Boris Johnson has been making headlines all week following a column he wrote in which he described women wearing burkas as looking like letter boxes and bank robbers. He was actually talking about women wearing niqabs, not burkas, but he’s never been known to let facts get in the way of a good story.
The character known best as a bumbling buffoon thinks that his clever use of words and his cheeky chappy routine will forgive him any kind of behaviour but, this time, the consequences of what he said may actually catch up with him. The man who got away with calling African people “picanninies” who have “watermelon smiles”, describing Hillary Clinton as a “sadistic nurse in a mental hospital” and blaming Liverpool fans for the Hillsborough Disaster is finding himself being threatened with the removal of the Conservative Party whip (which is nowhere near as kinky as it sounds) and calls to resign.
So far, Johnson has refused to apologise for his column; I thought he would have given up by now. His words were a dog whistle (if not just an actual whistle) to racist Tories and Ukip supporters who want to hear racist rhetoric from the person who ultimately wants to be Prime Minister. He achieved this by printing the sentiments in the first place, so even if he does apologise now, the racists know he is on their side. But he is holding out.
Imagine that being the hill you choose to die on. The one where you offend women of a major religion by making fun of what some of them wear. Imagine that being your principle of choice. The one you risk your party membership for. Your seat in Parliament, even, if it comes to that at the next election.
These were not ill-thought-out words from the former Minister. He has a sharp mind, and will not have written such insults half-heartedly. I don’t doubt that every word in his column is carefully thought out, and his refusal to apologise backs this up. There’s no sense of “Oh, that does sound awful now you mention it, I shouldn’t have”.
He was careful and he was calculated and he knew exactly what he was doing.
Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, the first Muslim woman to be a Cabinet member, wrote about the importance of making people feel a part of the country they live in. She said, “Politicians and policymakers particularly have a responsibility to help make the space of belonging bigger, to ease that path towards integration. To send a signal to certain groups of people that they don’t matter, that the way they choose to dress is “ridiculous”, others and excludes them.”
Warsi went on to talk about how British Muslims, especially Muslim women, are targeted by racists and bigots: “In 2017 there was a 26% rise in recorded hate crimes against Muslims, compared to the previous year. The figures are at their highest since records began. Those hate crimes are predominantly aimed at Muslim women. Of Muslim women, the small minority who wear a full veil are particularly at risk. So, as much as Johnson thinks he’s being his usual clever self, he’s helping to create an environment in which hate crime is more likely.”
Muslim women do not exist to give politicians like Johnson a step up when they want to get ahead among their party’s racist element. The head or body covering they choose, if they choose to wear one, is a matter for them and them alone, and whether they choose to wear a chador or a niqab, a burka or a hijab, they do not deserve to be made fun of in the national press by a man purported to represent them in Parliament.
The idea that provoked Johnson’s column was a law change in Denmark that banned women from wearing a burqa in public. Johnson was writing to say that he did not agree with this law – thank heaven for small mercies. The last thing we need to be doing is legislating on what women are legally allowed to wear.
However, Boris Johnson took the opportunity to do something arguably worse than change the law, and that was to provide a quick and easy insult for any common-or-garden racist to use whenever they see a woman wearing a niqab, and Twitter informally lets me know that this has already started to happen.
Despite the outrage that his comments have caused, I can’t help but feel that Johnson will get away with this like he gets away with everything. Parliament is not currently sitting, so this has stayed at the top of the news, but soon there will be another story and people will forget. Except the Muslim women he eviscerated who will not see the Islamophobia they face easing up any time soon, and he is partially responsible for fuelling exactly that.
Photo credit: BackBois2012 Campaign/Creative Commons