The Veil and Western Cultural Intolerance

Father Frank Julian Gelli, spiritual adviser to Lady Diana, Princess of Wales, before she died, has taken on the Right Reverend John Sentamu, Archbishop of York and Britain's No. 2 Anglican prelate regarding his view of the Muslim veil.

Archbishop Sentamu, one of the world's highest-ranking black Anglican leaders, stated that Muslim women who wear the veil in public do not conform to norms of "decency." Father Gelli's conclusion is that the archbishop is wrong and out of line. r

He writes in a privately-circulated newsletter called "Father Frank's Rants": "Dr Sentamu's approach to the veil is daring. From The Times [of London], the priest learns that he appeals to the authority of Muslim scholars, no less. About this thorny subject, he speculates expert 'Ulama would ask whether veil-wearing is in accordance with decency.In fact, no example of Islamic savants' rulings is given. Instead, he gives his own -- decency and the veil do not go together. Well!

"As it happens, [United Kingdom] Muslim scholars and leaders have spoken about the veil controversy, loud and clear. In a joint statement with 27 signatures, far from agreeing with the archbishop, they repeatedly cite the Qur'an and declare that the veil 'irrespective of specific juristic rulings, is an Islamic practice and not a cultural or customary one as is agreed by the consensus of Muslim scholars. It is not open to debate.'

"Now, that's plain speaking. Anglican prelates could take a leaf out of it. Someone should let Sentamu know, I think. Unless this fine Christian man believes himself endowed with exceptional divine competence to interpret Shariah law -- plus Musulman que les Musulmans: mon diable."

This brings back my own memories of covering the United Nations Fourth World Women's Conference for The Washington Times in China in September-October 1995, where intolerant Western feminists congregated at the Australian-hosted lesbian tent on the Sunday before the official conference started in Beijing at the non-government organization week in a village 40 miles from Beijing called Huarou.

The lesbian feminists stampeded Muslim exhibits in the village, ripped off veils of Muslim women, insulted them, tossed red-blood-type liquid on their exhibits and artifacts -- a hate crime I witnessed. I wrote that story for The Washington Times and got it on Page One. Needless to say, the New York Times, Associated Press, major television networks, CNN, et cetera, ignored the story completely as if it hadn't happened.

According to Father Gelli, the high-profile Archbishop Sentamu, originally from Uganda, is highly-respected in Britain, an early critic of the war on Iraq, a "spirited" defender of British culture, and could be successor to the Right Reverend Rowan Williams as the next Archbishop of Canterbury. Father Frank asks if he might be "ailing Anglicanism's future Great Black hope."

But as Fathert Frank observes, the Senatmu's use of the word "decency" regard Muslim women's wearing of the veil is "rather peculiar," as it conjures up the Oxford dictionary's negative definition regarding "avoidance of obscenity," chiefly of a sexual nature. "Now, could a pious, modest, self-effacing female who covers parts of her body in public be deemed obscene in that sense?" Princess Diana's favorite priest asks.

"The reverse seems true. Indecent behaviour, as in 'indecent exposure', means the act of publicly and indecently exposing one's body. Such as the erogenous zones -- unbecoming nudity, that is. Covering parts of one's body, however outwardly bizarre it might look, cannot be termed indecent. Not even super-Protestant [Northern Irish political leader] Ian Paisley would have called the good Roman Catholic nuns of bygone days -- the strictest ones covered from head to foot (like present-day, sweet Carmelite and TV art-critic Sister Wendy Becket) -- 'indecent.'"

Father Frank grew up in Catholicism and says he associates "headscarf-wearing Muslim ladies with the nuns of my youth -- incongruous, no doubt -- but the point is that to call some such manners of faith dress obscene or indecent or immoral is linguistic nonsense: As Oxford philosophers used to say, an example of language 'going on holiday.'"

His rant gets good at this point: "Mind you, not just a semantic bee in my bonnet, folks. The ultra-liberal, permissive, sex-liberated Dutch have decided to ban the Muslim face veil in public. So in happy Holland, practices like abortion, euthanasia, and same-sex unions are kosher, whilst a harmless sartorial style isn't. Makes you think -- pause before you scream -- 'damned Western Islamophobes.'

"In secularist-ruled Muslim Turkey, the situation is far worse. Not only the female headscarf is illegal for civil servants but even beard-sporting men working in a state office can be carted off to jail. As to the veil...forget it. And Turkey I supposed to have an Islamist-friendly government.

"Evidently, the East can indulge in intolerant, bigoted anti-religious paranoia, just as the West. Maybe Pope Benedict in his controversial visit to Constantinople could trump his Muslim critics by speaking out for faith freedom in Turkey. It might win him brownie points with Islamists there."

Father Frank's views warm the cockles of my heart. And he issues an interesting challenge to Archbishop Semantu "to demonstrate his good sentiments towards our cousins in Abraham, not by searching Shariah, no -- simply by affirming and proclaiming his own holy book, the Bible.

"If he wants to uphold decency and fight immorality, as any Christian should, he needs look no further than his own cathedral. Any [Church of England] church since the Reformation should have a Bible displayed prominently on a lectern. To emphasise the centrality of the Word of God in Anglican teaching -- something I learnt as a green, young shaver of a Curate at Chiswick Parish Church.

"And indeed the criterion of sound doctrine in Anglicanism is whether it accords with, or 'is repugnant to', Holy Scripture'. When Dr Sentamu consults the Word of God, he will discover a rich store of divine injunctions for virtue and against vice and indecencies galore. For example, in St Paul's Letter to the Galatians, chapter 5, verses 19-23.

"When he mounts the pulpit and preaches the apostle's stern words in York Minster -- not just Christians, but also many Muslim faithful will be delighted, I assure him. Of course, the Archbishop may then have an unpleasant surprise. The BBC, the TV channels, the Guardian, Observer, independent newspapers and media sundries whose pet he has hitherto been, won't be at all pleased.

"'Wot! Is York suddenly going on about adultery, fornication, uncleanness, drunkenness, idolatry, revelries? Surely that strikes at the roots of our merry, free-market, 'tolerant' way of life? Has he gone soft in the head? He was doing so well...'

"The chattering classes will snigger and snide about John Sentamu's African roots. Imply that he isn't really a 21st century man, that he is 'too culturally different', that 'he doesn't really belong', what an embarrassment he is and so on. He'll get interviewed less and less. Only occasionally wheeled out, like some primitive bogey, to prove how backward, 'exclusive' and reactionary his beliefs are, to show the dire dangers of fundamentalism, medievalism, literalism and blah-blah-blah.

"Scary scenario for the archbishop, I am sure. Much safer to tread easier, more popular paths, as he is doing now. But I trust he remembers St Paul's cri de coeur: 'Woe is me, if I do not preach the Gospel!' He should live by that," Father Gelli writes.

Way to go, Lady Diana's favorite priest.