Abstract
In the twenty-first century, nowhere do Orientalism, governmentality, and nationalism intersect more fully than in policy debates concerning citizenship. This chapter critically analyses the global, national, and religious dimensions of the 2011–2015 ban against wearing the niqab and burqa during the oath of allegiance at the Canadian citizenship ceremony. It argues that in framing the ban as a cultural rather than a religious issue, the state became an arbiter of religious praxis by entering into a historically theological debate within different interpretations of Islam, thus effacing the power relations between them. In this collusion to control the boundaries of what is accepted as “real” religion in the nation, a specific idea of religious reform emerges at the expense of religious diversity, religious freedom, and state neutrality. This enables the state to shape the belief (good/real versus bad/false) in ways that create horizontal inequalities instead of deep equality between citizens.
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Notes
- 1.
The case began when Zunera Ishaq immigrated to Canada from Pakistan in 2008. Zunera legally challenged the Conservative government’s ban on wearing the niqab during the citizenship ceremony. For case overview, see Zaheeda Alibhai (2018) Case Study: Zunera Ishaq v. Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. EUREL: Sociological and Religious Data on Religions in Europe and Beyond. See http://www.eurel.info/spip.php?article3035.
- 2.
It is important to note that prior to the recitation of the oath, prospective citizens must sign the legally binding written version of the oath.
- 3.
Sheikh Tantawi was a leading spiritual leader in Sunni Islam. He served as the Grand Mufti of Egypt from 1986 to 1996, when former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak appointed him Grand Imam of Al-Azhar. Tantawi served in this position until his death in 2010.
- 4.
In Egypt, Islam has come to embody a variegated process of movements, ideas, and practices. For some Egyptian Muslims, Islam is the cultural topography from which the Egyptian nation was built, a doctrinal system with political and juridical connotations of the proper ordering of state and society, and/or a system of beliefs harmonized to daily life. Whether women should cover their faces is a long-standing debate among scholars.
- 5.
Salafism is a distinct interpretation of Sunni Islam.
- 6.
We see these same politics playing out in France where the niqab has become linked to Salafist extremists.
- 7.
Colleen Bell (2011, 106) has argued that, in security discourses, conflict situations are “dramatized and presented as supreme priorities.” In this way, conflict situations are fashioned as more authentic if they are perceived as urgent and requiring immediate action.
- 8.
Hoekema (2008) uses the concept of “discourse shopping” to describe “actors” switching from one style of doing justice and normative repertoire to another.
- 9.
In Toronto, for example, a woman was wearing a scarf over her hair to protect it from the rain when someone ripped it off her and told her to go back to where she came from.
- 10.
For a detailed analysis, see the Global Center for Pluralism publication series Accounting for Change in Diverse Societies that focuses on six international cases that examine specific moments when a country amended its approach to diversity by either expanding or eroding the foundations of inclusive citizenship. See Global Centre for Pluralism https://www.pluralism.ca.
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Alibhai, Z.P. (2020). Read Her Lips: The Ban on Wearing the Niqab and Burqa at the Canadian Citizenship Ceremony 2011–2015. In: Meerzon, Y., Dean, D., McNeil, D. (eds) Migration and Stereotypes in Performance and Culture. Contemporary Performance InterActions. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39915-3_7
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