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Britain

'Even other Muslims turn and look at me'

2006-10-17

Muslim journalist Zaiba Malik had never worn the niqab. But with everyone from Jack Straw to Tessa Jowell weighing in with their views on the veil, she decided to put one on for the day. She was shocked by how it made her feel - and how strongly strangers reacted to it

'Idon't wear the niqab because I don't think it's necessary," says the woman behind the counter in the Islamic dress shop in east London. "We do sell quite a few of them, though." She shows me how to wear the full veil. I would have thought that one size fits all but it turns out I'm a size 54. I pay my £39 and leave with three pieces of black cloth folded inside a bag.

The next morning I put these three pieces on as I've been shown. First the black robe, or jilbab, which zips up at the front. Then the long rectangular hijab that wraps around my head and is secured with safety pins. Finally the niqab, which is a square of synthetic material with adjustable straps, a slit of about five inches for my eyes and a tiny heart-shaped bit of netting, which I assume is to let some air in.

I look at myself in my full-length mirror. I'm horrified. I have disappeared and somebody I don't recognise is looking back at me. I cannot tell how old she is, how much she weighs, whether she has a kind or a sad face, whether she has long or short hair, whether she has any distinctive facial features at all. I've seen this person in black on the television and in newspapers, in the mountains of Afghanistan and the cities of Saudi Arabia, but she doesn't look right here, in my bedroom in a terraced house in west London. I do what little I can to personalise my appearance. I put on my oversized man's watch and make sure the bottoms of my jeans are visible. I'm so taken aback by how dissociated I feel from my own reflection that it takes me over an hour to pluck up the courage to leave the house.

Posted by:john

#24 #1 "You can see that most people in the UK hate Islam " I don't know about that. From reading the UK media, even Melanie Phillips, I gather far more UKer's hate the US than hate Islam. However, antipathy towards Islam is growing in the UK due to recent events.

Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2006-10-17 19:58

#23 I'm guessing a lot of looks were because she acted different than your typical niqab wearer. I also think she probably read things into the looks that might not have been intended because she was looking for that kind of thing.

The Muslim Black like Me is more of a journalist Hack if you ask me.

Posted by: rjschwarz 2006-10-17 17:09

#22 good comments, Zen - but it's still fantasy. She took each incident one step too far. For the most part, I find it unlikely that other than the stares, scaring the children and a few under the breath comments - I seriously doubt any of it is true. Jason Blair would be proud.

Posted by: anon 2006-10-17 16:54

#21 I saw this on the back of a woman's shirt yesterday (& I told her I liked her shirt):

II Cor. 3:18 And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory,

Personally, I think this fits better:

13We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away.

In short, Islam's done.

Posted by: anonymous2u 2006-10-17 15:26

#20 And young children - well, they just stare, point and laugh.

Out of the mouths of babes and fools ...

While I agree with anon that this article is most likely an aglomeration of more than just one day's excursion, it is still a worthwhile experiment and one that a lot more Western women should conduct. If they spent even a few hours in the shoes of Muslim women, they might see the immense peril that Islam portends for the last century of progress towards equal rights for women.

it is also an act of war against women. It clearly identifies who has submitted to her husband and is probably treated as property at home. Educated women, as the author clearly demonstrates, are not going to wear this get up voluntarily. So it is a means to keep women ignorant, barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen. Women's libbers need to figure this out.

Too right, NS! And yet we have supposedly militant feminists like Germaine Greer coming out in favor of Islamic cultures retaining such abhorent practices as female ~~circumcision~~ genital mutilation. The left's fascination with moral relativism will and rightfully should be the death of them. Their inability to recognize Islam for the toxic meme that it is will be the death knell of liberalism as the Global War on Terrorism finally heats up.

The niqab is a sign of ownership and total submission in a country where suffergettes risked their lives nearly a century ago to gain equality and the wearing of such should create the same level of concern amung authorities that unexplained bruises often do.

Brilliant comparison, rjshwarz. Islam's institutionalized abuse of women is by itself sufficient reason to dismantle it. That they have managed to come up with the vastly more repellant practice of terrorism seals their fate. To quote Winston Churchill: (for the umpteenth time)

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.

A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyzes the social development of those who follow it.

No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.

His words take on an even more prescient and ominous tone in this modern world.

Posted by: Zenster 2006-10-17 15:24

#19 "Veils and niqab and so on are not pieces of cloth, they are flags."

Heritage, not hatred, eh? ;)

Posted by: liberalhawk 2006-10-17 14:36

#18 niqab means BARRIER

I think we should place a niqab around the islamorabble.

Posted by: Bright Pebbles in Blairistan 2006-10-17 13:41

#17 On the street it takes just seconds for me to discover that there are different categories of stare. Elderly people stop dead in their tracks and glare; women tend to wait until you have passed and then turn round when they think you can't see; men just look out of the corners of their eyes. And young children - well, they just stare, point and laugh.

It is not everyday folks in the Western world come across a slave. The niqab is a sign of ownership and total submission in a country where suffergettes risked their lives nearly a century ago to gain equality and the wearing of such should create the same level of concern amung authorities that unexplained bruises often do.

