Lifting veil off attitudes about niqab, hijab

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This article was published 31/03/2015 (3313 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Muslim women covering their heads or faces doesn’t sit well with many Canadians, but neither does telling them they can’t wear a hijab or a niqab, a recent survey found.

More than half of the respondents to the nationwide survey conducted March 20 to 22 said they would “prefer if women in Canada did not wear the face-covering niqab in public places” while 33 per cent said they feel that way about the head scarf or hijab. At the same time, more than half (55 per cent) agreed “it should be a matter of personal choice in Canada if a woman wishes to wear” a niqab, while 73 per cent said that about a hijab.

“The survey shows that most Canadians feel it’s your own choice, and the government should not have a say,” said Dr. Jennifer Rahman, a Winnipeg eye surgeon and chairwoman of the Winnipeg Central Mosque Council.

Abacus Data conducted the online survey with 1,000 Canadians aged 18 and older, including 50 Manitobans, said Abacus’s chief executive officer, David Coletto.

No special-interest group or political party hired the public opinion and marketing research consultancy to conduct the survey.

“We did this ourselves out of interest,” Coletto said. “Our objective was to look at the issue in a more nuanced way.”

The federal government says the majority of Canadians supports its position on the wearing of the niqab during citizenship ceremonies and for challenging last month’s Federal Court ruling allowing it. The survey, however, shows the public has mixed feelings about how far politicians should go in restricting personal choice.

The issue is complex and divides groups of Canadians, the survey results show. Rural, older, Conservative, Quebec and in particular, Bloc Québécois, voters are more anxious about the niqab whereas younger, urban Canadians are more persuaded that wearing a niqab or hijab is a personal choice.

Both the hijab and niqab have made headlines in Canada this year.

A Quebec court judge in February refused to hear the case of Montreal’s Rania El-Alloul because she was wearing a hijab. Lawyers have filed a motion with the Quebec Superior Court trying to establish the principle you cannot refuse to hear litigants because they wear religious attire.

In 2011, the government banned anyone from taking the citizenship oath with their face covered, including women wearing the niqab. A Federal Court judge struck down the policy in February, but the government intends to appeal. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said the niqab is a symbol of female oppression, and a woman should remove it at a citizenship ceremony.

Taking away her choice to wear it is insensitive and divisive, said Winnipeg’s Rahman.

“In her religious conviction, it’s like taking her shirt off in public,” said Rahman. “The whole discourse about the hijab and niqab is quite disturbing for the Muslim community,” she said. “The discussion is excluding us to a large extent — we are being talked about and not talked to,” said Rahman, who used to wear a hijab. “A lot of assumptions are made.

“They may not understand that degree of modesty, but that’s how it feels to her: ‘If you want to be a Canadian, take off your shirt.’ “

For the prime minister to say the face-covering veil is a symbol of women’s oppression, then force a woman to remove it at a citizenship ceremony, is hypocritical, said Rahman.

“Oppression is when you’re forced to do something you don’t want to do — you have no choice.”

In the survey, most respondents resisted the generalization the head gear reflects an anti-women culture and believe other religions have customs that could be characterized as anti-women, too.

Rahman alleged the government is trying to get re-elected using fear and “divide-and-conquer” tactics. “That’s not what Canada should aspire to,” said Rahman. “People used to come here feeling welcome, as contributors and valued citizens, and now they’re being ostracized and excluded because you look different and practise different beliefs.”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca