Year: 2009

By Ajoy Ashirwad Mahaprashasta and Venkitesh Ramakrishnan

Justice to the victims of the anti-Sikh violence in Delhi seems far away even after 25 years.

Photo/Sandeep Saxena

THE crowd at the Constitution Club in New Delhi on November 7 perhaps symbolised what Jarnail Singh said at the launch of his book on the anti-Sikh violence of 1984, I Accuse. In the hall, packed to capacity, were only Sikhs except for a few journalists, when Jarnail Singh, who shot to fame when he hurled his shoe at Home Minister P. Chidambaram during a press conference a few months ago, asked desperately: “Why has no one except members of the Sikh community come forward as witnesses in the carnage that took place across the capital in 1984? Why, even after 25 years, only Sikh groups have been raising their voices against the government’s inaction?”

Jarnail Singh’s statement rings alarmingly true. The violence that took the lives of nearly 4,000 Sikhs, according to unofficial sources, in the three days that followed the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by two of her bodyguards on October 31, 1984, remains a blot on Indian democracy. Nearly a dozen inquiry committees, including two judicial ones, since the carnage have not expedited justice for the victims. Almost all the prime accused in the case have got off scot-free and have even enjoyed plum posts in the government.

On the 25th anniversary of the carnage, many victims have even given up hope. H.S. Phoolka, counsel for the victims, told Frontline: “It is widely accepted that it was an organised massacre. Evidence was systematically destroyed in the immediate aftermath [of the violence]. It is difficult to prove things now, so many years later. Many witnesses have passed away. All we can hope for is symbolic justice, and we will fight for it.”

The first conviction, for murder, came nine years after the riots. Jarnail Singh remembers how as an 11-year-old he witnessed the violence firsthand. According to him, the research he did to write the book clearly shows that the police and the government officials were in collusion to ensure that the Sikhs of particular areas in Delhi did not escape unhurt. He goes on to write that the policemen who were the main accused were rewarded with promotions and medals.

Frontline

Jakarta needs more green space, but not at the expense of the poor

By Deden Rukmana

What happens when you destroy green spaces: Jakarta in flood in 2008
Luis Ruay

Jakarta is not only Indonesia’s capital and most dynamic city, it is also beset with a plethora of 21st century urban problems. As its population grows, its green spaces shrink. In the first half of the twentieth century Batavia, colonial capital of the Netherlands East Indies, was a small urban area with approximately 150,000 residents. Batavia has become Jakarta, Indonesia’s megacity of 14 million.

Green spaces in the city have shrunk along with this leap in population. As recently as 1965, green areas made up more than 35 per cent of Jakarta’s land area. Currently, they account for only 9.3 per cent, far below the target of 30 per cent set by Law No 26 of 2007 on Spatial Planning.

Shrinking green areas

As Jakarta is certain to continue to grow, the city’s master plan to protect remaining green spaces and add some more, especially along riversides, offer some hope. The city’s current 2000-2010 master plan aims to achieve green areas (legally defined as areas where plants can grow) of 13.94 per cent of the total city area. This is an excellent goal, but it is modest when we compare it to similar plans in the past. The 1965-1985 master plan, for example, planned for green areas covering 27.6 per cent of Jakarta’s land area. In part, these plans are simply catching up with reality. New luxury homes, condominiums, shopping malls, hotels, commercial buildings and offices have proliferated in Jakarta over the last three decades. Many have been built at the expense of green areas and have paved over water catchment areas, making the city more prone to floods

Not surprisingly, annual floods are becoming more severe, and more deadly. The worst flood in memory occurred in February 2007, inundating about 70 per cent of the city. It killed at least 57 people and sent some 450,000 fleeing their homes. In the aftermath of the flood, Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar put the blame on excessive construction of residential and commercial buildings, which now cover many of the city’s former green areas.

Annual floods in Jakarta point to an urgent need to protect existing green areas in the capital – and to create new ones. Green areas absorb rainwater and thus help prevent flooding. Green areas also help make cities more sustainable and livable.

