Hyper-Politicisation of the Hijab and the Rise of Gendered Islamophobia after 9-11 and the 2013 Egyptian Coup
By Ibtihal Ramadan
9 October
2020
Radwa El
Sherbiny - a famous, yet controversial Egyptian TV host who does not herself
wear the hijab - recently asserted that a hijabed woman is 100,000 times better
than a non-hijabed woman, as the latter, including herself, has surrendered to
her ego and the devil.
Muslim
women gather at Cairo’s Al-Azhar Mosque in May 2019 (AFP)
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She
encouraged Hijabi women who are facing social exclusion to maintain patience,
suggesting they are viewed more favourably in the eyes of God. Her views not
only stirred heated debate on social media, but also prompted an investigation
by the Supreme Council for Media Regulation amid accusations that she was
promoting hate speech. Sherbiny eventually apologised for her remarks.
Callous as
they were, her words merely expressed a personal and candid view. Hypocrisy is
evident in how “free speech” is filtered through gendered Islamophobia.
Systematic Exclusion
I define
Islamophobia as a global colonial ideology to subjugate Muslims and deny their
agency through pre-emptive or punitive means. Gendered Islamophobia is related
to ways in which Muslim women’s bodies and dress, among other things, are scrutinised
and regulated via systematic exclusion, intertwining old Orientalist tropes
with the discourse of extremism.
Free speech
in the UK comprises the “freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart
information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless
of frontiers”. When that expression incites hatred, harassment or
discrimination against others, it becomes outlawed “hate speech”.
Yet, Prime
Minister Boris Johnson’s infamous likening of Muslim women who wear the niqab
to “bank robbers” and “letter boxes” indicates how free speech can be
instrumental in igniting gendered Islamophobia. Johnson’s view betrayed two
dimensions: while he disapproved of banning the niqab, in apparent support of
Muslim women’s right to choose how to dress, he recognised it as an
“oppressive” practice.
Defending
his right to free speech, Johnson initially refused to apologise. His
supporters perceived a potential apology as yielding to an extremist ideology
that aims to shut down debates on difficult issues. Although Johnson did
eventually apologise, just before the December election last year, his views
aggravated gendered Islamophobic prejudice among the general public.
Sexism and Patriarchy
Attacks
against the hijab and Niqab by public figures and writers in Egypt are not
strikingly different. There is no law mandating Muslim women to wear the hijab
in this Muslim-majority country, yet anti-Muslim views go even further than
western conceptualisations.
Feminist
Nawal El Saadawi is a case in point. In support of a court ruling backing Cairo
University president’s decision to ban the niqab amongst university lecturers
and teaching staff, she said that the human face symbolises their dignity, and
thus, covering it removes human dignity. When university lecturers cover their
faces, this is a “dangerous type of backwardness”, she says. Do such comments
not cross the line into “hate speech”?
Similarly,
journalist Cherif Choubachy has urged Egyptian women to demonstrate against the
hijab, associating it with an era of backwardness in the country. Like
Sherbiny’s views, his comments spurred controversy and caused offence - but
there was no court investigation, and he was given a platform to discuss his
views in a TV interview, where he said his call was primarily political, as
suppressing the hijab would ultimately suppress attempts to Islamise Egypt.
This
indicates a pre-emptive strand of Islamophobia. Choubachy’s version of
liberation also veils sexism and patriarchy, as his campaign was initiated and
led by a man who would, with other male guardians, “protect” the female
anti-hijab demonstrators. While there is debate over whether the hijab is
obligatory in Islam, the label of “hate speech” could equally be attached to
those who denounce it as to those who promote it.
These cases
underscore the hyper-politicisation of the hijab and the rise of gendered
Islamophobia, particularly after 9/11 and the 2013 Egyptian coup. In the UK,
whose version of secularism is more accommodating of minorities than that of
countries such as France, there is an ongoing debate over potentially banning
the hijab at schools and workplaces. Gendered Islamophobia is a common
experience of Hijabi Muslim women in the UK.
Malleable To Power
In Egypt,
the public exclusion of Hijabi women is becoming more common, often supported
by state regulations - a punitive form of Islamophobia. Yet, amid heated debate
on media platforms in response to footage showing a verbal attack against a Burkini-wearer
in a resort, such measures were recently played down by Ali Gunaim, a member of
the Egyptian Tourism Federation, who noted that there is no ban on the Burkini
or Hijabi women in resorts or hotels.
The extent
to which such a declaration affects state legislation is unclear since there is
a law in place that allows resort owners to use their discretion in banning the
Burkini.
A Facebook
campaign, “Respect My Veil”, has documented discrimination against Hijabi women
in Egypt, posing an organic challenge to the notion that young Hijabi women are
oppressed. Similarly, the #HandsOffOurHijabs campaign in the UK has protested
forcing Hijabi women to remove the veil in airports.
In a
nutshell, the investigation of Shirbiny suggests that free speech is malleable
to power and utilised to subjugate Muslims in a context of global Islamophobia.
Doubtless, Sherbiny would not have been investigated had her views not
dissented from the proclaimed stance of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who has
called to reform (read: contain) Islam - and by extension, contain the hijab, a
symbol of Islam.
With the
gendered Islamophobic remark of “go back home” that is common to the experience
of Hijabi women in the West, Sherbiny’s case makes me wonder whether Hijabi
women will ever feel at home amid an ongoing “war on terror”.
Original Headline: From East to West, war on
the hijab reveals gendered Islamophobia
Source: The Middle East Eye
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Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism