And, Scott, it’s not just the French. this is becoming a European problem: http://www.stefangeens.com/000346.html

When Eastern Europeans accede to the EU, many of these nationalities will previously have been illegal immigrants in the old EU (for example, Poles in Sweden). Would they bring a measure of sympathy to the trials and tribulations of their old fellow immigrants, the Muslims? Quite the contrary, I think.

Of course, don’t expect a man with a dead horse to beat to ever give consideration to the opinions and experiences of those Muslim women in France who are supporting this law.

It has been decreed supporting this law is bigotry or conformity or interference or intolerance, hence, no other view contradicting that shall be considered, inshallah.

Yeah, Ginger - Here we go again, eh?

They just completely ignore the views of the many women of Muslim background who do favour the ban. They don’t disagree with them or argue with them, they just totally ignore them. As if they were not there.

It’s really staggering.

And kind of disgusting, frankly.

Look, if you want people who favour the ban, or who think there are good reasons and arguments on both sides, to take your arguments seriously - you might want to stop ignoring people like for instance Ni Putes Ni Soumises. As it is, we’re just going to shrug and think you’re hopeless and myopic.

Using arguments just as specious, one could argue that opponents of the headscarf ban want Muslims in France to always serve as the other. Forget about having Muslim women feeling free to work side by side, or to have Muslims or any other immigrant group contaminating mainstream culture. We should make sure that we shouldn’t let any individuals who might want out in. French Muslim women must stand in as the Other, to be alternatively held up as signs of our tolerance for other cultures or to be used as negative examples of the need for a progressive politics in society--for everyone else, of course.

I’ve said what I have to say on other threads, here at A Fistful of Euros and over at Crooked Timber. Suffice it to say that it’s not a perfect law, but given the conditions operative in France it seems to be the best thing possible.

As one of those who has been critical of this law, I’d like to exempt myself from Ophelia’s criticism of completely ignoring the views of those Muslim women who do favour the ban. In the last thing I posted about this issue - here - I raised the following question:

“Why isn’t the proper legislative course in these circumstances to continue to permit those who want to wear religious symbols to do so, as should be their right within any liberal order; and to make it a punishable offence under law for anyone to coerce or intimidate another into the wearing of religious symbols - or anything else for that matter - against their will? The question is genuine and not rhetorical. It’s possible that there would be difficulties with legislation of this kind of which I’m not aware, and if so I’d be interested to hear what they are. Obviously, social or family pressure is a slippery thing to deal with, but is it altogether beyond the reach of the law? I doubt it. In any event, abstractly considered, this seems to me a better course, though I hold the view tentatively for now in anticipation of some possibly compelling counter-consideration. (I’m aware, incidentally, that there’s an age aspect to the problem. But so is there with laws against hitting children. The question would be whether the appropriate kind of legislation can be fashioned round, and fitted to, the relevant practical difficulties.)”

Not only I don’t “completely ignore”…, I’m also interested in possible answers to this question. And then there’d also be the question about those Muslim women who don’t favour the ban, and why they shouldn’t be able to affirm their religious identity when going to school.

Brilliant arguing going on here:

I wonder how many other places we might apply this logic. Did the Taliban have the right to mandate that women wear the hijab in order to defend the structure of their society? And I wonder how many children of any religion have the freedom to choose whether or not to go to school, or what school they get placed in?

Do the British have the right to a state church that discriminates homosexuals? Yes.
Do the US have the right to forbid judges to express their religion by forbidding them to decorate their courthouses with a statue of the ten commandments? Yes.
Does Turkey forbid hijabs in certain places? Yes.
Did the Dutch ban niqaabs in their schools and universities? Yes.

Aren’t we all Taliban then? No.

Your argument is mere hypocritical, flawed an wrong.

If your against secularism say so, but as it is your opinion on this website doesn’t carry much weight - it’s just an echo chamber for those already opposed to the secular policies of France.

Let’s look at this from a psychological perspective. I acknowledge that this is speculation on my part, but it is informed speculation. My speculation is based upon limited experience talking with Muslim families about their experiences raising girls in the USA.

For some Muslim girls, going to school without a headscarf would feel very wrong. It may well be comparable to requiring a girl from a western culture to go to school topless. Perhaps it would not be quite so bad, but I would expect that it would be stressful for many, and traumatic for some.

Furthermore, I would expect that there will be some cases of posttraumatic stress disorder among these girls. Being made to walk around in public, feeling like you are advertising yourself as a prostitute, could be expected to created feelings of helplessness, guilt, and vitimization. To prove this, it would be necessary to find therapists with the correct combination of clinical skill, cultural awareness, and credibility with the potential patients (in order for the patients to be willing to talk about it.) This would be difficult, but not impossible.

From a public health standpoint, implemeting the headscarf ban could be a tragedy. Following this reasoning, I would say that the French government has a responsibility to investigate this risk.

Mr. Geras:

To your question, I’d say that such a law would be impossible because of its intrusiveness. You can’t control how people think, and you can’t control how people act save in certain public-safety and crime-control connections. You can, however, control actions in public facilities, particularly in areas like schools where agents can operate legitimately in loco parentis.

It’s certainly not a perfect law, and I’d prefer it if there wasn’t a need, simply because of your below point:

And then there’d also be the question about those Muslim women who don’t favour the ban, and why they shouldn’t be able to affirm their religious identity when going to school.

If you can propose an alternative way to prevent people who don’t want to from being pressued into covering themselves, please do. As I’ve said elsewhere, though, I don’t believe that the state should be held responsible for supporting the sustenance of all manner of parochial (religious, cultural) traditions and prejudices.

Sure, Norm, you can exempt yourself. I didn’t mean to say (that ’they’ was a tad vague, I did notice that at the time) everyone who opposes the ban ignores the views of Muslim women who support it. But it is frustrating how many do.

Your suggestion is one possibility, but…everyone knows (I think?) how impossible it is to do much of anything to counter peer-pressure. How are adults even going to know that boys are calling girls whores?

It also seems to me the existence of liberal and open-minded Muslim parents (both women and men) is being completely ignored.

You can’t talk about Muslims as if they were all 100% in favour of strict Islamic tradition. There’s many in France, for instance, who fled from Iran, and they’re really not all that fond of the veil, I can assure you.

Let’s try again.

The French government and a large part of the French population doesn’t really understand freedom of religion and they don’t understand it in exactly the same manner that most Americans don’t understand diversity, multi-culturalism or freedom of expression.

First, those are all different things. This isn’t about freedom of expression, it isn’t being affected here. Someone at Crooked Timber, without taking position pro or against the ban, simply remarked that schools can enforce their own dress code. You don’t want to comply to that dress code, you don’t go to that school.

If it was a private school deciding that all girls and boys must wear uniforms, you could even consider it a shameful insult to diversity, but that’s not gonna change the fact they have a right to impose a dress code and expect it is respected by people who attend that school.

This is about state schools, not private. Hence, the state is the owner. It’s not enforcing anything that contradicts freedom of religion, or freedom of expression, or diversity.

It’s simply reasserting its principles of secularism and equality between males and females, within an environment it controls, which happens to be the environment where education of citizens take place - for those citizens who want to take advantage of that free state-sponsored education.

Just like in Turkey.

Now, here’s a question for all those who agree with Scott: could you please tell me if you also think Turkish laws are intolerant, racist, irrespectful of diversity, just because Ataturk and its followers also banned the veil from schools, universities, and public offices?

Is there no longer freedom of religion in Turkey, just because there is that law inspired by an even stricter secularism than the French kind?

Are Turkish secularists holding intolerant prejudices against… their own people, their own culture, their own religion?

Islam is entirely secure in France, so long as it has no measurable significance and makes no meaningful demands on believers.

No, as long as it makes no demand to _disregard_ or come before the laws and principles of the state, within a state environment.

It’s a very simple, very clear concept.

No one is touching religion, no one is preventing people from practicing whatever religion they like, no one is preventing strict, traditionalist Islamic followers from holding whatever views they want about women and about religion itself.

What’s being prevented is, the trespassing of these views into the public - areligious, secular - sphere.

Allowing state schools to be the ground for active propagation of fundamentalist views of women is in contradiction with the secular foundation of French democracy. Hence, French democracy decided to reassert who’s boss and what rules must be respected _within its own state schools_.

If you want fundamentalist views about women - or creationism, or gay-bashing, or repressive notions about sex - to be allowed and endorsed in a school, then go to a fundamentalist school.

If you want to go to a state school, which is, incidentally, free, state-subsidised, paid by all taxpayers, then you have to stick to the rules that have been devised to work for everybody, and to accomodate every religion, every belief, as long as those basic rules are accepted by all. The rest belongs to the private sphere. But a state has a right to legislate on the public sphere, especially when doing so directly and specifically, targeting precisely what the state itself controls. Nothing more, nothing less.

If you still don’t get this, then forget about France and try and apply your same reasoning above to Turkey.

Including your scorn and dislike for secularists (and non-hijab wearing Muslim women), that is.

“Why isn’t the proper legislative course in these circumstances to continue to permit those who want to wear religious symbols to do so, as should be their right within any liberal order; and to make it a punishable offence under law for anyone to coerce or intimidate another into the wearing of religious symbols - or anything else for that matter - against their will? The question is genuine and not rhetorical.

First - The legislation is just for minors in non religious, secular, state schools.

Clothing affects behaviour in children. Some schools therefore have school uniforms. Not so in France. But the children wearing hijabs did cause problems, in that they refused to take classes etc. Teachers in France had a long list of problems. So they could expel those pupils, but that was legally difficult, and according to many not in the interest of the school system in general nor the pupil. As there was also a question of wether hijabs should be allowed at state schools, they combined these arguments and forbid the hijab. As I haven’t read either of the two reports on this subject that the France government published I don’t know the exact reasoning. Maybe someone who actually has read those reports could answer that.

Second - your question contains some misunderstandings of the issue. First it isn’t “within their rights in any liberal order”.
There are many schools in many liberal countries that have regulations about clothing. There probably aren’t many Jewish schools in Europe where you can wear a hijab for example. At least not in the Dutch Jewish schools. Which is ofcourse completely understandable. But therefore it can also be understood that you can’t have complete freedom with respect to religion in a secular school. And the ban only applies to secular schools in France.

Third - the oppression of those wearing the hijab is an issue in two contexts, first in the context
of the exclusion from school of those children wearing a hijab. Do they have a choice in wearing it, will their parents still allow them to go to a secular school? Do the parents have access to other schools that can provide the same quality education?
And second the broader context wether this ban will increase or decrease the problems of those that are forced to wear a hijab.

A better description of the problem is always welcome.

As it is most people discuss only wether the principle of secularism or laicite is right or wrong or the last point wether the net result is good or bad for those that are forced to wear a hijab.

And finally a short answer to your actual question, can there be other laws to fix it?
No. People are free to raise their children according to the rules and habits of a religion.
According to Christian, Muslim an Jewish regulations the issue is punishable with a good stoning if they don’t adhere to this. There are probably enough laws to prohibit abuse by parents.
But even the cutting up of female and male sexual organs as religious habits is difficult to eradicate. Let alone the wearing of hijabs by those that don’t want it or are being repressed by wearing it.

Ginger and Ophelia,

Many Muslim women in France do dress secularly every day, and do not believe it is necessary to subscribe to a perspective on female dignity that requires headscarves. Others wear the headscarf but wish they did not feel social/familial/peer pressure to do so. Still others want to. Do the relative sizes of these three groups matter to the argument at hand? No. (40% of Muslim women support the ban, BTW.)