Clearing out the poor

Inside Indonesia

By Nandita Haksar

Mizzima News – For the lawyers practicing at the city sessions court in Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal Thursday, November 12th, 2009 was just another busy day. They passed by the court of Ms Kalpana Dey without as much as a second look. For them the scene was familiar – lawyers dressed in their black gowns, the court clerks sitting at the table and the judge dictating to the stenographer.

The curiosity of some lawyers was aroused when they heard some passionate arguments and they may have drifted into the room in the hope of hearing some interesting point of law. The Public Prosecutor was telling the Judge that foreigners could not be allowed to depose without proper summons. He argued that summons for foreigners had to be served in accordance with the proper procedure laid down under the Code of Criminal Procedure.

A look at the large wooden cage at the back of the airy courtroom held 34 men.

Most of them were too tired to stand and were squatting on the cold stone floor. In any case they could not understand English or the intricacies of the legal points being debated. There were, however, some men who were holding the bars straining to listen to the arguments. Anxiety writ large on their faces.

On the last of the three rows of chairs in the large court room sat two men, looking calm and unperturbed, but listening carefully.

Finally the lawyer for the 34 men inside the wooden cage had persuaded the judge to allow him to call his witness. The lawyer informed the Judge that the first defence witness was Mr Harn Yawnghwe.

Mr Yawnghwe stood up and walked to the witness box. The other person sitting next to him was requested to go out of the court. The rules did not allow the defence witnesses to listen to each other before they themselves had deposed.

Harn Yawnghwe stepped into the rickety wooden witness box and was told to take oath and was ready to depose. The men in the wooden cage could not hear him but his dignified presence and his calm demeanor commanded respect. The Bengali stenographer‘s struggle with Burmese names and unfamiliar accent lent a slightly comic air.

Harn Yawnghwe was born in Burma 62 years ago. Both his parents came from Shan aristocracy and that was evident in his bearing. In quiet, measured words he told the Court that his father had been the first President of the Union of Burma in 1948. However, when Gen Ne Win staged a coup his father was imprisoned and died in jail. His older brother was executed by Gen Ne Win. These tragic circumstances had forced his family to take refuge in neighbouring Thailand and after that Harn got asylum in Canada and was a Canadian citizen.

It was not only his parentage but his professional qualifications that were impressive. He was a trained mining engineer and financial analyst, living in Canada. But all his life he had been involved in the movement for the restoration of democracy in Burma.

Harn Yawnghwe had traveled all the way from Canada to testify in the court. He told the Judge that the 34 Burmese being held inside the wooden cage at the back of the court were genuine freedom fighters. He also told the court that he was now the executive director of the Euro Burma Office with its headquarters at Brussels. The Euro Burma Office had released funds for the costs of the trial. There was no way that such funding could be given if there was even a suspicion that the 34 were gun runners involved in violating Indian security interests.

Mizzima

(Submitted by Harsh Kapoor)

During a lively and busy meeting November 10th in the Balie in Amsterdam, Mama Cash brought together 150 sex workers, activists and interest groups from the Netherlands and abroad. Topics of discussion included the consequences of new legislation that is before the Dutch Parliament now.

The new bill proposes mandatory registration for sex workers and criminalization of clients who use services by unregistered sex workers. The bill is modelled after Swedish legislation that criminalizes all clients. But according to Swedish activist Pye Jakobssen sex work flourishes like never before in Sweden, and has simply gone underground. “Ten years after the introduction of this law, there are no numbers on its effectiveness. And nobody ever asked our opinion about it. They speak about us and for us but never to us.”

Mama Cash

Cabinet on the right track, but more required

Raenette Taljaard:

This week the Zuma administration took an important step on the path to fighting corruption in South Africa.

The Cabinet’s announcement of the creation of an “anti-corruption, inter-ministerial” committee to deal with corruption in the public service must be welcomed in principle, although it remains to be seen whether the Cabinet can muster the requisite political will in practice; follow-through for similar-sounding sentiments has often been lacking in the past.

