{"id":11505,"date":"2026-02-25T16:53:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T15:53:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/netwomening.org\/the-view-from-a-blue-veil\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T16:53:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T15:53:16","slug":"the-view-from-a-blue-veil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/netwomening.org\/en\/the-view-from-a-blue-veil\/","title":{"rendered":"The view from a blue veil"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are garments that cover the body and others that awaken entire discourses. The burqa and the niqab belong to this second category: even before knowing the woman who wears them, we already believe we know something about her. Her story. Her freedom. Her silence.<\/span><\/p>\n

But we almost never know anything.<\/span><\/p>\n

The female veil was not born as a religious symbol, but as a social sign. Long before Islam, in ancient civilisations of the Middle East and Europe, covering oneself distinguished some women from others: social class, whether the woman was married or still single, and whether she was free or a slave. Its origin did not have so much a spiritual reason, but rather a practical one.<\/span><\/p>\n

With the passage of time and the mutation of traditions, these garments changed their meaning. Islam inherited diverse cultural practices and reinterpreted them according to territories and eras. If we look at the Quran, this religious text mentions modesty as a virtue in clothing. Modesty has been interpreted differently in all Islamic cultures, from the wide and colorful boubou of Senegal to the shalwar kameez of Pakistani Muslim women. This is how multiple ways of covering oneself emerged, from a simple scarf to the burqa. This last garment has become \u2013 unfortunately \u2013 the most evident sign of the repression and gender apartheid imposed by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.<\/span><\/p>\n

Afghan women and girls have been deprived of the right to study, the right to work and, even, the fundamental right to express themselves in public. However, it was not always like this. There were decades when the streets of Kabul were full of students, female teachers and female doctors without a full veil, walking towards universities and offices with a normality that today seems almost unreal.<\/span><\/p>\n

After years of war and social fracture, the return of the Taliban has made the burqa mandatory. And when something stops being chosen, it becomes a gag. A piece of fabric can be a tradition when it is chosen, but it becomes a border when it is imposed. <\/span><\/p>\n

Freedom can be bitter beyond borders<\/b><\/h3>\n

Some Afghan women arrive in the West fleeing a fanatic regime. And then something unexpected happens. Many do not want to return to the burqa or the niqab; some simply keep a light scarf, a personal way of reconciling past and present. A way of being in Europe, without cutting their roots with Afghanistan. A way of remembering that their own identity is still there. It is then that they find themselves facing the fact that here, too, there are looks that weigh heavily.<\/span><\/p>\n

They are no longer required to cover themselves. Now, sometimes, they are expected to uncover themselves.<\/span><\/p>\n

The judgment changes direction, but it does not disappear. The garment continues to speak before the person. And freedom is once again defined from the outside.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is a silent irony in all this: women who have gone through wars, exiles and losses find difficulties because of what others believe they should represent. As if emancipation had a specific uniform. As if female autonomy were only recognisable when it adopts an aesthetic familiar to the person observing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps the problem was never the veil.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps the problem has always been the collective need to decide what a woman means before listening to her.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the true humanist view consists of something much simpler and much more difficult than deciding who has the right to define another person’s freedom: accepting that this freedom is not always recognised at first sight. And that, sometimes, the most revolutionary thing is not to remove a piece of fabric, but to give back to the person who wears it the right to free expression.<\/span><\/p>\n

Writer: Cristina Catena Gasco<\/em><\/p>\n

Imagen: Shamsia Hassani<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are garments that cover the body and others that awaken entire discourses. 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