Even if only 10% of Muslim women of school age actively wanted to wear a headscarf, this law will still constrain their religious expression. Democracy is not the tyranny of the majority; a large component is guaranteeing fundamental human rights of minorities and individuals. Rights to do things you think stupid.

Laws protecting children from physical coercion of any kind is already on the books in France. Apply those instead.

Ah, yes, Turkey, that bastion of human rights.

Even if only 10% of Muslim women of school age actively wanted to wear a headscarf, this law will still constrain their religious expression.

Oh please. That is the most absurd definition of “constraint on freedom of expression” I’ve ever heard.

You’re arguing that a state give up its laws, just because they won’t accomodate everyone. You’re arguing that everyone should accept fundamentalist views of women, just because some embrace them, voluntarily or not (and that line is very blurred since we’re talking children).

So, should the US state accomodate creationism in its public schools as well, just because science and biology might offend the sensibilities of children of Christian fundamnetalists?

And about Turkey - the comparison was specifically related to the relation between secularism and Islam. Not an overall assessment of how the human rights record of Turkey in the past 80 years stands up to fully democratic standards. I brought up Turkish laws and secularists as a very parallel with the law on Islamic veil, since the laws are the same there. But as an aside, Turkey is indisputably the most secular and democratic of countries with a Muslim majority, and also indisputably holds a much better human rights record than, say, Iran or Saudi Arabia.

Back on topic, I’d like to get answers to that precise question: Are Turkish secularists, Turkish Muslims, French Muslims, women or men alike, who support the ban of Islamic veil in state schools, also being as racist, bigoted, intolerant and repressive as the French secularists?

Laws protecting children from physical coercion of any kind is already on the books in France. Apply those instead.

Do they solve the problem of children refusing classes? Do they solve any problems that teachers
in France face in regard to the divisive behaviour of children wearing a hijab?

Nah. Don’t think so.

Stefan,

“Do the relative sizes of these three groups matter to the argument at hand?”

Well I do think they matter to these arguments. Since the ban is so often depicted as unfair to Muslims - I do take it to be relevant that not all Muslims (and what one might call post-Muslims - there is no good word for this, which is why I keep including ’people of Muslim background’ which is damn awkward) oppose the ban. That in fact a lot support it.

You’re right about protection of minority rights. Absolutely. But (obviously enough) not all minority rights, no matter what.

… and to use your own example, the concept here is: even if 90% of Muslim girls were enthusiastical supporters of the hijab and of all the rules associated with wearing it (such as not taking phys ed classes with boys - as Luc mentioned above, there were actual problems emerging, not just a matter of wearing a scarf or not, otherwise there wouldn’t be all this controversy would it?), the state would still have a right to reassert its principles of:

- secularism or better “laicite”, which means both freedom of religion AND total separation of religion from the public sphere

- equality between boys and girls.

If it failed to reassert these principles, it would be effectively tolerating and hence approving of those fundamentalist views of women and those beliefs about how girls should not do some things together with others etc.

Secularism is meant to offer a foundation over which all religions, all beliefs, can coexist equally. But to do so, they have to first accept that basic little rule. If they don’t, it means they want to overstep into the public sphere and want their own rules to come before those of the state.

This is not compatible with secular democracy as has evolved in France. End of story. In the US secularism has taken a different character, because it’s a different country with a different history; it works in a different way there, and as long as it works fine, then it’s fine for the US. It doesn’t mean the US model has to be fine for France. Ditto for Turkey. Each country comes up with laws based on their own history, and their own current situation and problems that have arisen. If you don’t know anything about it, and don’t have direct experience of it, then you can’t fully understand. Especially if you have no idea of how pressures on girls can work, and especially pressures of a strictly religious nature.

And here, again, one must notice how little attention has been devoted to *all* the different voices and opinions among French Muslims, and especially Muslim women.

SOS Racisme apparently disagrees that this bill is discriminatory:

Si nous sommes inquiets, c’est surtout parce que le débat sur la laïcité a été pris en otage par ceux qui veulent réduire le débat citoyen à un affrontement communautaire. La laïcité est pour ceux là un obstacle à abattre pour mieux attaquer la dignité de la femme et enjoindre chacun à se réfugier dans une communauté religieuse.

Nous disons halte à la récupération de nos idées et de nos symboles : celle du féminisme par le discours des femmes islamistes, celle du drapeau tricolore pour voiler ces femmes, celle du mot « laïcité » contre l’idée même qu’elle défend.

Or, translated:

“If we are worried, it is above all because the debate on laicity has been taken hostage by those who would like to reduce the citizenship debate to a community conflict. Laicity is for these people an obstacle to beat down, all the better to attack the dignity of women and encourage each person to hide in a religious community.

We demand a halt to the co-option of our ideas and our symbols: that of feminism by the discourse of Islamist women, that of the tricolour to veil these women, that of the word “laicite” against the very idea.”

I forgot to specify one point which everyone knows but I feel is being in fact overlooked: … all phrases about the state reasserting its principles are to be completed with “within its own state-controlled environment”. Ie. within the public sphere. More specifically state-controlled, state-subsidised, state-managed schools.

Not outside of them.

So there’s no issue of infringing freedoms that can be exercised in all other spheres. They just cannot take over the state’s own laws when in the public sphere.

To make a very silly instance, if I own a bar, I set the dress code for my waiters. If I have a Muslim waitress, she’ll be free to wear the hijab, but not on the job.

Ditto here. The girls will be able to wear a hijab, but not in state schools. Their education is being paid by the state, so, the state - not the girls, not their parents, not the mullahs - gets to decide what kind of basic principles should inspire that education. Basic principles of democracy and equality that still allow lots of space and respect for any beliefs, as long as these beliefs respect those basic rules in turn. Because the state is not owned by any religious group!

All very plain and simple to me, I don’t understand why so many don’t get it and are turning this into an issue of repression of human rights, which is patently absurd.

Randy, sorry for being so anal, but you left out one crucial bit at the end :) - “a halt to the co-option.. of the word laicite against the very idea IT DEFENDS”.

Thanks for adding that page from SOS Racisme. A position like theirs is not something anyone discussing this can ignore. (Doesn’t mean it won’t be ignored, of course…)

Here’s a bit from the rest, they sum up the principle of the law really well:

Nous nous réunissons pour faire entendre une chose simple : nous voulons vivre ensemble. Et nous sommes nombreux par delà nos croyances et nos différences à partager cette volonté.

Nous voulons une France où l’école publique favorise l’égalité des chances par rapport à la fatalité de la naissance. Où la laïcité soit clairement définie par la Loi, protégeant chacun contre les intégrismes et rappelant que l’on ne fréquente pas l’Ecole en tant que jeune juif, jeune catholique ou jeune musulman, mais en tant qu’enfant de la République.

Nous voulons une France où l’égalité entre les hommes et les femmes soit le combat de tous. Une France où ce qui nous rassemble est plus fort que ce qui nous divise. Où la première des communautés est la communauté nationale.
=

We united to convey a simple message: we want to live together. And there’s many of us and we all, beyond our beliefs and differences, share this goal.

We want a France where state school favours equal opportunities regardless of one’s origins. A France where laicité is clearly defined by the Law, as protecting everyone against integralism and reminding everyone that you don’t go to public school as a young Jew, a young Catholic or a young Muslim, but as a young citizen of the Republic.

We want a France where the equality between men and women is a common goal for everybody. A France where what unites us is stronger than that which divides us. Where the community coming before any other is the national one.

To those that oppose the French ban, it may be a good idea to read the report on which the law is based:

http://www.publicsenat.fr/xox/data/special/rapport_laicite.pdf

The issue of schools handled in paragraph 4.2.2.1

I haven’t seen many handle the issues stated there.

My own understanding of French isn’t that good that I can provide a translation, And knowing the French they certainly wouldn’t have done it themselves. So you’ll have to read it in French.

Positions on this particular debate seem pretty well ensconced, and, to echo one of the commenters above, our respective horses are surely on life support if not already dead. That in mind, I’ll hold off on a reiteration of my own position on this particular debate. (Though, to tip my hand a bit, I find myself more sympathetic to Scott’s position, and think, in theory, that Turkey’s anti-hijab position is a zebra to France’s horse -- that is, they look alike, maybe even sound alike, and certainly kick alike, but are distinct enough that the fundamental differences should be given ultimate priority.) That is for another time, though.

For the time being, and in no way is this a polemic point for my parenthetical position above, I would be remiss if I didn’t at least link to this bibliography of ’secular fundamentalism’. This is, I think, a pretty even-handed perspective on the topic, arising from a debate about Bangladeshi politics -- even if the number of working hyperlinks leave something to be desired -- and offers the beginnings of a healthy, though cautious, recontextualisation (or attempt thereof) of the hijab / secularity issue.

Here you go, from Luc’s link, chapter 4.2.2.1 - quick and dirty translation, first part:

The question of laicité has come up in 1989 in the same place it first arose in the 19th century: the school. Its mission is essential in the Republic. It transmits knowledge, it furthers a critical approach, it assures autonomy, openness to the diversity of cultures, and the realisation of the person, it is targeted at the formation of citizens as much as at a professional career. The school thus prepares tomorrow’s citizens to live together in the Republic. Such a mission presupposes clearly fixed common rules. As a first place of socialization and sometimes only place for integration and social improvement, the school has a very deep influence on all types of individual and collective behaviour. State schools educate pupils to become enligthened citizens. The school is therefore a fundamental institution of the Republic, where minors are called to live together beyond their differences. It is a specific space, submitted to specific rules, established in order to assure the transmission of knowledge in a serene environment. The school should not be a refuge from the world, but it must protect its pupils from the “noise of the world” (“fureur du monde”): surely it is not a sanctuary, but it must favour a sort of distance from the real world in order to allow learning. Now, in too many schools, experience and testimonies have shown that the conflicts of identity can become a factor leading to violence, provoke threats to individual freedoms, and create problems for public order.

The public debate has been centered on the wearing of the Islamic veil by young girls and more generally on the wearing of religious and political symbols in the school. The commission has summed up the different positions expressed by those interviewed:

- For those wearing it, the veil can have different meanings. It can be a personal choice or on the contrary a constraint, which is particularly intolerable for the youngest. The wearing of the veil in school is a recent phenomenon. A trend that was established in the Muslim world in the 1970’s, with the emergence of radical political-religious movements, it hadn’t manifested itself in France until the end of the 1980’s.

- For those not wearing it, the meaning of the Islamic veil stigmatised “the young girl or the young woman as responsible for attracting male desire”, a vision which fundamentally contradicts the principle of equality between men and women.

- For the whole of the school community, the wearing of the veil is too often a source of conflicts, divisions and even suffering. The visible character of a religious sign is resented by many as contrary to the mission of the school which is that of being a place of neutrality and to nurture a critical awareness. It is also a threat to the principles and values that the school must teach, especially equality between men and women.

The commission has listened to the representatives of the main religions, as well as to leaders of organizations in defense of human rights who have expressed their objections on a law banning the wearing of religious symbols. The motives invoked by critics of this law are the following: stigmatisation of Muslims, exacerbation of anti-religious sentiment, promoting the image abroad of a “liberticide” France, encouragement to drop out of school and develop Muslim confessional schools. The possible difficulties of enforcing the law have been highlighted by its critics.

