Sea 29 Hijab, headscarf and citizenship

(c) Sofia Servando Baig

When we talk about not talking about immigration veil: Essentially we are talking about.

In a speech in perpetual construction Us, a hijab should not be any more strange or more threatening than a dress fallera.

Some time ago I was invited to a conference on multiculturalism and gender organized at the Faculty of Pedagogy in Barcelona Gredidona.

It was, in my case, speaking of hijab (Muslim veil).

The theme of veil appears repeatedly in our conversations, in our news, in our political debate. And we just solved it wrong we put debate.

We talked about the veil and Immigration. The veil as a foreign element that has just arrived “our” country (if there is one country, I would say Jaume Sisa). One element that must decide if we incorporate into our world, in the.

If the debate is this, what to enter “our” country, defining what we are is who we are opposed.

Who we are? What are we?

We can be, as a society, something definite, closed, possibly drawn from the area's history (history that winners write), of its founding myths, of their legends, their hopes and even fully indipendiente the ins and outs of real people who inhabit that territory. It is the French social model proposed: assimilation. French is, and whoever added that he respects be like. The exact definition of how it should be someone to participate in this idea of ​​France has never been clearly written anywhere, but still a little about the social reality in the France of the banlieus gives a rough idea.

The result of this policy are several generations of people born in France who can not become truly French. The result is, for, a society composed of CITIZENS 's… and citizenship 's Segona: “rabble”, Sarkozy described him as well, totally betrayed by his subconscious.

Deception is the very principle of the approach: the veil debate should not be placed in the context of migration or in the context of a society of unchanging essences.

Obvious fact that many women born here to wear headscarves. By family tradition or because they want. If considered citizens with full rights (born, educated, grown here), the debate on how to wear it is unnecessary. Dress as they. Like I do, Without going any further.

But the most interesting of the debate is about the many women who not born here but they should be considered citizens of this. Not just to be nationalized (administrative process to the end of the day) but to be living, working, thinking here. As a part of who we are, whatever it is what we are.

Companies, as people, are not: We. If we are something, es puro become. Construction.

A veiled woman, for those who do not carry, leads us to the idea of ​​the Others. The foreign element is incorporated, which is juxtaposed to Us. But this we, by definition, should include tod @ s. Us @ s we l @ s that we here and now. The Spanish essence is the result of the sum, not subtraction, of each and all of us.

And that includes women in veils, born here or not.

When we talk about not talking about immigration veil, Essentially we are talking about. Y, seen so, hijab is not a stranger no more threatening than a faller dress.

Discuss the issue from another location leads, as if we were hungry fish, to bite the tail. Because we understand that there is one that we do not include tod @ s, means that people now live here and we are, and people who are not. Citizens of full, and Other. Second-class citizenship. Riffraff. Rabble. And we have lxs the right to challenge the clothes, identity, Spirituality, do not let those who are.

This work is licensed Brigitte VasalloCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Spain License.

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