Printculture : A morsel to nibble on . . .

A morsel to nibble on . . .

by S L Kim | October 25, 2006 | Culture

So, it's been another one of those weeks. In lieu of an extended commentary on the recent discussion of E Hayot's and J Lee's (a.k.a. yunmay's) posts, I give you this article on Slate about Muslim women and the veil. What I found interesting is the framing of the argument not in terms of religious freedom or politics, but in terms of politeness and civility:

And yet, at a much simpler level, surely it is also true that the full-face veil—the niqab, burqa, or chador—causes such deep reactions in the West not so much because of its political or religious symbolism, but because it is extremely impolite. Just as it is considered rude to enter a Balinese temple wearing shorts, so, too, is it considered rude, in a Western country, to hide one's face. We wear masks when we want to frighten, when we are in mourning, or when we want to conceal our identities. To a Western child—or even an adult—a woman clad from head to toe in black looks like a ghost. Thieves and actors hide their faces in the West; honest people look you straight in the eye.

Given that polite behavior is required of schoolteachers or civil servants in other facets of their jobs, it doesn't seem to me in the least offensive to ask them to show their faces when dealing with children or the public. If Western tourists can wear sarongs in Balinese temples to show respect for the locals, so, too, can religious Islamic women show respect for the children they teach and for the customers they serve by leaving their head scarves on but removing their full-face veils.

I buy the larger argument that religious freedom can't be absolute in a country that guarantees freedom of religion. But what interests me more is how the argument makes visible the culturally specific underpinnings of Western manners that we might think of as universal values. Or more precisely, alerts us to the difference between values (of respect, politeness, honesty, fair dealing, etc.) and their expression in culturally and historically specific forms. Maybe I'll have more to say about all this over the weekend, but my hunch is that foregrounding manners as the lens for reading & negotiating cultural difference allows us to talk about our behavior with regard to others in terms other than that of some core subjectivity that is asserted or compromised, and that might be a useful thing.