Others - nearly all school representatives, headmasters and professors - are convinced that a law must be passed. The commission has been particularly sensitive to their complaints. Insufficiently equipped, they feel alone in the face of the complexity of those situations and the pressure exercised by local balances of power. They disagree with official figures which minimise the difficulties encountered on the field. They have highlighted the tensions provoked by the revendication of religious and group identities, like the formation of clans, for instance. They express the need for a clear framework, for a rule formulated at national level, a decision taken by the political authorities and therefore preceded by a public nation-wide debate. They demand a law forbidding all visible signs, so that the headmaster should not be the only one left with the responsibility to decide if a sign worn by a pupil is offensive or not.

The commission has also had talks with political representatives as well as many representatives of local associations. Like teachers, they often told about the calls for help from many young girls and women, daughters of immigrants, living in the cities. Presented as the “silent majority”, victims of pressures within the family or neighbourhood, these girls need to be protected and to this end, they call on the political authorities to issue strong warnings to Islamist groups.

The commission, after having listened to all the different positions, has come to the conclusion that the question today is no longer one of freedom of conscience, but of public order. The context has changed in the space of a few years. The tensions and confrontatins happening within schools and revolving around religious and issues have become far too frequent. Pressures are exerted on underage girls to force them to wear a religious sign. The family and social environment sometimes forces the girls to submit to choices which aren’t their own. The Republic cannot remain deaf to the cries for help of these girls. The school space must remain for them a place of freedom and emancipation.

It is for that reason that the commission proposes the following declaration be inserted in the text of the law on laicité: “In the respect of freedom of choice and of the specific character of established private schools approved by the state, any display of signs and symbols of religious and political identity are forbidden in state schools and colleges. Sanctions should be proportionate and only taken after the pupil disrespecting this rule has been invited to comply with it”.

This disposition will be inseparable from the explanation of motives: “Forbidden religious symbols and clothing are only the conspicuous ones, such as large crosses, veils or kippas. Symbols allowed are discreet ones, such as medals, small crucifixes, stars of David, hands of Fatimah, or small Korans”.

This suggestion has been adopted by the commission with unanimous voting of those present, minus one abstained.

It must be understood as a chance given to integration. It is not about setting a ban but establishing a rule for life in common. This new rule will be explained clearly in schools. Sanctions must not be used except as a last resort. The current procedures and efforts to mediate and to promote exchanges with pupils and families must be maintained, and developed.

Final part (about schools - the rest covers universities)

… The judicial aspect of the incompatibility of this law with the European convention on fundamental human rights, which has been frequently raised [by critics], has been examined and discarded by the Commission. The European Court in Strasbourg protects laicité when it is a fundamental value of the State. It allows limits to the freedom of expression in public services, especially when it is a matter of protecting minors against external pressures. In regard to the French constitutional judge, he allows that the law establishes specific rules for minors in order to ensure their protection. The same judge considers the need to protect the public order and to safeguard the rights and principles of constitutional value as a goal with constitutional value itself. The law proposed by the commission in this respect complies exactly with this imperative.

The argument according to which the law could push towards private schooling is not decisive… (“dirimant”). Some Muslim parents already prefer Catholic schooling because their children are given religious values there. On the other hand, other parents who have taken their children out of state schools because they were submitted to group pressures will be able to send them back to those schools. Besides, it must be highlighted that private schools may adopt, if they so wish, rules that are equivalent to those in state schools.

On another level, the commission considers that it is not acceptable that pupils refuse to comply with the obligation to attend school, or refuse to attend certain classes, to study certain subjects or be examined by teachers of the opposite sex. Pupils cannot systematically be dispensed from attending school on a certain day. The commission has observed that, according to all those interviewed, the exemptions to avoid going to the swimming pool or the gym are accorded too often. To put an end to this complacency, medical exemptions shall be exclusively granted by school doctors, or by doctors recognised by the state.

Finally, the commission has expressed alarm at the trend to drop out of school. The law will have to reaffirm rules on the matter of obligation to attend school. The commission wishes national education to remind strongly that distance learning is not a right except in exceptional circumstances. Taking into account the fact some young girls drop out of school after their sixteenth year, the commission judges it appropriate that pupils aged at least 16 years be allowed to choose to continue going to school without the need for consent from their parents, the same way a 16 year old can choose to become French without the need for consent from their parents. In this respect, the commission proposes that schools distribute information about the possibility for those who have reached 16 years of age to acquire French citizenship.

Brad: the link you quote about “Fundamentalist Secularism” (…) is hardly unbiased, coming from a Muslim male who supports traditional Islamic views on everything and seems to have some problems with secularism not to mention gender equality and denies there is any problem whatsoever within traditional Islam.

It’s like a traditionalist Catholic writing about “Repressive Modernity”. Amusing, wouldn’t it?

He has an interesting definition, though:

“The secular person, believing primarily in tolerance, has no difficulty dealing with the different belief systems surrounding him. The secular fundamentalist, however, insists on forcing his particular dogma on the rest of society”

The ambiguity is in what is intended as “forcing his dogma on the rest of society”. If it’s meant as “trying to abolish all religious practices”, then that would indeed be a sort of “fundamentalist secularism”. But that’d be confusing secularism with some hypothetical form of fanatical atheism, of the likes no one has seen yet.

When it’s a matter public legal system setting its own secular a-religious rules for its own public services such as state education, I’m afraid that’s not this hypothetical “fundamentalist secularism”, but simply “the law” in a “secular democracy”.

(The “secular” being redudant since there has never been a form of governance known as “religious democracy”.)

I certainly didn’t think it wasn’t biased. One need only read the rejoinder post of his to which he links near the top of the page. Bias is simply the name of the game in this particular debate, though. To his credit, he’s pretty clear in his position, thus allowing one’s reading to follow accordingly.

As I said when I first linked to it, I was not nearly as interested in it for its polemical value, as I was some of the recontextualising opportunities it potentially opens -- even if some of the links are just plain silly (i.e., the one to something about Bob Dylan’s Bootleg collection is clearly the product of a random Google search).

Are Turkish secularists holding intolerant prejudices against… their own people, their own culture, their own religion?

Kendinin dinine karsi, evet, tabiii…

Sorry, wrong language. Let’s just say, knowing Turkey better than most, yes a large chunk of the Turkish élite are prejudiced against ’their own’ religion and that part of the population which seriously holds to it.

In any case, if Turkey’s enforced laicism is a model for France, I look forward to France assuming a much more positive stance towards Turkish accession to the EU. If France retains its hostile stance to Turkish accession, I’ll be forced to conclude that the French élite is riddled with Islamophobia.

To make a very silly instance, if I own a bar, I set the dress code for my waiters. If I have a Muslim waitress, she’ll be free to wear the hijab, but not on the job.

This analogy holds no water. If you ban the hijab for the staff in your bar, ginger, I have the choice as to whether or not I want to patronise your bar. If I have strong views about hijab I can either avoid or make a special effort to go to it, as the case may be. If I don’t care, I don’t care.

Taxpayers, however, have no choice but to pay to fund state schools and government jobs. Conservative Muslims are being made to pay for institutions from which, if they are women, they are excluded. If I was in that position, I’d be pretty pissed off.

As an aside, it’s beyond me why someone hasn’t brought a case under the European Convention of Human Rights. It’s pretty explicit about Freedom of Religion…

As an aside, it’s beyond me why someone hasn’t brought a case under the European Convention of Human Rights. It’s pretty explicit about Freedom of Religion…

Yes, and your not the only one thinking that.
In the report that ginger translated it is stated as follows:

… The judicial aspect of the incompatibility of this law with the European convention on fundamental human rights, which has been frequently raised [by critics], has been examined and discarded by the Commission. The European Court in Strasbourg protects laicité when it is a fundamental value of the State. It allows limits to the freedom of expression in public services, especially when it is a matter of protecting minors against external pressures.

So according to the French a case wouldn’t have much of a chance to succeed.

If France retains its hostile stance to Turkish accession, I’ll be forced to conclude that the French élite is riddled with Islamophobia.

There are other reasons to oppose Turkish membership in the European Union, including Turkey’s poverty, its rapidly growing population, its (hopefully dormant) Kurdish insurgency in the east, Cyprus if that doesn’t get resolved, and the whole question of civil/military relations.

Conservative Muslims are being made to pay for institutions from which, if they are women, they are excluded. If I was in that position, I’d be pretty pissed off.

Reactionaries of all stripes can get pretty easily pissed off by anything that doesn’t conform completely with their values. Their anger isn’t a convincing argument against that, though.

Not to mention the fact that, of course, they’re not excluded.

Brad: my point is there’s no need of a “re-contextualization” because the context of a law in a secular democracy is the legal system in a secular democracy, its principles and workings - not the beliefs of a follower of a religion.

That’s something some people don’t seem to understand here.

Young Fogey: so the secularists in Turkey are prejudiced? Because they want the law and constitution in Turkey to be based on the principles of secular democracy, and not concede to religion?

Have I missed some trend to redefine legal systems in democracy or what? I always thought the line was clear. You practice whatever religion you like, but in order to allow all religions and beliefs (or none) to be practiced (or not), the state itself must be neutral, hence, based on secular principles. And everybody, of any religion (or none), must respect those basic common rules.

There’s just no other way democracy has ever worked or could ever work.

I thought on a site discussing politics primarily, everybody would be familiar with that concept…

“In any case, if Turkey’s enforced laicism is a model for France”

And where did you infer that? I brought it up as a parallel specific to the law being discussed here, and to the relation between state and religion. It’s not a matter of models, but of experiences and conclusions. Which are similar in the respect of allowing or not allowing the veil in *state* offices and environments. Ie. in respect to the idea of the state protecting itself from religious interference.

“Taxpayers, however, have no choice but to pay to fund state schools and government jobs.”

All taxpayers, yes, of all different beliefs, or none. Of different genders as well. That’s why the schools must remain neutral in the face of religion. That’s why they cannot endorse views and practices that contradict with the principle of equality between men and women, for instance. That’s why they cannot become areas for religious indoctrination.

All citizens are submitted to the law of the state, not to the beliefs or one religion or the other. The law of the state is secular, hence all citizens paying taxes accept the state’s own environments and educational institutions will remain secular.

“Conservative Muslims are being made to pay for institutions from which, if they are women, they are excluded. If I was in that position, I’d be pretty pissed off.”

That’s turning the whole thing on its head.

Again, by the same warped reasoning, creationism should be allowed to be taught in state schools in the US, otherwise fundamentalist Christian paying taxes to fund those schools will be pissed off. Gay-bashing should be allowed to be taught in state schools, otherwise gay-bashers will be pissed off. Racist views should be allowed to be taught in schools otherwise the far-right racists will be pissed off…

Where do you draw the line there?

What you don’t really accept is that the line has been drawn at a neutral level, that of a secular system which allows freedom to practice ALL religions or none, to hold all kinds of political opinions or none, to think whatever you like of gays or women or other ethnic groups - but the state itself cannot endorse ANY of these views. That’s why all democracies are inspired by secularism. That’s the platform that sets basic rules, like separation of church and state, equality between all citizens of different genders, ethnic groups, religions, etc. If any belief is in contrast with those basic rules of co-habitation, you can still hold it, but you can’t use state schools attended by minors to spread it.

In other words, you can’t expect your positions to be given by the state more weight than the basic COMMON rules of the state itself.

It’s simple really! There’s no discrimination at all. What you’re advocating is a reverse concept of secularism, indeed, like SOS Racisme says, using secularism to push something completely opposite to what laicite itself defends. You’re advocating endorsement for all kinds of views even when these contrast with basic legal principles and human rights. You’re advocating the state give up its right to legislate on common principles.

