You’ve got to read this interview with Nawal El Saadawi. I like everything about her.
She still refuses to tone down her work. “I am very critical of all religions,” she says. “We, as women, are oppressed by all these religions.” It is religious extremism, she believes, that is the biggest threat to women’s liberation today. “There is a backlash against feminism all over the world today because of the revival of religions,” she says. “We have had a global and religious fundamentalist movement.” She fears that the rise of religion is holding back progress regarding issues such as female circumcision, especially in Egypt.
In a bid to address this, she has helped to found the Egyptian chapter of the Global Solidarity for Secular society. She believes religion should be a personal matter, and approves of France’s ban on all religious symbols, including the hijab. “Education should be totally secular. I am not telling people not to believe in God, but it should be a personal matter which should be done at home.”
“but it should be a personal matter which should be done at home.”
Funnily enough, this viewpoint is supported by the bible. Something seems to have been lost along the way.
What a wonderfully strong and brave woman!
Thank you, PZ, for bringing her to my attention.
I’d go much further than that:
Just as long as you keep your criminal ignorant delusions inside your skull, and do not let it leak into your behaviours. No-one need then know that you are entirely gullible.
Good luck, Nawal El Saadawi. You are a brave woman fighting for a very worthy cause.
Bravo lady, bravo.
I’m not a feminist because I believe our work is pretty much done in my area and that we are equal with men. (Surprisingly enough, we are mighty secular as well.) But that’s not the case everywhere on the planet. There are way too many oppressed out there. What a sad life.
‘I am becoming more radical with age,” says Nawal El Saadawi, laughing. “I have noticed that writers, when they are old, become milder. But for me it is the opposite. Age makes me more angry.”
Right on. Good find.
What a simply amazing woman. Thank you for bringing her to my attention.
Nooooooo no no no no no no. This is authoritarian bullshit. I also consider it to be a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights, though I don’t hold out much hope that the pusillanimous Strasbourg court will agree with me.
Imposing secularism by coercive force is no better than imposing religion by coercive force. The government should have no say in how people choose to dress, and it most certainly should not be able to ban them from wearing religious clothing or symbols if they so choose.
Nawal, Nawal, fighting superstitious notions,
Causing a commotion,
‘Cause she is so awesome…
Grrr this sort of stuff makes me so angry.
How anyone who isnt a heterosexual male could find religion attractive is beyond me, you’re fucked, literally, if you’re a woman in most religions.
Islam is particularly vile in that regard, it’s any insecure macho dumb guy’s dream, you can do the girls when they’re young, and stone them to death if they don’t comply, or dare to look at someone else.
How awesome.
Sick fucks.
Poor subjugated women; we’d better tell them what to wear
seriously, what’s the point of putting these women between a rock and a hard place? This should be a cultural battle against the requirement of wearing certain clothes; not a cultural battle between two legally and/or culturally enforced uniforms.
I would add that this argument…
….is also a dishonest abuse of words. The word “secular” can mean two different things.
Yes, government-run education should be totally secular, as should all government activities. But what we mean by “secular” in this context is that it should neither support nor oppose any religion, and should respect each student’s right to hold and practice his or her own religious beliefs or non-beliefs as he or she chooses. When we say that the state should be secular, we mean that the state should be neutral in matters of religion.
This does not mean that secular state schools should force pupils to leave their religious beliefs at the door. Just as it is a violation of human rights if a state school forces an atheist student to pray against his or her will, it is an equal violation of human rights if a state school forces a Muslim student to remove the hijab.
If it makes you feel better, I’ve seen a few students wearing a hijab on the campus of the universities Paris 6 & 7, even in classrooms during class, and nobody says anything about it.
or, if we’re going to outlaw culturally oppressive clothing, I’m voting against heeled shoes. they’re uncomfortable, they restrict movement, they’re unhealthy, and they’re a symbol of a sexist culture.
Oh, and I also agree with Jadehawk at #11.
I’m astonished that some people can’t see the irony of wanting to protect Muslim women from oppression by imposing laws telling them how to dress. If a woman chooses to wear the hijab, or the burqa, she has a right to do so, just as with any other clothing she chooses to wear.
Real respect for women’s rights comes not in forcing them to conform to Western norms of dress and behaviour, but in respecting their culture and their choices. I might personally find Islam irrational, just as I find Christianity irrational: but in a free society, none of us has the right to impose our beliefs and preferences on others. Muslim women have a right to wear the hijab, and all of us – atheist, agnostic, Muslim, Christian, and everyone else – who care about freedom have a responsibility to defend that right.
I would also point out that this French law, like other anti-Islamic measures in European politics, is motivated, at root, by racism and xenophobia. The people promoting this law don’t actually give a fuck, for the most part, about secularism or women’s rights. They’re simply motivated by an irrational hatred and fear of Muslims, stoked by the tabloid media and far-right political movements. Those of us who actually believe in secularism and women’s rights need to stand up against that.
To be precise, it’s France’s ban on all religious symbols within certain real estate premises owned by the public (eg public schools), and for all Government employees when at work.
wrt to the Hijab, there is currently a public debate so as to extend the ban to all the public sphere (ie including all places outside of private properties, streets, buses, etc…). It’s not done yet, but there’s a high likelihood it will pass.
Fuck. That is really, really scary. If that passes, France has lost any kind of claim to be a free and democratic society.
I don’t follow French politics much. Is the Conseil constitutionnel likely to review the constitutionality of the law?
(There is also the possibility of French nationals bringing proceedings against France in the European Court of Human Rights. But though the Court can rule on whether the law is incompatible with the ECHR, it doesn’t actually have any power to strike down the law.)
which would simply result in segregating these women out, and hiding them.
but hey, it’ll make France look a lot less overrun with them mooslims…
total idiocy.
You had been doing so well Walton, but you seem to have regressed somewhat.
Why on earth would you consider this to be authoritarian ? The idea of the ban is to empower woman, and remove the demand that women wear the burqa, even if they personally do not wish to do so. Evidence from France strongly suggests that the reason women there wear the burqa is not personal choice, but from patriarchal demands within the Islamic section of French society. Do you not think society has a duty to prevent such coercion ?
Walton, stop being such a fucking dickhead.
If you do not follow French politics much why do you think people want to hear your opinion on the subject ?
There has been extensive research done in France that has found the majority of women who wear a burqa do not do so out of personal choice. They are being coerced into doing so by their family, religious leaders and the attitude of the Islamic community.
At least the French Government is doing something about that coercion, unlike our own Government which is too cowardly so support such women.
you’re empowering them by forbidding them to do something, against their will?
does the contradiction not even register?
and these demands will not disappear with the ban; they will merely remove these women from spheres where they cannot go veiled.
instead, we should provide them with tools to fight the oppression themselves.
and they will continue to be so forced even after the ban. they will merely disappear from view.
you’re not helping, you’re merely looking for the easy (and wrong) solution to a much more complex problem.
It may fuck up my revision schedule, but I’m going to resurrect my defunct blog and write a blog post on this tonight.
Apart from the mass-homicidal anti-gay Bill in Uganda, this has possibly made me angrier than anything I’ve seen for weeks.
It is not against their will, which is the whole fucking point. The majority of French Muslim women do not want to wear a burqa. Those that do report they feel pressured into doing so.
