Headscarf or headache – what does the headscarf mean in Denmark?

The visibility of the Muslim headscarf has created a lot of stir and cultural head aches in the past 10-20 years in Denmark. The Danes have suddenly been confronted with public display of religious preferences in a much more tangible and concrete way than ever before in modern times. It has confronted a lot of Danes about what it means to be religious but it has also lead to a lot of negative speculation from some Danes about what possible oppressive discourses there might be going on behind the veil. Recently the leader of the Danish Social Democrats even described the veil a very unDanish and as a reactionary move away from the ideals of equality that the Danes have worked very hard to obtain.

Your Muslim neighbor

Danish national television, Danmarks Radio recently made a very interesting survey about ‘your Muslim neighbour’ that tested the most widespread prejudices that the Majority of Danes might hold against Muslims. Mostly the questions centered on worshiping, social and societal conduct. You can take the quiz here:

http://www.eplugs.net/gfx/QuizStandAlone.htm?quizid=Quiz-95E62M

I took a test and the first thing that struck me was how mainstream the Muslims in Denmark have seemed to become as seen from a cross-cultural point of view.  The group seem to have similar values when it comes to marriage, divorce, upbringing and even cheating on the tax bill.

The Danish union for new Danes (Foreningen-Nydansker), whose mission has been “to brake down the barriers between new-Danes and the job market and make diversity management a natural and valued element of the Danish business life”, equally confirms the tendency. The CEO, Torben Møller-Hansen recently remarked, that the Muslims in Denmark have integrated very well over the last decade and the union’s work more or less has succeeded with its’ mission to a large extent.

The disproportionate relationship

In other words, there seems to be a disproportionate relationship between the behavior of this broad group of new (Muslim)-Danes and their families and the debate about them as it seems to continue on the political arena.

One could argue that there could be a politically motivated strategy in focusing on the 5% that act according to the stereotypical beliefs. Even so, I don’t think that is the case. Rather, I believe that it is a simple question of talking about them without them as it was voiced at a cross-cultural conference in Minneapolis last summer.

If the Danish Muslims – who seem to be quite mainstream in their values – are being referred to as unDanish and potentially disruptive for equal opportunities. To me, this disproportion means that we need to understand what the headscarf might signify. The growing popularity of the Muslim headscarf needs to be understood as a part of the dialectic dynamic within the Danish culture between different subcultures and not as a counter culture threatening to overturn the Danish society or its values. The headscarf in other words, needs to be read from within this specific well-integrated group in its’ national context.

An important distinction

It is important to note about culture – that even though there may not always be a culturally driven reason for disagreement, mis-communication or resistance, culture is always a possible explanation when there is more than one culture present. Therefore, even though some do, not all representations of Islam in Denmark have a cross-cultural reasoning behind them but it is however a possible explanation when two cultures are being identified. However, the cultural divide is also much easier to deal with when we can clearly draw a distinction.

The visibility of the headscarfs has seemed to create a clear boundary between the Muslims in the society and those who clearly perceive themselves as non-Muslim. On either side, one would clearly be able to see the divide – two distinct groups that create a divide in relation to Islam in the society and who use this difference to make sense of the world.

However, what we are dealing with here is a subculture – which means that there is an overarching national cultural context that serves as a common backdrop for all societal and social interaction.

The big gray area in between these two polar opposites is not as easy to categorize. Culture is never a question of either or but rather a loosely structured and incompletely shared system that emerges dynamically as cultural members experience and make sense of each other around different topics at different times and in different contexts. To illustrate this point feminist scholar, Joanne Martin once used this image to show the multilayered nature of our different cultural identities:

This is the reason why we all to a certain extent have a hard time making sense of cultural meetings and cross-cultural situations.

There are however certain steps to take in order to minimize the uncertainty. The literature has called this a need for building cross-cultural competence through knowledge, skills and attitudes.

Project implicit

The face of culture is a barrier of communication for most people. It is a fact that we organize our perceptions of cultural differences according to visual representations. An excellent example of this is The Project Implicit. It shows that our perception of beauty is closely tied to the ways our society has constructed the notion of what appears to be beautiful/not beautiful.

Our immediate perceptions of visual differences are sometimes hard to recognize as they tend to happen in a split second before our more controlled thoughts and conscious thinking takes over. If you want to test your own preferences in regards to any given difference whether it be Muslim, gay, disabled, black, overweight, Asian etc., I can strongly recommend The Project Implicit  at Harvard University.

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/selectatest.html

The way we perceive differences is almost exclusively tied to the superficial visible qualities. They tend to operate through very simple categories at first. The Project Implicit  operates through very simple distinctions such as Arab/non Arab. This way one is confronted with the core preference in relation to specific visual differences and the result will tell you something valuable about your own cultural layers.

We live in a time where visual representation is taking center stage in our identity construction. However we simply do not get the tools to decode the visibility by merely stating that there is a different visibility in itself. As is the case with the Muslim headscarf – we need to realize that we have to relate to more communicative aspects than just one reference to a religious practice.

In Denmark, we are slowly starting to adapt to making more nuanced distinctions when it comes to describing different types of head scarfs.  The majority now knows that a burka isn’t the same as the niqab and the tchador is different from the hijab. But as long as our politicians seem to operate along the same lines as The Project Implicit  in terms of Muslim/non Muslim then there is still a great need to making better distinctions. The headscarf cannot be boxed into only one meaning. Many women today practice their faith without wearing a head scarf and others in turn might be using the scarf for other reasons that cannot be entirely explained as a desire to express a religious affiliation.

How does one then relate to all these intersecting, incomplete and individual reasons in order to make sense of a woman wearing a headscarf?

First of all, we have to realize that not everything is culture. Craig Storti writes about this in his great book: Figuring Foreigners Out when he distinguishes between individual/personal expressions, cultural expressions and universal expressions. To explain this concept we can say that people have different motivations for their actions. To understand practices around wearing the veil we might start by placing this choice in an appropriate context.

The Danish State broadcaster initiated a headscarf competition in Denmark not long ago. This short clip from BBC shows some of these voices from within the Muslim community in Denmark:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7442244.stm

This youtube clip taken from Al Jazeera English was aired in 2008 and gives a great insight into the context of Egypt where there also exist a great number of very different reasons for wearing the headscarf. Some reasons are individually motivated and some are cultural – but they all share the universal trait that they are modern women in a globalized context

If you want to become more competent in relating to specific cross-cultural issues – start by going through this short exercise:

• Take a good look at your own personal behaviors in relation to how the veil has affected you.

• What characterized the reaction?

• Describe situations where you have noticed the behavior occurring – what happened, what was the reaction for you?

• How has this perceived difference affected your interaction with this particular group?

• How can you identify actions to mitigate this behavior and act differently?

If you have a specific task or if you want to develop your cross-cultural competence more, feel free to contact me through www.ponticonsult.dk or set up an appointment through this number: +4520225763

References:

Craig Storti: Figuring Foreigners Out

Joanne Martin: Cultures in Organizations

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Tags: Craig Storti, Cross-cultural competence, Denmark, headscarf, Implicit Project, Muslims