The Power of The Veil

“Aside from the flag, no piece of cloth in history has been imbued with as much power to liberate and oppress, rally and device as the veil”

This is what Newsweek wrote in its November 27 issue in a report trying to follow the shifting political and social forces behind the use of the veil.

And indeed, the veil gained an unusual importance in the hearts and minds of Muslims all over the world, that it is enough for an Egyptian minister to express his personal dislike towards the veil, in order for the Muslims in Egypt to forget the sexual harassment that happened to some girls in downtown Cairo under the day light, or the “historic” speech of president Mubarak about the amendment to the article 76 of the constitution, or even the inflammation in Lebanon, the violence in Iraq, the deaths in Palestine.

They forgot how hard it is to find a decent transport mean to go to work every day, or how hard it is to get a good piece of bread after waiting in a long queue, they forgot about the so-called black cloud, they forgot about the recent videos that have been circulating on the internet of two incidents where Egyptian police men tormented two victims or suspects or whatever. They felt very angry about all this, but what made them protest and move and yell more than anything else was the comments of the minister!!

I wonder, why does the veil occupies such a HUGE area of Muslim minds? And I don’t mean to judge the veil by my question, I will not pretend that I have the enough religious knowledge to say if its right or wrong, and I am not even interested in starting this argument, but what I mean is, why does some thing like covering women’s heads have this power to “liberate, oppress rally and device” as the Newsweek put it?

As far as I know, the veil, and by this I mean covering a woman’s hair, was only mentioned twice in the Qura’an. And it is supposed to be something between the worshiper and God, it doesn’t have bad or good implications on someone else other than the woman that decides to wear or not to wear it.

So, why all the fuss? What about things like bribes, rape, murder, steeling? Why does the daily reporting of crimes like this in the mass media fails to grab the attention of the people and to make them angry?