Walton @15,
Good point, but generalising without caveats is problematic. It’s one thing for a private person in public, but there are other circumstances.
As one example, what about occupational dress codes (e.g. police officers in burqas)?
Walton, you really are being a total fuckwit.
I though you were better than this, but I guess some of the racism, xenophobia and misogyny that still lurks within the Conservative party has rubbed off on you. The fact that the vast majority of French women who wear the burqa do not wish to so does not seem to matter to you.
God, you make want to puke sometimes.
and what the bloody fuck makes you think the pressure will suddenly evaporate with the ban?
and what will you do against those women who find the pressure of their religious culture stronger than the pressure of the law? arrest them? write them tickets for their clothes?
or will you go to their homes and arrest their husbands/fathers/brothers instead?
this is the wrong way to go about this.
do not ban them from the public sphere because they do not have the strength/courage/resources to resist cultural pressure; instead, give them the social tools to fight cultural oppression from within: education, anonymous counseling, protection, tie-ins into the mainstream culture, free legal and cultural advice and counseling, etc.
Don’t fucking patronise me. You’re acting like an arrogant, pompous dick. And attacking me has no bearing on whether I’m right to criticise this authoritarian law.
(And if you want to go for appeals to authority, I note that several of the regulars, including Jadehawk, are on my side here.)
Again, don’t fucking patronise me. Islamophobia, and faux-secularism being used as a veil for implementing oppressive measures against Muslims, are a problem in Britain and across Europe, as you well know. This is not just a French issue. It’s an issue of European politics and society, which affects me, and it’s also an issue of European human rights law, in which I do have expertise.
It probably won’t. But it will give those women who do not want to wear another tool in their fight against oppression.
Fuck you, Penfold.
YOU are the one here who is on the side of the far-right Islamophobes. Not me.
fuck you. it isn’t walton who’s trying to legislate women without the power to resist out of public view.
does the phrase “damned if they do, damned if they don’t” mean anything to you?
What I am afraid of is the families shutting their children in. I have very personal reasons to be dead against sharia law, but I think this needs to be thought out carefully so that it doesn’t backfire.
Internet problems. I refreshed… let’s see if this gets posted twice (except that the last part is new):
…and if you can’t comment over there because you don’t have a WordPress account, do it here instead. That article also addresses the utter stupidity of heeled shoes.
(Blogpimping. It has to be done.)
That’s probably a big part of the motivation. In German that’s called Integration.
One of them is simply exposure. When everyone can plainly see that less extremely dressed women aren’t drooled over in public, the stated reason for wearing such a thing is daily exposed as ridiculous.
Forcing them to dress how the state tells them to dress is a “tool in their fight against oppression”?
Stop patronising these women. And stop pretending that we can use the blunt instrument of state coercion to end oppression of women in Islamic society. It doesn’t work, and it’s ignorant, authoritarian bullshit.
I will fucking call you out when you talk bollocks. If you do not like, stop talking bollocks.
In the meantime, take your whinge and shove it.
Another whinge from Tory-Boy.
I note you do not deny your ignorance on French politics, nor that you do not seem to regard that as any kind of barrier to forming an opinion.
Sure, and many believe it will be overturned, as they just did for the Carbon Tax law.
The amount of public time and money that’s spent on debating this Hijab thing is flabbergasting. It’s obvious this is just a diversion tactic of the Sarkozy government to get more votes from the far right.
We really don’t need this.
The current law is fine (ie the first part of what I mentionned in my previous comment). I know that Walton disagrees with me, but I think it’s worked well so far (a century) as a compromise between the wishy washy secularism I see doesn’t work in the US, and something which would become an unbearable form of Government authoritarianism.
ad hominem. I’m to the left of you, and I’m telling you you’re fucking wrong, and Walton is right.
Right then Walton. Explain how you solve the problem in France. You will need to provide a fair bit of detail if you want to be taken seriously though.
Matt, could you try to concentrate on the issues and dial down on the insults, it doesn’t make you look good.
Penfold, I have plenty of knowledge of French politics. I don’t live in France and don’t follow every detail. But I am fully aware of the history of secularism in France – as well as the serious problems today in French society with Islamophobia and racism towards Muslim immigrants.
Tell me, how much do you know about the Front National, France’s authoritarian far-right movement which uses criticism of Islam as a cover for racism and xenophobia?
If I weren’t so angry right now, I’d be laughing that you’re trying to tie this to my Conservative affiliation.
This French law is a right-wing law. It was promoted and signed into law by Jacques Chirac, a right-wing conservative President. It was supported by the right-wing French parties including the Union for a Popular Movement (the Gaullists). And the Islamophobia that underlies this kind of law, in France as well as Britain and elsewhere in Europe, is mainly the province of the political right.
YOU are the one taking the right-wing, Islamophobic, authoritarian side on this issue. Not me.
No it was a whinge, and Walton is a Tory.
Jeez Jadehawk, how long have you been here and you still do not know what an ad hominem fallacy is ? I was just insulting Walton, not commenting on his argument.
And yeah, you may be to the left of me, but that does not mean you are always right.
That’s why it’s important to give Muslim women tools to express themselves freely and tell them it’s okay to not give in to their husbands’ or families demands. (Also it must be made clear to all Muslim men that the Islamic law and subjugation of women simply don’t fly in western societies, no matter what their beliefs are)
The burqa and niqab are symptoms of worse problems, not the problem itself (except in situations where facial recognition is needed). Many of these women have been taught to feel shame about their bodies and faces and forcefully unveiling them will only trigger more of that shame and fear. I’m completely against these horrid rags as well but banning them is the wrong way to go about getting rid of them.
-Watoosh
No I fucking don’t. The onus of proof is on those advocating a restrictive authoritarian law, not on those opposing it. If you want to tell women how to dress, and restrict their religious freedom, you are the one who has to justify this.
As Jadehawk and I are both attempting to explain to you, deeply-rooted social problems, such as patriarchalism and culturally-enforced dress codes, do not always have easy quick-fix solutions. You cannot magically abolish these problems by legislating. And it’s frankly arrogant to assume that you or I can sit here and decide how to “solve” all the problems in French-Muslim society (or in any other society, for that matter) using the blunt instrument of government coercion.
Walton, you are the one who chose to join a party with a long record of passing laws that were racist and homophobic. If you do not like the past history of the Tories coming back to haunt you, you should have though twice before joining.
OK.
If you do not give a shit, I suggest you just go fuck yourself. Don’t let concern about real people impinge on your libertarianism.
you haven’t been commenting on his argument at all, dismissing him entirely based apparently on nothing more than a perceived “regression”, even though the banning of the veil is indeed a typical xenophobic, right-wing policy.
fuck it; it’s 7:30am. If I don’t leave this thread now, I’ll just end up skipping on sleep today altogether.
I’m going to bed.
The Conservative Party has fuck-all to do with anything anyone is saying on this thread. Support for freedom crosses party lines. Jadehawk and I have very different political views, but we are both telling you that you are wrong.
You are using an ad hominem. Your argument boils down to “Walton is wrong because he is a Tory”. You have said absolutely nothing of any substance. And you are being an apologist for an authoritarian, Islamophobic law.
Be sure to tell El Saadawi that she supports a xenophobic right wing policy won’t you.
Have you given any thought as to why Al Saadawi, and a number of other feminists with an Islamic background are supportive of the French law restricting the wearing of the burqa and veil in public places ? Why do you dismiss their opinions so lightly ?
