A great opinion piece on Muslim women & their rights to wear niqab / veil in Canada.
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... the case for banning the niqab from citizenship ceremonies is weak & uninspiring.
... there are various questions. On what basis can the niqab be said to be anti-women? Is the niqab somehow different in this regard from other religiously inspired forms of dress? A small survey of niqab-wearing Canadian women that was published in 2013 suggested various personal reasons for the choice. Is it not possible for a woman to wear a niqab without somehow submitting to oppression or some kind of anti-women sentiment?
... it is probably still for the Prime Minister to explain why popular sentiment should decide the legitimacy of a claim to religious freedom.
... what sort of necessity or principle is being claimed here?
As a practical matter, there would seem to be other options for either confirming someone’s identity (by asking a woman to unveil in private) or ensuring she has said the oath (by positioning a niqab-wearing woman within earshot of a citizenship judge). To expand on a hypothetical raised by Justice Boswell in his ruling, the government would seem to make special allowances for deaf-mute applicants, including the hiring of an interpreter.
On the topic of religious freedom & the law, Alberta v. Hutterian Brethren of Wilson Colony has also been invoked as evidence that “religious freedom is not absolute.” Fair enough. But that ruling also notes the presence of a “pressing & substantial goal.” What precisely would the pressing & substantial goal here be?
(I suspect the Supreme Court’s ruling on testifying in court while wearing a niqab might also be of relevance.)
In his interview with Maclean’s this week, Jason Kenney, the minister who directed the ban on the niqab, asserted the principle “that a public citizenship ceremony has to be performed publicly.” “Publicly” in this case would seem to be defined not simply as existing in public, but having to show one’s nose & mouth in public. (Fun question for your next dinner party: Is a woman in a niqab behaving publicly when she walks down the street?) The regulations for citizenship ceremonies do allow for a private swearing of oath in certain situations, “such as terminally ill candidates unable to travel or other urgent or extenuating circumstances,” I’m told by a government official. But regardless, we are being asked to put a philosophical or symbolic standard at the forefront.
If identity can otherwise be confirmed & the reciting of the oath can be otherwise heard, the value of unveiling during the communal recitation of the oath is entirely symbolic. And while there is something to be said for symbolism in the life of a nation, it is problematic, as with public opinion, to put that ahead of a claim to religious freedom.
It is on other symbolic grounds that the niqab is otherwise objected to: that it is a symbol of oppression, perhaps even wrong-headedly adopted. You are surely free to make that argument, but you are turning your own argument on its head if you then suggest that society should dictate a woman’s attire without a pressing reason for doing so.
That’s “not the way we do things here“? What does that even mean? We don’t make allowances for religious freedom? We don’t tolerate almost all choices of personal dress or undress? We reserve the right to readily impose our understanding of equality on a woman’s discretion? We set aside religious freedom for symbolic reasons?
It most certainly is the way we do things here insofar as we allow women, seemingly with some exceptions made for the purposes of confirming identity, to go about their time in this country wearing a niqab if they so desire.
If there are no practical or procedural grounds to justify demanding the niqab be lifted during the saying of the oath then a ban might be doomed in law. But even if it is entirely down to symbolic meaning & even if a desire for symbolic value shouldn’t be sufficient to limit religious freedom, we might still debate the symbolism.
If we are to officially accept the wearing of the niqab during the oath, as we seem to have done before Kenney decided we shouldn’t, what might that symbolize? We could say it symbolizes some public concession to oppression or segregation.
“To segregate one group of Canadians or allow them to hide their faces, to hide their identity from us precisely when they are joining our community is contrary to Canada’s proud commitment to openness and to social cohesion,” Kenney said 3 years ago. But in this case that openness & cohesion would impose a limit on religious freedom, & a seemingly unnecessary one at that.
We could then say that allowing the niqab at the moment of the oath demonstrates tolerance & freedom—a willingness to accept that in this country you are basically free to dress & express yourself as you see fit so long as it does not threaten the general good or inherent rights of others.
“Freedom in a broad sense embraces both the absence of coercion & constraint, & the right to manifest beliefs & practices,” Justice Brian Dickson once wrote. “Freedom means that, subject to such limitations as are necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights & freedoms of others, no one is to be forced to act in a way contrary to his beliefs or his conscience.”
We could say that the wearing of the niqab when an individual chooses to become a citizen of Canada does not threaten the safety, order, health or morals of this country. That so long as those things are maintained, we should make some attempt to accommodate each other. That we are secure enough to accept that some might choose to wear it. That we are stronger not for demanding the niqab’s removal, but for accepting that we must allow someone the choice to wear it.
