From the editor’s desk

What women wear

Hostility and rejection based on religion are part of the history of the Catholic community in Great Britain. It was in living memory, for instance, that nuns in the streets of Britain could expect to be insulted, jostled or even stoned. There is therefore a strong strand of sympathy among Catholics for Muslims experiencing something similar today, particularly in relation to the current controversy over Muslim women who wear the face veil or niqab.

But distinctions still have to be made. In some conservative Islamic societies, the niqab is imposed by men on women, regardless of their wishes, and is a sign of female subjugation. In Britain, this kind of pressure on women is not unknown either, though there is also a trend among some Muslim women towards the voluntary adoption of a strict Islamic dress code as an assertion of identity.

The controversy was triggered by an article by Jack Straw, leader of the House of Commons and MP for Blackburn, who said that he found talking to women wearing the niqab in his constituency surgery difficult because of the lack of face-to-face communication. He had taken to asking them to remove their face covering, which so far all had agreed to do. Many found his remarks reasonable - it is indeed difficult talking to someone who keeps their face hidden, particularly when the reasons for doing so are only dimly understood by non-Muslims - but some saw Mr Straw as trying to impose his own views on dress code in areas that were none of his business.

The more important issue was whether wearing the veil symbolised the British Muslim community's rejection of British values and hence a fundamental refusal to integrate. The controversy has stirred up existing uneasiness about multiculturalism leading to parallel but separate societies, and the ghettoisation or even Balkanisation of Britain.

In France, the approach has been to ensure that all are treated, first and foremost, as citizens of the secular state. The Catholic Church and other denominations opposed the ban on headscarves in French schools and public offices, an act of imposed, visible secularisation that was said to be in defence of the values of La République. Many British people, religious or not, were uncomprehending of the French attitude. The "default" position on these shores is one of tolerance - a position that applied in the end even to Catholicism - and if that applies to belief and worship it should also apply to dress.

Integration is a two-way process. If the non-Muslim majority decides to see the veil as a refusal to integrate, then that is what it will become. But there must also be a willingness on the part of the majority to accept differences. The quid pro quo is that a Muslim MP should not refuse to deal with a constituent who is a mini-skirted young woman with her belly button exposed. She and her veiled Muslim counterpart are each asserting a right to look the way they want to.

But they are also sisters, in that each should benefit from the power, autonomy and freedom that women enjoy in a democratic country such as Britain. Respecting a woman's right to wear the niqab should not mean the acceptance of her subjugation by father, husband or her peers to wear such dress, just as enforced marriage also has no place in British society.