…founded as Unité pour la Majorité Présidentielle, for the sole reason to give Chirac a majority in parliament.
(The French dissolve and refound their parties all the time.)
The pun is killing me :-D :-D :-D
At last we’re back to the argument…
This is true in a general political context, and I dont know what the French are on about with this to be honest.
I dont know if you remember the discussion we had regarding the islamic medical students/interns in the UK a couple years back, but there are instances where a burqa is just not acceptable, medicine would be one of them, where if you are not prepared to expose your arms to wash and disinfect unfortunately this renders you unsuitable for a job in medicine, because it represents an infection risk to patients.
No, I am just calling you a Tory as a synonym for uncaring bastard.
Be sure to tell El Saadawi that she is being used by right wing xenophobes though. Maybe she is unaware of the fact. Or maybe, just maybe, she might be better informed that you.
for the same reason I dismiss right wing atheists when they go off on rants about how we should bomb islamic states back into the stone-age. i think it’s a really bad idea, and won’t work as advertised.
sleep. now. fuck you all for keeping me up.
Yeah, and neither Walton nor Jadehawk have addressed it. Quite deliberately I suspect. It is kind of hard to argue a law is xenophobic and racist when an Egyptian feminist from an Islamic background supports it.
Walton,
I am not so old as to be formally registered as an ancient monument yet it is within my personal experience to have worked where women in trousers were completely banned. I have also seen women colleagues come under pressure not to wear trousers, always to wear stockings and had my own manager cite my wearing of flat shoes as evidence of a purely imaginary incompetence.
As far as I am aware, no member of M Sarkozy’s government is at this moment designing any uniform which must be worn by all Frenchwomen or even all Frenchwomen of Muslim heritage. You are going well over the top here.
As Matt says, the evidence that women wish to be free of the pressure to wear tribal dress from another land and another age is considerable. I thought you were in favour of freedom.
I also live in the next constituency to the one from which Ann Cryer is retiring. It was she who led the fight and did the research leading to at least some legislation to prevent forced marriage. Or should she not have done that out of respect for the freedom of the grandparents who were forcing 14-year-old girls into marriage with men they had never met and with whom, in some cases, they did not even share a language? C’mon, love, get real!
(I also think I’ve worked out who Matt Penfold is. Now, how do I find out if I’m right?)
The Democratic Party in America used to be pro-segregationist and the GOP was anti-slavery. Those things mean absolutely fuck all in today’s political arena.
Besides, even if they did, that’s still a giant red herring. A person can have questionable political opinions (and I’m not saying Walton has any) and still be completely right about certain things.
-Watoosh
El Saadawi hardly qualifies as right wing.
If you think it will not work show why El Saadawi and others are wrong. She is not the only feminist from an Islamic background to support the French law. And I trust you will agree she and the others are likely to be more knowledgeable about the dynamics of Islamic culture that you or Walton.
I also used to oppose the French law. I changed my mind after hearing the arguments El Saadawi and others put forward.
Which remains your only actual argument, and since it’s an argumentum ad verecundiam, a blatantly fallacious one.
I have no use for those who wish to forcibly “liberate” others. When has that ever ended well?
And to anticipate your usual style of rejoinder, fuck you too, asshole. I will not, by the way, waste any time attempting to discuss this with you since you’re clearly incapable of any such thing, to judge by your behavior on this thread so far.
Slavery was abolished over 100 years ago in the US. No one who was involved in politics at the time is still alive, let alone still in politics.
Clause 28 has only been repealed for about 10 years. A good number of the Conservative MPs who voted for it were still MPs when the election was called. A good number are standing for re-election. Not many have come out and admitted they were wrong to vote for it.
I consider it quite reasonable to partly base judgement of a person on the organisation they belong to. Walton is a member of a political party that has a poor record in supporting the rights of minorities. One could also mention Baroness Young, who at one stage led the Tories in the House of Lords, who did her best to wreck the civil partnership legislation.
Things like Clause 28 and those wrecking amendments should not be easily forgotten.
It is kind of hard to argue a law is sexist and misogynist when a woman, like Phyllis Schlafly, supports it.
Walton,
Remember that right-wing in France is about equivallent to where Obama stands right now.
Far right in France (Le Pen and de Villiers) is about where Bush stood.
wrt to the 2004 law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in public schools, bear in mind that most socialist deputies also voted for it and that 80% of teachers supported it (which are not known to be particularly right wing, quite the contrary).
This doesn’t means it’s a just law, but it means it doesn’t really qualify as a “right wing law”.
SGBM, please explain the picture.
I thought Walton was arguing against the proposed extension to the entire public sphere, while El Saadawi only talks about schools?
Yeah, just dismiss their experiences as being meaningless.
After all you, who have not had to put up with the kind of coercion involved in forcing women to cover their faces will be so much more knowledgeable that those who have.
Such arrogance, and yet I am the one who is accused of being authoritarian. Even though I am the one listening to those who are affected and you are the one saying their views do not matter.
I like the way you have decided that you will not discuss this with me. Good idea if this is the best you can do.
Oh, and please tell me why dismissing the opinions of Islamic women is not xenophobic and misogynistic.
Walton was arguing against me, and I was agreeing with El Saadawi’s position.
Again trotting out the argumentum ad verecundiam, as though the intensity of an experience tended to correlate positively with the rationality of the response to it. You still have no valid arguments (and they do exist, but you’re clearly too stupid to defend the law competently. With “friends” like you it doesn’t need enemies.) Go Cheney yourself.
I’ll also pick on this:
Why not? Religious beliefs have nothing to do with public education. There should be at least some protected space. Religious believers still have plenty of opportunities and places where to practice their religion outside of public schools.
the European Court of Human Rights upheld the laws of Turkey, which are even more stringent than the french ones on this matter.
It is kind of hard to argue an organization is racist and antisemitic when Jewish people like Dan Burros and Leo Felton are enthusiastic members.
That’s Ruckus.
No argument from you then. You cannot come up with arguments to counter those woman who speak from experience, especially those who live in France, so you say it does not matter. Their experiences have nothing to contibute right ? Even though they know the situation far better than you do ?
Jeez, but you are arrogant. An American Male telling French Islamic women he knows what is best for them, and they don’t.
If state force can be used to ban religious expression it can also be used to require it. Freedom of conscience is either unconditional or it doesn’t really exist. The French and Turkish laws exist for perfectly understandable reasons with which I wholly and deeply sympathize, but they are the wrong way to go about addressing the problems at which they are directed.
Er, Ruckus.
It is kind of hard to argue a law like Proposition 8 is homophobic and bigoted when a gay man like Roy Ashburn supports it.
I’ve gotta say, as much as I agree with her on the general principle of having a secular society, she’s wrong on one point – not all religions oppress women. She happens to be stuck in a society where she’s pretty much only been exposed to the ones that do, but there are some very liberal religions in other parts of the world – everything from Unitarian Universalists (who are mostly religion-friendly secular humanists) to Wiccans (who are Goddess worshippers).
So while I applaud her impressive support of secularism in the face of a very religious society, she should note that not all religions oppress women. I mean, heck, a few thousand years ago, in her own backyard, there were many Goddess-worshipping tribes and societies. Of course, those were subsequently squashed or assimilated or eradicated by the Jewish tribes… which set into motion the chain of events which led to strict patriarchal religions stifling progress and free-thought for millenia to come.
