For your eyes only

“For your eyes only
Only for you
You see what no one else can see
And now I’m breaking free
For your eyes only
Only for you
The passions that collide in me
The wild abandoned side of me
Only for you
For your eyes only.”

While reading an article online on Muslim women and the veil from the latest issue of The Economist, titled ‘The meaning of freedom’, I was somehow reminded of the Sheena Easton song from the 1981 James Bond film ‘For Your Eyes Only’.

I wondered what it would feel to be a Muslim woman spending her days hiding inside a burqa or a niqab, not necessarily on her free will, and taking it off only for her husband.

In most Islamic countries, women are expected to cover themselves in burqas to maintain their modesty in public and in the presence of men. However, I’ve been told, socially, a Muslim woman is allowed to take off her burqa/niqab in the company of other women… and even men who are known and accepted by the family.

[‘For your eyes only’, written by Bill Conti and Michael Leeson, sung by Sheena Easton – reproduced here in part.]