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Veiled threat: separating mosque from mass transit

By Jonathan J. Ariel - posted Thursday, 6 August 2009


Religion and public transport sparked a sharp debate recently as Hillsbus (the largest privately owned bus company in Sydney) considered the knee jerk reactions of the media to the action of one of its drivers in Western Sydney’s suburb of Greystanes.

The driver in question, still unnamed, at first denied, and then delayed a female passenger from boarding while wearing the niqab (a veil that fully covered her face). The driver is alleged to have asked the passenger, Ms Khadijah Ouararhni-Grech, to take off her "mask" because it was “against the law to wear it on board”. The passenger argued that she was not wearing a “mask”.

Whether it’s against the law to conceal one’s face in a public space is a good question. If it isn’t, it should be.

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In due course expect the shawarma to hit the fan. Arguments will be made in favour of, and in opposition to, the concealment of faces in public spaces.

On the one hand, fraud and safety on public transport will be championed as the priority and hence people must be forbidden from concealing their faces. After all, if they can hide their identities, why bother with travel passes with photos, if niqabs allow such passes to be freely exchanged between passengers? For that matter, if faces can be lawfully hidden from view, why bother with security cameras? And why stop at buses. Let patrons who want to conceal their face do so: at airports, at bars and on cruise ships and for that matter allow staff at restaurants to similarly obfuscate.

On the other hand, many will no doubt loudly disagree saying that the ban on such face wear denies them the right to freely practice their religion.

It’s a debate whose time has come.

Before going on, let’s skim over the different types of “female Muslim headwear”.

The hijab (veil or headscarf) and other covering forms of the female dress code, like the jilbab (full black dress head to toe), the burqa (cloak covering the whole body including the face) and the niqab (face veil) are practices derived from specific verses of the Holy Koran but are not among the “pillars”, i.e. the fundamental precepts of Islam. Experts relate the following key controversial Surahs (“chapters” in the Koran) for the elaboration of these norms:

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Surah XXIV: Tell the believing men to lower their gaze and be modest. […] And tell the believing women to lower their gaze and be modest, and to display of their adornment only that which is apparent, and to draw their veils over their bosoms …

Surah IV: Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded …

Seen in the light of the culture of the region and of the epoch when Mohammed lived (and when all female bodies were controlled), these requirements for women, it is argued, seem less of an imposition, or a way to oppress them, and more of a standardisation of the fashion and custom of the time. On the other hand, the historical submission of Muslim women to male guardians as well as verses like the one above suggesting that men have the right to control their wives have, unsurprisingly, provoked many animosities towards Islam. However, apologists have argued that very often Muslim male social domination, rather than Islamic teaching, is repsonsible for putting Muslim women in a situation of submission and deficiency vis-à-vis men.

The wearing of Islamic headdress is but one challenge western societies. How have other societies reacted to such confrontations? Both Denmark and the United States have lessons to impart. If only we pay attention.

On May 13, 2009, Arriva one of Denmark’s leading transport operators and originally a company formed in Sunderland, in northeast England, declared that observant Muslim women in Denmark will have to remove their face veils when their travel passes are being checked.

Other Danish bus companies have introduced the rule after two incidents where Arriva drivers refused to allow passengers wearing the niqab to travel on their buses.

Bus companies argued successfully that it is not unreasonable for passengers holding photo travel passes to identify themselves to the driver or the conductor. Those passengers who refuse to show their faces will be forced to buy another ticket to get on board.

Seems pretty fair to me. Despite the shallow objections.

Another lit fuse where the primacy of the mosque was placed ahead of the state occurred in 2007, when Muslim taxi drivers in the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, decided to reinstate their bans on transporting passengers who arrived at Minneapolis-St Paul Airport (MSP) carrying alcohol or were in the company of guide dogs. These two items apparently offended the drivers’ sensibilities.

In 2007, about 100 people a month were denied cab service at MSP, many by drivers who refused, point blank, to transport alcohol in their cabs. Nearly 700 of the airport’s 900 cabbies are Somali, most of whom are Muslim.

