The Veil on Iraqi Campus
First and foremost, apologies for the rather sporadic posts over the past two weeks, but book publicity has been keeping me busy. Sales have been moving quite briskly, happily enough, but it has been exhausting. I'll try to do better in the next few weeks.
So this week on Radio Sawa the question that is presented on their "Express Your Opinion" segment (where they hit the streets throughout Iraq, and ask people a question and get their opinion on it throughout the course of the week) was whether or not people supported or opposed the constant interference of various Islamist political parties within the sanctity (haram) of the universities with respect to women's dress in particular. In fact, this is but one of the many forms of Islamist political interference iin university affairs, my close friends in law schools in Basra, in Kerbala, in Baghdad, in Mosul tell me horror stories of how directives are often given by parties requiring a certain list of students to pass, with dire (though unspecified) consequences if they do not. Actually by comparison, the imposition of the veil is not quite as significant. I have nothing but admiration for the Iraqi professors who continue to work under these conditions--friends, I'd name you but don't want to expose you to danger.
Anyway, in this Sawa segment naturally they got opinions from all sorts of people with all sorts of opinions, I don't think that's particularly interesting (Iraqis have different views on this, clearly). But the segment did lead me to want to discuss something that has largely been left undiscussed in the media respecting the veil in Iraq in particular, and it has to do with the unnatural focus of the Western media on the actual, state law in order to gauge women's status, a fact that Islamist parties know well and successfully exploit mercilessly. Clearly, from the segment, the Arabic speaking media isn't quite as naive, even the American run stations like Sawa.
Look, Islamists aren't stupid, while the veil is fundamental to them, they know they aren't passing a law imposing it in Iraq under these circumstances. The Americans won't let it happen, the Bush administration knows how terrible that will look, what the New York Times editorial page will do with material like that while more than one hundred thousand US troops are in the country. But you don't have to talk to the party faithful long to know it's a pretty big deal, and they want to see veil wearing expanded where possible. So the veil in Iraq becomes sort of like Roe v. Wade, you aren't getting it overturned, you know that, so you start to chip away. (Incidentally, there's a similar phenomenon beyond Iraq--Islamist parties are accused of wanting to impose the veil, this is used as a reason to clamp down on them and gain liberal support for the clampdown, so they dampen their explicit advocacy of a veil requirement and move the agenda forward in other ways).
So what are the other ways? Well, here's a few. Iraq's Minister of Sports, back when I was in Iraq and Bremer still ran the place, a fellow selected by the Supreme Council, called on women working in the Ministry to dress in decent clothing ("muhtashim") when coming to work. Yeah, he didn't say veil, but were women really showing up in miniskirts and tanktops to work in Baghdad before he said that? The answer is no, so what was this about then? Women in Basra have been killed at various times, according to media reports, for failing to meet veil requirements. And, as every faculty member at every university I know has pointed out, students and other distasteful elements roam campuses as any Iranian police force would and make sure everyone is covering the right body parts. And not mixing too much either, a Basra graduation picnic was busted up by Sadrists a few years ago (almost three years ago today) because of inappropriate mixing of the genders. I've been to these sorts of gatherings, 6th grade church functions are more steamy than this. And this is the university, want to guess what happens to unveiled women in Sadr City?
All of this makes for some news, but not very much. And it works then quite well for the religious parties. Look at the state law, and you see nothing. Maureen Dowd has nothing to point to and get excited about. But then look to the more subtle reality, get on the street, talk to the people, listen to the radio shows, correspond with faculties, and one can start to see the development of the rules that bind in the social order that have nothing to do with state law. The rules that control the polity, in other words, extend far beyond the government and its laws. Everyone knows that, every militia, every party, every faction. And so they don't bother to try to bring something in that is going to upset the Americans, what's the point? The shari'a can be enforced in entirely different ways, and is. But so long as we continue to ignore that, to decide it isn't really important because it's not really any sort of "law" that people called "police" enforce, so long as we so limit ourselves, we aren't really going to understand how Iraq, or so much of the Muslim world, actually works.
HAH
So this week on Radio Sawa the question that is presented on their "Express Your Opinion" segment (where they hit the streets throughout Iraq, and ask people a question and get their opinion on it throughout the course of the week) was whether or not people supported or opposed the constant interference of various Islamist political parties within the sanctity (haram) of the universities with respect to women's dress in particular. In fact, this is but one of the many forms of Islamist political interference iin university affairs, my close friends in law schools in Basra, in Kerbala, in Baghdad, in Mosul tell me horror stories of how directives are often given by parties requiring a certain list of students to pass, with dire (though unspecified) consequences if they do not. Actually by comparison, the imposition of the veil is not quite as significant. I have nothing but admiration for the Iraqi professors who continue to work under these conditions--friends, I'd name you but don't want to expose you to danger.
