Niqabi or Civility? On the Civil Sphere and Islamophobia

 

By Luke Kim

In The Civil Sphere, sociologist Jeffrey Alexander notes that in Eurocentric societies, there are three main forms of integration that try to encompass out-groups into civic life. Among these, the assimilative mode of integration attempts to mold Others to fit what is considered to be the primordial characteristics of civil society by casting aside their identities in order to “[...] split private and public life in a radical way” (2006:428). 

And while there may certainly be instances in which this assimilation is done voluntarily, the contradictions present in the civic sphere “[...] means that civil status for some groups is combined with antidemocratic rule over others” (Alexander 2006:415), to the point that assimilation will oftentimes be forced onto non-conforming minorities. 

The bans on the niqab in several European countries present an important case study into both how assimilation operates and is enforced upon marginalized peoples in Eurocentric nations. Particularly, the niqab creates a physical barrier between viewers and wearers that symbolically and literally disconnects Muslim women from other people in public, disrupting the strict separation between private and public life and casts the niqabi as an enemy of civil society. Thus, in this image, it is the niqab that is associated with “stopping terrorism” because the act of wearing it challenges the binarism of assimilation regimes.

Beyond this, however, assimilation should be understood not just as a way to include an out-group but to enact control and neutralize threats to civil society. As Fanon notes, Muslims “[...] with every abandoned veil seem to express [their] willingness [...] to decide to change [their] habits under the occupier’s direction and patronage,” (2003:47). Thus, by banning the niqab, the forced exposure of Muslim women’s faces becomes a way to not only remove the “threat of terrorism” (via hypothetical bombs under their garments) but to control their existence overall. 

Works Cited

Coffrini, Fabrice. March, 07, 2021. “SWITZERLAND-VOTE-ISLAM.” From Getty Images. 

Retrieved March 31, 2022. 

(https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/campaign-poster-in-favour-of-the-burqa

-ban-initiative-news-photo/1231574602?adppopup=true)

Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2006. The Civil Sphere. New York: Oxford University Press.

Fanon, Frantz. 2003. “Unveiling Algeria.” Pp. 42-55 in Decolonization: Then and Now, edited by 

P. Duara. New York: Routledge.