Islamic dress in human rights jurisprudence: A critique of current trends

Human Rights Law Review

Volumn 7, Issue 4, 2007, Pages 717-739

  Vakulenko, Anastasia ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF DUNDEE   (United Kingdom)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 36548999884     PISSN: 14617781     EISSN: 17441021     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/hrlr/ngm024     Document Type: Article

References (183)

1. The text of Jack Straw's column, originally published in Lancashire Telegraph, is available at: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/ story/0,,1889231,00.html.
2. BBC Online News, '"No discrimination" in veil row', 19 October 2006, available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/l/hi/england/bradford/ 6066726.stm. Aishah Azmi lost her appeal in the Employment Appeal Tribunal in March 2007, Appeal no. UKEAT/0009/07/MAA.
3. BBC Online News,'Should the veil be banned in schools?', 20 March 2007, available at: http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/.
4. Throughout the article, the terms 'Islamic dress','hijab'and 'Muslim' or 'Islamic dress codes' are used interchangeably and refer to a wide range of clothes. This is not to erase differences between them, but to emphasise the common themes running through the jurisprudence and public debate.
5. The ECHR was incorporated into UK law by the Human Rights Act 1998, 1998 Ch 42.
6. (1993) 74 DR 93.
7. The applicant also relied on Article 14, ECHR, which prohibits discrimination in the exercise of substantive ECHR rights on a number of grounds, alleging that she had been discriminated against on the grounds of nationality. This complaint was dismissed due to non-exhaustion of domestic remedies, according to Article 26, ECHR (now Article 35(1), ECHR).
8. Supra n. 6 at 100 ('La Commission a déjà décidé que l'article 9...de la Convention ne garantit pas toujours le droit de se comporter dans le domaine public d'une manière dictée par cette conviction. Notamment, le terme "pratiques", au sens de l'article 9 par. 1..., ne désigne pas n'importe quel acte motivé ou inspiré par une religion ou une conviction.').
9. Ibid. at 101 ('La Commission considère que le statut d'étudiant dans une université laïque implique, par nature, la soumission à certaines règles de conduite établies afin d'assurer le respect des droits et libertés d'autrui.').
10. Ibid. ('certains courants fondamentalistes religieux').
11. 2001-V 447.
12. Ibid. at 452.
13. Ibid. at 463.
14. (2007) 44 EHRR 5.
15. [2006] UKHL 15; [2007] 1 AC 100.
16. A shalwar kameeze consists of trousers and a tunic.
17. To borrow the phrase from Motha, 'Veiled Women and the Affect of Religion in Democracy', (2007) 34 Journal of Law and Society 139 at 143.
18. Including finding a balance between the hijab-wearers' right to religious freedom and the rights of those who either do not wish to wear such clothes or are in some way offended by them.
19. For example, Davies, 'Banning the Jilbab: Reflections on Restricting Religious Clothing in the Light of the Court of Appeal in SB v Denbigh High School, (2005) 1 European Constitutional Law Review 511;
20. Davies, 'The House of Lords and Religious Clothing in Begum v Headteacher and Governors of Denbigh High School, (2007) 13 European Public Law 423;
21. Decker and Lloydd, 'Case Comment - Leyla Sahin v Turkey, [2004] European Human Rights Law Review 672;
22. Knights, 'Religious Symbols in the School: Freedom of Religion, Minorities and Education', [2005] European Human Rights Law Review 499;
23. Marshall, 'Freedom of Religious Expression and Gender Equality: Sahin v Turkey', (2006) 69 Modern Law Review 452;
24. and Scolnicov, 'A Dedicated Follower of (Religious) Fashion?', (2005) 64 Cambridge Law Journal 527.
25. For an incisive critique of the Western secular democracy as a quasi-theological formation, see Motha, supra n. 17. For a more general critique of the discourse of secularism see Asad, Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2003).
26. Brown, 'Suffering Rights as Paradoxes, (2000) 7 Constellations 230, reprinted as 'Suffering the Paradoxes of Rights', in Brown and Halley (eds), Left Legalism/Left Critique (Durham: Duke University Press, 2002) 420.
27. Brown, 'Symptoms: Moralism as Anti-Politics', in Brown, Politics Out of History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001) 18 at 43, elaborating on Merleau-Ponty's call of 'defusing the trap of the event' (Merleau-Ponty, 'Sartre, Merleau-Ponty: Les lettres dune rupture', (1994) 230 Magazine Littéraire 76).
28. R (on the application of SB) v Headteacher and Governors of Denbigh High School [2005] EWCA Civ 199;
29. [2005] 2 All ER 396.
30. Poole, 'Of Headscarves and Heresies: The Denbigh High School Case and Public Authority Decision Making Under the Human Rights Act', [2005] Public Law 685 at 695.
31. Supra n. 15 at para. 30,
32. quoting Davies, 'Banning the Jilbab, supra n. 19 at 517.
33. Ibid. This point is also strongly emphasised in Davies, '(Not Yet) Taking Rights Seriously: The House of Lords in Begum v Headteacher and Governors of Denbigh High School', Human Rights and Human Welfare Online Working Paper No. 37, available at: http://www.du.edu/gsis/hrhw/ working; or: http://www.ssrn.com.
34. I am grateful to Anna Carline for her thoughts expressed at the Gender, Sexuality and Law stream of the Socio-Legal Studies Association Annual Conference 2006, which helped me to develop this argument.
35. Supra n. 14 at para. 99.
36. Supra n. 15 at para. 20,
37. citing Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead in R (Williamson) v Secretary of State for Education and Employment [2005] UKHL 15;
38. [2005] 2 AC 246 at para. 16. On this point see also Pimor, 'The Interpretation and Protection of Article 9 ECHR: Overview of the Denbigh High School (UK) Case', (2006) 28 Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law 323. For a summary of applicable Article 9 standards,
39. see McGoldrick, Human Rights and Religion: The Islamic Headscarf Debate in Europe (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2006) at Chapters 5 and 9.
40. Supra n. 14 at para. 115,
41. referring to para. 109, Sahin v Turkey, Chamber judgment of 29 June 2004, Application no. 44774/98.
42. McGoldrick, supra n. 29 at 168, deriving this position from Murphy v Ireland 2003-IX 1: (2004) 38 EHRR 13. Compare the dissenting opinion of Judge Tulkens in Sahin (supra n. 14 at para. 10)
43. and that of Ruth Wedgwood in Hudoyberganova v Uzbekistan (931/00), CCPR/C/82/C/931/2000 (2005);
44. 12 IHRR 345 (2005) at paras 3-4, which criticise the majority of the Grand Chamber of the ECtHR in Sahin for not exploring the link.
45. See also Belelieu, 'The Headscarf as a Symbolic Enemy of the European Court of Human Rights' Democratic Jurisprudence: Viewing Islam Through a European Legal Prism in Light of the Sahin Judgment', (2006) 12 Columbia Journal of European Law 573.
46. Smith and Grady v United Kingdom 1999-VI 45; (1999) 29 EHRR 493 at para. 89.
47. See also Lewis, 'What Not to Wear: Religious Rights, the European Court and the Margin of Appreciation, (2007) 56 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 395 at 398:
48. 'The width of the margin afforded depends very much on the subject-matter of the right in question: The margin granted to States when restricting political or journalistic 'public interest' expression (under Article 10) or consensual homosexual conduct in private (under Article 8) has been much narrower (and hence the intensity of scrutiny and level of protection afforded by the Court has been higher) than in cases involving religious manifestation and expression (under both Articles 9 and 10).'
49. Lord Hope, R v Director of Public Prosecution, ex parte Kebilene [2000] 2 AC 326 at 380-81.
50. Ibid.
51. Lord Bingham, supra n. 15 at para. 64 [emphasis added]. Note that, in respect of the veiled teaching assistant's case, the Leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron, was reported as saying that 'in cases like Mrs Azmi's, it should be up to the school and local authority to make their own judgment], BBC Online News, 'Cameron voices veils debate fear', 20 October 2006, available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/ uk_politics/6068320.stm
52. Davies, 'The House of Lords, supra n. 19.
53. Supra n. 15 at para. 34.
54. Davies, 'The House of Lords, supra n. 19, points out that the teacher's own Muslim background could be a reason for scepticism about the 'inclusiveness' of a uniform policy acceptable to 'mainstream Muslims' just as much as it is evidence of its 'tolerance and wisdom'.
