Helie Lucas, Marieme

Helie Lucas, Marieme

Marieme Helie Lucas

3 November 2006Comment

For the past month a renewed debate about citizenship, religious freedom and gender has been raging in Britain. Marieme Helie Lucas offers her perspective and throws down a few challenges to the "coward Left".

In the controversy over the veil sparked by Jack Straw, there is one thing that is ignored both by his supporters and his detractors: “The veil” (singular) is not a dress code rooted in culture or religion. The form of veiling that we now see spreading all over European and North American countries comes from nowhere: it is a recent syncretic outfit, picking up from various traditions, that has been invented by fundamentalists as their political uniform, as their very visible flag.