Velvet Boundaries - Part 28 🌸🌿💚

... She guided them through the centuries: portraits of Victorian ladies, quotes from Protestant moralists, cultural shifts in the 20th century. The audience leaned forward, some nodding, some scribbling notes.

Then she gestured gently toward Anna. “And now, I will step aside. Because modesty is not only a matter of history. It is alive, here, today.”

Anna moved to the microphone. A ripple of silence passed through the hall as her covered figure became the focus. Her eyes scanned the crowd. “When people see me,” she said softly, “they think of absence. They think of what they cannot see. But for me, modesty is presence. It is strength. My niqab is not a prison. It is my choice, my dignity, my face.” ...