In real life, however,few veiled adult women ever get to taste any degree of freedom of choice inany respect of family, married and social life, be it in clothing, sociallife, behaviour, or even a simple thing like food. Few adult hijab-wearingwomen have not experienced the fear and terror of Islamic environments
hanging over their lives. They are not citizens with freedom of choice but
human beings fearful of jack knives, deprived of social rights, subjugated,
and alienated by the atmosphere of terror existing in Islamic patriarchal
environments. Under such conditions, speaking of 'volition' or 'free choice'
in dress is a travesty of these concepts. Choosing the hijab as a mode of
dress by adult women is no more 'voluntary' than, for instance, the 'choice'
to stay in family relations that abound in terror and torture. In fact, in
today's world, the concepts of volition and choice have clear,
comprehensible meanings. They can hardly be interpreted arbitrarily.
However, these clear concepts are easily made obscure when it comes to the
rights of women living in Islamic environments due to concessions made to
religion and racism towards those born into Islamic environments.

It is not hard to understand the reason why women living in Islamic
environments surrender. In Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Somalia
where honour killings are daily threats to women's lives, speaking of choice
in dress is an offensive joke. In Islamic environments where even women's
breathing is measured, there are some adult hijab-wearing women who stop
attempting to bring about change. 'Choice', or, more precisely, surrender,
can be understood by reviewing the deprived childhood and adolescence of
these women. They have simply surrendered in order to 'survive'. We know
surrendered human beings want dignity to survive. They need to make
themselves and others believe that they have some control over some corner
of their lives. They 'deceive' themselves in order to be able to cope with
the limitations. 'Voluntary hijab' of adult women is supposed to provide a
sense of control over something in their life, as well as give a little
self-confidence.

In fact, the surrendered justify their captivity and slavery and portray it
as logical and tolerable in order to gain some respect in their lives. It is
here that some racists take snap shots of the 'high' status of these
victims, share in the victims' self-deception, justify their servitude and
theorize this justification through cultural relativism. They say that the
hijab is the 'free choice' of these women. This choice is made as 'freely'
as the choice made by a European woman to remain in an abusive relationship!
Legally, this choice is as legitimate as the choice and freedom to remain in
a sadistic relationship!

Child Hijab

The veiling of children is another matter all together. It is where
discrimination and force are imposed on children. It is where society, the
family, and adults attack children. The veiling of children must be declared
illegal all over the world as a form of violence against children. Children
do not have any type of 'voluntary' or 'compulsory' hijab. The deprivation
of under-age girls from freedom of comfortable, prevalent, nice- looking
clothing, despite any justification to the contrary, must be forbidden just
as it is prohibited to cover their mouths, cuff their hands or blindfold
their eyes. The former should be prohibited with the clarity of the latter.
If one's conscience, public opinion or a 'contemporary' state categorically
rejects the idea of allowing a group of young girls being paraded around one
part of town with their eyes blindfolded, their hands cuffed, and their
mouths duct-taped, then they should categorically not tolerate child veiling
either. However, we have seen, and continue to see, that this is not the
case. We have seen, and continue to see, how Western states like Sweden,
Canada, Britain, and Germany have for years watched such parades without
moving an eyelid. For such 'modern' states, the girls being paraded under
the shroud of hijab, prior to being human beings and citizens, are
'immigrants', 'foreigners', 'outsiders'. They measure the rights of these
'immigrants', even if they are residents and citizens, with the yardsticks
of nationality, religion, and ethnicity. Their rights are not covered by
international conventions pertaining to human rights, women's rights,
children's rights, elderly rights, criminals' rights and civil rights. Their
basic rights are conditional to the religion, ethnicity, and traditions of
their family and place of birth. And they call this sickening hypocrisy
'respect for all cultures'. Cultural relativism is thus a practical platform
for discriminating against girls and women. It leaves the life, education,
and health of girls at the mercy of religious families, religious schools,
and the ethnocentric values of the father. They have no belief in the
universality of the rights of children or human beings. They are racist!

The veil is not just another kind of clothing; opposing it is not just
defending the right to freedom of clothing even though it is put forward as
such. It is not something that a woman decides to put on for a change one
day and to take it off the next. It is not a costume put on a young girl who
is going to a costume party! Veiling young girls teaches them that they
belong to an inferior sex and should be ashamed, and that they are sex
objects and must limit their physical movements. By the same token, young
boys are taught they belong to the 'superior' sex, and that girls are
inferior and sex objects. An unbridgeable gap is thus created and
institutionalized between the two sexes at the expense of young girls'
deprivation and young boys' 'empowerment'. That is when the license for
violence against women is issued. This marks the beginning of 'sexual
apartheid', the official subjugation of women during childhood and the
nipping in the bud their potentialities to enjoy a happy, creative life. It
marks the beginning of the process of making two unequal sexes out of two
born-equal ones. This is the beginning of human alienation. The goal is to
produce two 'deformed' sexes, i.e. superior and inferior, master and slave,
bread-winner and dependent, strong and weak. Much more than an item of
clothing, the hijab is a decree of prohibition enforced on young girls; it
is a series of laws, threats and tools designed to subjugate and enslave
them.

