\n\nStill, I have noticed an interesting irony, at least in the United \nStates. While those conservatives and liberal hawks denounce mainstream \nsociety for outwardly celebrating conservative Islam, they ignore its \nsubtle subversion of Islamic tenets, the manner in which it pays cloying\n respect to the symbolism of Islam while undermining its significance.
Here is a golden example. The magazine Sports Illustrated publishes,\n for some reason, a \u201cswimsuit issue\u201d filled with bikini models. This \nyear\u2019s issue featured a young Muslim model in a \u201cburkini,\u201d which ensured\n that both her body and her hair were covered. Reaction was hostile from\n some quarters. The conservative Christian Matt Walsh decried progressive hypocrisy, writing:
\u2026this is the maneuver leftists have pulled, heaping \nunabated scorn on conservative Christians, sneering at their modesty and\n condemning their adherence to traditional gender roles, even while \nsaluting the hijab as a symbol of self-expression and personal \nliberation\u2026.
Yet this \u201csalute\u201d was superficial at best. While the model might have\n covered up, she was still lazing in the surf, her hands behind her \nhead, as her swimsuit hugged her contours. To be clear, I am not \nproposing that there was any intent on the part of Sports Illustrated\u2014and\n still less on the part of the model\u2014to subvert the traditional \nsignificance of Islamic dress. But it still seems obvious that drawing \nattention to womanly curves undercuts the intended modesty of the hijab.
The accidental subversive genius of American liberalism has been in \npresenting the hijab not as a symbol of faith but as a symbol of choice.\n Right-wing critics resent this because, of course, the hijab is often \nimposed on people rather than being chosen. By encouraging Muslims to \ndefend traditional dress on the grounds of choice, though, \nliberals and leftists have encouraged them to internalize \nindividualistic standards. The hijab becomes less of a religious symbol,\n virtuously accepted according to God\u2019s will, than an aspect of one\u2019s \npersonal identity, which one is free to shape and exhibit according to \none\u2019s wishes.
This cultural \u201crecalibration\u201d could turn out to be a far more \npowerful liberalizing force than state intervention. Repression, real or\n imagined, tends to unify people around that which is or appears to be \nbeing repressed. Absorbing it into the mainstream, though, leaves little\n to unite around.
I mean factor in that American liberalism thought it was close enough to drop co-option and push for repression in the last decade and fell short tho
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