Daily Times

Geert Wilders, one of the Netherlands’ most polarising politicians, is best known for his anti-Islam position as part of a broader right-wing agenda. The country’s Muslim population undoubtedly breathed a collective sigh of relief when his prime ministerial ambitions amounted to nought last year.

Today, however, Wilders is back in the game; kind of. For having spent the last 13 years campaigning to outlaw the burqa — his Party for Freedom has been delivered victory on this front.

Holland’s Senate this week passed a law banning veils in a large part of the public sphere; including schools, government offices and hospitals. A member of Wilders’ party has hailed the move as the first step towards de-Islamising the country. With mosques representing the next.

The Dutch decision has been a long time coming. Indeed, the country was the first among the EU to propose a burqa ban back at the end of 2005. It was tabled by Wilders. In a bid to ensure that secular Europe’s assimilation model was upheld. This is in contrast to Britain’s multicultural paradigm that seeks integration. Yet both countries saw the issue of the veil come to the fore at around the same time. That is, in the years following the 9/11 attacks and in the immediate aftermath of the London bombings.

And herein lies the rub. The Muslim veil, when seen through western eyes, conveniently becomes synonymous with terrorism. This is no accident. For it is far easier for nations to deny links between a militarised foreign policy and a violent blowback. Indeed, as warmongering between the two sides increases — women find that their bodies are transformed into new battlefields.

In the case of the Netherlands, successive governments have had plenty of help on this front from characters like Wilders as well as that most acceptable face of the right-wing lobby: Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The latter has made a name for herself by denigrating Islam’s treatment of women. All the while failing to differentiate between the religion in and of itself and the use of religion as an instrument of state power. Indeed, Ali has likened the burqa to both a Swastika and the ISIS flag.

It is regrettable that here in the 21st century, contentions surrounding immigration and the threat of terrorism continue to be fought on women’s bodies. Not least because this is tantamount to an own goal. For this contrived prism, this social construct, effectively ends up steering all discourse away from the question of Islam and fundamental rights for women. And all that remains is women cast in the role of collateral damage; with no agency of their own.

Thus European nations such as Holland, France and Germany, Belgium, Bulgaria and Austria — all of which have banned the burqa to lesser or greater extents — would do well to correctly identify the biggest risk to women and their well-being. Namely, the patriarchy. For unless and until this is recognised, any such bans on the Muslim veil start looking a lot like a witch-hunt. *

Published in Daily Times, June 29^th 2018.