Hi everyone,

I encourage everyone to check out Jen’s blog post, “Unveling the Veil”. In her post, Jen connected Marjane Satrapi’s portrayal of the veil, or the hijab, in Persepolis, with the contemporary issues and stigma around religious head coverings in Canada. I learned a lot from Jen’s post, as she included quotes from hijab and niqab wearing Canadian citizens, as well as Stephen Harper’s claim that the veil is “rooted in a culture that is anti-woman”. She also included a comic that I think really effectively illustrated the differences in what ‘male-dominated’ culture can be interpreted as. I agree with Jen when she says that there are much bigger issues that the country should be focusing on. I think this ‘issue’ with wearing a veil has been highly dramatized. As Professor Erickson said, only one muslim woman, named Zunera Ishaq, has taken Canada’s citizenship oath with a niqab on thus far. This recent controversy is similar to tactics that we have seen in the past where political leaders try to focus the public’s attention towards a single concept or ‘enemy’, causing more important issues to be ignored and further increasing the stigma that targeted populations face. Vladimir Putin’s public discrimination of LGBTQ propaganda during the Sochi Olympics in 2014 is an example of this dramatization tactic, where the acknowledgment of this non-issue led to a spike in the nation’s homophobic violence. I think as a society we need to be aware and informed of the motivation behind the actions of our government, and then identify what our real priorities should really be.

Thanks for reading!

Harnoor