Debating the burqa

Many years ago when I taught at university, one of my fondest memories is of a student who was exceptionally intellectually talented and articulate. She wore a burqa and white gloves to cover her hands. Despite this total draping of her appearance, her personality shone through and she contributed to class as much, if not more, than her contemporaries who were unveiled women and men.

But that was not always the case. I had many students in other classes who were veiled, and the burqa not just covered their faces but also who they were. In a co-education university, they were exceedingly withdrawn, reluctant to speak.

The first student made a choice, I imagine. The second lot may have not. And the burden of guilt for the latter lies not with Islam, but social restrictions made by man over time.

I bring this up because I am confused by the consternation and outright condemnation directed at Saad Haroon for his satirical video titled "Burqa" Woman. The aesthetic arguments against it I find acceptable, people can like or dislike what they will as part of their personal preferences. If they think Saad Haroon’s acting was hammy, fine. If they think the video is not funny, fine.

But the moral arguments against it just don’t hold up. First, the presumption that an important institution of Islam has been ridiculed by the video is blatantly untrue because there is no consensus on whether covering the face is an attribute of Islamic observance for women. The criticism cleverly obfuscates the difference between hijab and niqab.

Second, the video has been criticised for attacking virtue. That is an oversimplification because it presumes wearing a burqa is an indication of piety — just as the French are wrong in presuming wearing the burqa is an indication of being oppressed.

Wearing a burqa is not a blanket cheque to be considered a paragon of virtue. For example, in the 90s in Peshawar, there was a period when it meant the opposite. After the fall of the Najibullah government, a different crest of upper class Afghans came in as refugees, impoverished for the first time. Without men and social protection, some of the women took to prostitution. Also, during any trip to public parks in Pakistan, one can find many couples in love, spending time with one another, with many of the women wearing burqas. Then there was the Lal Mosque brigade, who supplanted the presumption of oppression with dandas and fascism.

What gets to me about the two main moral critiques of Saad Haroon’s video is that it is part of the moral fantasy of the right that refuses to sees things in the complex light that things exist in reality.

But there is also a third criticism of the video that I find plays into the class divisions of Pakistan. It is whether someone like Saad Haroon, part of the English speaking elite, has a right to do something like this. When PTV runs a drama of a burqa-wearing woman falling in love and running away from home with her paramour, there is no outrage. There is none when Maulana Bijli Ghar mixes comedy, profanity and sermonising. Or when Urdu comic poetry does the same. Morality, therefore, needs to at least have a common thread of application across class lines and not just be used opportunistically.

In a conversation with a friend, I did come across a critique of this satire that I find particularly true. She said: “The problem with the video is that it satirises the powerless. If some women are forced to wear it, then adding to their troubles by making light of them does them no favours”. That is correct. What’s also true is it does no favours to those women who are modest and wear it as their interpretation of religious obligation.

That, I believe,  put us in an ambiguous situation. And that’s where I believe the video succeeds enormously as provocative art, in getting a conversation about the burqa started domestically as opposed to just talking about how things are in France. Some are oppressed, some women aren’t. Both need to live their lives to the fullest. A discussion is in order, don’t worry, the house won’t fall down.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 5^th, 2011.