55. See also Davies, 'Banning the Jilbab, supra n. 19.
56. Supra n. 15 at para. 34.
57. Davies, supra n. 26 at 32.
58. For a supporting argument see Scolnicov, supra n. 19 at 528.
59. Davies, 'The House of Lords, supra n. 19.
60. On deference to teachers see Monk, '(Re)constructing the Headteacher: Legal Narratives and the Politics of School Exclusions', (2005) 32 Law and Society 399.
61. Supra n. 15 at para. 65 [emphasis added].
62. See also Lord Bingham: 'according to the appelants, a number of Muslim girls at the school have said that they do not wish to wear the jilbab and fear they will be pressured into wearing it' (ibid. at para. 18).
63. Davies, 'The House of Lords, supra n. 19;
64. Knights, supra n. 19;
65. and Scolnicov, supra n. 19.
66. Davies, supra n. 26 at 21.
67. See Lewis, supra n. 32 at 408.
68. Skach, 'Sahin v. Turkey. App. No. 44774/98; "Teacher Headscarf." Case no. 2BvR 1436/02', (2006) 100 American Journal of International Law 186 at 194.
69. Case No 2BvR 1436/02, judgment of 24 September 2003.
70. Ibid. at para. 66, as quoted in Skach,
71. supra n. 45 at 190.
72. For a stimulating application of Butler's theories of performativity and excitability to ceSahin and Denbigh High School, see Carline, 'The Right to Manifest Religious Belief: Queer Issues of Race, Ethnicity and Gender', paper for the Critical Legal Conference 2005 (Unpublished, University of Kent, September 2005).
73. 'For two years before September 2002, the respondent wore the shalwar kameeze happily and without complaint' (Lord Bingham, supra n. 15 at para. 9).
74. Lord Scott, ibid. at para. 80.
75. Lord Hoffmann, ibid. at para. 46.
76. Lord Bingham, ibid. at para. 10.
77. For an argument that the men's human rights talk could in fact be seen as disarming conformity with Western legal ideology, see Gies, 'What Not to Wear: Islamic Dress and School Uniforms. R (on the application of SB) v. Governors of Denbigh High School [2006] U.K.H.L. 15', (2006) 14 Feminist Legal Studies 377.
78. On the House of Lords' construction of Shabina Begum's assertive behaviour as problematic, see Davies, 'The House of Lords, supra n. 19.
79. Regarding the rights ideology, see Killian, 'The Other Side of the Veil-North African Muslim Women in France Respond to the Headscarf Affair', (2003) 17 Gender and Society 567.
80. Supra n. 15 at para. 80. Lord Scott also considered it 'extraordinary' that Shabina did not regard the shalwar kameeze as sufficient for the purposes of her religion (ibid. at para. 83).
81. 'It was of course open to the respondent, as she grew older, to modify her beliefs, but she did so against a background of free and informed consent by her and her family' (Lord Bingham, ibid. at para. 25 [emphasis added]).
82. Lord Hoffmann, ibid. at para. 50.
83. Compare the decision by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women in Kayhan v Turkey (8/05), CEDAW/C/34/D/8/2005 (2006) at para. 32, in which a teacher who had permanently lost her status as a civil servant because of wearing a headscarf claimed that 'the act of forcing her to make a choice between working and uncovering her head violates her fundamental rights that are protected in international conventions'. The communication was considered inadmissible due to non-exhaustion of domestic remedies.
84. Supra n. 15 at para. 54.
85. Ibid. at para. 23.
86. Supra n. 6 at 100.
87. Supra n. 15 at para. 25.
88. Gies, supra n. 52 at 385-86.
89. Davies, supra n. 26 at 11.
90. Supra n. 15 at para. 94.
91. Gies, supra n. 52 at 384.
92. In a somewhat different direction, Davies, 'The House of Lords', supra n. 19, argues that a Christian or Jewish child whose parents force her to wear conservative clothes would hardly have an arguable case under Article 9, ECHR.
93. See also Blair and Apps, 'What Not to Wear and Other Stories: Addressing Religious Diversity in Schools', (2005) 17 Education and the Law 1.
94. Mahmood, 'Secularism, Hermeneutics, and Empire: The Politics of Islamic Reformation, (2006) 18 Public Culture 323 at 344.
95. Mahmood's study highlights how the construction of such a subject is secured through 'secular hermeneutics'. See also Mahmood, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005).
