The popular uprisings in Iran raise much larger fundamental questions than the imposition of the hijab, which was the trigger. Corruption, economic inequalities, repression, etc., are fundamental reasons for these revolts. But their starting point, and one of the lines of force that run through them, remains the imposition of the religious norm, including that of the hijab, by a regime that has become obsolete in the eyes of millions of Iranians.
To appease the protesters, the regime ended up abolishing, this weekend, the morality police who monitor and punish. The scope of this surprise announcement was questioned earlier this week by Western powers and Iranian activists. To date, the regime has not eliminated the legal obligation to wear the hijab. The controversies around the hijab are therefore not a racist invention on the part of “white feminists”, as some academics maintain: it is within Muslim societies that the question arises with the most force.
Beyond the necessary solidarity with the Iranian people regarding their desire for freedom, there are lessons to be learned from these revolts. Several opponents of Law 21 on the secularism of the State try to recover them by emptying them of one of their meanings, by arguing the double principle “no to the imposition of the veil, no to its prohibition”.
However, this reduction of the religious norm of the hijab to a question of dress supposes an Orientalist, stereotyped, reductive, and ultimately racist look at Iranian society, whose leaders are so stupid that they can kill women who do not wear this end. cloth on their head. This reductive look does not allow us to understand the social and political stakes of the imposition of the hijab as a norm and as a powerful symbol of a social order.
It is precisely this social order based on religious norms, with the prohibitions that flow from it, that Iranian women contest. For the Iranian regime, this protest is an act of sedition, and it is for this reason that Mahsa Amini was arrested, imprisoned and finally assassinated. It is therefore as a religious norm and not as a freedom of dress that the question of wearing the hijab must be addressed.
Respect, symbol or snub
But what does all this mean for our own discussions, here in Quebec, on the question of the hijab? Certainly not that it should be banned in public space. In a democracy, one has the right to believe in the religious norms that one wants, and the women who choose to wear the hijab deserve the respect due to any citizen, whatever meaning they want to give to this practice: respect for a religious norm, a symbol of identity, a symbol of respectability, or a snub to the notion of secularism.
But it is not the public space that is in question in Law 21, but rather positions of moral or coercive authority. The attitude of respect towards the choices of individuals does not contradict the need to demand a duty of reserve in these positions of authority. For example, even if it is desirable and valued for citizens to engage in political action and publicly display their commitment, it would be inappropriate for a judge to sit wearing a political party badge.
This duty of discretion does not imply that, outside of his functions, a judge does not have political opinions. Rather, it is based on the double requirement of neutrality and the appearance of neutrality, in the exercise of its functions, in the face of anything that is not clearly enshrined in the law.
Such a duty of reserve is completely independent of the positive or negative evaluation of the orientations that one could display. In this sense, the value judgments one may have about a religious practice are not a valid reason to justify restrictions. It is the normative character of a practice that makes the duty of discretion important, all the more so when this norm has been propagated and reinforced by violence.
A supportive and caring attitude
With regard to Law 21, although we would like it to undergo certain modifications, it is totally unjustified to consider it racist. There is nothing racist in wishing that people in a position of authority, moral as well as coercive, respect a duty of reserve.
The law does not prevent a believing and practicing Muslim woman from teaching in public schools. The (relatively minimal) restrictions relate to a specific behavior (wearing the hijab) as a religious norm which has, moreover, been propagated by contemporary obscurantist ideologies, and which is vigorously contested within Muslim societies themselves, such as the illustrate the protests in Iran.
That said, given the Canadian and North American environment that allows the instrumentalization of this restriction to make Quebec bashing, it seems to us that this is one of the points that could be discussed. It is true that pressure to conform to the hijab norm, exercised by veiled teachers, has been reported by unveiled mothers.
But the influence of a teacher who would promote a religious norm among her co-religionist students, as part of her duties, is offset by other influences that go in the opposite direction. So there are possible compromises here.
On the other hand, the stigmatizing discourse adopted by certain media and certain politicians is problematic and completely counterproductive. The Law would gain in legitimacy if it were accompanied by vigorous measures to counter economic discrimination, and by a united and benevolent attitude of the political authorities towards the people who have internalized these norms of behavior outside positions of authority.