Was your week quiet? Me too, almost. I was at the beach and I put aside the novel I was reading to browse for a moment on Twitter. I saw there that HEC Montreal had chosen to show a young veiled woman to promote a joint master’s degree with Algeria.
In the Canadian advertising universe, the veiled woman is now the norm when we want to affirm diversity and openness. The Canadian government does this systematically. It’s to the point where, apart from the rare Sikh turban, the Muslim veil is the only belief displayed in these pubs.
Sometimes I denounce this bonus to Islam on Twitter when I see it pass. But I had never seen a French-speaking Quebec institution fall into this trap before. That veiled Algerian women do a master’s degree at HEC, bravo. Let’s see it in a class photo, great. But that a secular, scientific institution, dedicated to gender equality, knowingly chooses a veiled woman to represent itself, no.
The young woman is not in question. HEC is. It is reprehensible for a secular institution to ignore the fact that it must not standardize in its ads any political or religious conviction.
The aggravating factor is that the ad is intended for Algeria, where the imposition of the veil by the fundamentalists has left its mark. Talk to Leila Lesbet, a teacher and Quebec feminist who left her native country in 2002 when fundamentalists threatened her with death. She denounces the “abyssal ignorance” of HEC regarding recent Algerian history. “Thousands of women, young girls and teenagers have been raped, killed, slaughtered, disembowelled, mutilated in the most barbaric way possible and it is this symbol, of which we keep the stigmata forever and which are part of our most painful nightmares, which was chosen by HEC Montréal. »
This “dark decade” ended in 2002, and the veil is not legally compulsory in Algeria. But three years ago, ten young Algerian women committed suicide, leaving only one message: instead of a rope to hang themselves, they had used their hijabs. This has launched a movement, “the prisoners of the hijab”, women who say that the pressure to wear it is pervasive, imprisoning.
The situation is obviously completely different in Montreal, where the veil, according to a speaker interviewed in these pages, can be “a feminist symbol”. I have no doubt about it. Women may wear the veil to distinguish themselves, to escape hypersexualization, to thumb their noses at the West, at François Legault, at their non-practicing family, because they find it beautiful, practical, or simply because that they are devout. All scenarios exist. Including that of the Montreal father of Algerian origin convicted last year of having wanted to kill his four daughters because they wanted to “dress like Quebecers”. This domestic despot was of the opinion that the veil meant, as the imams say, modesty and submission. In short, the chosen veil—feminist or religious—and the forced veil—including violently—coexist in Montreal. And if we say nothing while we are witnessing the normalization of the veil in government (and private) advertisements, aren’t we giving fundamentalists additional tools?
So, well, as I told you, I was on vacation and I wrote a tweet. An excellent Montreal daily has decided to make a new one. This surprised me a bit, but why not?
What else ? Ah yes, I’ve been insulted by four everyday feathers The Press. First, Yves Boisvert said in a chirp that my position “smacks of political opportunism”. This champion of the presumption of innocence thinks I don’t really believe what I say. As I like to debate but not to insult, I answered that I recognized him “the right to choose to be petty”. His colleague Rima Elkouri had the good idea to devote a column to the young woman in the HEC photo; she is super friendly. Rima also contradicted me with a quote from my book We from 2007 when I said I was not concerned about the presence of the veil; it’s fair game. Wielding irony, Rima wrote to me “Your feminism moves me. » I answered that his “lack of compassion for women victims of the forced veil in Algeria and Montreal saddens me”. She drew my attention to the book she wrote to denounce the forced veil in Iran; I congratulated her. But she accused me of “instrumentalising” veiled women; I didn’t understand how I used them more than her, since we both write on the subject. Then, the columnist Marc Cassivi also accused me of “opportunism” ; he didn’t name me, but spoke of “getting bogged down”. It’s like a pun, you see. But I’m giving up, because he’s Rima’s spouse and we know that the solidarity of the couple sometimes pushes us to overreact: talk to Will Smith! The fourth is a regular contributor to the major newspaper on rue Saint-Jacques: Jocelyn Maclure. A brilliant man, he heads a chair in philosophy at McGill. He called me an Islamophobe ; I asked him if he understood that it was a synonym for racist and that he thus qualified someone who simply has a point of view on secularism different from his. He didn’t pick up.
I finally asked Rima what she thought of two recent Canadian commercials, including one from the Human Rights Commission, which positively depict veiled girls. I’m waiting for his answer. I understand that requires reflection.
Here, I have an idea. On September 7, the book launch will be held in Montreal. Uncover of Yasmine Mohammed, the Canadian forced to wear the full veil by her husband and who now leads a network of women freed from the forced veil, including at home, Forgotten Feminists. This launch would be a great opportunity for Yves, Jocelyn and Rima to come and celebrate the courage of these women with me and for us to take the opportunity to define a common position on the occasion of showing veiled little girls in government ads. I’m sure we can get along.
Marc: you can come too.
[email protected]/blog: jflisee.org