96. Supra n. 15 at para. 94.
97. Ibid. at para. 98,
98. quoting Raday, 'Culture, Religion and Gender', (2003) 1 International Journal of Constitutional Law 663 at 709.
99. Ibid. at para. 97.
100. Hirschmann, 'Western Feminism, Eastern Veiling, and the Question of Agency', (1998) 5 Constellations 345 at 349.
101. Gies, supra n. 52 at 384, contrasting this with Hale's more relaxed approach to hypothetical Sikh and Jewish men.
102. Mohanty, 'Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses', (1988) 30 Feminist Review 61 at 74.
103. For more recent accounts, see, for example, Ahmed, Strange Encounters: Embodied Others in Post-Coloniality (London: Routledge, 2000);
104. and Kapur, Erotic Justice: Law and the New Politics of Postcolonialism (London: Glasshouse, 2005).
105. See also Razack, 'The "Sharia Law Debate" in Ontario: The Modernity/Premodernity Distinction in Legal Efforts to Protect Women from Culture', (2007) 15 Feminist Legal Studies 3, writing in the context of the debate around the introduction of Islamic arbitration in Canada.
106. Brown, 'Tolerance as/in Civilizational Discourse, in Brown, Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006) 176 at 189.
107. Ibid.
108. Supra n. 15 at para. 94,
109. citing Alibhai-Brown, Who Do We Think We Are? Imagining the New Britain (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2000) 246.
110. For example, Lyon and Spini, 'Unveiling the Headscarf Debate', (2004) 12 Feminist Legal Studies 333 at 344: The 'new veil' is the most conspicuous sign of Islamic feminism. Women choose to wear it, and will not remove it in any circumstance, including in women-only gatherings or in foreign countries. This is a way of freeing themselves from a male-imposed feminine model that allows them to remove the veil in private settings, since its main function is to conceal women from men who are not their relatives. By retaining the veil, they show that it is not imposed by men but chosen by them.
111. Arguably, this is true even of the quotation of Parekh, which purports to unpack the complex agentic choices of Muslim girls, in para. 94 of Baroness Hales judgment, supra n. 15:
112. several Muslim girls freely wore the hijab ... [to indicate] to white boys how they wished to be treated' (Parekh, 'A Varied Moral World: A Response to Susan Okin's "Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?"', [1997] Boston Review, [emphasis added]).
113. Motha, supra n. 17 at 153, citing Mahmood, Politics of Piety, supra n. 64.
114. Mahmood, ibid.;
115. and Mahmood, 'Secularism, Hermeneutics, and Empire', supra n. 64.
116. Motha, supra n. 17 at 150.
117. Although Article 9, ECHR was not the primary legal basis, religion was central to the case as it was decided by an employment tribunal under the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003.
118. Taher, 'Veil Teacher Was Obeying a Fatwa', Sunday Times, 29 October 2006.
119. Abdulaziz, Cabales and Balkandali v United Kingdom A 94 (1985); (1985) 7 EHRR 471 at para. 78.
120. See also Şahin, supra n. 14 at para. 115.
121. Abdulaziz, Cabales and Balkandali concerned immigration rules that allowed Asian wives, but not husbands, to join their spouses in the United Kingdom. Both gender and race discrimination were pleaded, but only the former succeeded: The ECtHR noted the particular importance of eliminating gender discrimination in European States.
122. Supra n. 11 at 463.
123. See Brown, Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), on how tolerance discourse always excludes certain 'practices and beliefs, and even political regimes, from the definition of the tolerable.
124. The ECtHR considered that the measure 'was not directed against her as a member of the female sex' and that the law 'could also be applied to a man who, in similar circumstances, wore clothing that clearly identified him as a member of a different faith' (supra n. 11 at 464). Interestingly, the abstract 'clearly identifiable' male 'member of a different faith' was chosen despite Dahlab's suggestion of a Muslim man as the appropriate comparator. The ECtHR did not explain its choice or the meaning of this descriptor. On religious discrimination under Article 14 see Knights, supra n. 19 at 512.
125. Supra n. 14 at paras 112-23. Unlike Dahlab, Şahin did not attempt to plead gender discrimination under Article 14, claiming that she had been discriminated against on the basis of her religion only. This claim was rejected as 'the regulations on the Islamic headscarf were not directed against the applicant's religious affiliation' (at para. 165) - which is again in line with the generally underdeveloped nature of Article 14 jurisprudence.