There can be no debate: any siphoning off of public funds ought to be regarded as a wilful act of violence against the people of South Africa and our Constitution. Attempts to enrich a few dishonest individuals at the expense of the public purse and the interests of the many – thereby risking the very essence of social stability – cannot be tolerated.

The new inter-ministerial task team would do well do take at least three immediate steps – one of which it explicitly stated as its mandate.

First, review the various annual reports of the Public Service Commission on the state of the public service to see whether any of the recommendations it has made concerning conflicts of interest – and the employment of staff with a criminal record in the public service – have been attended to.

Second, it might be necessary for a review of the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act [Act No. 12 of 2004] to determine whether the criminal offences it codified serve as an adequate deterrent against corruption in the public and private sectors.

Third, it is necessary to review, and amend where required, the relevant provisions of the Public Finance Management Act, the Municipal Finance Management Act and Treasury Regulation to ensure that they are up to the task of limiting the scope of “discretion” where public funds are concerned.

A sound balance needs to be struck between flexible provisions that ensure that public spending is not caught up in bottlenecks, and discretionary provisions – which must be tightened to limit any wiggle room in which corruption could flourish.

In addition, Parliament should convene a hearing with the auditor-general in order to look at non-compliance with the PFMA as well as determine whether the new Public Audit Act is functioning optimally, or whether the auditor-general’s office requires any additional powers to ensure full compliance with its findings and recommendations.

The sad reality, however, is that no amount of institutional reform alone will be able to save South Africa from the scourge of corruption.

Times

By Bob van der Zwaan and Tom Sauer

Often, it seems as though unimportant policy issues are constantly debated, while important ones are forgotten. For those decision makers who want to maintain the status quo, the advantage of the latter situation is the absence of any pressure for policy change. U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe are a perfect example. Despite the end of the Cold War about two decades ago, approximately 200 U.S. tactical nuclear weapons quietly remain on European soil. Whether they retain any relevance in the twenty-first century is debatable to say the least.

The U.S. tactical nuclear weapons left in Europe–all gravity bombs for delivery by U.S. or NATO aircraft–are deployed in five NATO countries: Belgium (20 bombs at Kleine Brogel Air Base), Germany (20 bombs at Büchel Air Base), Italy (50 bombs at Aviano Air Base), the Netherlands (20 bombs at Volkel Air Base), and Turkey (90 bombs at Incirlik Air Base). During the Cold War, NATO deployed them to deter the perceived conventional superiority of the Warsaw Pact nations. The thinking at the time was that the threat of a smaller provocation escalating into U.S.-Soviet mutually assured destruction would deter the Soviets from initiating a conflict in Europe–for example, by invading a NATO state. Conventional wisdom back then also stated that without the U.S. nuclear umbrella, Washington’s European allies would set about acquiring nuclear weapons themselves.

Today, the political climate is starkly different. NATO currently includes every Central European country plus the three Baltic states that previously were part of the Warsaw Pact. Furthermore, Russia is now a strategic NATO partner–at least officially. Additionally, Belgium, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands are committed non-nuclear weapon states under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), with little interest in building nuclear programs of their own. The same applies for Turkey–more or less. (Its case is a bit more complicated because some experts claim that Turkish hard-liners might push for a domestic nuclear arsenal if Iran develops a nuclear weapons capability; that said, the hard-line position probably won’t be change by the absence, or the presence for that matter, of U.S. nuclear weapons.)

Thus, there seems to be little justification for keeping U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe. (The United States is currently the only nuclear power that has short-range tactical nuclear weapons deployed in other nations.) If anything, continuing this practice could increase the world’s nuclear dangers. For instance, it might inspire nuclear weapon states such as Russia, China, India, Israel, and Pakistan to deploy their weapons in partner countries.

