Peter Kurti No Ordinary Garment? the Burqa and the Pursuit of Tolerance
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No Ordinary Garment? The Burqa and the Pursuit of Tolerance Peter Kurti Research Report | June 2015 National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication Data: Creator: Kurti, Peter, author. Title: No ordinary garment : the burqa and the pursuit of tolerance / Peter Kurti. ISBN: 9781922184504 (paperback) Series: Research report (Centre For Independent Studies (Australia)) ; RR 5. Research report (Centre For Independent Studies (Australia). Online); RR 5. Subjects: Religious tolerance--Australia. Toleration--Australia. Burqas (Islamic clothing)--Australia. Hijab (Islamic clothing)--Australia. Other Creators/Contributors: Centre for Independent Studies (Australia), issuing body. Dewey Number: 323.4420994 No Ordinary Garment? The Burqa and the Pursuit of Tolerance Peter Kurti Research Report 5 Related CIS publications Policy Monographs PM139 Peter Kurti, The Forgotten Freedom: Threats to Religious Liberty in Australia (2014) PM138 Peter Kurti, Multiculturalism and the Fetish of Diversity (2013) Contents Executive Summary ...............................................................................................1 Introduction: Can the Secular-Religious Compact Hold? ..............................................3 Multiculturalism, Identity Politics, and Threats to Religious Liberty ................................5 No limits on religious liberty? ..................................................................................6 De-coding the Burqa ..............................................................................................7 Ban Burqas in Parliament? ......................................................................................7 The Burqa and the Demands of Citizenship ...............................................................8 Eweida versus Azmi: the Limits of Tolerance and Equality............................................9 Box: Attitudes to Islam in Australia ................................................................ 10 Two Arguments: For and Against Banning the Burqa ................................................. 11 The Amenity of Public Space Argument ................................................................... 12 The Argument from Equality Under the Law ............................................................ 13 Cultural Relativism and Reverse Zero-Tolerance ....................................................... 14 Upholding the Integrity of Religious Belief ............................................................... 15 Coda: A Burqa Ban is Un-Australian — But So Is Islamism ........................................ 16 Endnotes ............................................................................................................ 18 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Once again, I have been greatly assisted in the preparation of this report by thoughtful and critical comments from Jennifer Buckingham, John Hirst, David Marr, Chris Merritt, Mangai Pitchai, Augusto Zimmermann, and an anonymous reviewer. My CIS colleague Jeremy Sammut helped give the report its intellectual shape and sounded warnings when I was in danger of drifting off course. Karla Pincott edited the report and Ryan Acosta did the design and layout. I am grateful to them all. Any errors that remain are, of course, my own. Executive Summary Islam is asserting itself in new ways in Australia where those political claims — a concern that those who wear Muslim groups are increasingly asking that precedence it are, at the very least, appearing reluctant to adopt be given to sharia law over secular laws passed by this country’s civic culture. The desire to wear the burqa our parliaments. There are also calls for greater public openly in Australian society, therefore, represents more acceptance of Islamic practices in economic and social than an expression of a human right to freedom of life. Some of those social practices extend to religious and religion. cultural customs concerning vesture such as the burqa, The report weighs carefully the two principal opposing a garment that looms larger in public conversation than arguments usually adopted when debating the religious clothing worn by Hindus and Jews. acceptability of the burqa in Western societies. Each This report examines arguments about the burqa and argument seeks to establish different boundaries about investigates the way Australia balances the right of an the limits of acceptability and tolerance. individual to live in obedience to a religion with the wider The Amenity of Public Space Argument holds that the obligation of the state to promote social cohesion. After burqa fails to observe the norms and conventions of weighing opposing arguments about the acceptability public space and so should have no place in it. This of the burqa, the report defends the right of women approach takes little, if any, account of the individual’s to wear it, and argues that religious sensibilities must right to religious liberty and so fails to acknowledge all always be protected by the law whenever possible. claims of conscience that may be grounded in deeply Individuals in an open, liberal society should enjoy the held religious convictions. The report argues that this fundamental right to live in obedience to any religion of argument ought to fail because it draws the limits of their choosing. Australians are generally very tolerant of tolerance too narrowly. different religions. The limits of this tolerance can soon The Equality Under the Law Argument holds that the be reached, however, if any particular religion threatens religious symbolism of the burqa warrants that it is to unsettle the stable secular social compact. granted the equivalent status of any other religious There are indications that the Australian compact may symbol, such as a crucifix. It is thoroughly committed to be under some strain. For example, a recent Roy Morgan the principle that an individual should be free to live as poll found that 55.5% of respondents opposed the he or she chooses. However, the argument reduces the wearing of the burqa in public. Advocates of religious principle of religious liberty to the nostrums of identity liberty often base their argument on a conception of politics where anything of any meaning to anyone is religion that has renounced political claims. But Islam worthy of protection. It is a tactic that sidesteps the more has not generally renounced political claims. challenging moral discipline of exercising tolerance. The issue of the burqa arises today not because of This report defends the right to wear the burqa but concerns about fashion but because of a concern about rejects the relativist position that it is enough simply to No Ordinary Garment? The Burqa and the Pursuit of Tolerance | 1 appeal to the sincerity with which a particular belief is law, require that her face be visible. Furthermore, the held. The social and communal context in which religious report rejects an analysis in terms of a simplistic binary belief is practised — and which undergirds the principle opposition between Australians on the one hand and of the individual’s right to freedom of religion — must Muslims on the other for there are a little under 500,000 also be weighed. Muslims in Australia, comprising 2.2% of the population. Questions of religious liberty will arise most acutely when The act of wearing the burqa is, frankly, a complex the minority point of view is unpopular with the majority, one that raises questions about the integration and or even distasteful to it. It is in such circumstances that cultural assimilation of Australian Muslim members of the exercise of tolerance becomes most pressing and, society that go beyond simply expression of piety. In possibly, most difficult. Whereas tolerance is certainly addition, the political thrust of Islamism, which holds warranted by diversity, the exercise of such tolerance that Islam should provide the governing framework for does not entail neutrality about that which is tolerated. society, means increasingly that the exercise of the right Tolerance and dissent are compatible. to freedom of religion is likely to provoke unease and dissent amongst non-Muslim Australians. In many ways the burqa is at odds with an open, liberal society in which seeing another’s face is an important Anxiety about the burqa is not just provoked by its element in interpersonal exchange. Wearing a veil appearance but also by the attitude towards Australians implies hiddenness and withholding oneself. However, and their society of those who wear it. What we think the freedom to wear a burqa as an authentic expression about the burqa is one thing; what those who wear of religious belief is not something we should set aside it think about us is a different and equally important lightly. Nor should the reasons for tolerating the burqa question. However, the ends ostensibly served by a be cast in the mould of cultural relativism where nothing burqa ban do not justify the intolerant means. But such can be considered unacceptable. a position still leaves issues about the burqa unresolved. This report argues that it would be a drastic step for It is, of course, easiest to champion the freedom of the law to require a Muslim woman to appear in public those who act as we do. But freedom is most evidently without the covering she believes is required by her safeguarded when we defend a practice which is religious beliefs. Even though some women may wear distasteful to some, and when we are also clear about the burqa for cultural reasons, the religious significance