Forum: Do Veils "Suck"?

Salman Rushdie, the great author of “The Satanic Verses” (and for more than a decade the target of a death sentence by Iran’s ayatollahs) said in 2006 that “veils suck.” He was referring to the Islamic veil, increasingly prominent on English streets as elsewhere in Europe. So it is with the veil, or the chador, or the head-scarf, lightning rods of tensions between Islam and secular societies.

In early February 2008, the Turkish parliament voted overwhelmingly to end a ban on wearing the head scarf in Turkish schools, triggering more demonstrations and fears in the most secular democracy of the Muslim world. So, is Rushdie right? Is the West overreacting? Do Turkey’s secularists have something to fear? And is the veil a symbol of oppression or a, as some Muslim women see it, a mark of empowerment? Share your thoughts, indignation or insights in the Mideast Forum...