This is my plea for honesty. Honesty in politics – I know, I know…it’s a pipe dream. But for some reason this niqab debate really took hold in this election cycle, and it has bothered me more and more with every passing rant about it. And no, this is not intended to be a direct rebuttal to Randall’s Rant about the niqab – in point of fact, I (sort of) agree with his point of view.

But what I don’t agree with is the subterfuge. The way the Conservatives have framed this issue. This idea that it’s our culture at risk, that we are being forced to bend to outsiders who wish to force their ways on us. Because…what? Because part of being Canadian is exposing your face? Because letting a woman wear a niqab during a citizenship ceremony will then allow her to commit armed robberies with impunity? Seriously, what is the argument from the point of view of our culture?

I was watching Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday night. His first guest was scientist and brilliant atheist Richard Dawkins. They were talking about Muslim dress, and the oppression of women by those means. Which all rings true to me. The niqab and hijab and the rest of it all bother me. They all speak of a culture that treats women vastly differently than does ours. One that subjugates women and considers them far, far less than equal. The argument of course is simply ‘that’s their culture’ to which Dawkins simply responded ‘to hell with their culture’.

Then it hit me. This is the phrase. This is the honest representative of the Harper government’s policy on the niqab. It isn’t about our culture at all. It’s about theirs. And what the Harper government is really saying is ‘to hell with their culture’. Short of actually enacting a law to ban the niqab, this is a political end-around that hopes to drum up votes by subtly telling us all that they disapprove of Muslim culture, couched in the language of our policies.

Either way, it’s a stupid argument about nothing. Even Muslim communities don’t care about this. This is just a battle between not-really-overtly-racist right wingers and not-really-overly-politically-correct left wingers. Both are completely full of BS. The left is ideologically inconsistent, and the right is fear-mongering to stoke the racist fears of people who refuse to believe or admit that they have racist fears. Both are pretending ‘our culture’ is something that it is not.

As for me, I’m against the niqab because I feel that it is the single most ubiquitous symbol of the oppression of women worldwide. I am NOT against it because of some imagined slippery slope fear resulting from citizenship ceremonies. But then, neither are the Conservatives, really. That’s why they use words like ‘face covering’ instead of what they really mean, ‘niqab’. See, they’re inclusive, not xenophobic! This could apply to any face covering, like a hockey mask! And they’re doing this to protect the sanctity of our culture and citizenship. Loosely translated – ‘to hell with their culture’.