whatever reason became associated with oppression, violence and terrorism - I would stop wearing it.
I think most people would ordinary people would. I might feel so passionately and angry that it had been highjacked by 'bad actors' that I would campaign to ensure that those people were certain that they were not representative of the movement but I have seen very little evidence of that in the UK. In fact, if your movement has been hi-jacked by fundamentalists I would start by wearing a different coloured armband or shirt.
That they don't affirms all the points I have laid out and leads me to conclude that this clothing is actually a uniform. Uniforms are by their very nature a way to visually identify a tribe and a group. By wearing a uniform you are saying 'I am a member of a tribe that you are not, this is my uniform.'
I call this a 'Uniform of otherness'.
I have noticed that more and more people are wearing the uniform of Islam and not just in the UK, Burqa wearing is on the rise even in South Asia. Even a friend of mine who still wears western clothes and is from Pakistan but has lived here for many years has recently started to wear what I now know as a 'shayla'. I have no idea whether she has been encouraged to do this or whether it is a decision on her part and she isn't a close enough friend for me to feel comfortable asking, but there is a change and she must think that it is a change that is acceptable because this willingness or even wish to integrate, to conform, to become part of the wider tribe seems less and less prevelant in the UK.
Similarly, more and more Muslim men are wearing symbols of Islamic association. I am seeing what I believe is called the 'kaftan' that young Muslim men wear over the top of their jeans and trainers, the taqiyah (like a topi of skull cap), and the scruffy beards often without a moustache. These are young men in their teens and 20s who have clearly been born here.
None of my Muslim friends or friends of Asian descent would ever sport this kind of look in the 90s, I cannot imagine it is or ever was even remotely attractive to the average woman. All those guys dressed like me (rather badly most of the time) and that was because they were - and still are the same as me. They may be from a different race and in some cases a different background but we generally believed in the same things. Its not that we even felt or feel particularly 'British' but we didn't feel 'non-British' either. The only time we ever felt really patriotic or jump to defence is if an outsider denigrated the Country in a particularly unfair or spiteful way. But whatever we felt and feel now we were and are still part of the same tribe.
That is not the case in the UK today and I think that is sad but I also recognize that it is dangerous for our society. When even the most moderate of Muslims now want to visually demonstrate their allegiance to another tribe and when those Muslims are for the most part people who have actually been born here, it shows us that not only have we failed to integrate them but they are now a separate tribe altogether and they want us to know that.
Not many examples throughout history as far as I can recall where two tribes happily co-exist in the same space.
Comments