Up until about a week ago, I had looked down on French President Nicolas Sarkozy's call for the ban of the burqa. I thought the ban was racism thinly veiled as a security concern that sought to destroy religious tradition. I never actually thought about the faces behind the veils, and never thought about the lives impacted by the mandatory covering.
Enter Nazila Fathi from Iran. A reporter for The New York Times, Fathi has been instrumental in providing the Tehran perspective and has written countless on-the-ground articles exploring political and social development in an ever-changing Iran. Fathi visited Dartmouth's campus on May 6 to give a lecture regarding reporting in her native country and touched on the issue of the burqa.
In fielding a question about her opinion of the French government's viewpoint on the burqa, Fathi responded, "I can't speak objectively since I don't support wearing it. If you want to wear it, go back to where you're from." Fathi explained that the burqa is inconvenient and uncomfortable. In the dense heat of Iran, women swelter under the thick fabric. Furthermore, the burqa makes driving difficult because the woman's line of sight can become obstructed. (To clarify, the burqa covers the entire body and face whereas the hijab is a scarf around the head that does not cover the face.)
According to Fathi, the burqa exists as a tool for many men to control their wives. It acts as a shield between society and women, a metaphorical piece of fabric that symbolizes the importance and meaning that a woman lacks within her community. Fathi said she was one of many women in Iran who felt this way and thought the burqa to be a covering "no mobile woman would willingly don."
Fathi and others' concerns about the burqa are not born out of ill-conceived racism and intolerance. Critics are not dedicated to the dismantling and destroying of an entire culture and religion. In fact, this is actually a call for the end of the oppression of women within these cultures in order to create the most equal, just and tolerant living environment possible.
Change, however, is not something that can be forced from the outside if we hope to create a permanent solution. With the supposed ban, Sarkozy is not actually helping all women and rather appears to be acting as an international police force. However, mandatory veiling in parts of the Middle East cannot be considered appropriate. There is a thin line between what does and does not constitute necessary action, which leads me to believe that change must come from within a culture in order to end traditions deemed harmful.
Problems such as these that involve tradition and culture are faced even here at Dartmouth. In some dark fraternity basements, there exists a culture that accepts assault sexual and otherwise. In the past week, instead of being bystanders, Dartmouth women have proved to be committed to changing this culture. After an incident within a fraternity, the Panhellenic Council took a stand against this culture and sent a supportive message to women all over campus: We don't accept the situation at hand, and neither should you.
Women within this culture, upon realizing the futility of many administrative programs combating sexual assault, took it upon themselves to promulgate change.
Protesting assault in the basement of a fraternity is not the same as wanting to shut down the Greek system. Panhell opposes assault, not fraternities, just as Fathi indicts the burqa, not Islam. These condemnations of specifics within the cultures are not condemnations of the entire respective systems, nor should they be seen that way. However, in order to change these systems, we can't just expect that outside police forces be it Dartmouth's administration or the French government will end the problem. This task must be taken on by those involved with the culture and deeply committed to making a change.
The Panhellenic presidents have acted courageously and we should stand by their decision. They took the first steps in proving that no matter how much we value tradition, the Dartmouth community is not a stagnant society. As active and involved members of this evolving world, we must take it upon ourselves to constantly question accepted traditions, be it burqas, basements or otherwise.