Anyway, in this Sawa segment naturally they got opinions from all sorts of people with all sorts of opinions, I don't think that's particularly interesting (Iraqis have different views on this, clearly). But the segment did lead me to want to discuss something that has largely been left undiscussed in the media respecting the veil in Iraq in particular, and it has to do with the unnatural focus of the Western media on the actual, state law in order to gauge women's status, a fact that Islamist parties know well and successfully exploit mercilessly. Clearly, from the segment, the Arabic speaking media isn't quite as naive, even the American run stations like Sawa.
Look, Islamists aren't stupid, while the veil is fundamental to them, they know they aren't passing a law imposing it in Iraq under these circumstances. The Americans won't let it happen, the Bush administration knows how terrible that will look, what the New York Times editorial page will do with material like that while more than one hundred thousand US troops are in the country. But you don't have to talk to the party faithful long to know it's a pretty big deal, and they want to see veil wearing expanded where possible. So the veil in Iraq becomes sort of like Roe v. Wade, you aren't getting it overturned, you know that, so you start to chip away. (Incidentally, there's a similar phenomenon beyond Iraq--Islamist parties are accused of wanting to impose the veil, this is used as a reason to clamp down on them and gain liberal support for the clampdown, so they dampen their explicit advocacy of a veil requirement and move the agenda forward in other ways).
So what are the other ways? Well, here's a few. Iraq's Minister of Sports, back when I was in Iraq and Bremer still ran the place, a fellow selected by the Supreme Council, called on women working in the Ministry to dress in decent clothing ("muhtashim") when coming to work. Yeah, he didn't say veil, but were women really showing up in miniskirts and tanktops to work in Baghdad before he said that? The answer is no, so what was this about then? Women in Basra have been killed at various times, according to media reports, for failing to meet veil requirements. And, as every faculty member at every university I know has pointed out, students and other distasteful elements roam campuses as any Iranian police force would and make sure everyone is covering the right body parts. And not mixing too much either, a Basra graduation picnic was busted up by Sadrists a few years ago (almost three years ago today) because of inappropriate mixing of the genders. I've been to these sorts of gatherings, 6th grade church functions are more steamy than this. And this is the university, want to guess what happens to unveiled women in Sadr City?
All of this makes for some news, but not very much. And it works then quite well for the religious parties. Look at the state law, and you see nothing. Maureen Dowd has nothing to point to and get excited about. But then look to the more subtle reality, get on the street, talk to the people, listen to the radio shows, correspond with faculties, and one can start to see the development of the rules that bind in the social order that have nothing to do with state law. The rules that control the polity, in other words, extend far beyond the government and its laws. Everyone knows that, every militia, every party, every faction. And so they don't bother to try to bring something in that is going to upset the Americans, what's the point? The shari'a can be enforced in entirely different ways, and is. But so long as we continue to ignore that, to decide it isn't really important because it's not really any sort of "law" that people called "police" enforce, so long as we so limit ourselves, we aren't really going to understand how Iraq, or so much of the Muslim world, actually works.
HAH
Greetings from Baghdad,
I completely agree with your article. And i thank you so much for raising this important issue.
The amazing thing, seeing all this on the ground, is that while Shiite areas allow women to keep showing their faces, the problem was/is much worse in Sunni areas dominated by (somewhat) extreme religious forces (or at least they claim to be religious). Many women in Sunni parts of Baghdad even had to cover their faces perhaps voluntarily to get rid of trouble. So the problem is not so big in Sadr City or even Kazimiyah if compared to last year's Azamiyah or Amiriyah, for example.
But anyhow, when the Awakening movements prevailed in some of those Sunni parts of town, things began to get back to normal, and some 5-10% of women on the street would walk without a veil. The normal percentage of veiled women would have not exceeded half in normal conditions. That said, mosque imams mumble every once in while in their sermons about the necessity for women to be decent.
But there is also a case when the women would wear a long but tight skirt, or jeans, and yet put a headscarf on, which is difficult to determine if it passes as a veil for real; but to be honest, imams never speak against those women least they would be accused of looking at what they shouldn't look at!
The solution for all of these problems is for the religious and seculars to live and let live, "inn sahha al-taabeer" (=so to speak / expression always used by Muqtada Al-Sadr)!
Many thanks!
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Thank you Zahir. It's good to get a report from a man on the ground, an Iraqi amongst Iraqis, to keep us straight. Keep those comments coming!
HAH
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