The Covid-19 pandemic and physical distancing rules enacted by governments around the world have changed the way we act and present ourselves in public spaces. In order to protect ourselves and others we are far more likely to give each other a wide berth in the streets and stand two metres apart in queues. A further feature of this is the presence of face masks. More and more people are wearing them when they go out to cover their mouth and nose, and some countries have even mandated it in law.
In western Europe some have seen in this trend the unmasking (pun intended) of a deep hypocrisy: in contexts where Muslim women who wear the niqab have been vilified for covering their face in public, and such forms of dress banned in some places, the sudden social acceptability, even encouragement and good social manners of face covering highlights the nonsensical attitudes towards those forms of female Islamic dress. The idea that face coverings prevent effective communication, for instance, is being tested and found a little wanting. Indeed, it has been suggested that ‘we are all niqabis now’, thus pointing to a symmetry between the niqab and face masks belied by the apparent hypocrisy.
Yet, neither the hypocrisy nor the symmetry actually allow us to grasp what is at issue and it is questionable as to whether the prevalence of face masks might help spark a more constructive conversation on the niqab. This is because in addressing the question, ‘is a face mask used to help block coronavirus really that different from a niqab?’ a good deal of caution is also warranted. The reason for this caution is that the answer from both sides, that of the women wearing them along with that of people banning them, is ‘yes, it is’. To understand why, we need to grasp the logic of niqab wearing, face mask wearing, and niqab banning.