I’ve gotta give the Goddess-worshipping religions a bit of credit; they don’t seem to have any inclination to violence, or converting people through violence. They kinda do their woo-woo and don’t mess with people.
What does that mean? If state force can be used for something, it can also be used for something else.
The French law of Laicité (which is about as “holy”(pardon that word) in France as the 1st amend. is in the USA) bans the government from doing so.
And I can assure that that one is not ready to be overturned.
It means exactly what I said- it is a dangerous principle to explicitly allow any sort of government interference with freedom of conscience. The absolutism of our First Amendment seems to me a much sounder safeguard than explicitly conceding powers to the government whose use for ends of which you would disapprove is merely unthinkable under current political conditions rather than as a matter of basic constitutional principles.
El Saadawi is fighting against millennia of misogyny and oppression, and what gets people worked up beyond all reason here? A “take your stupid hat off” law in France. I’m not at all keen on legislating fashion, but jeez, if someone is going to get all fired up and outraged by El Saadawi’s comments, aren’t there about a zillion things about the mistreatment of women that warrant far more anger?
Steve,
Look again at the penultimate paragraph of my comment @ 56. Was the UK government wrong there? Whose freedom of conscience are we protecting? Surely not only the freedom of those who already have a disproporionate power.
If we take your case to its logical conclusion, will we once again have English serfs confined to the village of their birth unless they have permission from the sovereign to move.
And, remind me, what was that fight with George III all about? Oh, yeah, self-determination.
Sometimes we have to listen to people whose experience is different from our own and on this one I’ll take Dr El Saadawi any day.
I saw that article a few days ago. Nawal El Sadaawi is my new role model: a feminist, secularist novelist! I can’t believe I hadn’t heard of her before.
Either that or I’d heard about her but didn’t remember her, which is far worse on my part.
That’s nonsense. Not all religious beliefs can be left at the door. For many devout Muslim women, attending school without covering their hair is not an option. This is not like a Christian wearing a crucifix or an “I Love Jesus” T-shirt; it’s not an optional spontaneous generation of religiosity. It’s something that they believe to be a religious obligation. And it is not reasonable, in a free society, to force them to violate their religious beliefs in order to get an education. Education should be accessible to everyone, not just for those who conform to Western ideas.
There are Muslim girls who have shaved their heads, following the enactment of this policy, so that they can continue attending school. Think about that for a minute.
Matt Penfold keeps claiming that the vast majority of Muslim women are being forced by their male relatives to wear religious clothing against their will. He has yet to cite any evidence for this claim. And he has yet to explain why he thinks that the best way to set Muslim women free is to coerce them into dressing the way he thinks they should dress.
This law theoretically applies to all religious symbols. But in reality, it is targeted 100 percent at Muslims. It is a deeply authoritarian and deeply Islamophobic law.
It’s bad enough to ban students in state schools from wearing religious clothing. But the forthcoming ban on religious clothing in all public places is a thousand times worse.
Using the law to coerce people into conforming to a dress code is equally wrong, whether your objectives are religious or secular. Banning the wearing of the hijab is just as wrong and illiberal as requiring the wearing of the hijab. In both cases, legislators are telling women how they may and may not express themselves. That is not freedom, and it is not feminism. It’s an attempt to use force to impose cultural hegemony. And this French law should be condemned for the authoritarian, viciously Islamophobic insanity that it is.
This “outrage” exists only in your imagination. It’s perfectly possible to deeply respect El Saadawi, as I do, yet have a reasoned conviction that laws like the French one enshrine a dangerous principle.
I was being kind by refraining from comment on the blatant false equivalence outlined in that paragraph.
No, because we probably agree with her on the vast majority of topics concerning women’s freedom.
All the more important for us to separate ourselves from the People’s Front of Judea.
(Seriously though. You have a website that appeals to those who want a lively debate, and there’s sometimes limited space for debate.)
Sorry, Professor Myers, but that doesn’t cut it.
Young Muslim girls are being excluded from education – and, as I noted above, one chose to shave her head – because the French legislature, motivated by the desire to pander to popular Islamophobia and racist anti-immigrant sentiments, has imposed a deeply authoritarian law. It is not a “take your stupid hat off” law. It is a law that seeks to use state force to impose cultural hegemony. It is not OK.
Secularists need to stop giving rhetorical cover to this kind of authoritarian bullshit. I’m as secularist as they come: but freedom of, and from, religion does not mean that the state should ever interfere with the right of religious people to express their beliefs in public, in whatever manner they choose. It should not.
As for the millennia of racism and misogyny to which you refer: Yes, we should speak out against the way women are oppressed in much of the Muslim world. And we do, regularly. But we also need to look to our own doorstep. France is a democratic European country; some of the regulars here live in France, and many others live elsewhere in the European Union. While this kind of oppression is going on right under our noses, in our own communities, we have no right to lecture Middle Eastern countries on freedom.
The Koran simply advises Muslims, women and men, to dress modestly. Nowhere in the Koran itself, or in the Hadith as far as I know, is a specific garment or sleeve length prescribed.
The fear of the magical power of women’s bodies and specifically of their hair is a superstition which predates Islam and should, logically, have been abandoned as soon as the teaching of the Prophet was accepted.
Not for the first time, an old superstition proved just too useful to an authoritarian and patriarchal society. So it was not cast away as it should have been and is now being used to oppress.
And some here are willing to settle for that?
I see nobody here willing to settle for that. I see disagreement on the proper methods for opposing it.
No, we’re not. We just recognise that you can’t set women free by imposing more coercion on them. As Jadehawk says, it doesn’t make much sense to say “Poor subjugated women; we’d better tell them what to wear.”
The law is a blunt instrument: it is not always possible to solve complex social problems by legislating them away. By taking away people’s religious liberty, you undermine part of what it means to live in a free, liberal society: and you put many of these women in a position where they are forced to choose between following their consciences and participating in society. How many more times do I need to post the story about the 15-year-old Muslim girl who shaved her head in order to continue going to school? And banning the hijab in all public places will make it far, far worse.
Yes, by all means, challenge patriarchal societies and campaign for women to have freedom to dress how they want. I am not endorsing or supporting Islam by any means. But legislating to tell women how to dress is not feminism, nor will it actually improve these women’s lives in any way.
Around here we have a lot of German Baptists who dress ridiculously. The women in particular have to wear too many heavy clothes, and cover their hair. They hold to traditional patriarchal gender roles, and to grow up in such a family (or community, but most German Baptists do not isolate themselves to exclusive villages) is surely a stultifying hell.
Would it be productive to legislatively attack a symptom of misogyny here in the USA, and ban the bonnet?
There’s no need to patronise me, Steve LaBonne. If you have a case against me then show me some respect and tell me what it is.
I think, though, that you need to give more thought to how oppression happens. First you tell a little girl of 8 or 9 that it would be nice if she had a hijab like Mummy’s to wear. A couple of years later she hits puberty and you tell her she must wear it – or you will be very distressed. And so on and so forth until a habit of subservience and obedience has been created. How to you think Jim Crow managed to operate for so long?
Anyway, back to our now-teenaged Muslim girl in Bradford. Maybe she wants to be a doctor, or a fighter pilot, or an Olympic swimmer but she has lost ability to stand up for herself and she lacks allies in her family or in her community.