126. Ibid. at para. 111.
127. Paras 2 and 6, Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly Resolution 1464 (2005), 4 October 2005 [emphasis added].
128. Note, however, the dissenting opinion of Judge Tulkens in Şahin 'In a democratic society, I believe that it is necessary to seek to harmonise the principles of secularism, equality and liberty, not to weigh one against the other' (at para. 5).
129. Baroness Hale, supra n. 15 at para. 98,
130. quoting Raday, supra n. 66 at 709 [emphasis added].
131. See also Abu-Odeh, 'Post-Colonial Feminism and the Veil: Considering the Differences', (1992) 26 New England Law Review 1527 at 1532: 'Unless I engaged in intellectual elitism and accused those women of false consciousness and of not knowing their own good, there was no way that I could point to instances of the disempowerment of the veil. What it all sounds like so far is a hopeless clash of normative visions'.
132. Brown, 'Tolerance as Museum Object: The Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance', in Brown, Regulating Aversion, supra n. 84, 107.
133. Brown, 'Tolerance as a Discourse of Power', in Brown, Regulating Aversion, ibid., 25 at 42.
134. Mufti, 'Fanatics in Europa', (2007) 34 boundary 217 at 21 [emphasis added].
135. Baroness Hale, supra n. 15 at para. 98.
136. According to Motha, supra n. 17 at 144, this means 'the elevation of the unity of the community - the commonality and cohesion produced by the school', which dresses up 'the exigencies of sustaining a particular formation of the political - the cohesive multicultural state ... as a defence of individual autonomy, or the protection of vulnerable girls'.
137. Proponents of this orthodoxy are too many to name and include much of mainstream feminist scholarship. Brown, supra n. 71
138. forcefully dissects Okin, Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women? (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999) as one of the most forthright examples.
139. Brown, supra n. 71 at 193.
140. Most prominently, Brown, 'Liberalism's Family Values', in Brown, States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995) 135.
141. On the male bias of international human rights law, see Charlesworth and Chinkin, The Boundaries of International Law: A Feminist Analysis (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000).
142. On a slightly different, but related point, Motha, supra n. 17 at 147, problematises 'the [mainstream feminist] sense that one is either inside or outside a cultural and political group, and on the dominant side of such a binary opposition is a hegemonic capacity (of the feminists of the majority culture) to engineer political consensus about what is beneficial to oppressed women'.
143. It is illustrative that Islamic dress in this jurisprudence is seen as a (problematic) symbol of cultural/religious diversity rather than as heralding women's quest for equality, as much Islamic feminism insists it should be seen (see supra n. 74).
144. For an argument that impositions of other people's imaginary upon women are utterly detrimental to gender equality, see Cornell, The Imaginary Domain: Abortion, Pornography and Sexual Harassment (New York: Routledge, 1995).
145. Brown, 'Introduction: Freedom and the Plastic Cage', in Brown, supra n. 97, 3 at 27.
146. Brown, States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity, supra n. 97;
147. Brown, Politics Out of History, supra n. 22;
148. and Brown, Edgework: Critical Essays on Knowledge and Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005).
149. Halley, Split Decisions: How and Why to Take a Break from Feminism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006) at 191, speaks of a related, but analytically different phenomenon of the 'moralised mandate to converge' of much of contemporary feminism, for which 'racism and sexism are seamless, interlocking, synthesized, and integrated systems that intersect, converge, and reinforce one another; that produce conditions of existence and of consciousness of those subordinated by them that both are and must be understood as unified in the form of identity; that give the subordinated unique epistemic purchase on their oppression; and that are reinscribed and reinforced whenever their seamlessness becomes unapparent or, worse, whenever it is denied [emphasis added].
150. Or of a psychic economy 'trapped in the narrow oscillation between the desire to punish and the desire to be punished in which guilt is the conduit that switches the one into the other, while freedom, as a wish or a practice, is nowhere to be found' (Brown, 'Desire: The Desire to Be Punished: Freud's "A Child is Being Beaten"', in Brown, Politics Out of History, supra n. 102, 45 at 61).
151. On the interaction of the universal discourse of rights with identity see, in particular, Brown, 'Rights and Losses', in Brown, States of Injury, supra n. 102, 96.
