They’re in NYS, where breastfeeding protestors won a top state court decision some years back, and women have the absolute Constitutional right to go topless anywhere where men have the right to go topless. (As a result you will actually see a lot more “shirts and shoes required” signs than before.)

The ironic thing about all this is that in cultures in which niqab wearing is commonplace, there would be no question that it would be totally inappropriate for her to be in a classromm (or any room) with a non-mahram man without some kind of chaperone. For that reason, all education is strictly gender-segregated.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116141293728827122

(sorry I am retarded and cannot make links)

and I was thinking, along with digby and some commenters, that it’s ridiculous that this is even a debate in a free society. My comment went somewhat along the lines of “the fundamental point is that I’ll be damned if I’m going to tell anybody else what they can and can’t wear.”

But then I was reading some of the other comments and I realized it of course goes deeper than this. If women are coerced into wearing the veil, how “free” is that? Digby made the point that people have always been made subjects of suspicion for dressing differently — he/she (not sure if D. is boy or girl) made an analogy to punks in England during the late 70s being ostracized. But then another astute commenter says that there’s a big difference — punks dressed the way they did deliberately, as a representation of their demand for *greater* freedom, where the veil can be seen as a sign of anything but a freedom to dress while you want.

The thing is I still think that this is a battle for Muslim women to fight within their own communities, if they choose — state intervention in how people dress is just too odious an idea, with too many horrible implications, for a person like me to support in any capacity. So I stand by what I said at first, which is that I will never, ever support an effort that allows the state to tell anybody what to do with their body (you can see exactly what sort of “implications” I mean when you consider this phrase). But you also have situations like the female Muslim teacher who covers her mouth, potentially making it tougher for the kids to learn. When you agree to work for the state as a teacher, don’t you agree to abide by whatever rules they set? It’s not like you *have* to be a teacher.

Is genetics the only level by which we judge something as inherent now? Is a person who lost a sense or ability in an accident or due to disease less disabled than those born with similar problems? Religion is very much inherent to people’s sense of identity, back when I was a christian (though I think steinbeck’s (completely unconnected) term “Christian Athiest” is probably more apt, who cares what god thinks, fuck the ressurrection, fuck the churchs’ insular communities and ad hoc rules, but by the gods, this jesus guy is interesting) I wasn’t choosing to do good deeds, or help my fellow people or any of that, I did that stuff because it was what I believed in, and that belief was central to who I am.

So too with most religious people, who they are and how they observe their faith are often indistiguishable aspects of theri personality, and to say that a religious person has a real choice in how they choose to observe their faith is as bad as saying that the poor choose to be poor - we don’t, the religious don’t, disabled people don’t.

just because there’s a theoretical ability to choose, doesn’t mean you cna ask somone to make it.

It also seems part of a larger global theme, the rise of fundamentalism(s) in response to advanced corporate…whatever you want to call it, colonialism, capitalism, some strange new hybrid. Karen Armstrong talks about this really lucidly. The old traditions get vacuumed up and swept away, not just by “outside” colonizers…or, well, not necessarily just by outside -nations,- but by giant chains, the forces of the “global market,” constant disruption. And nature abhors a vacuum. and people turn reactionary in response: yes, it’s about the uneducated sweeping into power, all the books are destroyed and in any case who has the time to read, who has the time for more than sound bites and anyway these folks are so -persuasive-;

but also, people turn super-literal because they feel the ground, the very foundations of reality crumbling beneath their feet: structure! Structure above all! It’s material; it’s also existential.

and that last bit in particular (how upsetting it is to have all the old -beliefs- swept away, on top of course of the socioeconomic instability, wars, famines, Depressions, and so forth) is something i think not nearly enough people pay attention to.

then again: shit, we’re just barely able to even address the -material- part of the instability. So much less pleasant a thing to contemplate than a simpler “those people over there, or maybe those MEN, goddam but they’re barbaric. Clearly what they need is _____, and all will be well. Now it’s just a question of implementation.” Because we’re all implicated as well: both as part of the cause and part of the effect, ultimately.

Which is actually an interesting argument from an Islamic perspective, which believes that there is no such thing as “conversion” to Islam, rather those who are not born into Islam and embrace the faith (shahada) actually are “reverting” to the natural human condition, which is Islam.

There’s a huge controversy in Britain over remarks that Jack Straw, the former Foreign Secretary, made about niqab (the face……