There is no false equivalence – just a total failure of imagination on your part.
Is that what he’s claiming? If he could cite anything, it would be a step up from the astonishingly stupid “it can’t be anti-X if some X-people approve.”
But only 13% of Muslim women in France regularly wear head scarves. Hardly an epidemic. Most French Muslim women are already free of this particular symptom.
The question is, why should women like Nawal El Saadawi be allowed to prevent other women from
using government servicesgoing out in public?Walton,
I’m not telling anyone how to dress. I will, though, ask you to find out whether every single Muslim woman you see Oxford – including those in the full burqa walking 5 steps behind their husbands – is dressed that way because she likes it or because she has been given no other option.
Then you’ll be in a position to decide what is good for other people.
If you really think banning child marriage is equivalent to excluding a girl from school– that is, from a place that can DILUTE the influence of her authoritarian family- for wearing a hijab, then it would be patronizing to give you a free pass because your heart is in the right place, rather than observing that that is a really bad argument.
@Maureen.brian #90 –
The question is – if the State outlawed the burqa – would that woman’s husband turn to her and say “hoh, well, nevermind you can take it off now” or would that woman then be erased from the public sphere?
We must think about the consequences of our actions. it would be nice if it were the former that happened, but if it were to be that world, we wouldn’t be having the debate in the first place. If it is not the women who are choosing to wear it, why punish and exclude them from the public sphere. One can deny that burqas are good for women while still denying that enacting laws that lead to the exclusion of women who are already subjected to levels of oppressive culture will make anything any fucking better.
Walton,
So if my religious belief says it’s an obligation to always display my penis with a glass jar around it, nobody should prevent me from doing this in school. Or my religion says it’s an obligation to wear a fur coat made from an endangered species. Don’t touch my religious beliefs!
In most countries in the world, it’s not allowed to walk around naked in the street. And the state enforces it. I think it’s perfectly ridiculous, that’s what my conscience tells me. I don’t hear you being all up in arms for such an authoritarian state imposing its views on people.
Or as Steve Labonne puts it, if state force can be used to ban nudism in the streets it can also be used to require it.
Also – how is Walton (great arguments by the way, dude) the one telling people what is good for them?
Exactly. It would take all day to list the instances in which damage has been done because well-meaning people have been more interested in feeling righteous than in carefully considering the the situation of their intended beneficiaries.
I am close enough to the action, Steve, to have seen that precisely the same arguments have been used in both cases.
It is in the most traditional families that the very dilution of influence of which both you and I approve prompts the “solution” of whizzing the poor kid off to Mirpur or wherever.
Now, tell me how you would deal with this conundrum.
@negentropyeater #93 –
The effect of the burqa is to erase women from the public view. The ban only leads to those women who are made against their will (or under false consciousness) to wear a burqa currently to *no longer be able to appear in public.*
Why on earth do you think that this would be otherwise?
So the ones who choose to wear traditional clothing because they like it … it’s better that they should be banned from doing so?
I am not disputing that the burqa is a symptom of internalized oppression. For a woman to prefer the burqa for herself is to seek relative power within the constraints of patriarchy, just as to advocate anti-abortion legislation is to identify herself as a “good woman” who should be treated preferentially.
But when a woman is self-identifying with the patriarchy, it is dangerous to set up a sectarian government that demands she choose between her community and the government. Raise the stakes, raise the stress levels, and people seek comfort with the familiar.
The French law says to that minority of Muslim women who wear the hijab: you may be Muslim in the manner you know, or you may be French in the manner we prescribe, but you may not be both. I do not understand how this is imagined to end well.
What conundrum? If you had any comprehension at all of what I’ve been saying, you’d know without having to ask that I would strongly disapprove of the schools that are being chickenshit about the posters. In for a penny’s worth of freedom of expression, in for a pound’s worth.
strange gods @98: beautifully put.
Both of those involve a victim, neg. In one case the endangered animals, in the other case those people who would be seriously traumatized by seeing your penis. (Nothing against nudism as such, but unwelcome nudity is considered sexual imposition in non-nudist cultures.)
A woman choosing to wear stupid clothing is committing a victimless crime.
Hypatia’s Girl,
I hear what you say and, yes, the state is a blunt instrument but surely one of its useful purposes it to protect freedom of expression and freedom of choice in matters like marriage.
How would you – see link @ 96 – deal with a section of society which does not want its women to know that protection under the law is available to them?
Quick break from working, and I hope someone can answer this for me.
From a link, the French law also bans turbans, yamulkes, and any other headgear. Can anyone tell me if they are enforcing Jewish males to remove their skullcaps? Are Hassidic Jewish girls forced to remove their scarves/hats/wigs? Are Sikh males forbidden their turbans? (I don’t know at what age they begin wearing them).
While I wouldn’t personally wear a burka or hijab, I won’t stop women who do wear them (and I work with many). As long as they don’t start mandating that I, as a woman, have to wear a dress/skirt/headscarf, I won’t mandate they wear slacks/bare heads/whatever.
I once had a woman patient who went from being a American (New Jersey upbringing) Christian to Muslim. She began, after her marriage, to wear the full burka. When I asked her about it, she told me that she chose to wear it, and it made her husband happy that she made that decision. Perhaps there was some pressure, but is that any different than dressing up to please your spouse in other ways? No one looks askance at a woman who dresses to please her husband.
While I understand about pressure from a young age, if these women/girls were given a free choice, who knows what they would decide to do?
Walton, I usually find myself lower on the libertarian scale than you, but I’m in complete agreement with you on this issue. I think that Sharia rules about female dress are repulsive and that women desiring to wear them are expressing internalized sexism, but legislating religious practices is a terrible idea.
I almost always agree with you Jadehawk, but kudos to you. maybe I should get to sleep before my alarm goes off in less than half an hour.
Why on earth do you keep bringing this up as though it creates a problem for people who don’t think the government should be prescribing dress codes? I’m all for engraving that poster directly on the walls, in any way that makes it as difficult as possible to remove or deface, of precisely every school in which the school administrators are raising ridiculous objections to it.
Or carry a dagger?
KOPD @106, see strange gods @101. The same principle applies.
@Maureen –
I certainly wouldn’t have the State create a situation that *guaranteed* that the women would have *no* access to education and *no* access to any means of discovering the protection afforded them. This law will only hurt those it purports to help.
Look – I’m not a fan of the burqa. It’s purpose is to harm women. But again, all this law does is force *women who are already being erased* out of the public sphere and public consciousness. Now she can’t go to university and now she can’t go fucking grocery shopping. But at least she is no longer reminding France that there are Muslims living there. This fucking law is no different than the law banning minarets, it is founded not in a desire to do something good for women (why not instead fund DV awareness and safehouses?) but rather to target a specific ethnic group.
Also – @StrangeGods – pretty much exactly.
Hypatia’s Girl #97,
as I’ve said, I do not support the complete ban of the burqa in the public sphere, but I support the law as it stands right now, ie no religion in public schools.
I happen to agree with you, strange gods, that the French way of going about this is, well, very French!
The problem does not exist in most Muslim families in the UK but there are particular difficulties where the extended family, usually in a rural area, can still exert the sort of pressure which can end with either a harmless choice of headwear or the forced marriage of a child.