In 2006, the Minnesota chapter of the Muslim American Society issued Minneapolis’ Metropolitan Airports Commission with a fatwa, or religious edict. The fatwa stated that "Islamic jurisprudence" prohibits taxi drivers from carrying passengers with alcohol "because it involves co-operating in sin according to Islam".

The issue got a head of steam in the late 1990s, when some Muslim taxi drivers serving the airport unilaterally declared that they would boycott passengers visibly carrying alcohol in, for instance, see through duty-free shopping bags. This stance stemmed from their interpretation of the Koran's ban on liquor.

One driver named Mr Fuad Omar explained: "This is our religion. We could be punished in the afterlife if we agree to transport alcohol." Another driver, Mr Muhamed Mursal, echoed his words: "It is forbidden in Islam to carry alcohol."

Some cab drivers and a noted Islamic scholar, Mr Muhammed Al-Hanooti, disagreed stating that the Koran forbade not the carrying, but the drinking of alcohol.

The issue emerged publicly again in 2000. On one occasion, 16 drivers in a row refused one passenger with bottles of alcohol. This left the passenger - who was legally in the right - feeling like a criminal. And it left the 16 drivers with a loss in income. At MSP, cabbies who refuse passengers for any reason are sent to the very back of the taxi rank, where they can wait for hours before landing a fare.

To avoid this quandary, Muslim taxi drivers called for the Metropolitan Airports Commission to grant them the right to refuse passengers carrying or even suspected of carrying liquor, without the sanction of being banished to the end of the line if they refused. The MAC rejected this appeal, worried that drivers might offer religion as an excuse to refuse short-distance passengers.

While the MAC rejected the appeal, this did not stop Muslims turning down an average of three fares a day. Each refusal based on their religious objection to alcohol, according to MSP Airport spokesman, Mr Patrick Hogan.

"Travellers often feel surprised and insulted [when they are refused]," Mr Hogan added.

With this in mind, the MAC proposed a pragmatic solution: drivers refusing to carry alcohol could get a special colour light on their car roofs, broadcasting to one and all their commitment to the Holy Koran. From the airport's point of view, this scheme offered a sensible and efficient mechanism to resolve what it considered to be a minor irritant, leaving both passengers and drivers happy. As Mr Hogan explained: "Airport authorities are not in the business of interpreting sacred texts or dictating anyone's religious choices." The two-light proposal was to be in operation by the end of the holiest month in the Islamic calendar in 2006, Ramadan.

But the proposed solution had massive implications. The two-light plan in effect imposed Sharia, or Islamic law, with state sanction on a mundane commercial transaction. A government authority was thus tasked with publically identifying which taxi driver followed in the footsteps of the Prophet Mohammed and which driver did not.

As luck would have it, the MAC proposed solution never saw light of day. Taxi owners, savvy as they are, feared that customers would boycott Muslim taxis, identifiable by their lights. They also feared that customers would soon boycott taxis altogether and use other means of transportation.

Just before the end of Ramadan of 2008 nine cabbies, a mix of owner-drivers and non-owner drivers, went to the Minnesota Court of Appeals and departed very unhappy, when reminded that Muslim cabbies risk losing their taxi licenses if they give passengers the middle finger.

The men said their religious beliefs prohibited them from carrying alcohol. But the Appeals Court was unmoved, upholding the lower court's decision. Both courts said that the respondents failed to show that they would suffer irreparable harm if they were not granted the right to refuse.

And so we come back to the incident in Greystanes.

An unwarranted allowance was sought in order to accommodate another culture. An allowance that serves only to magnify the folly that is known as “multiculturalism”. This ideology is a demonstrated failure in the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union and is shameless minority vote buying. With devastating consequences for social cohesion. Devastating.

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About the Author

Jonathan J. Ariel is an economist and financial analyst. He holds a MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management. He can be contacted at jonathan@chinamail.com.

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