Discrimination

Norma Joseph, in her column in the Canadian Jewish News, has an excellent post Of wigs, hijabs, hats and niqabs.

She correctly complains about the laws that have been drafted to forbid either the hijab or niqab in public situations. I am not a Moslem, and although I do not know the religious standing of these garments in Islam, I have the feeling that they are a choice of some Moslem women and not required by the religion. Yet in our Western cultural context, we claim to allow for choice. Do we only allow for choice on "our" terms, when the choice is in accord with the choices of modern post-Christian secularism?

The choice of these women offends us because they have chosen differently. But that is the point of free choice.

Some claim that we are in a war with Islamism and this is a question of security. Even if this were true, are there no other means of identification more accurate without offending these women, e.g. fingerprinting, DNA, etc.? As Norma Joseph points out, security is not the issue. As far as I know, no terrorist or even terror suspect has been caught wearing the hijab or niqab.

In the Torah, we read of Amalek who attacked an innocent people who possessed no threat to them what so ever. Amalek started by attacking the old, the weary, the weak and stranglers, not the main body of the Jewish people. Is that not what these discriminatory laws are doing, attacking the weakest first? Discriminate first against the weakest, those who are least able to protest, those who have the fewest friends, the fewest defenders.

We have the responsibility to defend their choice, not because it is our choice, but because we allow others to choose differently. We should defend their right to choose even if we do not fear that discrimination against them is the first move in the xenophobia that will surely haunt us soon afterwards. It is the right thing to do, the moral choice.