We may make a clear distinction between the two. I’m not sure that those still enforcing tradition make any such distinction.
Yes.
I leave the field at this point but only because the fish and chip shop has been open for half an hour and I’m hungry.
I made the same point as Hypatia’s Girl a while back. Women who are in such families that pressure them to wear burkha are at risk of ending up in house arrest.
What would make a world of difference for these women is a) knowing the language and b) knowing their rights. I have a Swedish friend who says that there are women who have lived in Sweden for many years but still don’t know the language, and when they need health services the husband is always there as a translator.
Which makes it no fun at all if the woman was abused and has no way to impart this to the health professionals.
I propose mandatory french lessons for all immigrant women, and the penalty of no attendance being something that would affect the male members of the household, such as deporting the husband/father/whatever or the children not getting citizenship or something or other. Just by getting them our of the house, out in the streets, where there are women who don’t wear scarves and long dresses and long sleeves and still are not engaging in sexual acts in plain view would change the world view of current and future muslim mothers. Also knowing the language would help them get help, if they need it, and find employment and make them financially independent.
That’s an awfully sloppy formulation. In the US we (are supposed to) have no religion in public schools, i.e. no religious influence on instruction. As anyone can see, that’s perfectly compatible with having students wearing head scarves, yarmulkes or what have you.
Maureen, as some people have pointed out above, this law will not solve that problem. The social pressure on these women, from their fathers, husbands and the rest of their community, to wear Islamic dress will not go away. They will still risk social ostracism and, in many cases, violence, if they dress “immodestly”.
Rather, the French law simply forces them to choose between violating their community’s religious norms, with all the consequent risks, and getting an education in a state school. You force them to risk social ostracism and even violence from their community, just so they can go to school. Hence the 15-year-old girl I referenced several times above, who shaved her head so that she could get an education. That is what this law is actually doing to people. It isn’t helping Muslim women; it’s hurting them. Look at the evidence.
Huh? I am not the one claiming that I can decide “what is good for other people”. It is the supporters of this law who are claiming that they know what is best for Muslim women, and can legislate to tell them how to dress.
Walton can point to young women who have to shave their heads to comply with both French law and their community’s custom.
What positive results can you point to in response?
Yeah I might be cool with the French Law if I were convinced that it weren’t just islamophobia running amok, and were instead a fumbled attempt to bludgeon out some misogyny. I’m not, though.
I also see nothing wrong with allowing students ot express religious beliefs. Teachers should keep their mouths shut on the matter as a whole, and they shouldn’t allow a student’s desire to preach to interfere with class activities, but the students themselves can say what they want.
somwhereingreece @113: yup, those are the kinds of thing a society would do it it were sincerely concerned for the women, rather than mainly being concerned to keep the threatening Other out of sight.
@somewhereingreece :
Mandatory French lesson probably would not help. Learning another language is very difficult particularly if one does not have to use the new language beyond a classroom setting.
yours truly, Wyrm.
QFT.
@Wyrm #119
I have personal experience with french and I know what torture is can be. Yet in Sweden they have language lessons for new immigrants (even though they they are not enforced) and they can be very effective. I had a friend who went there for a one-year post-graduate course, took advantage of the language program of the university and had mastered conversational sewdish in six months.
Phrases like “help” or “my husband is hurting me” or even describing to your doctor in your own words your medical history and symptoms do not demand much time to learn and they can make a difference
Okay,
no religion in public schools =
no religious influence on instruction +
no religious practices of any sort (prayer time, insignias, ornaments, clothing, books, etc…)
I also note that there’s many things the 1st amendement is supposed to prevent, but in practice fails in doing. There’s supposed to be separation of church and state, but in reality religion creeps back in all the time. That form of wishy washy secularism doesn’t work, because religion ends up having some (too much) influence on the state.
somewhereingreece,
Yes, I agree that optional classes should be made available. I also support instruction in the primary language of the area for children as a part of standard education.
I am skeptical that a reasonable level of competence can be obtained by women in these difficult situations. Perhaps simple phrases can be taught as you suggest. Even more importantly, social services should have translators available for these women.
yrs, Wyrm
Which has exactly what to do with a kid wearing a yarmulke to school? And who exactly is it that imagines the passing of any law to guarantee its perfect observance?
I notice that the supporters of the French law consistently make remarkably sloppy arguments. This suggests to me that the sources of the support are not entirely rational.
Wyrm #123
Making classes optional will not solve the problem. As I said before, in Sweden, where classes are optional, there are still a lot of immigrant women who cannot speak the language even though they stay there for many years. There should be a penalty system in place, or an incentive one for that matter.
Mohammad Yunus’ Grameen Bank gives microloans under the condition that the borrowers send their daughters to school and have a vegetable garden to feed their family with. In spite of the violations of its intent (women getting forced by the husbands to loan money and the husbands use the money on themselves etc) the system has worked well so far. If Bangladesh is ever to leave its dire situation, it would be through their educated women.
The millions of children parents have continued to send to public schools but have stopped forcing to wear a religious ornament when sending them.
negentropyeater, just stop and think about this for a minute. As I keep saying, a Muslim girl wearing the hijab or burqa is not like, say, a Christian wearing a crucifix or a “Jesus is Awesome” T-shirt. It is not a spontaneous expression of personal religiosity. Rather, it is something that they consider to be a religious obligation – and one which they may well come under massive pressure from their family and religious community to comply with. They can’t just choose to leave it at the school entrance.
You are forcing these people to choose between violating their community’s religious beliefs, with all the dangerous consequences that this may entail, or dropping out of education. You are, essentially, endorsing a form of indirect discrimination; you are supporting policies which, in effect, stop Muslim women getting an education. And you support the policy which caused a 15-year-old girl to shave off all her hair so she could stay in school without violating her religious beliefs.
The effect of this policy is to make life worse for a vulnerable and already-oppressed minority population. Of course, that’s what the Islamophobes want. But you’re better than them, and I’m saddened that you don’t seem to be taking these problems seriously.
@negentropyeater # 109(ish)
I’m sorry I misread you. (Genuinely)
Interview with Zahra Ali, leader of a French Muslim feminist organization:
Funny part: Zahra Ali herself wears the hijab.
Muslim feminists are themselves able to fight the battle for cultural freedom within their own communities. Legislating away their freedom of choice is not necessary, nor is such a law what all Muslim feminists would choose for themselves. Nawal El Saadawi is not the only Muslim feminist voice out there.
Because the way we understand separation of church and state in France is a strict separation, a wall : no religion in the state.
No religion means zilch:
no religious influence on any governmental body, decisions, policies, instruction etc…
no government employee talking about his religious beliefs when in office or running for office
no religious displays, ornaments, prayer ceremonies, practices of all sorts, in government premises
It’s a wall, not a wall full of holes like in the US.
And if we find a hole, we fill it up.
That’s a message that can’t be repeated too often.
You’re aware that this can also come with the WWJD bracelets and such, right?
Neg: What do students’ religions have to do with religious influence on the teaching? I agree, with regards to teacher religions, but students? Not so much.
Back in the 1790s, the heads of guillotined victims served admirably for that purpose. The French seem curiously reluctant to confront the tainted sources of their version of secularism, a version that is dubiously compatible with liberal democracy. What’s going on with the burqa law, in my considered and historically informed opinion, has a lot more in common with Revolutionary intolerance of any deviation from a conformist definition of “Frenchness”- eg. the suppression of regional dialects and non-French languages- than it does with any form of secularism that should be acceptable to a liberal.