Child hijab is an extreme form of violence against children: * Children are
deprived of sports and movement. * Girls are transformed into sex objects
>from the age of nine. Their 'coming of age' is celebrated and they are
virtually prepared for all sorts of sexual abuse. * They are robbed of their
self-respect, self-esteem, ambitions, aspirations, and sexuality. * They
begin to see boys as inherently 'dangerous', rapists and cruel. * They are
deprived of the right to freely socialise with boys and are perceived by
boys as sex objects, weak, ignorant, wrongdoers who must be put under men's
guardianship. * They are denied music, dancing, and skipping around, of
practically all sports, and of certain fields. * Their freedom of personal
taste is denied and divided into sacred and profane.

In a nutshell, child veiling is a system of brainwashing girls and boys; it
is a tool to marginalise half of society's children. It aims to alienate the
two sexes. It must be eliminated. The Hijab and Honour Killings in the
'West'

Western governments have paid so much 'respect' to the violations of girls'
and women's rights in Islamic environments in their countries, that their
contemporary and progressive societies have become 'unsafe' and
slaughterhouses for a large number of girls and caused alarm among people.
We know that they would continue to portray their society as 'safe' were
there not progressive activists from protest campaigns opposing these
atrocities.

The honour killings of young girls are not accidental. They are the natural
product of the imposition of the hijab over the lives of young girls and
boys in Islamic environments. One cannot be outraged by honour killings and
at the same time ignore the roots and cause of these atrocities. Every
decent person who reads about the tragic lives of Fadime, Sarah, Pela, and
tens of other young girls will undoubtedly search for the cause. Islamic
violence occurring in the centre of the 'civilised' West is no accident.
These atrocities are not the result of desperation, poverty or addiction.
These murders are official Islamic sentences for 'disobedient' women. If a
father, brother and husband do not kill their 'wanton' daughter, wife, and
sister, they will be stripped of their 'honour'. These are what they put in
the heads of young innocent girls in Islamic schools and with the veil.

There is only one way to stop these atrocities. By giving them real
protection, the killing of children and young girls in Islamic environments
can be opposed. It is only by rescuing their lives, freedom, and education
>from the influences of Islamic environments that these tragedies can be
efficiently prevented. This protection should undoubtedly begin with
prohibiting child veiling. Children's rights as human rights are universal
and must be applied to Islamic environments as well.

It is five years now that the communists from Iran and Iraq have been saying
that something must be done! Children and girls in Islamic environments must
be helped. They must be able to enjoy the same rights as other children and
women. We have said that the veiling of children and under-age girls must be
prohibited. Religious schools, which are the centres for teaching inequality
between sexes, misogyny, discrimination, violence, and so on, must be
closed. Mansoor Hekmat wrote extensively about the prohibition of child
veiling five years ago (Islam, Children's Rights and Hejab-gate, June 1997).
If it is not right to deprive 'Mike' and 'Helen' from a life in which the
two sexes freely mingle and socialise, and if it is not right to send them
to religious schools, then it is not right to do so with 'Mohammad' and
'Nahid' who are born in an Islamic environment! If it is wrong to cover
'Rosa' or 'Julia' from head to toe in a shroud-like, dark piece of cloth
called the hijab, then it is equally wrong to do so with 'Shahin' or
'Maliha'. If it is prohibited to teach children violence, inequality, and
patriarchal ideas in schools, then Islamic schools must be eliminated.
Understanding these objective truths about the equality of human beings
irrespective of sex, race, religion and nationality in the 'centre of
civilisation' is being reached at the expense of the rights tens of girls in
Britain, Sweden, Germany, Denmark and Canada.

'Immigrant' children and young girls are daily struggling for their rights
as equal citizens. These rights, including the right to the freedom of
clothing and socialising with members of the opposite sex, must be taken for
granted like the right to breathing is. These rights cannot be taken away
>from a Swedish, German or British girl; it must be made impossible to do so
in the case of those born children and girls born into Islamic environments.

 

By Soraya Shahabi
2003