That’s not how peaceful co-existence of different beliefs works.

“As an aside, it’s beyond me why someone hasn’t brought a case under the European Convention of Human Rights. It’s pretty explicit about Freedom of Religion…”

I assume you haven’t read the French commission report -quoting again:

.. The judicial aspect of the incompatibility of this law with the European convention on fundamental human rights, which has been frequently raised [by critics], has been examined and discarded by the Commission. The European Court in Strasbourg protects laicité when it is a fundamental value of the State. It allows limits to the freedom of expression in public services, especially when it is a matter of protecting minors against external pressures. In regard to the French constitutional judge, he allows that the law establishes specific rules for minors in order to ensure their protection. The same judge considers the need to protect the public order and to safeguard the rights and principles of constitutional value as a goal with constitutional value itself. The law proposed by the commission in this respect complies exactly with this imperative.

Ooops, sorry Luc, I hadn’t seen you’d quoted that already :)

As an addition, it is important to point out that the European Union is also based on the same concept of secularism.

Actually, all democracies are. Even if they don’t adopt the same standards in state schools, the principles underlying the legal system as neutral and a-religious are the same.

Randy : “Reactionaries of all stripes can get pretty easily pissed off by anything that doesn’t conform completely with their values. Their anger isn’t a convincing argument against that, though”

Ophelia:”Not to mention the fact that, of course, they’re not excluded.”

Exactly.
Not to mention the fact that not all French Muslims are reactionaries. A point many of the most passionate bashers of this law seem to overlook.

(Only to be quick to accuse secularists in France or even Turkey of “Islamophobia”! the irony)

Not to mention that, in the case of the strictest reactionary Muslim parents, it’s not them but their daughters, minors, who will be attending state schools.

Where the idea is the state decides on state education, not the parents.

And, lastly: freedom of religion is not being affected here.

I’m free to practice my religion. I’m not free to impose it on the state itself, on others of different religions, or of no religion.

If my religion dictates* I cannot be examined in class by a male teacher, or to join a physical education class, or to take a biology or sexual education class, or to go to the gym or swimming pool - then my religion will have to take a step back, take a look around, realise this is not a church school but a state school, and accept the role of the teacher is to teach, my role in this place is to learn, according to common rules that work for everybody and still allow everybody to practice their religion. Just not demand its views and practices that contrast with the law, as well as the basic functioning of school teaching and learning itself, be given preminence over the common law itself.

* of course, Islam doesn’t really “dictate” that, just as it never dictated the compulsory wearing of the hijab. That was, like the Commission report recalls as well, an invention of radical Islamist groups in recent years, for the obvious purpose of applying greater social control and pressures, which coincidentally almost always result in repression of human rights of women as individuals. See the Taleban dictatorship for most obvious instance.

All that is something those brandishing human rights to *defend* the hijab haven’t quite understood…

Ginger, the recontextualisation to which I was referring was, if for nothing else, analytical purposes. Namely, to see how this debate is fleshed out in other issues, in different places.

If you find no use for that, eh … so be it.

So according to the French a case wouldn’t have much of a chance to succeed

Governments have been known to make misjudgements about what is and isn’t permitted under the Human Rights Convention before, Luc.

Randy:

There are other reasons to oppose Turkish membership in the European Union, including Turkey’s poverty, its rapidly growing population, its (hopefully dormant) Kurdish insurgency in the east, Cyprus if that doesn’t get resolved, and the whole question of civil/military relations.

Large numbers of which apply to Romania, Slovakia, Latvia, Estonia, etc. I didn’t hear Giscard d’Estaing say their accession would ‘destroy Europe’ or that those who supported their accession were ‘enemies of the European Union’.

Reactionaries of all stripes can get pretty easily pissed off by anything that doesn’t conform completely with their values.

Including secular reactionaries.

Not to mention the fact that, of course, they’re not excluded

Ophelia, according to the Conseil d’Etat decision, conservative Muslim women in France are excluded from a career as a civil servant if they choose to follow their religious beliefs.

Ginger, Ginger, where to begin:

Not to mention the fact that not all French Muslims are reactionaries.

No, indeed. Nor are all women who wear hijab, nor indeed are all the husbands and families of women who wear hijab. By using ‘reactionary’ to describe them – a term with entirely negative connotations – you choose to demonise an unpopular and vulnerable minority within a minority. Do so if you choose, but I’ll happily point out what you are doing.

If what you mean is that not all French Muslims believe in hijab – well, so what? Does the degree of minority rights depend on the size of the minority? Does the fact that say, most French Christians do not believe in the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady mean that miraculous medals should be banned? Can we infringe the religious rights of Parsees because there aren’t a lot of them?

Not to mention that, in the case of the strictest reactionary Muslim parents, it’s not them but their daughters, minors, who will be attending state schools.

Similar laws apply to civil servants. What’s your justification for them?

I’m free to practice my religion.

If you’re a conservative Muslim women attending school or working in the Civil Service, you are no longer free to practise your religion in France.

I’m not free to impose it on the state itself, on others of different religions, or of no religion.

I am confused. How does my wearing a headscarf ‘impose’ a religion on those of other religions or none?

* of course, Islam doesn’t really “dictate” that, just as it never dictated the compulsory wearing of the hijab.

Whether or not Islam dictates hijab depends on the Denomination of Islam the Muslim belongs to, the school of Shari’a jurisprudence followed and to a certain extent local cultural factors. And obviously whether or not the individual is a practicing Muslim. Similarly, whether or not I believe it is necessary to attend Church on Holy Days of Obligation depends on the particular branch of Christianity I adhere to, as well as, obviously, whether or not I practise at all.

Some Muslims certainly think wearing hijab is crucial to their faith, and have done for more than a millennium.

That was, like the Commission report recalls as well, an invention of radical Islamist groups in recent years

If that’s what the Commission report says, the Commission report is, well, completely wrong. Hijab goes back centuries,

As an addition, it is important to point out that the European Union is also based on the same concept of secularism.
Actually, all democracies are. Even if they don’t adopt the same standards in state schools, the principles underlying the legal system as neutral and a-religious are the same.

Well here I disagree a bit with you, ginger.
Altough the principle of separation of state and religion is present in almost any democracy, it is not implemented in the same way. Sometimes for historical reasons, like the state religion in the UK and the state financing churches in Germany, and sometimes because of principal reasons. The secularity can conflict with the freedom of religion.

To quote the part about law from the French report about laicite:

The European Court in Strasbourg protects laicité when it is a fundamental value of the State. It allows limits to the freedom of expression in public services, especially when it is a matter of protecting minors against external pressures

It implies two things - first that laicité is not a fundamental value in all states, and second that laicité limits freedom of expression.

But at least France is clear about it’s secular principles, and has a proper implementation in law. Whereas many other countries have a rather flawed implementation in law of the principle of separation of religion and state. And this leads to a lot of ambiguity about this subject.

Brad: but the problem I see in the discussions of this is that there is not enough knowledge and acknowledgement of the specific context and framework of this law.

We all know already what believers who are fond of strict, traditional Muslim views of women and of religion think. They all portray the state setting its rules in its state schools as interference and attack-on-freedom-of-religion.

What we don’t hear a lot is discussion on the actual legal basis for legislating, as is outlined in the Commission report on how to re-assert “Laicité”, which like it or not is a fundamental constitutional principle for France, in schools.

Young Fogey: I wasn’t the one to use the term reactionaries, I was referring to people who accuse the French legislators and supporters of this law of discriminating against Muslims, an interpretation which equates “reactionaries” (fundamentalists, traditionalists, etc.) with all Muslims.

So your argument shouldn’t be with me on that.

Regarding my insistence that not all Muslims are “reactionaries” or whatever you want to call religious fundamentalists:

If what you mean is that not all French Muslims believe in hijab – well, so what? Does the degree of minority rights depend on the size of the minority?

Nope, absolutely not. In fact, the main point here, stripping down the whole issue to its legal core, is quite simply that the state has a right to legislate on its state schools in order to enforce those principles of secularism and equality already enshrined in the constitution, hence, already at the foundation of the state.

And that right to demand its common rules of equality and integration on a secular basis be respected is totally independent of the size both of those approving this law, or of those disapproving of it. No matter how popular or unpopular this law is, it is still 100% in line with the legal system in France.

(As well as in all secular democracies, but the French application of secularism is indeed a more treasured - and more threatened - principle than elsewhere in the west, for instance).

My intent, therefore, was simply to point out that there are different positions, even among Muslims in France, so perhaps those using the “intolerance against Muslims” argument should consider that.

If you’re a conservative Muslim women attending school or working in the Civil Service, you are no longer free to practise your religion in France.

Ok, where do we start here, cos you seem to be talking about Mars, not the real world, not France…

- schools are not places of religious worship, but of education
- Sstate schools are places for state education
- the State, according to the principles set in its own constitution and laws, which like in any democracy are upheld by the representatives of citizens, sets the rules for its own state education
- everyone is free to practice their religion, what they’re not free to do is demand that in state schools their religion take precedence over the state’s own rules

All clear so far or..?

I am confused. How does my wearing a headscarf ‘impose’ a religion on those of other religions or none?

You are indeed very confused. You may start with reading all of the Commission report quoted above, for instance. While reading it pay particular attention to the practical cases mentioned as origins of the problems that inspired this law. Pay attention to the items brought up by teachers, for instance. You may also read SOS Racisme’s statement, quoted above.

Since you have no first-hand experience of the situations mentioned, reading about them should be enough in getting at the least the beginning of a clue.

Otherwise we may as well be discussing the pop charts.

Some Muslims certainly think wearing hijab is crucial to their faith, and have done for more than a millennium.

Not really, since it’s a recent thing. It certainly isn’t in the Koran, for instance. But ok, that’s a debate for Islamic courts and imams, not that relevant here.

What’s relevant is that even if 99% of Muslims enthusiastically and freely and liberally approved of the wearing of the hijab and all that’s associated with it in terms of behaviour of girls in class as dictated by fundamentalists (again, see practical instances quoted above) and views endorsed by that practice, even if it was a practice that’s 50,000 years old and engraved in gold on the sacred black stone in Medina, and written in clear and perfect Arabic in the Quran, it still would not matter to the French state in setting its own rules for its own schools.

Unless, that is, you want to give more weight to fundamentalist views than to the legal principles of equality and secularism.

That might be one position. But the fact is, it’s not a position that’s compliant with the legal system in France. And since it’s the legal system in France, not fudnamentalists, who decide to what principles state education should be inspired, well, it’s a no-brainer really.

The state schools are submitted to the state, and the state law is not submitted to religious beliefs. End of story.

I read sometime ago about a sheikh in Syria or Lebanon (I can’t remember) who issued a fatwa approving the French law banning religious symbols in French schools. He got the Muslim Brotherhood (the mother of all fundamentalist organizations, and the one which conceived of the practice of the hijab as tool of political-religious radicalism) very angry, and they all obviously issued counter-fatwas. But what’s interesting is his motivation, which went: yes, the hijab is a dictate all Muslim women should adhere to; but France is not a Muslim country, it’s a secular one, so if you go to state schools in France, you have to respect the laws of France, otherwise, don’t go to state schools in France.

That imam has understood the legal principles there beautifully.

