Why is there a steady decline in women wearing the hijab in North Africa in the past few years? Find out here 👇🏽
Photos of women in full Islamic attire - faces covered and in long dresses - next to old pictures of women in short skirts from the 1950s and 1960s in North Africa and the Middle East are often put together on social media to make a point.To those who share such photos, it is the most visible sign of how their countries have regressed and abandoned the ideals of progress and modernity, exemplified by adopting a Western lifestyle.
The whole of North Africa has powerful Islamist movements that either came to power or nearly did as in the case of Algeria in the early 1990s.But that is beginning to change, according to many observers. And one of the most obvious ways to assess that is by looking at the most potent symbol of the impact of Islamism: the hijab.
In Tunisia, where wearing the hijab was once an act of defiance because it was banned by successive autocratic regimes, it became popular for a brief period following the 2011 Arab Spring, but has started to fall off again recently. But then it fell out of favour as successive Islamist-dominated parliaments failed to solve the country's many problems and Tunisia plunged into a deep economic and political crisis.Tunisia is heavily divided between those who advocate secularism and political Islam
The spread of the hijab continued almost unabated until 2013 when the Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsi was removed from power.There were persistent reports of restaurants denying access to women wearing the hijab, or swimming pools refusing entry to women wearing the burkini, the supposedly Sharia-compliant swimsuit.
To everyone the crime was abhorrent and duly condemned. But as soon as it emerged that the victim was unveiled, reactions began to diversify. An intervention by al-Azhar - the highest religious institution in Egypt - to calm tension has ironically poured more oil on the fire.