March 5, 2021
Editor’s Note. As the ‘burka ban’ has now come into effect on 1.1.2025 we bring this related article from 2021.
Demonstration of June 14, 2019 – Geneva © Teycir Mastour
This Sunday, the Swiss population will vote on the initiative “Yes to the ban on covering one’s face” promoted by the SVP. In this article, Meriam Mastour, spearhead of the association Foulards Violets, seeks to demonstrate the Islamophobic and sexist nature of this proposal.
On March 7, we will vote on the ban on covering one’s face in public spaces. If the people are called to vote on this today, it is because the Democratic Union of the Center (UDC) has considered the issue a priority for living together in Switzerland, and it believes that Muslim women must be freed from the constraints of Muslim men.
But what do the figures and studies say? In Switzerland, there are only 20 to 30 women wearing the niqab (falsely called the burqa 1 ), or about 0.0007% of Swiss women 2 . Were they forced? According to Mallory Schneuwly-Purdie, a sociologist of religions, and Andreas Tunger-Zanetti 3 , an Islamologist at the University of Lucerne, these few women who wear the burqa are mainly converted Swiss women who choose their clothing freely. This is the same observation made by Agnès de Feo 4 , a French sociologist, who followed 200 women wearing a burqa for 10 years: the niqab corresponds to their piety and their convictions, to the way they feel in public about their body, or even sometimes it is an asset for them in finding a husband. No constraint, then. On the other hand, if the initiative passes, women will be forced to uncover themselves, by imposing a fine on them. The whole absurdity of this initiative is evident: punishing victims (real or presumed), and not executioners.
One last interesting point: supporters of the initiative often put forward the argument that the burqa should be banned in Switzerland in order to support women who are forced to wear it in certain countries. However, women in these countries are clear about it: “We left our homes to escape oppression, including gender-based persecution. It is therefore ironic, to say the least, that we now find ourselves fighting against violations of our rights in our country of asylum. In Pakistan and Afghanistan, and now in Switzerland, conservative forces are pressuring the government to restrict women’s autonomy and freedom of dress.” 5 But if it is not for feminist reasons, what is behind the SVP initiative?
Through this initiative, we have a stereotypical vision of Muslims in Switzerland: the debates revolve around political and radical Islam, terrorism, and the veil. We then realize that the subject of the burqa (like that of minarets in its time) is ultimately only a pretext to talk about the place of Muslims and Islam in our society. It is therefore a clearly discriminatory initiative towards a particular population. The causes and consequences of this racism are numerous: by demonizing Arab -Muslim men, by confining Muslim women to the status of victims incapable of thinking for themselves, by making a direct parallel between the burqa and violence (see the UDC posters 6 ), we de facto legitimize violence against people perceived as Muslims in the street, during police checks, the tearing off of headscarves and other insults and spitting. The most zealous citizens thus feel justified in rendering justice against a fantasized threat.
However, inequalities for women are real in Switzerland. Domestic violence: one person dies every month from the consequences of domestic violence, which mainly affects women 7 . Sexual violence: one in five women has already suffered sexual violence in Switzerland 8 . Wage inequality: compared to that of a man, a woman’s pay slip in Switzerland is on average 18.3% lower, per month. Etc. Women who wear a headscarf experience all this violence and inequalities, but also additional discrimination and violence linked to the fabric they wear on their heads, and legitimized by racist and sexist policies such as the anti-burqa initiative. It is indeed women who are the main victims of Islamophobia (70% according to French figures 9 ). The fight against Islamophobia is therefore definitely a feminist fight in its own right.
This explains the enormous feminist and anti-racist front that has shaken Switzerland in recent weeks. The collectives of the Feminist Strike, the Purple Scarves, Operation Libero, Amnesty International, Alliance F, etc., have clearly positioned themselves against the initiative, campaigned by preparing visuals, organizing round tables, dissecting the arguments, and have refocused the debates and overcome the unfounded fears of the initiative committee. This momentum has given Muslims in Switzerland hope for a more just state in which civil society does not give in to populism without resistance.
source https://www.jetdencre.ch/linitiative-anti-burqa-parle-de-tout-sauf-de-burqa