The yearlong debate about banning the veil (hijab) in France and Germany reached its peak when French President Jacques Chirac formally proposed, on 17 December 2003, a law banning the display of religious symbols in state institutions in France. This law bans students and civil servants from wearing Christian crosses, Jewish skullcaps, Islamic headscarves, as well as political party symbols. The disapproval of this law among some fractions of the French population, and the Muslim population in particular, has led to several protests against banning the veil. Interestingly, the debate, which started as one about the veil in Islam, has evolved into a big discussion about Islam itself: as a religion, the Islamic movement in Europe, and the relation between Islam as a religion and fundamentalism. This has attracted the attention of various media to try to explain the concept of hijab itself, the logic behind wearing it, and, most importantly, finding out more about the lifestyle of the women wearing this veil.

Changing the Stereotypes

In an attempt to explore the topic further, German Television has taken a positive step to explain this relatively new phenomenon. As a result, Mr. Waltar Dehler, the foreign correspondent of German Television, came to Cairo for almost a month. The main objective being to prepare a program whose aim is to understand the concept of the veil and its different dimensions, thus providing the viewers with an objective, first-hand covering of the topic, and hopefully, changing the stereotypes-in Europe in general and Germany in particular-about veiled women.

The program is 6 minutes, 20 seconds long and focuses mainly on the day-to-day life of some educated, veiled Egyptian young girls. “I asked the girls to tell me more about their common daily activities and asked for permission to accompany them while they are carrying out these activities,” said Mr. Dehler. So, the program shows those veiled girls playing basketball, studying, shopping, or socializing as they normally do. “The objective of this”, he said, “is to show Germans that beyond the veil, these girls also have lives, several aspects of which are very familiar to the European young girls.” In addition, there were interviews held with these girls to know their opinion about the veil and other confusing topics, including, for example, polygamy.

Why do they Wear Hijab?!

When asked about public opinion in Germany and its response to the debate about banning the veil, Mr. Dehler said, “I think that generally, people in Germany are afraid of the movement towards Islam, but this is mostly because many of them are confusing Islam with fundamentalism and terrorism, especially after the September 11 attacks. Our role as journalists is to explain to the people that Islam is not equivalent to terrorism”.

Concerning the veil in particular, it is generally viewed as a symbol of the oppression of women in Islam. The general perception about Muslim women is that they are not well educated, do not have rights equal to those of men, and their role is mainly to serve men and satisfy their needs. While on the other hand, men have the right to marry more than one woman, receive better education and so on. However, most Germans were fascinated to know that most women decide to wear the veil of their own free will; in fact, they would not be surprised if women were obliged by men to wear the veil, because this is the general perception. Therefore, the majority of Germans still do not understand the reasons why women decide to wear this veil. “My primary aim for this program was to understand and explain these reasons,” said Mr.Dehler.

Seeing the Whole Picture

According to Mr. Dehler, the main reason for choosing Egypt as a location for shooting this program was practicality, as the regional office of German Television is in Cairo. In addition, he said that Egypt is viewed as one of the most open Islamic countries, as it has a long tradition of Western influence, unlike some other Islamic countries with extremist regimes that many Germans do not think very highly of !

Overall, this program helps Germans to be able to relate more to Muslim women; not to label them as just “veiled”, or think of them as fundamentalists, but instead to be able to see the whole picture of their lives, ambitions and ways of thinking. It represents an objective account of the lives of Muslims and veiled women; the program attempts to bridge the gap between Europe and the Islamic world by helping the Germans to understand Muslims before judging them.

Actually, Muslim countries should encourage such attempts and initiate dialogue and co-operation with the Western media to assure that they portray the right image about Islam in different parts of the world. This can only happen when we provide viewers everywhere with the facts-and then leave it up to them to form their own opinion.

* A 6-minute, 20-second long segment of Welt Spiegel, a programme produced by German television's ARD Channel 1. This segment was translated from Arabic into German by Mona Younis, the head of IslamOnline.net's Social Section.

View the German program, produced by the ARD, channel 1