And mind you, he does approve of the practice of the hijab in itself, and he’s a conservative Muslim too. A “reactionary”. But he knows and accepts the borders between religion and state, in a secular democracy at least.

… and that (understanding the concept of separation of church and state, and the concept of who gets to decide rules for state schools in France) is something that some self-professed “secularists” attacking this law as “interference with freedom of religion” don’t seem to be able to do…

What’s sad is that many of the people talking here, who have no experience of the current French culture, do not understand that this is an appeal to the vast Front National vote: the racist, far-right xenophobe party, and very important since it nearly took last presidential elections.
This law appeals to the “arab”-haters, and with a feminist bone thrown in, the other side of the political spectrum approves as well!
Never mind that this law will actually cause so much damage. Very clever politics, but bad policy.

Matthew
What’s sad is that many of the people talking here, who have no experience of the current French culture, do not understand that this is an appeal to the vast Front National vote: the racist, far-right xenophobe party, and very important since it nearly took last presidential elections.

This is ridiculous. You can criticize secularism without using insults.
80% of the opinion support the Law. Socialists and most Trotskyists support the Law. Are you accusing them all of being racist?

BTW, the FN did not “nearly take the presidential elections” except if 17% vs 82% is within your conception of “nearly”.

Randy:

There are other reasons to oppose Turkish membership in the European Union, including Turkey’s poverty, its rapidly growing population, its (hopefully dormant) Kurdish insurgency in the east, Cyprus if that doesn’t get resolved, and the whole question of civil/military relations.

Large numbers of which apply to Romania, Slovakia, Latvia, Estonia, etc.

But not nearly to the same degree. Let’s take the example of According to Eurostat figures, the last three countries you cite have seen some degree of convergence with European Union average GDP per capitas since 1995. Romania has stagnated.

Turkey stands out with Bulgaria as being the only potential European Union member-state to have suffered relative decline. Bulgaria, though, has a falling population of less than eight million people, and is so a relatively affordable burden. In fact, all of the non-Mediterranean applicant states to the European Union have stable or declining populations, with demographic patterns increasingly dominated (as in the EU-15) by low fertility rates and growing levels of net immigration.

In contrast, Turkey has a growing population of more than seventy million. Turkey is beginnings to show signs of becoming a country of net immigration, but as yet these signs are equivocal.

And granted that other applicant states have had problems with political and ethnic pluralism. Turkey, however, stands out as fairly unique in the magnitude of its problems. Poland hasn’t killed thirty thousand Ukrainian rebels in its southeast over the 1990s; Romania hasn’t invaded Moldova to transform Romanian-speaking areas into an unrecognized satellite state; Hungary’s military hasn’t staged silent coups against democratically-elected leaders.

I didn’t hear Giscard d’Estaing say their accession would ‘destroy Europe’ or that those who supported their accession were ‘enemies of the European Union’.

No. Remember in 1990, though, when Mitterand suggested that rather than allow poor and potentially quite unstable central European states to join the then-EC, a broader European Confederation should be set up to keep them on the margins of Europe?

Right now--economically, politically, socially--Turkey is about as prepared for European Union membership as Poland in 1990. It’s making great strides towards the model of a democratic and reasonably prosperous European society; what it has to do is consolidate those gains, and advance still further. You don’t have to b

Reactionaries of all stripes can get pretty easily pissed off by anything that doesn’t conform completely with their values.

Including secular reactionaries.

Demanding that people who don’t want to be pressured into joining a conservative religious subculture be guaranteed some degree of autonomy is hardly reactionary.

True. No one here, though, is advocating (say)

If that’s what the Commission report says, the Commission report is, well, completely wrong. Hijab goes back centuries

Modesty is a requirement. The hijab per se is not; as it is currently worn, however, is a neologism invented in late 20th century Lebanon.

I’m happy to see that ginger has abandoned all pretense that the ban is for the good of Muslims girls. If France wants to doom the Muslim girls whose parents will pull them from their main secular contact, it can certainly do so. I just objected to the idea that it was done for the good of those girls.

As for the European Court allowing the ban, I’m unsurprised that France believes there isn’t a case against it. France believes that EU rules are for France to dictate to other countries. They certainly don’t apply to France. See also economic ’rules’.

Oh, I’m so sorry, am I looking at actions instead of words again? How simplistically American of me.

Mr. Holsclaw:

I’m happy to see that ginger has abandoned all pretense that the ban is for the good of Muslims girls.

Um, no. No one said that it can save all Muslim girls from oppression. All that has been said is that it’s the best solution possible, which certainly does not imply that it’s a complete solution.

What would you recommend?

I would recommend that the police actually crack down on the gangs who treat non-hijab wearing women as ’whores’.

I would recommend that you set up a system of escape homes if these girls want to get away from the oppression of their fathers.

I would recommend engaging with Muslim leaders who are not so willing to ghettoize their people as the current leaders seem to be.

I would recomend not allowing these girls to be pulled from smchool for at least six months.

In short I would recommend dealing with the real problems, as opposed to dealing with the symbols of the real problems. France as for too long allowed the Muslim ghettos to be ruled differently. This isn’t a step in correcting that. This is only a step in making it less obvious to the naked eye.

And you say this is the best solution possible. For what problem exactly? It is no solution at all for the child who gets pulled from school. It is no solution at all for the girl who is subjected to more abuse from her neighborhood when she goes to school without the hijab. It imposes rules on Jews and Christians for no apparent reason.

Is the problem that religion exists at all? If so this is really a poor solution.

I would recommend that the police actually crack down on the gangs who treat non-hijab wearing women as ’whores’.

Sebastian, for the 100th time, continuining from the discussion at CT: not all parents who pressure their girls into wearing the hijab are doing so in a violent way. Not all fundamentalists are thugs. Those gangs are already being cracked down, like any other gang of any religious/ethnic group, when they actually do commit crimes, abuses, violence.

The state cannot act on families who have brought up girls according to the strictest views on women but without abuse or violence. There are girls who have received a strict religious education, not necessarily a violent one.

The state can act on its own schools to make sure those pressures, even of the non-violent and gentle kind, are not endorses in a state, secular, neutral education environment.

If you want to teach your kids creationism, the state cannot prevent you. If you want to teach your kids gays are evil, the state cannot prevent you. If you want to teach your kids premarital sex leads to damnation, the state cannot prevent you.

If you, however, like fundamentalists here are doing, want those views to be accepted into the state’s own schools, then the state has a constitutional right and duty (for the sake of equality for all citizens) to prevent that demand of yours is accepted.

What’s still not clear about that?

I would recommend that you set up a system of escape homes if these girls want to get away from the oppression of their fathers.

That’s a good idea. There are already organisations like Ni Putes Ni Soumises, and other women’s groups helping girls in case of abuse. There should be more, of course. There’s never enough, and not just in France. There’s also social services. And then there’s teachers and social workers in schools. See, I don’t understand how advocating that kind of help for girls submitted to abuse and or pressures should EXCLUDE the state’s right to keep its schools secular.

Don’t you think that, for those girls already at odds somehow with the pressures for hijab-wearing, now that they have the chance of an environment that’s entirely free of those pressures, they’ll be even more encouraged to come out and rebel against those pressures elsewhere?

Or do you only envision the girls-being-pulled-out-of-school scenario?

That doesn’t cover all the different cases and outcomes.

I would recommend engaging with Muslim leaders who are not so willing to ghettoize their people as the current leaders seem to be.

The Interior Minister has set up a Council of Islam, officially recognised by the state. Wehther it’s a good idear or not is beside the point here, but it does show the state is indeed engaging with Muslim leaders. But I don’t know of any means where it can enforce, in the short term, a reformation of fundamentalist Islam. I’m afraid that’s just not possible by way of state intervention.

Secularism also involves the state does not mess with the church’s own affairs. It’s up to the religious groups.

I find it so curious that you don’t want the state to intervene where it has a legal right and duty to, but you vaguely suggest it should intervene where it cannot.

It cannot do more than talks and exchanges with religious groups; it can set laws on its own areas of competence.

I would recomend not allowing these girls to be pulled from smchool for at least six months.

Not allowing as in by decree? by law? You want the state to abolish the right for any parents of any religion to choose private schools instead of state ones? That’s not possible. Whether you or I would like it or not, it just cannot be done. Not in France, not in the US, not anywhere there are private schooling systems recognised by the state.

If that’s your idea of arguing about facts and actions…

It is no solution at all for the child who gets pulled from school. It is no solution at all for the girl who is subjected to more abuse from her neighborhood when she goes to school without the hijab.

And that should be the fault of this law?

It sets a rule. There’ll be many Muslim parents who accept this rule, and they already have; there’ll be others who don’t accept it, but their option to put girls in private schools was there even before. The most fundamentalists were already putting their girls into religious schools, either Catholic or Koranic.

The girls whose parents are not forcing them to wear a hijab as of today, or who have successfully rebelled against their parents if these were pressuring them, may be already getting insulted in their neighbourhoods by the fundamentalists and mysoginists and reactionaries.

So just because that happens, we should accept it’s better for the girls, even those who are *already* rebelling or inclined to rebel, to comply with these pressures, so as not to get insulted?

That’s exactly buying into the fundamentalist idea of women as “provoking” men, lock stock and barrel.

Very similar to the “provoking rape” idea…

I’d love it if there were no religious schools where religious fundamentalists of any kind get to educate minors according to their views. It makes me cringe to think young kids, minors, subjected to such pervasive choices that aren’t their own by their parents. But these schools exist. And they’re an option for everybody. If they can afford it, if the school is near enough, if the pros they perceive are greater than the cons.

Now, state schools also exist. And they’re also a more accessible, not to mention free, option for everybody. And they’re not run by religious fundamentalists.

Should those schools act only on the basis of a “competition” with those religious private schools? Should state schools accept fundamentalist views just so they can “get” more pupils from private ones?

You can’t grant that’d be the result; you can only grant the result would be state schools lose their autonomy to fundamentalists, and disregard their own principles of equality and secularism.

No law is perfect. With this law, there will be parents who will SADLY pull out their girls from sate schools to go for private schools, an option they always had anyway, and whose abolishment would, if it was even legally conceivable (which it isn’t), provoke 10,000 times the controversy this law has provoked…

On the other hand, without this law, you’ll keep subjecting everyone in the state schools - including the girls wearing a hijab, and those not wearing it, and then those whose parents would be likely to accept the compromise of girls not wearing a hjab in exchange for free state education; and then of course everyone else from other pupils to teachers - to the views and demands associated with the hijab, such as exemption from certain classes and from speaking to male teachers, etc.

You’ll “fundamentalise” state schools just because of the demands of some fundamentalists, who incidentally represent only a fraction of the Muslim community.

All laws are compromises. But I think the one you envision would be a far worse compromise, for the girls themselves. The message would be one loud clear victory for fundamentalists, and bye bye to the hope of helping all those young girls to grow up in a pressure-free environment…

At the bottom, there’s still the “strict” and “heartless” issue of secularism and the right of the state to legislate on its own area of competence. But there is also a clear and obvious concern for the girls, as is explained also with practical instances in the Commission report, and as has been voiced by those Muslim women and organization in their defense who support this law.

With this law, you have a larger chance of reaching more girls; without it, you give up on that very possibility.

You can’t make laws based only on the pre-existing choices of some fundamentalists and ignore everything else.

Randy McDonald writes:

Modesty is a requirement. The hijab per se is not; as it is currently worn, however, is a neologism invented in late 20th century Lebanon.