Some other reasons why U.S. nuclear weapons should be removed from Europe:

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Vulliamy’s Smears

By EDWARD S. HERMAN and DAVID PETERSON

In his wild and slanderous “Open Letter to Amnesty International” (signed, fittingly, “Yours, in disgust and despair”),[2] The Guardian – Observer’s veteran reporter Ed Vulliamy explains that two “main concerns” motivated him to draft his repudiation of AI’s choice of Noam Chomsky to deliver this 2009 Stand Up For Justice lecture: One is that the “pain” individuals such as Chomsky are alleged to cause the “survivors and the bereaved” of the wars in the former Yugoslavia is “immeasurable,” and Vulliamy feels some kind of need to help mitigate this pain; the other, apparently, is that the “historical record” as it pertains to these wars is too precious and too fragile to be left in the wrong pair of hands.  “For Amnesty International, of all people, to honour this man is to tear up whatever credibility they have estimably and admirably won over the decades, and to reduce all they say hitherto to didactic nonsense,” Vulliamy writes.  “By inviting Chomsky to give this lecture, Amnesty condemns itself to ridicule at best, hurtful malice at worst—Amnesty joins the revisionists in spitting on the graves of the dead.”

To spit on the graves of the dead is a ghoulish act, and Vulliamy makes a serious charge— against both Noam Chomsky and Amnesty International.  Yet, it is notable that Vulliamy offers not a single quote or even paraphrase of what Chomsky has written or said about the former Yugoslavia to back-up this charge; and in his writings for The Guardian – Observer over many years, we are unaware of a single published item under Vulliamy’s byline that criticized, let alone excoriated, Chomsky.[3]  Vulliamy’s Open Letter to AI complains that “Chomsky [has] said many things, from his ivory tower at MIT, to spur them [the revisionists] on,” but Vulliamy never provides specifics—just insults.  This possibly results from the fact that Chomsky has never written or said anything remotely like what Vulliamy imagines and alleges—Chomsky has never denied or questioned whether there were displaced persons- and detention- and POW-camps in Bosnia – Herzegovina during the wars there (1992-1995), never denied or questioned whether Bosnian Muslims were massacred following the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995, and so on.  But from the standpoint of a writer aiming solely at denigration, it is necessary to leave it that “Chomsky said many things,” and insinuate the worst.

A second fact relevant to the vitriol that Vulliamy expresses towards Chomsky and AI, and to Vulliamy’s work overall, is that Vulliamy admits to being a “journalist of attachment.”[4]  He has written proudly that “In 1996 [he] was the first journalist to testify” for the prosecution at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).  “There are times in history when neutrality is not neutral at all, but complicity in the crime,” he explained.  “I do not want to be neutral between the camp guard and inmate; the woman raped seven times a night every night, and the beast who rapes her.”[5]  In fact, Peter Brock notes that Vulliamy has been “surprisingly frank and passionate…about his own abandonment of objectivity” at least since 1993, when he wrote in The British Journalism Review that he was “embarrassed…by how objective” he used to be.  But “with Omarska and Trnopolje objective coverage of the war became a rather silly notion,” Vulliamy proclaimed, and he was now “on the side of the Bosnian Muslim people against an historical and military program to obliterate them.”[6]  Writing in The Guardian around the same time, Britain’s Foreign Correspondent of the Year, who, his editors falsely claimed, “broke the story of the Serbian concentration camp together with [Independent Television News],” Vulliamy struck an equally committed pose: “[T]he horrors of war have taught me that there are things that are worse than war, and against them determined and careful war should be waged, in the name of the innocent and the weak. My father had the honour of fighting fascism; I have instead the strange privilege of meeting the people who are fighting a pale but unmistakable imitation of the Third Reich but have only the sons of the appeasers of 1938 to turn to.”[7]

Over a very long period of time, Ed Vulliamy’s attachment to Bosnian Muslims victims has been matched only by his hatred for “Serbian barbarism” and the “sons of the appeasers of 1938,” including the “objective” journalists whose ranks he deserted long ago.  It is within this camp of alleged appeasers of “Serbian barbarism” that Vulliamy now places Amnesty International, right alongside Noam Chomsky; and Vulliamy’s Open Letter repeats each of these convoluted themes. Theoretically, a political commitment like that of Vulliamy would not necessarily result in serious bias in reporting news, but in his case, we have a paradigmatic illustration that it can do so in practice.  As we will show in what follows, his attachments have led him to concoct, distort, and suppress evidence related to the former Yugoslavia for the better part of two decades.