Yes. And I absolutely believe that adherents of all religions, including Christianity as well as Islam, should be free to wear religious items and garments in school. But in practice, the impact of this ban falls most heavily on Muslims, and in particular on Muslim women – which, given the massive amounts of bigotry and prejudice towards Muslims in France and across Europe, is probably by design and not by accident.
That’s ridiculous, these policies do not in effect stop muslim women getting an education. But it does in effect play a significant role in reducing the propencity of parents of trying to force their ridiculous oppressive beliefs on their children.
For that one girl who shaved her head, how many hundreds of thousands of girls can now go freely to school thinking, ah at least one place where my parents can’t force me to wear this ridiculous scarf. Do you also think of them?
Really? How does one decide what is an obligation and what is an affectation? By what the priests say? Or does one defer to scripture? And if one does the latter, isn’t that affording the theology of sacred texts an authority it doesn’t deserve? “Oh, well, it’s written in your sacred text that you must do this, so you’ve got a legitimate reason to.”
Having said that, I have to say I’m torn on this particular issue. While I can identify with the intent of the law as described by Nawal El Saadawi and supporters here, it reminds me a little too much of the case of Baltej Singh Dhillon, who fought for the right to wear his Sikh turban with his Royal Canadian Mounted Police uniform, although that case was clearly an issue of being afraid of the Other (of course, not according to the traditionalists who defended the stetson as an integral part of the tradition of the RCMP. I don’t recall newspapers at the time (OMG, Brown People!) noting that tradition is so important that recruits to the so-called mounted police force hadn’t been required to learn to ride a horse since 1966.)
@ Steve LaBonne and Walton – yes exactly right.
The ban on religious clothing also covers over the fact that we do live in a plural society. The plurality of the human condition is what is the human condition.
This ban affects Muslims and Jews and Sikhs, these are religious communities that are founded in traditions that are not European, and that have been, to greater or lesser extents at any given point of time, have been excluded from the public realm. This history requires that we think carefully about what approaches we use when we seek to further genuinely helpful goals of increasing equality and access to the public world that our fears around human difference are not causing us to use means that actually thwart those goals.
As I’ve said, I’m against the new Burqa law because this is not separation of church and state anymore, it’s the state going outside of it’s acceptable bounds and prohibiting a very specific form of religion entirely. Plus it has horrible uninted consequences as Hypatia’s Girl very well noted.
Walton:
Well said, and I’m surprised no-one picked this up earlier.
oops sorry for all the horrible mistakes, didn’t hit preview #138.
its acceptable bounds
unintended consequences
Given the qualifier there, it seems you think religious belief should be treated differently from other kinds of belief.
Why should a child be allowed to wear a bracelet to school if it is religious and not allowed to if they just happen to like it ? Either the rules should applied to everyone, or they should not be applied at all. There should not be special categories of people who are allowed to circumvent the rules on the grounds of religion.
Really Walton, you are being a complete idiot today.
I wasn’t suggesting that public authorities should distinguish between different forms of religious expression. Sorry I was unclear on that. Rather, I was trying to explain to negentropyeater that this law is forcing many Muslim women to choose between violating their community’s beliefs – with, sometimes, disastrous consequences for them – or giving up their right to an education. I have also pointed repeatedly to the fact that at least one 15-year-old Muslim girl shaved her head as a result of the law: that is the kind of consequence that the law is having in practice. And strange gods has pointed to examples of Muslim feminists who do not support or want this law. This evidence should not be ignored.
Well, Matt, quite a few of the respected regulars seem to be taking my side, not yours. But evidently you’d rather call me an idiot, while ignoring all of them, because I’m an easier target and because my views are easier for you to dismiss.
Read the whole thread, and all the arguments – not just mine.
Time to break out the Koteka
Allthough I’m on the opposite side, I think you’ve made some very good arguments on this thread.
Matt Penfold:
Don’t you see the point you are trying to make is just the opposite? You’d like the kid who likes the bracelet be allowed to wear it, and deny the same for a kid who thinks the bracelet has some religious value.
How is the government dictating what a woman may and may not wear any good for feminism?
Yes, there are women who are forced to wear the hijab against their will. But there are also women that make an informed choice to wear it. What about those women? Telling someone “you aren’t competent enough to decide for yourself what you wish to wear, so we’re going to make the decision for you” is a bunch of crap. I don’t care if there’s only 10 women in the country that very much want to wear them; oppressing women is oppressing women. Period.
Hijabs are not the problem. They’re a piece of cloth. Anyone who says there’s not racism involved in this decision is deluding him/herself. Just because one woman, no matter what standing or credentials she may have, agrees with a law, it does not make it right.
If my Caucasian grandmother decides she wants to wear a scarf around her head because she is comfortable wearing it–such scarves were common when she grew up–and the government tells her she may not because it implies some sort of subservience to men (this, too, came from a time when modest women were widely expected to cover their heads) or whatever reason they choose, it is absolute bullshit. No government has the right to say “dress like this, or lose out on an education”. It is because I care so much for women’s rights that I find a huge fault with this.
Do you believe that women are independent human beings who can think for themselves? Then let them wear the hijab. Otherwise, it’s just more of the government sticking its nose where it doesn’t belong. I don’t fucking care what religion you are; if you choose to wear an article of clothing (with the exception of poor taste, i.e. pornographic depictions on a t-shirt), that is your CHOICE and there should not be repercussions for that choice.
If we really want to get rid of the call to subservience for women, you need to address the PROBLEM, not the symptoms. Women do not have rights because they are not seen as real people. Dictating what they may or may not wear over something so trivial as a headcovering just furthers this attitude. Women are people. We can make decisions for ourselves. If someone is forcing us to do something against our will, it is wrong–whether it be removing an article of dress or demanding that one is worn.
As was brought up earlier, this is just going to isolate women.
For those that disagree, please tell me tell me how getting kicked out of school for wearing a piece of cloth on your head is beneficial for women? How is it okay to deny a girl unfettered access to education? You can reason about the nuances of this law all you want, but it does not change the core of the issue. And the core is rotten.
There are two answers to this: first, of course the bracelet should be allowed in both cases (I’m no fan of stupid school dress codes); second, banning the former IS more serious because it touches not just freedom of personal preference but freedom of conscience, regardless of how misguided you or I may consider that form of conscience to be.
Though I don’t know why I’m bothering to respond to someone who is incapable of marshaling any actual arguments but instead just calls anyone who disagrees agree with him an idiot. I think most of us can see who the actual idiot is here.
Here is an actual poll of Muslim women in France, conducted in 2008 by the independent polling organization Institut CSA for the magazine Le Monde des religions. From the full PDF:
46% of Muslim women in France say “I strongly favor Muslim women wearing the veil in France (Je suis tout à fait favorable au fait que les femmes musulmanes portent le voile en France)”.
25% of Muslim women in France say “I somewhat favor Muslim women wearing the veil in France (Je suis plutôt favorable au fait que les femmes musulmanes portent le voile en France)”.
7% of Muslim women in France say “I somewhat oppose Muslim women wearing the veil in France (Je suis plutôt défavorable au fait que les femmes musulmanes portent le voile en France)”.