152. Hasan and Chaush v Bulgaria 2000-XI 117; (2002) 34 EHRR 55 at para. 78.
153. See also Kokkinakis v Greece 260 A (1993); (1994) 17 EHRR 397;
154. and Valsamis v Greece 1996-VI 2312; (1997) 24 EHRR 294.
155. See also Mowbray, Cases and Materials on the European Convention on Human Rights, 2nd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) at 604-16.
156. The euphemism coined by Brooke LJ in the Court of Appeal judgment in Denbigh High School, supra n. 23.
157. A similar point is made by Poole, supra n. 24 at 687.
158. Supra n. 23 at para. 48.
159. See Carline, supra n. 48;
160. and Gies, supra n. 52 on the construction of 'very strict Muslims 'as a problematic minority in Denbigh High School.
161. Supra n. 11 at 452.
162. Ibid. The vision of Islamic clothes as a 'powerful religious symbol' imposed by the Koran is also evident in both the Karaduman and Şahin cases.
163. For example, Reefat Drabu, the chair of social and family affairs at the Muslim Council of Britain (see BBC Online News, 'MP tells veil woman "let it go"', 20 October 2006, available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/l/hi/uk_politics/6069012.stm). As explained earlier, Article 9, ECHR was not the primary legal basis, but religion was central to the case as it was decided by an employment tribunal under the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003.
164. BBC Online News,'The woman at centre of veil case, 19 October 2006, available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/l/hi/uk/6068408.stm.
165. Brown, 'Freedom's Silences, in Brown, Edgework, supra n. 102, 83 at 91.
166. BBC Online News, supra n. 112.
167. BBC Online News, 'Equality chief backs veil ruling', 22 October 2006, available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/l/hi/england/bradford/6074484.stm.
168. BBC Online News,'Veil controversy', 22 October 2006, available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/l/hi/programmes/sunday_am/6074684.stm.
169. BBC Online News, supra n. 112 [emphasis added].
170. See, for example, Eltahawy, 'Muslims in the West must be more vocal for the sake of the young', 15 March 2005, available at: http://www.muslimwakeup.com/main/archives/2005/03/muslims-in-the.php.
171. See BBC Online News, 'Straw's veil comments spark anger', 5 October 2006, available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/l/hi/uk.politics/5410472.stm.
172. Brown, supra n. 22 at 29.
173. See Brown, 'Postmodern Exposures, Feminist Hesitations, in Brown, States of Injury, supra n. 102, 30;
174. and Brown, 'Introduction: Politics Out of History', in Brown, Politics Out of History, supra n. 102, 3.
175. Brown, supra n. 22 at 38.
176. The position of a British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, is that it is the Muslims' (rather than the government's) task to proactively prevent terrorism by 'taking on the extremists within their communities' (see, for example, BBC Online News, 'Anti-extremist moves too slow', 4 July 2006, available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/l/hi/uk/5146002.stm).
177. Brown, supra n. 22 at 35 and 40.
178. On depoliticisation, see Brown, 'Tolerance as a Discourse of Depoliticization', in Brown, Regulating Aversion, supra n. 84, 1.
179. Brown, 'Untimeless and Punctuality: Critical Theory in Dark Times, in Brown, Edgework, supra n. 102, 1 at 1-3, uses this example alongside the 2003 Geneva Accords, which set out an unofficial framework for peace settlement between Palestinians and Israeli Jews, and Ralph Nader's candidacy during the 2004 US presidential campaign, which supposedly jeopardised the unity of the Democratic Party.
180. Ibid. at 3. The ensuing anecdote delivers the point compellingly: 'It is therefore hardly surprising that when a threesome unsuccessfully sought a marriage license from San Francisco city officials, they were jeered by their fellow queers: "You Qre ruining it for all of us:" yelled the wedding-besotted crowd as the triplet of sexual deviants walked away from the courthouse' (ibid. at 4). Note the implication that the 'deviants' have a responsibility 'for all of us'.
181. Ibid. at 4-5 and 16.
182. Najeeba Durrani, aged 40. BBC Online News, 'UK Muslim panel on the veil row: Four British Muslims from across the country share their thoughts on the row over Muslim veils', 6 October 2006, available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/l/hi/talking_print/5413352.stm.
183. Brown, 'Deregulating Women: The Trials of Freedom Under a Thousand Points of Light'. [1991] Sub/versions 1 at 3.