Among other things, the niqab is symbolic of a strong desire not to integrate in Western society, and not only on the part of the woman wearing it. What is being demanded, as the original complaint of the student against the college’s ban illustrates, is the right not to integrate, to be able to demonstrate not only difference from the society in which one lives but implicit hostility towards it, such as the niqab undoubtedly symbolises, and to be absolved of any undesired consequences of that demonstration, such as not being allowed to attend college. This, in fact, is a typical dishonesty of our time: for example, people simultaneously demand the freedom to pierce their faces with any amount of ironmongery and that employers should take no notice of it. How long before wearers of the niqab similarly demand that employers must not discriminate against them, that they, the employers, must take a quota of women dressed in the niqab? In other words, such women want it all and believe that they can have it. In this way they mix medievalism with modernity.