Undercover Journalist Takes on the Niqab

Jacqui Morley - Before and After Donning the Niqab

Editor's note: Before taking to the streets in a niqab, Jacqui Morley had met an niqabi once. Of Romany descent, Jacqui Morley grew up amidst bigotry. Raised as a Catholic, she believes in humanity and has a greater belief in believers and the good they can do. In the wake of Jack Straw's comments that have led to public debate on the niqab, Jacqui was left impressed by the intelligence and articulation of the niqabi women she met as an undercover journalist. 

It's a busy weekend in Blackpool and mine is the only veiled face in the swirling seaside life around me. Veil or no veil, it was a free country or it was the last time I looked. But my outlook has widened, as minds around me have narrowed against me, thanks to a 16-inch square cloth with an eight-inch slit for eyes.

A niqab — face veil. You can't miss them in the news; yet you will see few, if any, locally, until `Eid celebrations mark the end of Ramadan, bringing Lancashire's inland town visitors to Blackpool this weekend. Most local and Lancashire women go bare headed and faced. A few wear hijab in Blackpool, and fewer wear the niqab.

Up to five per cent of Britain's 1.8 million Muslim women wear the face veil. Headlines such as "4,000 Veils in Blackburn, Lancashire" (the tabloids) don't ring true statistically. I can count five to about every 50 in the Whalley Range residential district of Blackburn. I was one of the few white faces there and I attracted some curiosity when I arrived at the Hijab Centre ("beautiful hijabs for beautiful people") on Friday afternoon.

I still attracted curiosity when I emerged clad in jhoba (dress), niqab, and burqa  (headscarf). The veil debate goes on in Muslim ranks. Some may think the veil pious, extreme, or intimidating. "Are you a convert?" I am asked outside the surgery of local MP and former foreign secretary Jack Straw, who sparked a debate by suggesting Muslim women could remove the veil in his presence. I see his point. It's hard to interact when we can't see faces, expressions and read body language. But can you take what a politician says at face value either?

Labour's leadership battle looms and the British National Party is gaining ground in Lancashire, to the extent of bringing its conference to Blackpool next month. Some say Straw's agenda is barely veiled. Such a fuss over such a small piece of fabric. Yet, we barely bat an eyelid at lewd stag and hen party wear, union flags purloined by racists, pubescent youngsters wearing micro skirts.

Later, on the Golden Mile —

I am spat upon by a stereotype, a shaven headed man in his 20s.

I am groped by two "stags." [stag night party (bachelors' night out before the wedding day)].

Another, a good humored drunk, tries to untie my veil, double-knotted on the advice of helpful girls at the Hijab Centre.

The niqab spares my blushes. He swings his arm around my shoulder, tries to squeeze a breast, and takes a photo on his mobile. An elderly woman in the queue at SeaLife comes to my aid. "Leave the lass alone." She makes a move to take my arm, then pulls back unsure. I thank her. Her youngest grandchild asks "Is it for Halloween?"

You will seldom find a fully veiled Muslim woman alone on the Golden Mile any night, let alone during the holy month. But I stand by her right to do so, unmolested or sexually taunted or racially abused or mooned at from the back seats of a coach. I am all right, Jack Straw, because I can remove it, vanish, stop feeling like an outsider. However, for others, it's down to faith, statement of identity, interpretation of the Prophet's law (misinterpretation according to some Muslims).

I wore the burqa from Friday afternoon to Monday afternoon in public. I go about my usual business, shop, walk, and work. I do so with the blessing and backing of Blackpool Muslim community leaders. I honor the fast between sunrise and sunset for fear of causing offense. I am undercover literally to lift the wraps on the issue that is dividing our secular, if nominally Christian, society.

I am at the eye of the storm, outside of the the MP's surgery on Saturday, initially outnumbered by other journalists. I am near the Stop the War Coalitionist and a veiled women who eyes me closely. She is a former law student, now a mother of two, in her 20s, who sees the veil as a symbol of faith, statement of individuality, reaffirmation of Islam.

"Terror has made us scapegoats, demonized us," she says. Her family was horrified when she took the veil. "The niqab is not about oppression, it means freedom, of faith, of self, of state. I am oppressed by this MP, by schools available to my children, by housing available for my family, jobs available for us locally, and a country — for this is MY country — which kills other Muslims."

Is the veil so different from the wimples worn by nuns until orders and attitudes liberalized in the late 1960s-70s? But my face is covered. Completely. I see the world with new eyes. I call on friends, see two visibly recoil, another shuts me out with silence until he eventually recognizes my voice. All is not lost.

At Stanley Park Cafe, I cause a stir, but the waitress smiles, makes eye contact, and asks for my order. I'm fasting I tell her. As I leave, I catch the eye of Chris Royds, 11 years old. "I can see your eyes have crinkled so I THINK you're smiling, but I can't see you smile. Are you?" he asks. "It's scary."His mother Lynn agrees: "It's intimidating."   

"It's our ignorance," says her husband James. "How does it feel?"

It's a sunny day and the niqab feels hot and itchy. The fabric enfolds your head, face, and shoulders. The veil is tied at the back. The dress is comfortable and airy. It cost £33 from top to toe. Most react by avoiding eye contact, out of politeness or indifference or even fear? Some veer out of my path on the promenade, in shops, and on the streets. One woman almost screams when she bumps into me and turns to apologize. Some stare and children are tugged away by parents.

"Would you like me to explain the veil?" I ask parents of a child transfixed at Tesco.

"We're not interested in your sort," the father responds.

I feel as if I have been slapped.

I am racially abused, several times in person, twice from cars. I am sexually taunted by two stag parties on the Golden Mile, mobbed by one, jostled by another. Two attempts are made to remove my veil. One person just tugs; two kids run off laughing.

I am spat at twice. At Chapel Street car park, near the police station, on a Saturday night, and Sunday morning, Central Drive, between the mosque and the old Mecca. I was spat at there once before, when patting my headscarf into place, before entering the mosque for its official opening.

The best response happens at Our Lady Star of the Sea, a Roman Catholic Church social hall, where I test whether exhibitors and visitors are paying lip service to a multifaith event, Under One Sky, to celebrate One World Week. Canon Aidan Turner extends a warm welcome. He's a fervent ecumenist. He is dismayed more faiths and cultures are not present.

Two hours pass by. I am veiled for much of it — while different faith groups mingle: Bahais, Hindus, Muslims, and Christians. Reverend Glyn Eatock is quick to greet me. The Bahai representative, Joy Sabour, tells me she once taught veiled Muslims and found it hard to "read the clues." She welcomes the debate.

Of the few present, I recognize three Muslim medics, organizer John Turner, a Catholic and former Blackpool Council official, and two Hindus, husband and wife. I am on good terms with all of them. "Vas," a retired pathologist, sees through my disguise. I have to introduce myself to the Gazette photographer with whom I have worked for years. None are offended, least of all the Muslims who are perplexed by the scale of essentially an in-faith issue: theological tension or individual identity?

The next day, one elderly lady with her priest for a walk in the park, reprimands me for showing "disrespect to Muslims." It is a fair point, although no offense was intended. But then the pope slipped up too.

So the last word on this goes to Ifty Khan, hospital consultant of the Blackpool Islamic Mosque committee: "We're not at all offended, just surprised. I have lived in this country most of my life and seldom see people dressed like that. It is a curiosity, to us, too, but Jack Straw's motives are political. He has done no favors in this demonization of Islam. We should live and let live."

Jacqui Morley is the chief feature writer of the Gazette and Style in Blackpool and a journalist.

This is republished with the permission of the author. The original article can be read in full on Blackpool Today