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... the case for banning the niqab from citizenship ceremonies is weak & uninspiring.
... there are various questions. On what basis can the niqab be said to be anti-women? Is the niqab somehow different in this regard from other religiously inspired forms of dress? A small survey of niqab-wearing Canadian women that was published in 2013 suggested various personal reasons for the choice. Is it not possible for a woman to wear a niqab without somehow submitting to oppression or some kind of anti-women sentiment?
... it is probably still for the Prime Minister to explain why popular sentiment should decide the legitimacy of a claim to religious freedom.
... what sort of necessity or principle is being claimed here?
As a practical matter, there would seem to be other options for either confirming someone’s identity (by asking a woman to unveil in private) or ensuring she has said the oath (by positioning a niqab-wearing woman within earshot of a citizenship judge). To expand on a hypothetical raised by Justice Boswell in his ruling, the government would seem to make special allowances for deaf-mute applicants, including the hiring of an interpreter.
On the topic of religious freedom & the law, Alberta v. Hutterian Brethren of Wilson Colony has also been invoked as evidence that “religious freedom is not absolute.” Fair enough. But that ruling also notes the presence of a “pressing & substantial goal.” What precisely would the pressing & substantial goal here be?
(I suspect the Supreme Court’s ruling on testifying in court while wearing a niqab might also be of relevance.)
In his interview with Maclean’s this week, Jason Kenney, the minister who directed the ban on the niqab, asserted the principle “that a public citizenship ceremony has to be performed publicly.” “Publicly” in this case would seem to be defined not simply as existing in public, but having to show one’s nose & mouth in public. (Fun question for your next dinner party: Is a woman in a niqab behaving publicly when she walks down the street?) The regulations for citizenship ceremonies do allow for a private swearing of oath in certain situations, “such as terminally ill candidates unable to travel or other urgent or extenuating circumstances,” I’m told by a government official. But regardless, we are being asked to put a philosophical or symbolic standard at the forefront.
If identity can otherwise be confirmed & the reciting of the oath can be otherwise heard, the value of unveiling during the communal recitation of the oath is entirely symbolic. And while there is something to be said for symbolism in the life of a nation, it is problematic, as with public opinion, to put that ahead of a claim to religious freedom.
It is on other symbolic grounds that the niqab is otherwise objected to: that it is a symbol of oppression, perhaps even wrong-headedly adopted. You are surely free to make that argument, but you are turning your own argument on its head if you then suggest that society should dictate a woman’s attire without a pressing reason for doing so.
That’s “not the way we do things here“? What does that even mean? We don’t make allowances for religious freedom? We don’t tolerate almost all choices of personal dress or undress? We reserve the right to readily impose our understanding of equality on a woman’s discretion? We set aside religious freedom for symbolic reasons?
It most certainly is the way we do things here insofar as we allow women, seemingly with some exceptions made for the purposes of confirming identity, to go about their time in this country wearing a niqab if they so desire.
If there are no practical or procedural grounds to justify demanding the niqab be lifted during the saying of the oath then a ban might be doomed in law. But even if it is entirely down to symbolic meaning & even if a desire for symbolic value shouldn’t be sufficient to limit religious freedom, we might still debate the symbolism.
If we are to officially accept the wearing of the niqab during the oath, as we seem to have done before Kenney decided we shouldn’t, what might that symbolize? We could say it symbolizes some public concession to oppression or segregation.
“To segregate one group of Canadians or allow them to hide their faces, to hide their identity from us precisely when they are joining our community is contrary to Canada’s proud commitment to openness and to social cohesion,” Kenney said 3 years ago. But in this case that openness & cohesion would impose a limit on religious freedom, & a seemingly unnecessary one at that.
We could then say that allowing the niqab at the moment of the oath demonstrates tolerance & freedom—a willingness to accept that in this country you are basically free to dress & express yourself as you see fit so long as it does not threaten the general good or inherent rights of others.
“Freedom in a broad sense embraces both the absence of coercion & constraint, & the right to manifest beliefs & practices,” Justice Brian Dickson once wrote. “Freedom means that, subject to such limitations as are necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights & freedoms of others, no one is to be forced to act in a way contrary to his beliefs or his conscience.”
We could say that the wearing of the niqab when an individual chooses to become a citizen of Canada does not threaten the safety, order, health or morals of this country. That so long as those things are maintained, we should make some attempt to accommodate each other. That we are secure enough to accept that some might choose to wear it. That we are stronger not for demanding the niqab’s removal, but for accepting that we must allow someone the choice to wear it.
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