South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy (SANSAD) deplores the high-handed and colonialist decision by Immigration Minister Jason Kenny to ban the wearing of veils in citizenship ceremonies. This is an assault on Muslim women who wear the veil as an essential aspect of their identity because it compels them to bare their faces in public as the price of citizenship.
Whether the veil is a requirement of religion or a cultural code that can be dispensed with is something that can only be determined within the Muslim community, which should have been consulted as a minimum condition for any decision in this regard. Jason Kenny has no right to decide this, and his peremptory decision is an exercise in raw power in contempt of the Muslim community.
Muslim women who wear the veil do so for many different reasons. But whatever these reasons are, the woman who wears it adopts it as an essential part of her identity. It is her right to do so. To force her to remove the veil is equivalent to stripping, an act of violence.
A commonly used argument in the West against Muslim women wearing the veil is that it is sign of their oppression. This is a part of the West’s colonial heritage, the tradition of holding the West’s norms as a standard in its civilizing mission. An important part of this mission has been the fantasy of saving brown women from the oppression of brown men. In recent times this mission to “save” women has been used in the propaganda to justify war in Afghanistan.
Minister Kenney is quoted as saying: “Requiring that all candidates show their faces while reciting the oath allows judges, and everyone present to share in the ceremony, to ensure that all citizenship candidates are taking the oath as required by law [.] This is not simply a practical measure. It is a matter of deep principle that goes to the heart of our identity and our values of openness and equality” (The Vancouver Sun, Tuesday, December 13, 2011). This demand that the unwilling Muslim woman show her face in public to affirm “our” values of “openness and equality” is a deplorable continuation of colonial violence.
While the requirements of the law could be fulfilled by the woman unveiling herself during the ceremony before a female officer, Kenny is uncompromising in his oppressive demand as indicated in the next quotation attributed to him in the Vancouver Sun article: “‘The oath is a public declaration that you are joining the Canadian family and it must be taken freely and openly,’ he said. ‘To hide their identity from us when they are joining our community is contrary to Canada’s proud commitment to openness and to social cohesion.'”
This coercive demand to strip a particular Muslim woman of her identity in order to make her “freely and openly” affirm “our” identity as a community of “openness” and “cohesion” is outrageous in its self-contradiction and arrogance. We deplore this in the name of secularism, democracy, and human rights, the principles on the basis of which we, South Asians living in Canada, are organized in SANSAD.
