Many Season's greetings, dense with thoughts about the past year and good omens for the year to come: like what happens in Italy with the Republic President's speech on the new year's eve, in Great Britain and over all Commonwealth the Royal Christmas Message is a traditional radio-TV appointment going on for 74 years. A ritual that the private broadcasting station Channel 4 is contrasting since 1993 with an “alternative” message, every year assigned to a different, and often controversial, personality. And this year, while on the BBC Queen Elisabeth will speak for the 53rd time, on Channel 4 the message will be delivered by a Muslim girl dressing the nibaq, the veil that leaves only the eyes uncovered.

 

The choice. The honour will be Khadija's, a young lecturer in Islamic studies born in Zimbabwe but grown up in England, who has dressed the face-covering veil for ten years. The girl will speak for ten minutes, reading a speech still unknown in its content. “The right to dress religious symbols, from the nibaq to the crucifix, Pope Benedetto XVI's comments about Islam and Danish stripes about Prophet Mohammed have triggered a debate about multiculturalism, secularity and integration”, a Channel 4 spokesman said announcing the choice of Khadija. “Muslims in Great Britain have played a key role in this debate, a role that will shape the future of the British society. Therefore we believed timely to give this opportunity to a British Muslim woman”.

 

The current debate. The alternative speech is promising to be the most explosive of all Channel 4 history, a station that in the past reserved this honour, among the others, to Brigitte Bardot, to the American reverend Jesse Jackson, and even to a cartoon character, Marge Simpson. The nibaq issue has erupted this Autumn in Great Britain, after the statements of the former foreign minister Jack Straw, now a simple Labour deputy. Straw admitted he asked Muslim women voters in his electoral college of Blackburn to uncover their face, if covered by the niqab, which he believes a hindrance to relationships among people. Although disagreeing with banning the integral veil, Straw declared that he would be happier if British Muslim women wouldn't dress it. Straw's opinion was backed by the prime minister Tony Blair, while London mayor Ken Livingstone stood up for Muslim women. Then came the dismissal of a Muslim primary school teacher that refused to take the nibaq off during her lessons. The debate about rights and integration is still going on and it is an easy forecast that a Christmas speech delivered by a Muslim woman dressing the nibaq will extend it even more.