There is no doubt that for the Maltese in general, as well as for many peoples in Europe, the insistence by Muslim persons, women especially, to wear the traditional Muslim headgear, the burqa, is a source of concern.

This aversion or fear is not shared in the case of Muslim women who choose to wear veils to cover the hair, as they are enjoined to do by their religion.

Such women can be seen on our roads and they do not occasion any adverse remark.

But the burqa is a different wear: it wraps round the entire head and leaves just slits for the eyes.

This traditional headgear is accepted in mainly Muslim countries. It has also spread to countries such as in Western Europe, where the Muslims are not in a majority and in many cases there have been reactions and pressures to ban it by law.

In the case of Malta, the wearing of the burqa is not all that common on our roads but the issue is fast becoming a sticking point, causing widespread reactions of concern if not anger as witnessed by last week’s Xarabank.

Following many requests by journalists, including from this newsroom, the government has confirmed, through its various officials, that the wearing of the burqa is not illegal in Malta.

It would seem that although there are undoubtedly many pressures building up to ban the burqa by law, such a step would be a deeply controversial and divisive step, taken at this particularly tense moment in the clash of civilisations we are witnessing and would polarize relations between the different peoples and religions in Malta. To insist on legislation directed against the burqa would occasion reactions that may well lead to dangerous splits in our country.

However, there can be no doubt that many people, from whatever political camp or religious belief would be very surprised and tense were they to find themselves confronted by a person wearing the burqa. As was said on Friday and on many other instances, people wearing crash helmets are made to uncover their headgear when, for instance, entering a bank. Now the burqa is even more enveloping that a crash helmet and the rest of the dress of the burqa wearer can hide so many items that can be threatening.

Regardless therefore of the legislative aspect, there can be no doubt that popular feeling in Malta is dead against anyone wearing such all-enveloping, all-hiding, outer clothing. Such a wearing is decidedly unaccepted by all levels of Maltese society.

It is no real argument to claim this is a religious habit, which does not seem to be the case with regards to Muslim women, as evidenced by any and all Muslim countries (and one must consider that by no means Malta is to be considered as a Muslim country).

It is also true that unfortunately, and not just in Muslim eyes, the quality of wear exhibited by many women, both Maltese and foreign, especially in summer, leaves much to be desired. And while far more Maltese welcome tourists in general, not all of them would agree with some scenes on the beach. Then again, things are far ‘worse’ in other, more liberal countries in Europe. And anyway, two wrongs do not make one right.

It is only through popular aversion that the wearing of the burqa can be removed from the streets of Malta. Not an aversion born of anger, but decidedly one born of fear.

Malta is a small country, more South than most of Tunisia, exposed in the big Mediterranean Sea with an entire history of being the bulwark of Christian Europe as against the Muslim South. Let us not expose Malta to further risk. It is not in any one’s interest to introduce such ideological splits in our small country.