Thus it is a notable fact that while Vulliamy was “there” on August 5, 1992, at both the Omarska and Trnopolje camps for the Bosnian Muslims in Bosnian Serb-controlled territory, and Chomsky most certainly was not, Vulliamy repeats a stream of falsehoods about the events of that day and their follow-up, confirmed by people who were “there.”  Second, he conflates those events with alleged denials and claims of “fakes” about the “concentration camps” that he and his colleagues with a British Independent Television News (ITN) crew allegedly helped to “discover.”[8]  Vulliamy admits that Chomsky didn’t—unlike Thomas Deichmann writing in Novo in Germany, and later reprinted by LM in Britain (see below)—propose “that these camps were a fake,” nor use “grotesque arguments about fences around the camps,” claims that “were beaten back in the High Court in London, by a libel case taken by ITN.”

Note Vulliamy’s use of the plural “camps,” when the issue was solely about one camp, Trnopolje, and his one visit to this camp on August 5, 1992.  In the very first report he ever published about this camp, Vulliamy had written that “Trnopolje cannot be called a ‘concentration camp’ and is nowhere as sinister as Omarska: it is very grim, something between a civilian prison and transit camp.”[9]  What is more, nobody (and certainly not Chomsky or Deichmann) has ever contended that these camps themselves were “fake,” though there always has been a dispute over the nature of the camps, the “fences around the camps,” and what purpose(s) they served in the civil wars in Bosnia – Herzegovina during the second-half of 1992.  In his Open Letter, Vulliamy makes all of the camps out to be concentration camps, with this term’s ominous overtones of possible Nazi-like death camps.  But this was manifestly not true of Trnopolje, which served as a transit center, and most of the people Vulliamy actually saw at Trnopolje were internally displaced persons fleeing the violence of the civil wars.  Indeed, Vulliamy testified to this very fact the first time he acted as a witness for the prosecution at the ICTY in June 1996, in the trial of the Bosnian Serb Dusko Tadic, where Vulliamy referred to Trnopolje variously as a “staging post,” “transit camp,” and “distribution point.”[10]  Only in his writings and reporting for The Guardian – Observer and other venues (for example, in his 1994 book Seasons in Hell [11]) did Trnopolje become fixed as a “concentration camp,” with the Nazi-allusion firmly in place, a status that it retains in his Open Letter to AI: “places of extermination, torture, killing, rape and, literally, ‘concentration’ prior to enforced deportation….”

The other big issue was whether the famous images of an emaciated man, Fikret Alic, the “symbolic figure of the war,” as Vulliamy once described him, “on every magazine cover and television screen in the world,”[12] who seemed to stand behind a barbed-wire fence while interviewed by the British reporters, were deceptive and misleading.
The simple answer is: Yes.  First, it is well established that Fikret Alic’s physical appearance—often described as “xylophonic” because his ribcage showed prominently through his extremely thin torso—was not representative of the rest of the displaced persons seen at Trnopolje by the British reporters on August 5, 1992.

More important, it is also well established (in the face of fanatic denials to the contrary) that Alic at no time while he was photographed and interviewed that day by the British reporters was standing behind a barbed-wire fence that enclosed him and the other Bosnian Muslim men.  In fact, the actual fence used in the famous shots of Alic and the other men consisted of chicken-wire that stretched from the ground up roughly as high as the men’s chests, with three strands of barbed-wire above the chicken wire, both affixed to the side of the fence posts facing away from the British reporters.  In other words, this fence enclosed the area where the British reporters had positioned themselves to interview and film the Bosnian Muslim men, and these men—Fikret Alic included—stood outside the area enclosed by the fence.

