Aislin/Montreal Gazette
A cartoon referred to as “controversial”, and the Islamic faith, are both back in the news together today, after the Montreal Gazette ran an editorial cartoon on the Muslim woman expelled from school for refusing to remove her niqab in class.
The cartoonist, Terry Mosher, who draws under the name Aislin, crafted a picture of a common niqab, but with prison bars and lock where the eyes would go. As far as cartoons go, it’s not particularly original, or offensive. A simple google images search for the word “burqa” turns up the niqab instead, with a digitally edited photograph of a woman looking through a veil of prison bars. The photo was commissioned by the International Society for Human Rights, which opposes third world gender apartheid for women.
The Egyptian-born immigrant, Naïma Atef Amed, has now twice been removed from provincially funded French language and integration classes for new immigrants after refusing to remove her niqab. The province has backed the wishes of school instructors who said that the niqab was making interaction impractical.
Ms.Amed has since spawned the obligatory provincial human rights complaint with the Quebec Human Rights Commission, an ironic move not lost on many women who say that religious freedom should not be used as an excuse to wear the symbols of gender oppression.
Several Islamic lobby groups and organizations expressed disapproval of the political cartoon today, saying that many women wear the Niqab because they believe it to be the truest expression of their faith. Islamic scholar and author, Tarek Fatah, is not convinced.
“You are free to support these ninjas and I will continue to expose this hideous symbol of Islamofascism,” he wrote on his Facebook page.
“The niqab is a symbol of the Muslim Brotherhood doctrine best expressed by the Saudis where an entire population is identified by their attire just as the red guards were under Mao’s China.”
Many people, like Mr.Fatah, believe that the burqa and niqab aren’t expressions of religiosity, but rather political symbols of political Islam. Indeed, he has written that the burqa is an imported and modern compulsion of Saudi Arabia’s strict Wahabbist interpretation of Islam. It is an interpretation that has been widely condemned by human rights observers the world over.
There’s nothing wrong with the editorial cartoon, which accurately symbolizes the voluntary imprisonment of individuality behind a black curtain of religious dogma. But if I were Mr.Mosher, I would purchase a panic room forthwith.
