Read Her Lips: The Ban on Wearing the Niqab and Burqa at the Canadian Citizenship Ceremony 2011–2015

Abstract

In the twenty-first century, nowhere do Orientalism, governmentality, and nationalism intersect more fully than in policy debates concerning citizenship. This chapter critically analyses the global, national, and religious dimensions of the 2011–2015 ban against wearing the niqab and burqa during the oath of allegiance at the Canadian citizenship ceremony. It argues that in framing the ban as a cultural rather than a religious issue, the state became an arbiter of religious praxis by entering into a historically theological debate within different interpretations of Islam, thus effacing the power relations between them. In this collusion to control the boundaries of what is accepted as “real” religion in the nation, a specific idea of religious reform emerges at the expense of religious diversity, religious freedom, and state neutrality. This enables the state to shape the belief (good/real versus bad/false) in ways that create horizontal inequalities instead of deep equality between citizens.