That may very well be the case (I have no idea myself, but you seem to have looked into it, so I will defer to you). But even if the hijab were invented yesterday, that would matter little.

Modesty, as you say, is a requirement. As I understand it, one corollary of that requirement is some kind of head-covering. (The exact nature of the head-covering doesn’t seem to matter; some French Muslim women have worn the tricouleur on their heads to protest that they can be good Muslims and good Frenchwomen at the same time.) If the hijab in its current form is a relatively modern invention, then I suspect it had one of two origins (or possibly both):

1. It was invented to allow women to cover their heads after they had generally adopted western garb that did not lend itself to coverage as would, say, the burqa; or

2. Conservative as it might seem to us, it was adopted as a modern, less restrictive replacement for the burqa or other forms of total coverage.

In much the same way, I would imagine that the kippa or yarmulke - the skullcap worn by observant Jewish males that is often so small it must held on with a hair-clip - evolved as a means of allowing Jewish men to fulfil the requirement of head-covering in a minimally intrusive way in an age when men generally no longer wear hats. (Any hat will do, you know; there is nothing specifically ’sacred’ about the kippa, and one might just as well wear a baseball cap; I’ve known a number of observant Jews who do just that, and not because they are in France and afraid of being attacked.)

Again, the ’dog collar’ worn by RC and some protestant clergymen as a badge of office has changed quite a bit from its (I believe) renaissance origins. It was not originally the little white band, but rather a stand-up collar like that of a ’Nehru jacket’; apparently only clergy wore such collars. The white band we see today is the vestigial remnant of the handkerchief priests would wear beneath the collar to protect it from sweat and dirt. Though it looks quite different to what it once was - so much so that a renaissance priest would probably not recognise the modern version for what it is - the idea is the same: a distinctive garb identifying the clergyman’s office.

Forms of observance may change with time, but they can do so in a way that preserves their substance.

By the way, it’s a bit OT, but given your surname perhaps not entirely without interest. As with the hijab, there is nothing ancient about the Scottish kilt. The modern version - the one you will, as Bierce once wrote, see worn by Americans in Scotland and by Scots in America - was invented in the 19th century by an English Quaker. Yet it would perhaps be unwise to intrude upon a Burns Supper, especially after a few drams had been taken, to reveal to the assembled Scots that they were wearing nought but a Saxon’s skirt.

Ginger responds to Sebastian:

:It is no solution at all for the child who
:gets pulled from school. It is no solution at all
:for the girl who is subjected to more abuse from
:her neighborhood when she goes to school without
:the hijab.

And that should be the fault of this law?

Not the fault of the law as such, but the fault of the state that enacted the law, if the law is its only action in this regard.

Unlike you, I think this law both offensive per se and likely to lead to other, and less desirable, results than those it aims at. Here we disagree, of course. But I will go further, and hope that here you will agree with me: if this law represents the sum total of the French state’s action to facilitate integration of observant Muslim citizens, then it will be both farce and failure. I do not like this law, but my disaste for it would be mitigated if the state, at the same time it bans hijab-wearing pupils from state schools, would also undertake serious efforts to crack down on the violent gangs roaming the banlieues, to improve access to both academic and vocational education, to facilitate the entry of young and poor Muslims into the corridors of French society.

Mrs. Tilton, you say:

If the hijab in its current form is a relatively modern invention, then I suspect it had one of two origins (or possibly both):

1. It was invented to allow women to cover their heads after they had generally adopted western garb that did not lend itself to coverage as would, say, the burqa; or

2. Conservative as it might seem to us, it was adopted as a modern, less restrictive replacement for the burqa or other forms of total coverage.

Wrong on both counts. Anecdotal evidence: my parents, grandparents and great-grandparents are/were devout Muslims. All our family photos testify to the absence of the “hijab” (the word really applies to the practice, but for the sake of coherence, I’ll use it for the popular article of clothing). At most, on occasion, my grandmother wore a shawl and or a scarf (a true foulard, not the dedicated concoction called the “hijab”).

All evidence is that the hijab sprung up among Shiite Muslims in Lebanon and Iran in the 1970s, in the latter case, first as a demonstration of their resistance to the Shah’s efforts at westernization, then as a sign of allegiance to the Khomeini revolution. Elsewhere in the Middle East, the hijab, in several variations, was promoted as a sign of religious devotion (“born-again” Muslims, if you will) at a time when pan-Arab (secular) nationalism was discredited after the Six-Day War. As Wahhabism and other forms of fundamentalist Islam swept the Middle East and Muslim societies around the world, the hijab was adopted as a badge of religious militancy, particularly in Europe and America, often migrating from West to East (where, ironically, it was sometimes adopted as an item of fashion!). In short, the vast majority of hijab wearers (hijabis) were girls/women who had never worn any sort of head covering before. The hijab, as a former wearer (Rana) pointed out elsewhere, far from being any sort of accommodation by orthodox Muslims (in particular the men!) with modern, Western dress, was in fact a militant rejection of such dress. The proliferation of the hijab represents (to borrow Rana’s words) “the triumph of Islamism.”

Mrs. Tilton:

[I]f this law represents the sum total of the French state’s action to facilitate integration of observant Muslim citizens, then it will be both farce and failure.

Agreed, but did you see anyone disagreeing with you on this topic?

Randy,

I have not. But nor have I seen the French state doing any of these things.

Even if one views the wearing of the hijab in state schools as problematic, surely it is a minor problem compared with massive unemployment in Muslim neighbourhoods, poor education and gang violence. The state has yet to take effective action against these far greater evils. That it makes the hijab its priority shows either that it is opting for a cheap populist fix in lieu of any meaningful programme, or at best that its priorities are strangely ordered.

Tempest in a teapot. The French are simply rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Typical European solution these days, assault the symptom with a mallet and utterly ignore the underlying issue.

Mrs Tilton: I appreciate your arguments both here and at CT, even if I disagree, at least I can follow and understand your motivations for disliking the ban.

But I cannot attribute the responsibilities for fundamentalist pressures on girls, either preceding or following this law, to anyone else but the fundamentalists themselves.

It seems to me very unfair to blame the choices of reactionaries on the state, just like it seems unfair (and contrary to the idea the law is equal for all…) to demand the state cave in to their requests.

if this law represents the sum total of the French state’s action to facilitate integration of observant Muslim citizens, then it will be both farce and failure.

I understand that, I agree, but I don’t see it as the only measure. Haven’t authorities really done anything else than this law on laicite? Really? I’m not pro-French or anti-French, I don’t have enough to judge there, I’ve only lived briefly in France but as far as I could tell, I couldn’t see this total lack of efforts from the state. The problem is that i’s in recent years that fundamentalist groups have taken a stronger hold esp. among youths, and second or third generation immigrants. But the fundamentalists are not even the majority among Muslims. Most do not even go to the mosques.

Integration doesn’t mean all the efforts must be on the part of the state only, does it? If fundamentalists’s view of “integration” is that they should get their views endorsed by the state, I’m afraid they got it very wrong there. If those fundamentalists don’t want to respect a very basic principle of secularism and equality in state schools, then it’s clear it’s them who do not want to integrate. Should the state give up on integrating their kids and all the kids of non-fundamentalist muslims, who are actually the _majority_, because of the stubborness and well-organised opposition of a few?

The problem, as usual with religious groups where fundamentalists demand to speak for everyone, is who are you going to prefer dialogue with? Who are you going to give more consideration to, the many Muslims who have achieved and want the younger generations to continue to be able to achieve real integration, or the bold and vocal reactionary ones who refuse it?

Since the goal is integration, and equality, and concern for those youths, I’d say we should listen to the non-fundamentalists. Non-fundamentalist Muslims favour this law, because they want their girls to grow up in an educational environment free of fundamentalist pressures.

I find it very unfair to those Muslims who are in France precisely because it’s France and not Iran or Saudi Arabia, if we were to give more relevance to the voices of the fundamentalists and let them speak for everyone.

In general, also, I get the feeling the very existence of fundamentalists, and of “violent gangs roaming the banlieues” in France, is often blamed on the French state or on the racists among the French, rather than on the mentality and actions of those gangs and fundamentalists themselves.

I don’t know why this shift in responsibilities.

It’s like the fundamentalists always get away with it! It’s always somebody else’s fault…

If there is not enough policing of the banlieues (I don’t know that first-hand), then of course I agree there should be more. But policing alone is not going to change mentalities. It affects criminal behaviour.

Whereas rules about education do have an effect on mentalities directly.

State education is there precisely “to improve access to both academic and vocational education, to facilitate the entry of young and poor Muslims into the corridors of French society”.

If there are fundamentalists who prefer a Koranic school that’s 50 miles away and will force the girls to spend 3 hours a day commuting, and will cost them money, and will deprive their girls of the advantages of state schools, well, it sucks but there’s no law to prevent that.

Real hardcore fundamentalists have already been putting their girls through that kind of crap. It’s not a direct and exclusive effect of this law.

They can’t have it both ways, have free state education intended to give the girls access to integration, and then demand that state education should be tailored to suit their fundamentalism and hence deny integration and equality. That’s their fault and theirs only, and sadly, as always, the faults of the parents fall on their children, and all other actions should definitely be taken to avoid that as much as possible, but - given it’s not possible to force all parents to choose state schools - it’s completely wrong to cave in to the fundamentalist threat of “let us have it our way in your state schools or else we’ll make bigger Koranic schools”. It’s wrong for the state, wrong for the Muslim girls, wrong for the non-Muslim girls.

I bet that if the same demands were coming from some hypothetical fundamentalist Jewish group, everybody would be saying “and just who are they to demand state schools allow their repressive views of women to be endorsed and special exemptions made for their girls”?

If it was about creationists demanding their views be accepted in state schools - and issue that has in fact come up already recently - everybody *except the creationists themselves* would know who is right and who is wrong here, and would see it clearly that the state should not give up to reactionaries. Even if the “price to pay” for a part of those kids affected would be that they’ll be pulled out and shipped to creationists schools. A choice the creationists already had anyway, and are only using as threat, blackmail.

The Islamists have been very, very sly in managing this campaign of theirs.

I think in about 10-20 years, based on the demographics, the French are going to have alot more to worry about concerning Islam then some headscarf for Muslim women.

Will it stop at demanding to wear the hijab at state schools, though? Or will the next question be burqas and niqaabs (complete face coverings)? Then demands for sex-segregated classes? Special prayer rooms on school property? Halal-only food in the cafeteria? Exemption from physical education classes for girls to preserve their “modesty”? Exemptions from homework assignments during Ramadan? All or most of these things are being demanded in various venues of the West, including the US. How far is the secular state required to go to accommodate a religion that describes itself as “a complete way of life”? And if the secular state can’t or won’t draw the line somewhere, what exactly would be the difference between a secular state school and a madrassah?

Ms Tilton
The state has yet to take effective action against these far greater evils.

It may not have been reported in the English media but Bernard Stasi (the politician who headed the Commission on laïcité) presented also another report, on discriminations.

Nobody denies that immigrants (especially of African origins) are discriminated against when they try to find a job or a housing (they are roughly twice as likely as other French people to be unemployed).

This is a completely different issue and I do not see why laïcité should be mixed with economic and social discriminations.

The French are simply rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Typical European solution these days, assault the symptom with a mallet and utterly ignore the underlying issue.

There you go, stick to clichés and go on ignoring the majority of French Muslims who support this law precisely because they know it does affect a very crucial underlying issue of the influence and pressures of fundamentalists - an influence most French Muslims have been escaping from.

