In light of laws which have recently come into effect France banning the wearing of the niqab and burqa, and WA Minister for Women’s Interests Robyn McSweeney’s recent comments that she finds the burqa to be ‘a very oppressive garment’, Senator Michaelia Cash, opposition spokesperson for the Status of Women, outlines her thoughts on the veiled women in Australia.
Much has been made of the debate over whether women living in Australia should wear a burqa.
As a Liberal, I believe in a free, fair, open and democratic society where people have the right to make their own choices about the way they live their lives.
It is my opinion however that the wearing of not only the burqa, but any apparel that completely covers a person’s face, is alien to our Australian culture and our values.
I support the comment made by WA Minister for Women’s Interests Robyn McSweeney who noted that we, as Australians, communicate through the spoken word and through body language, and it is fair to say that the burqa does prohibit that open communication.
In my view this is not about telling women what to do or what to wear, what religion to practice or about dictating to them how to live and it is not about taking away their rights.
It is certainly not a slight on the huge Muslim diaspora that live as happy and active members of Australian society.
Rather, it is about living and being a fully functioning member on a daily basis in a country whose values are predicated on social interaction.
Much of our social capital is built on those face-to-face interactions that we have when we pass through a checkout while doing our grocery shopping, when we buy a coffee in the morning or when we take our children to the playground and have a chat to the other mums and dads there.
I share the view that the wearing of a burqa, by nature, excludes some women in some part from the ability to be full and active participants in society, which is what the Liberal Party encourages every Australian to do.
The concept of Australia as a multicultural country has had bipartisan support for decades now and Australians have traditionally shown newcomers to this country a great willingness to allow them to adapt to living here in their own way and at their own pace.
What we do not wish to do, as a Coalition, is to discourage new migrants from adopting parts of the Australian way of life into their own identities.
Anyone living in this country should be free and able to make choices about the way they live their lives, but must recognise that with freedom comes a responsibility to respect the history, to respect the culture and respect the values Australia was built on, and everyone who lives here, regardless of who they are and where they or their parents were born, should be mindful of that.
There are many and varied reasons why women in Australia choose to wear a burqa, but the argument that it is mandated by religion is false.
As Islamic Council of WA spokesman Rahim Ghauri told The West Australian, the Koran calls for women and men to wear loose-fitting clothes to hide the outline of their bodies.
Religion does not dictate that a woman’s face must be covered, he said. The implementation of the practice of Islam is open to interpretation, and that includes the extent to which women cover themselves. As New York-based academic and columnist Mona Eltahawy pointed out: ‘Islam is not monolithic. It, like other major religions, has strains and sects’.
Recently the SBS World News radio program ran with a line saying that I had called the wearing of the burqa ‘un-Australian’.
This is, unequivocally, untrue. What I said was that in any case where a woman is being forced to cover her face, where it is not done by choice, I believe that is an espousal of something that is ‘un-Australian’, because that critical element of choice is denied to these women. SBS’s reporting of my comment in the way it did serves only to drive a divide between Muslims and other Australians and is, in my view, irresponsible.
I do not support a situation where a woman is forced under threat of coercion to wear a burqa as I strongly believe in the active promotion of equality between the sexes and of equality of opportunity in the community more generally.
What I think is most important is that when women come to our shores and settle in to live in our country, that they have a full understanding that freedom of choice is part of our culture and that they have the agency to make meaningful decisions for themselves.
I do not support a legislative ban on the burqa. I believe in the principal of government non-interference in the lives of private individuals insofar as that is possible.
Even the current Prime Minister has recognised that there are times when public interest trumps personal choice and that in certain cases the veil should be removed.
I agree that in some instances - for example, airport security screening and entering a bank, that not just a burqa but any item of face covering that prohibits identification should be banned.
It is interesting to note that some of the countries that have banned the wearing of the burqa are traditionally some of the most liberal countries in the world. It is also interesting to note that President of the Muslim Women’s National Network, Aziza Abdel-Halim, last year said she would endorse a ban as long as women were still permitted to wear veils and headscarves.
A public discourse on wearing the burqa in Australia is a discussion we should be having if we are genuinely interested in preserving and enhancing multiculturalism in Australia. As Ms Eltahawy said in a column in The Washington Post last year on the Swiss move to ban minarets and the French burqa ban:
Underlying both bans is a dangerous silence: liberal refusal to robustly discuss what it means to be European, what it means to be Muslim, and racism and immigration.
This is a debate that needs to be had in Australia.
As Australians, we must not be silent on those issues which could diminish our culture and our values. As Australians we are entitled to protect our culture and values. We must put our core values front and centre and should not accept any attempt to diminish those values.
When people immigrate to a new country, they should embrace their adopted country’s core values. One of the core values in our society is that of the recognition of equality of women and in addition to that of communication by means of facial expression.
I am not opposed to a woman wishing to cover her body in public: However, in my personal opinion, I am opposed to women in Australia covering their faces in public particularly if this is not of their choosing or if it is imposed on them.
As the fabric of society changes over time, as it constantly has through waves of immigrants to this sensational country of ours, we simply need to remember who we are and where we came from. One of our society’s core values is the recognition of the equal place of men and women in society.
The Egyptian feminist Huda Shaarawi removed her veil in 1923, saying it was a thing of the past. I encourage Muslim women in Australia to consider how they reconcile their Muslim identity with their Australian one, and urge women who hide their faces to reconsider their decision to do so.
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