This is what Thomas Deichmann’s original debunking of “The picture that fooled the world” argued correctly[13]—much to the chagrin of the British reporters, to ITN, and to the British establishment, which resorted to Britain’s onerous libel laws to punish LM magazine for publishing Deichmann’s work in 1997, and used the British High Court to exact from LM the ultimate price: LM’s bankruptcy and liquidation.[14]  Deichmann, who studied a copy of the unused film shot that day by ITN cameraman Jeremy Irvin, wrote:

When Marshall, Williams and Vulliamy entered the compound next to the camp, the barbed wire was already torn in several places. They did not use the open gate, but entered from the south through a gap in the fence. They approached the fence on the north side, where curious refugees quickly gathered inside the camp, but on the outside of the area fenced-in by barbed wire. It was through the barbed wire fence at this point that the famous shots of Fikret Alic were taken….

[Thus] an important element of that “key image” had been produced by camera angles and editing. The other pictures, which were not broadcast, show clearly that the large area on which the refugees were standing was not fenced-in with barbed wire. You can see that the people are free to move on the road and on the open area, and have already erected a few protective tents. Within the compound next door that is surrounded with barbed wire, you can see about 15 people, including women and children, sitting under the shade of a tree. Penny Marshall’s team were able to walk in and out of this compound to get their film, and the refugees could do the same as they searched for some shelter from the August sun.[15]

The journalist Phillip Knightley also acquired the film shot by ITN’s Jeremy Irvin that day (the out-takes included) and “examined it frame by frame.”  In an affidavit he filed on behalf of the LM defense, Knightley wrote:

Counterpunch

Roma women endure flood of emotions after years of seeking justice

By Tom Clifford

“Since the procedure in 1997, I have had constant health issues: psoriasis, bladder problems and immense pain. My husband left me. A public apology is not enough.”
Nataša ?onková

The government expressed its regret to Roma women who were sterilized without their consent but admitted the practice may still be taking place. Human Rights and Minorities Minister Michael Kocáb told The Prague Post the decision to address the issue had the complete backing of the Cabinet, but it was just a small step on the way to ensuring full human rights for all citizens.

“The situation will not change tomorrow or the day after, but this is a step, a small step, in helping all minorities in the Czech Republic,” he said. “This government saw something wrong and tried to change it. It may be a caretaker government, but we knew we could act on this issue.”

As Prime Minister Jan Fischer issued the official statement at Government House just after 3:30 p.m. Nov. 23, Roma women who had traveled from Ostrava for the occasion burst into applause. They arrived in Prague at 11:30 a.m. for a series of meetings with Fischer, Kocáb and other government ministers. Lunch was put aside (though tea and coffee were served in abundance) due to the intensity of the meetings, and the enormity of what was about to happen – a public state acknowledgement of the abuse they suffered at the hands of medical staff – became apparent.

Fischer spoke the words that the women, their families, supporters and many other people had been longing to hear: “We would like to express regret for what happened. It was a huge failure.”

Prague Post

By A. G. Noorani

Deoband’s fatwa on the veil may be dismissed. But not the issues the veil has raised, especially in Europe, the U.S. and indeed in South Asia.

BY now Deoband’s fatwas have become predictable for their narrowness of outlook and a theology which has little concern with reason or, at times, even with learning. Its fatwa on the veil may be dismissed. But not the issue the veil has raised; especially in Europe, the United States and indeed in South Asia.

The Economist of October 17, 2009, reported the debate in Egypt, which has been raging for a century: “The veil has been put off and on as fast as hemlines in Paris have gone up and down.” By the 1970s most women had thrown it off. But it has crept back as a wave of religiosity prompted many to embrace a more distinctively Muslim look. Is the veil, then, a symbol of identity or a protection of modesty? Faced with the onslaught, women adopt a variety of the symbolic attire from the black niqab, which covers the face leaving just a bit for the eyes, to “lighter novelties such as a colourful Spanish-style scarf wrapped around hair tied in a bun”.

In October, the Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar, Cairo’s 1,000-year-old Islamic University, Sheikh Tantawi, lost his temper when he saw an 11-year-old student at a girl’s school wearing the niqab. He ordered her immediately to remove it and issued a blanket order banning it in all the girls’ schools. The reason he gave is noteworthy: “[T]he full face-covering is an innovation that represents too extreme an interpretation of Islamic modesty.” Islam does not prescribe the niqab. It is an “innovation” by some Muslims who reacted to Western influences in fashion as a “return” to the faith and an assertion of Muslim identity. The Religious Affairs Ministry of Egypt will be printing a leaflet called “Niqab: Custom not Worship”.

This is not enough. The crucial question remains to be answered. Precisely what does the Quran say on this subject? Marnia Lazreg is Professor of Sociology at the Graduate Centre and Hunter College, City University of New York. The sub-title of her work is “Open Letters to Muslim Women”.

She has interviewed women widely and done careful research. “In my previously published work, I have consistently objected to the manner in which Muslim women have been portrayed in books as well as the media”. On the one hand, they have been represented as oppressed by their religion, typically understood as being fundamentally inimical to women’s social progress. From this perspective, the veil has traditionally been discussed as the most tangible sign of women’s oppression. “On the other hand, Muslim women have been described as the weakest link in Muslim societies, which should be targeted for political propaganda aimed at killing two birds with one stone showing that Islam is a backward and misogynous religion, and underscoring the callousness or cruelty of the men who use Islam for political aims. Such a view made it acceptable to hail the war launched against Afghanistan in 2001 as a war of ‘liberation’ of women. Subsequently, the American-sponsored constitutions of both Afghanistan and Iraq were lauded as protecting the ‘rights’ of women in spite of evidence to the contrary. In this context, any Muslim woman who takes cheap shots at Islam and crudely indicts Muslim cultures is perceived as speaking the truth and is elevated to stardom.” Witness the empty-headed but raucous Milsi of the Netherlands and Nagi of Canada. Neither is known for learning.

In India, any Muslim who denounces Islam or Muslims becomes a hero, and not only in the eyes of the Sangh Parivar. The soft-secularist or, if you prefer, the soft Sanghi shares the approach. The author was born to a Muslim family in a predominantly Muslim country, Algieria, and is proud of her heritage.

Relevant to all

She decided to write these letters to women whose religion is Islam and who either have taken up the veil or are thinking or wearing it. However, writing about women necessarily means writing about men. “To many in the Muslim world, well-meaning individuals beleaguered by geopolitical events, these letters may seem pointless. But perhaps such individuals need to resolve the apparently unimportant issue of veiling before they can defend themselves more effectively. These letters are also relevant to all people, women and men, seeking to understand the human experience. I have reached a point in my life when I can no longer keep quiet about an issue, the veil, that has in recent years been so politicised that it threatens to shape and distort the identity of young women and girls throughout the Muslim world as well as in Europe and North America.”

In France, the state passed a law (referred to as laicite) on March 17, 2004, denying young French Muslim women the right to attend the public schools if they wear headscarves. Turkey reinforced a long-standing prohibition against veiling in public educational institutions and compels faculty members to report and expel from their classes female students wearing headscarves. The Recep Tayyip Erdogan government’s attempt to remove the ban on headscarves in the spring of 2008 threw Turkey into turmoil. The attempt was overturned by the Turkish High Court as unconstitutional. The veil has become politicised.

The author holds that “the religious texts lack clarity and determinacy in the matter”. Shunning extremist positions, her letters are an invitation to reflection based on the Quranic texts: “Quranic words referring to women’s proper attire have been interpreted and translated in various ways that add to the instability of meaning. Nevertheless, at present, four words are commonly used to refer to major styles of veiling: hijab, jilbab, niqab, and khimar. The hijab has emerged as the standardised form of veiling across the Muslim world, coexisting with local styles. It comprises a headscarf wrapped in more or less intricate ways covering the neck but not the face, atop a long skirt, long baggy pants, or combination of both. Often the hijab is reduced to a headscarf draped around head and neck, worn over any modern style of dress. The jilbab consists of a long garment covering the body, a headscarf, thick socks worn with flat shoes (usually sandals), and gloves. Frequently, a black face cover (niqab) is added to the jilbab, primarily by women affiliated with a specific Islamist movement such as the Salafi (or adherents to a conservative interpretation of Islam). Khimar today refers to a specific way of executing a head cover that usually hugs the head tightly and cascades over neck and shoulders in a cape-like fashion.”

What the Quran says

Frontline