Why do most teachers, most Muslim women, and anti-racist organisations support this law? Whereas those against it in France are mostly the religious fundamentalists themselves?

Ever wondered about that?

Mr. Cook:

I doubt that, particualrly given the high rates of intermarriage and linguistic assimilation, and the low rate of religious practice, among French Muslims. One might have well predicted in the early 20th century that France would become a northern extension of Italy, linguistically and religiously.

Mrs. Tilton:

Even if one views the wearing of the hijab in state schools as problematic, surely it is a minor problem compared with massive unemployment in Muslim neighbourhoods, poor education and gang violence. The state has yet to take effective action against these far greater evils.

Isn’t this a fallacious argument--if the state hasn’t solved major problems, it has no right to solve minor problems?

I guess my problem with this whole thing is that the posters seem to think that the state (the government) of France owns the schools. My thoughts are that the schools are owned by the various citizens of the country and not the state unless you feel that the state also owns the citizens. If the schools are owned by the citizens then the rights and beliefs of the citizens are what should be respected and not the beliefs and rights of the teachers not to be incommoded. It just seems like the French in this case are letting the cart lead the horse.

If the schools are owned by the citizens then the rights and beliefs of the citizens are what should be respected

The law was voted by the majority of French representatives.

That’s how democracy works, you know, laws are approved with a majority, not a minority, vote.

Also in polls, it has the support of the majority of citizens. Including the majority of Muslims. Including the majority of Muslim women and girls whom this law is concerned with.

I agree with banning the Muslim headscarves, but not Christian or Jewish garb. Why? Because the headscarves are like gang propaganda or a KKK hood. They say “If you’re not a Muslim, you should be killed,” and are essentially a threat of violence to every non-Muslim, and especially every Jew. Even if the little girls don’t have those thoughts, wearing clothing that represents those sentiments should not be allowed, just as we (in the US) would not allow parents to dress their sons up in KKK hoods and send them to school.

“The law was voted by the majority of French representatives.

That’s how democracy works, you know, laws are approved with a majority, not a minority, vote.”

That doesn’t make it a wise choice, nor does it do anything to protect the more vulnerable Muslim girls. But we know, the outcome isn’t important the words and the process are the imporant thing.

Sebastian: of course you, having lived and gone to school in France as a Muslim girl, are 100% sure, without the shadow of a doubt, that this law is inspired by bad principles and wrong rules and will result in catastrophe.

I’m not happy about anyone being put in religious schools, but that is a choice that’s always been available to anyone in France as in the US. No law can prevent that.

On the other hand, there’s many practical examples and views brought up by those among its supporters who are affected by it, including the majority of Muslim girls and women, who seem like an indication to me that the advantages for everybody will be greater, and that the rule being set - or rather, reaffirmed - is right.

If you think yielding to the blackmail of fundamentalist parents is more important and ethical and useful than the effort to offer to all the girls and boys a space of equality and emancipation from religious and ideological pressures, well, that’s your opinion.

I’d just like to add my pointing out that this law was voted by the majority was in reply to Dick’s observation that the will of citizens “and not of the state” should be listened to. Since he overlooked the fact it had indeed been listened to, I just reminded him.

I didn’t say it was a “wise choice” _because_ of having a majority vote. It is a wise choice, in my view, for all the other reasons highligted here and elsewhere.

Agree to disagree but please at least read what’s actually written, not your own inferred conclusions. Merci.

DS: that’s nonsense, the hijab is not a KKK hood nor a death threat, and the principle of secularism in state schools must apply to all.

The kippa does not have the same meaning of disequality between men and women that the hijab has, but it’s still a religious identity symbol. If pupils in state schools have to accept that they’re there first of all as French citizens and not as Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, etc. - which they still can be everywhere outside of school - it’s got to work for everybody.

Try see what happens in schools in Northern Ireland and see if you get it…

The other interesting thing that’s not been discussed is that this law applies to political symbols as well.

I remember reading of a kid in a US school who’d been sent out of class because he turned up wearing a t-shirt with “Bush=murderer” on it or something like that. The teacher and headmaster were left to decide if it was appropriate or not on their own, and they decided it wasn’t. And this caused controversy, inevitably. Whereas if you set a clear rule for everybody that you cannot come in class wearing strong political statements of any kind, you know that beforehand so you avoid that arbitrariness of leaving the decision to each teacher or school.

So, even if convinced and orthodox Muslims believe that their women should wear that thing on their head, forbid them. Screw them and kick their girls off the school system. Secular fanatics have no repect for other people’s feelings. That’s why they hold this outragious and inhumane idea that Religion should be kept private. That is an insult and a total lack of respect for believers. And beware, because if secularist fanatics keep on persecuting Religion, they are going to provoke a tremendous uprising all over. The times are ’a changing, no more room for religious persecution anymore, without retaliation. Just watch and see….

Just a comment. If the French schools deny the belief systems of many of the students and parents of students in their schools and, in fact, do serious battle with those belief systems in the cause of secularizing the schools,how are these kids supposed to rationalize the belief systems of their families with the practices they are forced to participate in during the school periods. Also, if you are programming (which is what you are doing) the kids in schools, then how are you going to inculcate the free thought and questioning that is needed in order to become true original thinkers and developers rather than just being “yes men” to the all powerful state. It seems as if this practice is primarily useful to simplify the job of the teacher and to fit the kids into their little boxes so they can robotically march to the tune of the almighty state. Where does this all stop? How much programming is the population going to accept before they decide that enough is enough. You stated earlier that if the parents don’t agree then don’t send their kids to state schools. They are paying for the schools so unless you are prepared to give them tax breaks if they don’t send their kids to state kids, then I think they have a right to rebel at this policy.

“That’s why they hold this outragious and inhumane idea that Religion should be kept private.”

You’re soo right. I’m for making special legal exemptions also for mutilation, stoning, beheading, ritual killings and voodoo. I mean, it’s so inhumane to forbid those practices. They’re religious! Those practicing them are both convinced and orthodox. What right do we have to tell them it’s illegal?

It’s the return of the Middle Ages… and it’s all the fault of the Lord of The Rings trilogy. Hollywood. Bah.

“Chirac is right to be concerned: In Egypt, Algeria, and elsewhere throughout the Muslim world, Islamists read the number of veiled women as a vital statistic through which they can calculate their power and advertise it. A large surge in those women’s numbers indicates a big problem for the ruling government.”

From “The Gentle Jihadist (Tariq Ramadan)” by Lee Smith in the current issue of The American Prospect [www.prospect.org/print/V15/3/smith-l.html]

Dick: let me understand, you’re concerned about “brainwashing” from the state simply because it doesn’t want its schools to turn into proselytising ground for religious fanatics, and you’re not concerned about that proselytising from religious fanatics??

You see children being forced to robotically march to an almighty tune of the great Islamic nation in the madrassas in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and Iran. How can that be less outrageous than trying to prevent state schools in a democratic country turn into madrassas, I don’t know.

Dick, my 2 cents:
Education is in a way always “programming”. In teaching you try to transfer knowledge and values that are seen as important for society. In a public school this is done independent of religious opinions.
Should we ban evolution theory because some religions don’t agree? To them it’s programming, to me its science.

Btw, Muslims (or Catholics or Jews, or whatever religion) are free to start their own schools, the French Gouvernement will even subsidize them.

Pierre -- I’ve got anecdotal evidence to counter your anecdotal evidence. My grandmother did wear a burqa when she was younger. Not terribly common among the educated, but not unheard of. Especially before WWII. So Mrs. Tilton is right, you are wrong.

My views on the whole issue have been expressed many times -- one ought not restrict women’s freedom under the guise of giving women choices. This attitutude is awfully common among Islmaists, and it is unfortunate to see the same misogyny popping up in France, and in the comments section of this blog.

This attitutude is awfully common among Islmaists, and it is unfortunate to see the same misogyny popping up in France, and in the comments section of this blog.

Inasmuch as the choice to wear the hijab is often only an apparent one with the outcome predetermined by fear of personal threat, it’s not misogynistic at all.

Btw, Muslims (or Catholics or Jews, or whatever religion) are free to start their own schools, the French Gouvernement will even subsidize them.

Indeed, but expect that fact to be ignored as well by those who don’t find it convenient to mention…

Subsidies are one form of “state interference” that no religious fundamentalists will ever, ever protest against. Funnily enough, getting money to build their own schools and places of worship won’t stop them from claiming they’re being persecuted and discriminated against just because they’re asked to adhere to laws.

How can any reasonable person with a capacity for critical thinking support that kind of attitude is beyond me.

Ikram,

All you are saying is that your grandmother wore a buqua. Very well. She is the exception that confirms the rule. My point remains: The vast majority of hijab wearers (hijabis) were girls/women who had never worn any sort of head covering before. That fact is not anecdotal. It is even -- proudly -- confirmed by the militants themselves. I can only repeat Rana’s warning: “hijab represents the triumph of Islamism”.

Pierre -- You had suggested that the Burqa was never widely worn in the past, I countered that you were wrong by providing an example (and I knwo many more). I am curious to know in what sense is my example ’the exception that confirms the rule’?

And you are right that wearing a Hijab is not just a religious practice (like Mass), it is also a symbol of resurgent ethnic identity and religious pride.

Randy -- Kingston is a town with a lot of prisons, and a fair number of prisoners out on furlough on any given day. Sometimes, as in any city, there are violent crimes against women. The misogynists would encourage women to stay home, not leave the house after dark. The better response is to ’take back the night’, and amarhc to that effect is held in September of each year (as I am sure you know).

Similar things happen in Montreal, and there women also undertake a safety audit, and then lobby the city for more lights, etc -- to make the streets safer so that women need not be afraid of violent crime.

The best response to gender violence and gender co-ercion is empowerment. To ’take back the night’. That first best policy response is the same in Kingston as in Paris.

To that effect, the government could have set up regular schools and no-hijab schools, giving women the choice. Or they could have subsidized private education for women driven out fo school by the prohibition on Muslim women (of a certain type). Or, best of all, they could have tackled the root of the problem -- Men.

They did none of these empowering things, what conclusion could one come to other than that France is not interested in the safety and welfare of women.

(On a side note, I see that Saar will be the fifth German Lander to ban headscarves. Unlike in France, German states make no pretense of religious neutrality.)

So we were all wrong! Rather than a grotesque badge of women’s second-class status and “the triumph of Islamism” [Rana], the hijab is really just a wonderful manifestation of multiculturalism, “a symbol of resurgent ethnic identity and religious pride”. Thanks for enlightening us, Ikram. I guess we can now lay all our worries to rest…

To that effect, the government could have set up regular schools and no-hijab schools, giving women the choice.

So a country with its own state schools open and free to all should set up a parallel set of schools only to cater to the needs of one small but vocal set of fundamentalists?

And all this with whose money?

Or they could have subsidized private education for women driven out fo school by the prohibition on Muslim women (of a certain type).

See above.

Plus, all religious schools already (sadly) get state subsidies from the state.

Plus, there is no “prohibition of women”. There is a rule all have to respect.

Take some history and law classes, it might help…

Or, best of all, they could have tackled the root of the problem -- Men.

Ha, really? and tackle how?

It’s not men, it’s not French Muslims, it’s not “all” or “most”. It’s “some” - an ideological, radicalised group of fundamentalists, also spurred in this campaign of theirs by the mullahs in Cairo and Islamabad, who have already issued fatwas against this law.

