It is hard to find someone who does not have an opinion on the veil. It is the sort of question for which it is seemingly obligatory to have a view, and to be sure of it. The don’t knows disappear from the screen.
I was on a late night bus at the weekend – I had forgotten how drunks are very sure of their opinions on just about everything and think you would like to hear about them.
I want to extend this idea of the drunken citizen to suggest that there is a kind of social drunkenness that is not about alcohol but is about being opinionated in a non-negotiable way.
The liberal position seeing two sides of the argument is overtaken by a neo-liberal and much more aggressive approach to difference. This is necessary of course if you are going to get into a fight.
So the observation that people are taking a definite stand one way or another about the veil suggests that they/we are doing just that, getting ready for a fight – as I saw on Saturday night, first the genial explanation on the bus of why we need a free transport policy for all, no argument, and then, in the street outside, grown men beating the shit out of each other. As if we could make a utopia that allowed schisms.
Which is why I would like to recover some respect for the don’t knows in our society. They have no obvious place to go in war torn societies like Iraq or Israel. But we are still at peace. Aren’t we? I don’t know.