“I wanted to own the article of clothing that was being talked about,” Jonas Otterbeck says, explaining his reasons for buying a niqab. Otterbeck, who teaches Islamic Studies at Lund University in Sweden, spoke of his view on the niqab on the documentary Black Polyester, the sixth in a sixteen part series broadcast on SVT1 dealing with issues of power and politics.

In the hour-long program, the presenter Lina Makboul addresses (but doesn’t attempt to resolve) the question of whether the current ramped up debate about niqab is a result of real fears from a threat or fear-mongering driven by political populism. Along the way, she interviews women who wear the niqab, questions Muslims and non-Muslims on their views, and does a Europe-wide niqab-count as a way of assessing how many women would be affected by numerous proposed bans. In Sweden, Makboul notes, the number is thought to be about 200.

In the beginning of the program, Makboul points out that “a lot of people talk about women that wear niqab but few speak for themselves,” and in the course of the program she interviews Marianne and Hanan, two women who wear the niqab. Jonas Otterbeck, who has worn and even lectured in a niqab to experience the effect it has, believes that “wearing it means paying a rather high price. One becomes a kind of non-human in society.”

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