Posted by: rjschwarz 2006-10-17 13:21

#16 But come on, girl that was quite a day. I guess once she put the veil on, the compulsion to lie and overstate her case just became unbearable

Why didnt she ask for benefits/free house like the rest of the spongers who wear the veil!!!!

Posted by: Cheregum Crelet7867 2006-10-17 12:35

#15 About 80% of the laws passed in France are actually made in Brussels, the parliament just stamps them.

Posted by: anonymous5089 2006-10-17 12:32

#14 Most of the UKs law get made in Brussels.

Posted by: Bright Pebbles in Blairistan 2006-10-17 11:27

#13 Please explain, the UK not a democracy ?

Not a democracy might be a stretch. They have elections every five years at worst. But in between the PM has a supreme power far less fettered by checks and balances than POTUS that many Brits consider dictatorial.

Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-10-17 11:22

#12 This article is the biggest crock I've read in a while. Let me get this straight. She wears the veil for ONE day and all of these things happen to her? Pluhease!

While I'm sure she got stared at and people didn't want to sit next to her, and if just one of these events had happened or if they had happened over a period of a week - maybe.

But come on, girl that was quite a day. I guess once she put the veil on, the compulsion to lie and overstate her case just became unbearable.

Posted by: anon 2006-10-17 11:07

#11 Bright Pebbles Very few people in the UK wanted the mass immigration of muslims that has been so damaging. Because the UK is no longer a democracy this is their only way of responding.
Please explain, the UK not a democracy ?

Posted by: wxjames 2006-10-17 10:49

#10 I give this lady a lot of credit for 'test-driving' the niqab... and being honest with us and with herself regarding the dehumanizing aspects and personal indignities involved.

No doubt she will receive barely literate threats and abuse from the pious and perpetually aggrieved.

Posted by: Seafarious 2006-10-17 10:02

#9 Wild assed guess here; 54 is probably centimeters, which equates to about 21 inches. She used the figure when she was referring to the veil, so another assumption is that this is her hat size. Speaking strictly out of my hat, mind you.

Posted by: Whiskey Mike 2006-10-17 09:57

#8 Not gonna happen, NS. The leadership believes it's an expression of their "culture", and since we must respect all non-Euro cultures as part of "valuing diversity" (all the while implying they are just a bit more superior to our own), they aren't going to make a peep.

Of course, their "solidarity" with their Islamic sisters falls a little bit short of actually wearing one themselves, no matter how much they might find their own appearances enhanced by a niqab or burqa.....

Posted by: Swamp Blondie 2006-10-17 09:49

#7 Size 54? That's not a "niqab", that's a circus tent.

Posted by: tu3031 2006-10-17 09:43

#6 I don't understand the need to wear something as severe as the niqab, but I respect those who bear this endurance test

In addition to A5089's point, it is also an act of war against women. It clearly identifies who has submitted to her husband and is probably treated as property at home. Educated women, as the author clearly demonstrates, are not going to wear this get up voluntarily. So it is a means to keep women ignorant, barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen. Women's libbers need to figure this out.

Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-10-17 08:49

#5 I wasn't clear with my last post (am I ever?) : the reason algerian free-thinkers are worried is because there is in France (and obviously elsewhere in Western Europe) the same "symptoms" than in algeria during the ramping up of the civil war, when the Moderate Muslims were on the verge of winning the elections.

Posted by: anonymous5089 2006-10-17 08:39

#4 Veils and niqab and so on are not pieces of cloth, they are flags.
This was true in lebanon and in algeria, where the advance of fundies and assorted scum was marked by their proliferation (for example, the modern hijab was invented by shiites, copied from nuns' headgear, to signify the paleos : "I'm not a christian girl, don't rape me, rape those without hijab"... gee, do we see a pattern with the muslim rapes epidemic in Europe, or what?), as a way to colonize public space and show their numbers.
Even now, iran pays HEFTY sums to their shiites clients, so the wimmen wear "proper islamic clothes".

Every algerian secularist who escaped the country during the 1992-2006 and counting civil war sez to his/her french islamophobic counterpart that the proliferation of such attire, both for wimmen( up to the absolutely not north-african niqab, totally alien to their culture, even more than the hijab) and for the men (who dress either with the fundie uniform, beard and skullcap, or as... you guess it, afghans) is very, very worrying... because the fundies are flexing their muscles that way, are "massing" the muslim community they now own (IE, no more westernisation), and are litterally colonizing public space.

Each niqab is an act of war, of cultural imperialism, against the host country.

Posted by: anonymous5089 2006-10-17 08:24

#3 She was a size 54!!!

Posted by: mhw 2006-10-17 08:15

#2 Funny, innit, that the first person (that she noticed) to treat her with kindness was an American.

Posted by: Rob Crawford 2006-10-17 08:01

#1 You can see that most people in the UK hate Islam and it's colonists.

The more Islamic you are, the more likely you are to get insulted.

Very few people in the UK wanted the mass immigration of muslims that has been so damaging. Because the UK is no longer a democracy this is their only way of responding.

The steam is blowing from pressure cooker UK.

Posted by: Bright Pebbles in Blairistan 2006-10-17 07:39

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