Ikram:

The misogynists would encourage women to stay home, not leave the house after dark. The better response is to ’take back the night’, and amarhc to that effect is held in September of each year (as I am sure you know).

Indeed. Quite a few French Muslim women have done just that--well, in the French context. Allowing the imposition of a regressive dress code by an unrepresentative minority, with threats of sexual assault if they dissent, simply isn’t acceptable.

To that effect, the government could have set up regular schools and no-hijab schools, giving women the choice.

Cf. the existing, partly publically-funded Catholic school system, which appears to be mutating into a religious school system generally.

Or, best of all, they could have tackled the root of the problem -- Men.

What Ginger said about it not being all men generally, nor all French Muslim men, but a militant minority unwilling to allow these young women in the secular public school system appropriate freedom of choice within the school.

It can be entirely compatible with a liberal society--if illiberal groups are threatening people in a liberal society, far better to actively constrain the victimizers than to passively allow the subordination of the victims. It’d be an easy thing to do in France--God knows that the banlieues specifically and French Muslims generally have been neglected over the past generation. It’s time that French Muslim women be allowed to enjoy the same rights to autonomy and freedom as their Christian, Jewish, and secular counterparts.

It can be entirely compatible with a liberal society--if illiberal groups are threatening people in a liberal society, far better to actively constrain the victimizers than to passively allow the subordination of the victims.

Indeed. I couldn’t argue with that. The problem here is that the French law contrains the victims and does nothing to actively constrain the victimizers.

So women being co-erced by men to cover themselves up cannot respond by arguing that they have freedom to dress as they wish. Their response is instead that state co-ercion trumps male co-ercion. This is not empowerment, it’s paternalism.

Allowing the imposition of a regressive dress code by an unrepresentative minority, with threats of sexual assault if they dissent, simply isn’t acceptable

Yes. No disagreement. The question is how France will deal with women (and girls) who volountarily choose to wear the regressive dress. The headscarf is seen by many women not as symbol, but as an act of faith (like Mass, not like wearing a cross). A government interested in empowering women would give these women a way to complete their schooling. (And perhaps, de facto, the Cathiolic schools system will do this. But by accident, not by design.)

But I have seen no sign that the government is France is trying accomodate and empower what it would consider to be ’fundamentalist’ (i.e. headscarf wearing) women. And in contrast, it has done nothing to limit the ’fundamentalist’ religious expression of Muslim men (see the bushy muslim beards). That’s why I consider the law, and its advocates, to be misogynists.

(Any parallels here with Reg 17 and the Manitoba Schools Act. Were the Orangemen right about Catholic Schools?)

The problem here is that the French law contrains the victims and does nothing to actively constrain the victimizers.

What Henry Farrell said, over at Crooked Timber, about legislation against pervasive social customs giving people subject to these customs a legitimate excuse to break from them.

But I have seen no sign that the government is France is trying accomodate and empower what it would consider to be ’fundamentalist’ (i.e. headscarf wearing) women. And in contrast, it has done nothing to limit the ’fundamentalist’ religious expression of Muslim men (see the bushy muslim beards).

Inasmuch as the hijab, as identified by fundamentalists and conservatives, works rather more drastically to limit female autonomy and freedom than the male beard, it isn’t misogynistic to focus on the hijab as rather more of a threat. hijab /= beard in this respect. Also, inasmuch as the publically-funded Catholic school system is operating as a sort of non-denominational religious school system, there is accomodation. Just not in a secular school system which has been actively hostile to religious symbolism since the 1930s.

(Any parallels here with Reg 17 and the Manitoba Schools Act. Were the Orangemen right about Catholic Schools?)

No, inasmuch as all schools involved religious content as an integral part of the curriculum, and Anglicanism and other Protestantisms were hardly kinder to religious minorities or women than Roman Catholicism. (We’ve evolved since then.)

That’s why I consider the law, and its advocates, to be misogynists.

Ha, beautiful.

So, to recap, all advocates of this law are not only intolerant, possibly racist, and definitely too annoying - they’re also mysoginists.

Including those 70% of French citizens, among which one presumes that approximately half will be women; and 40% to 54% of French Muslim women who also support this law.

Ignoring the existence and motivations of those views is clearly not mysoginistic, nah!

(Just like ignoring the fundamentalists are only a small fraction of Muslims in France is not prejudiced and patronising towards Muslims, nah!)

Those French and French Muslim women, and all the men who support this law, must all hate women. Indeed.

And why? Because they don’t allow fundamentalist men to get their way in turning the rules of equality and secularism in state schools upside down.

Absolutely flawless logic.

Because there’ll be some people who are so fanatical that they will not comply with a basic requirement of not forcing their younger kids to wear a veil and behave like segregated second-class citizens, will refuse the option of allowing them a space of emancipation, and instead impose on those kids the option of religious schools - an option already available to all and which the state cannot prevent -, it follows that the state, which exists to make rules for everybody, should give up on its rules for everybody, and let the fundamentalists - a minority within the Muslim community - have their cake and eat it too: send their girls to a school that complies with their own religious dictates instead of the state’s own laws, and for free.

Give up on the chance to offer all girls a space of emancipation, to allow the fathers of some girls to turn that space into a space of division and disequality for all.

This is sooo not mysoginistic, nah!

Let state schools be fundamentalised, in order to “compete” with fundamentalists and religious schools.

We might as well abolish state education.

Oh, except it’s free… tsk.

We might as well protest religious schools are not subsidised by the state, a clear form of discrimination… Oh, except they are subsidized.

Such solid argumentation, with such clear anti-mysoginistic principles, and such a solid legal basis, that I can’t but acknowledge the fundamentalists who issue fatwas against this law are geniuses, and I can’t wait til they get to power and legislate on everything… Oh wait, they do, in places like Iran and Saudi Arabia, where women enjoy wonderful equality because the mysoginist secularists have been silenced or put to death. Hey, if that’s what it takes to defeat mysoginy, so be it…

The French are in a catch 22 situation:
if they don’t act, new demands from fundamentalists will surface: segregation of boys and girls ( in classes and on the playground), Burka’s, no swimming, singing, drawing of faces, no biology etc.
If they DO act (and they did) they are accused of limiting the freedom of religious expression.

The French have chosen wisely that the curriculum (in terms of knowledge and values, based on rationality) are of more importance. In public school everybody is equal, male-female, Muslim-Christian etc. What denominations prefer in their private life is up to them.
The Law is for all French people equal, so is the public schoolsystem.

Randy, I think you’re looking at the purpose of the law slightly differently from me. I thought the law was supposed to be pro-secularist/anti-religion, and I’ve argued that it is a misogynstic way to enforce secularism (as it does not force secularism in the same way on male children).

You seem to be focusing on the law as a women’s empowerment measure, not as a vehicle for secularism. (These are two separate issues. If it were clear that religious people are not sexist, some Frenchmen would still argue that the law is necessary. But, from your arguments, I take it you would not).

I would argue that the law is also a sub-optimal tool to empower women. The headscarf itself is not inherently anti-woman apparel (which should be obvious from your recent trip to Ottawa). The context in which women are forced to wear it.

For some, it definitely limits their autonomy. For others that is not the case. The former may benefit from the French law, the latter suffer. I think it is possible to design a policy response to benefit the former group of women while doing no harm to the latter.

That fact alone makes it a bad law. But even if the government wanted to go ahead with a bad law, they could have packaged it is such a way to recognize that the headscarf is not inherently anti-woman, and that the government will to whatever it takes to mitigate the attendent damage(ie. to beef up laws prohibiting job discrimination based on relgious observance).

So, altogether, I think the law is a misogynistic way to promote secularism, a suboptimal way to empower women, and clumsily and insensitively handled regardless.

Randy, I think you’re looking at the purpose of the law slightly differently from me. I thought the law was supposed to be pro-secularist/anti-religion

See below.

I’ve argued that it is a misogynstic way to enforce secularism (as it does not force secularism in the same way on male children).

True. But then, male children don’t wear equivalents to the hijab. One can hardly call a measure misogynistic for dealing with circumstances facing only women.

You seem to be focusing on the law as a women’s empowerment measure, not as a vehicle for secularism. (These are two separate issues. If it were clear that religious people are not sexist, some Frenchmen would still argue that the law is necessary. But, from your arguments, I take it you would not).

The hijab as it is currently defined isn’t required to be worn by Muslim women--modesty is the key element. Inasmuch as the hijab is being forced on young women attending French public schools, as an emblem of illegitimate pressure applied to them to adopt a version of Islam which they don’t want and which is sexist, the two subjects (women’s empowerment and secularism) intersect. That the current legislation fits into a fairly long and extensive French tradition of prohibiting religious proselytization makes the issue easier.

I would argue that the law is also a sub-optimal tool to empower women. The headscarf itself is not inherently anti-woman apparel (which should be obvious from your recent trip to Ottawa).

Actually, it wasn’t. Several reasons for this.

Firstly, with the exception of two teenage girls, the only women I saw wearing headscarves of the hijab were in their 30s, at least. This admittedly casual and non-scientific street survey doesn’t suggest a large teenage contingent of hijab wearers.

Secondly, prosperous downtown Ottawa /= French banlieues, while the origins, status, and prospects of Canadian and French Muslim communities are rather different. Generalizing from the Canadian situation to the French is a difficult task of dubious value.

Thirdly, it’s quite possible to recuperate offensive and/or unwanted cultural elements for one’s cultural group--cf the use of racial epithets on rap albums. That can only happen, though, if people have the cultural capital needed to exploit and subvert these elements. Adults have that autonomy, and I’m skeptical about teenage girls.

The context in which women are forced to wear it.

For some, it definitely limits their autonomy. For others that is not the case. The former may benefit from the French law, the latter suffer. I think it is possible to design a policy response to benefit the former group of women while doing no harm to the latter.

OK. What policy would you suggest? The only alternatives I can imagine involve unacceptable police-state levels of surveillance.

For me, there were three critical elements, on the specific situation of French public schools, which made me support the legislation as it applies to these public schools:

• There is already a tradition of using public education as a way of socializing people in the norms of national society.


• There is already a tradition of aggressive campaigning against religious proselytization, active or inactive, on the part of students.


• There is a serious concern that many young French Muslim women, below the age of majority, are being pressured into wearing the hijab.

Consequently, this creates a need on the part of the French public school system--especially given the first two established principles--to try to relieve this pressure.

These factors do not operate in the private school system, and they do not operate in the public health system, or indeed in state bureaucracy. I believe I haven’t defended the application of the law to these other domains, though I do think that I should have made my opposition to the extension of this law to other domains clear. For this, I apologize.

That fact alone makes it a bad law. But even if the government wanted to go ahead with a bad law, they could have packaged it is such a way to recognize that the headscarf is not inherently anti-woman, and that the government will to whatever it takes to mitigate the attendent damage(ie. to beef up laws prohibiting job discrimination based on relgious observance).

Certainly possible, and definitely desirable. If this was the only way in which integration of individuals as equal members of French society would be tried, it would be a failure. I’m not sure, though, that just because the French government might not be doing everything, what it is doing should be disqualified on grounds of being insufficient.

So, altogether, I think the law is a misogynistic way to promote secularism, a suboptimal way to empower women, and clumsily and insensitively handled regardless.

I doubt that misogyny is involved inasmuch as this addresses problems specific to women, I’m aware it’s not as uniformly successful as it could be but alternative measures that wouldn’t ratify Islamist hegemony are unacceptable, and all state interventions into culture tend to be politicized by their very nature.