On the 5th of August 2018 Boris Johnson wrote an article in the British newspaper The Telegraph expressing a lack of support for the Danish ban on the Burka and Niqab that recently resulted in Denmark’s first fine of a Muslim women. The essence of the contentious comment’s related to Muslim women are summarized below;

“…..If you tell me that the burka is oppressive, then I am with you. If you say that it is weird and bullying to expect women to cover their faces, then I totally agree…is absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letter boxes……if a constituent came to my MP’s surgery with her face obscured, I should feel fully entitled to ask her to remove it… a female student turned up at school or at a university lecture looking like a bank robber then ditto…..In Britain today there is only a tiny, tiny minority of women who wear these odd bits of headgear. One day, I am sure, they will go….A total ban is not the answer.”

Comment:

Boris Johnson’s article is a blundering attempt to claim the moral high ground in not supporting the Danish niqab ban by extolling the virtue of “do what you want provided you do no harm to others.” And yet he simultaneously has no moral quandary in making dehumanizing comments insulting Muslim women and making light of their sacred religious beliefs in opting for partial bans versus total bans saying “such restrictions are not quite the same as telling a free-born adult woman what she may or may not wear, in a public place“. But that is EXACTLY what is happening when you enforce any kind of ban! Forcing a Muslim woman to dress in a manner that offends her on terms that she is not convinced with cannot be justified on a total or partial basis.

His failed attempt in playing the role of Islamic scholar in finding “no scriptural authority for the practice in the Koran” only further amplifies his complete ignorance and insensitivity about Islam and issues related to Muslim women. His views typify how liberalism mocks the intelligence of people with its pretend one-size-fits-all tactic. If he truly believes “adult women are free to wear what they want”, then you don’t need to have written evidence for any practice to validate it, and if “preventing harm’ is the liberal measure of what a women should or shouldn’t wear, then how does a piece of cloth covering a woman’s face harm another human? UK letter boxes are bright red how does this relate to Muslim women? A reference to Muslim women in an Islamic dress being a thief represents a juvenile slanderous stereotyping of an already vulnerable minority group. He needs only to look at his own government’s economic policies to understand the daylight international robbery forced upon the worlds citizens. The “absolutely ridiculous” assertions made about Islamic dress show the hypocritical contradictions in man made judgments of the current Democratic Liberal Dictators fanatical about their attack on the Islamic political system. The liberal values and all of their false logic are the real ideals that oppress Muslim women (and all women) and create a social climate where abuse and “bullying” of visibly practicing Muslim women is validated and normalized. If Mr. Johnson’s reasoning is to be followed, then certain disabled women should be limited in social activities as things like electrical voice machines or physical immobility prevent/disguise facial expressions and norms of communication. Fortunately, Islam does not have any such nonsensical policies that criminalize, belittle or limit a woman’s social life as it is the Creator of people, Allah (swt) Who has a true impartial system for humans. Women, throughout Islamic history, have been afforded voting opportunities, the ability to own private wealth and have rights of self-determination on many issues long before any international Democracy did the same- liberal democracies still have a long way to go in the game of political catchup as proven by their own epidemic of female harassment and inequality protests. In his arrogant statement on why he refuses to withdraw his cowardly attack on Muslim women he states, “If we fail to speak up for liberal values then we are simply yielding ground to reactionaries and extremists. It is ridiculous that these views are being attacked – we must not fall into the trap of shutting down the debate on difficult issues.” What we see in Mr. Johnson’s article is complete duplicity despicably disguised as legitimate debate on “difficult issues”. The real difficult issue that Mr. Johnson struggles with is reconciling the blatant contradictions in liberalism and the fact that in order to liberate one group in society, it simultaneously victimises another as proven by the subjective laws related to hate speech that only protects selected political entities according to political fashions and economic benefits, so opposition voices can be silenced. Muslim women do not need to be told what to wear by liberal extremists and their reactionary chameleon politics that offer no security and strip us of our human rights. We will not yield to any political pressure to conform to anyone’s preference on how we should look. We are not convinced that liberal policies have anything positive to offer humanity. Muslim women recognize that our Islamic dress is one representation of a comprehensive political alternative to the intellectually defeated ideas that exist today. All of the rulers of the Muslim lands are slaves to these false ideals and work with foreign governments to keep Islamic politics out of public existence and we feel “fully entitled to remove” these puppet regimes and replace them with the Khilafah. We are unphased by bans of any kind. The UK sponsoring of torture and organized war murdering millions of women and children and international efforts to limit Muslim women’s political activism will only serve to prove that we need to work harder for our true place in the system designed by Allah (swt).

إِن يَنصُرْكُمُ اللّهُ فَلاَ غَالِبَ لَكُمْ وَإِن يَخْذُلْكُمْ فَمَن ذَا الَّذِي يَنصُرُكُم مِّن بَعْدِهِ وَعَلَى اللّهِ فَلْيَتَوَكِّلِ الْمُؤْمِنُونَ

“If Allah helps you, none can overcome you; and if He forsakes you, who is there after Him that can help you? And in Allah (Alone) let believers put their trust.” [Surah Aal-e-Imran: 160]

Imrana Mohammad

Member of the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir