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Journalism of Courage
A recent piece of video art,Me by the Iranian artist Ghazel,showed a burqa-clad figure sunbathing,swimming,riding a bike,ice-skating,even moonwalking it was funny,poignant,and defied easy readings. Was it an affirmation of free movement,while being enclosed in a private space? Or was it also a reminder of the ways that the garment swaddles you,gets in the way,and keeps you from fully experiencing things? The unsettling character of the video owes to the deep ambiguity about the burqa itself. Is it merely a trapping of a woman-hating culture where their bodies,like their selves,have to be made invisible? Or can the idea be recuperated by pointing,as many Muslim feminists have,to the ways a woman in a burqa feels easy in her skin? Recently,when the French and Belgian governments experimented with banning the burqa,the liberal quandary was on full display. Even as they unpacked the various illiberal impulses that are masked by rhetoric of liberating Muslim women,they found themselves having to defend a practice that they were less than enthusiastic about.
However,what happened in West Bengals Aliah University is unambiguously unfair. A young teacher was intimidated by the students union into abiding by the decent dress code,or not take classes at all. Sirin Middya has no intrinsic issues with the burqa,but she refuses to wear one on someone elses injunction. The university has not protested this hijacking of individual freedom; instead it simply suggested that Middya take her problems somewhere else,and report at an off-campus library,while being paid her salary. The West Bengal government has not helped either,despite Middyas letter to the minority affairs minister. It has fallen upon other teachers unions to agitate over Middyas rights,and demand action from the Left Front government.