11% of Muslim women in France say “I strongly oppose Muslim women wearing the veil in France (Je suis tout à fait défavorable au fait que les femmes musulmanes portent le voile en France)”.
10% of Muslim women in France say “It is for each woman to decide (C’est à chaque femme de décider)”.
Now, Matt Penfold, would you like to cite any evidence to your case?
This data shows that most Muslim women in France count themselves in favor of the hijab, even though only 13% actually bother to wear it. It’s very much like premarital sex in that regard; many modern Western Christians will tell you they oppose premarital sex, but they all do it anyway. This kind of lip service to tradition is annoying, but that’s all it amounts to, an annoyance, not a legitimate target for legislation.
Ah, I see. And I recognise some forms of religious expression are more obligatory than others within specific religions, but I just wanted to bring up the difficulty in deciding which is which and the potential for discriminating against religious observances that may not have scripture to back them up (such as beliefs based on oral traditions). Again, I’m not clear on this either way, but I struggled with this issue with respect to Sikhs wearing turbans and kirpans to school or as part of police forces when it became an issue in Canada in the early 1990s.
I wouldn’t say it’s on the grounds of religion per se, but on the grounds of freedom of expression and speech. Why should we limit someone’s right to express their religion, nationality, political beliefs, sports team preference, etc. by wearing an accessory? Maybe a case can be made for a Sikh carrying a dagger, but barring safety issues I don’t see why it’s anyone’s business how someone chooses to dress.
What the fuck business of the government is it whether children wear bracelets of any kind!
What is the government doing declaring that (A) you forfeit your right to free speech when you enter this building, and (B) you must enter this building?
This is extreme authoritarianism talking.
This is an expression of your personal frustration, not an accurate description of the external world.
Massively OT, for Strange Gods:
Just wanted to check that you caught the link to the Chomsky-Roy lecture that I was babbling about a few weeks ago.
But you have provided no evidence to support that this goes beyond one girl shaving her head to go to school. How many girls have been forced to give up on education because of this law?
Plus note that education is obligatory by law, so I’m not sure how many parents have chosen to infringe the law and stopped sending their children to school alltogether because of that law. But I do know that since 2004, millions of girls have gone to public school freely, without wearing the religious ornaments that their parents would otherwise have forced them to wear.
As I’ve said in #135, this law will play a significant role in reducing the propencity of parents of trying to force their ridiculous oppressive beliefs on their children.
One of the important reasons why France is a far less religious nation than it was in 1905 is that we have had an enforcement of the concept of Laicité which has been much more stringent than other forms of secularism in other countries. The drastic reduction of the influence of Catholicism, and especially Catholic fundamentalism on people’s lives is I think a clearly positive consequence of this approach. Now that we are confronted with a new emergence of muslim fundamentalism in France, it might appear as if the ban on religious symbols in schools is anti-muslim, but I think it’s more the continuation of a systematic approach at fighting the emergence of any form of religious fundamentalism.
strange gods before me @ 149,
It’s a pity that those results were only sorted by one variable at a time. It seems to me that there are signs of difference by class, age, income. It would have been very interesting to see the response to that question in particular broken down by gender plus each of the others.
“French legislature, motivated by the desire to pander to popular Islamophobia and racist anti-immigrant sentiments, has imposed a deeply authoritarian law. It is not a ‘take your stupid hat off’ law.”
I’ve only skimmed the last third of the thread here, being short on time this week, but it looks like the core of the issue is being skirted.
Are other stupid hats allowed in the same public spaces in France? Wouldn’t a non-religious version of the burqa be banned from those same spheres by standard vestimentary codes?
I’m not saying that vestimentary codes aren’t authoritarian. They’re most often arbitrary laws with no rationale supporting them. I’m saying that they’re not made more authoritarian by them being enforced on a practice perceived as religious.
It’s the same infringement. I think the people who are reacting much more strongly to this application of secularity, but who would pay no notice to equivalent vestimentary codes somehow fail to apply the notion of secularity in law.
Also, the Table on p 7 has 64:49 in favour of la laïcité!
SGBM #149,
I don’t know how relevant this poll is, as there has never been any discussion about banning the veil in France (apart from schools but this poll doesn’t address that issue).
Currently, there is however a public debate on banning the integral veil (Burqa), but that’s not what this poll is about either.
@Negentropyeater #154 –
The problem with your case there is two-ish fold – most obviously we’re dealing with a community that is already marginalized. Those who are supposedly going to benefit the most from the ban, women within extremely religious traditions who are likely to have already fewer resources to leave, think critically, etc. are the ones who are the most likely to be *further* oppressed.
There is, also, a difference between legal means and enforcement. I’ve been trying to avoid derailing this conversation too far, but the comparison stands between this case and the approach to eradicating FGM. FGM is illegal in almost every State or municipality in which it is practiced. It is still practiced. Just like the practice of child marriage, outlawed but still practiced. Because the approach of just outlawing behavior or display X *doesn’t ask that the reasons and traditions that enforce X aren’t still there. Look at it outside of religion – rape is illegal. We still have rape culture.
Brute force imposition of secular norms without regard to changing the attitudes, beliefs and underlying structures does not further the cause of a secular society, rather it redefines the problem (be it burqas or FGM or what have you) into Us/Them. ***THIS IS NOT AN ARGUMENT FOR ACCOMODATION*** (Wanted to get that out there quickly) This is an argument for attacking the root of the problem, not pruning the leaves back so that the problem can be swept under the rug.
All this does is deny difference in the public realm and deny those who are the most in need of public protection substantive access to that protection.
MrFire, thank you! I did see it, thanks to your link earlier. I have downloadable audio, which I’ve posted to The Thread where more might find it.
True w.r.t the complete ban of the burqa (which affects a very small minority of adult muslim women and which I oppose for all the reasons already mentionned in this thread), untrue for the ban of any type of religious ornament in public schools (hijab, burqa, skullcap, cross, etc…) which I support.
It’s not brute force imposition of secular norms, but brute force imposition of secular norms within the state. And this has been shown to be very efficient in changing the attitudes, beliefs and underlying structures in France during the last 100 years.
France used to be called la fille ainée de l’église (the elder daughter of the church) nowadays we are one of its most irreverentious parent.
negentropyeater,
This goes to the root of what I said right at the start of the discussion, about the two meanings of “secularism”.
The ideal of a secular state, for me, means that the state should be entirely neutral towards religion. It should neither support nor oppose any religion. It should guarantee both freedom of and freedom from religion, and should not interfere with the right of individuals to hold and express any form of religious belief or lack thereof. No public money should ever be spent on promoting or opposing religion, and no law should discriminate between the religious and the non-religious in any way.
For me, therefore, the ideal of a secular state is an aspect of the general principle of freedom of speech and expression. Hence I disagree with you on a number of points. I think everyone – atheists and religious fundamentalists alike – should be equally free to express, practice and promote their views, on religion, politics, philosophy and any other matter, without any discrimination between viewpoints.
You, on the other hand, seem to be advocating “secularism” in a different sense. You seem to be arguing that the state should actively oppose public expressions of religious belief and practice, with the aim of making public life and politics as secular as possible, and confining religious belief to the home. And you are pointing out that this has to some extent succeeded in France, insofar as France is one of the least religious countries in the developed world. This is, IMO, deeply authoritarian and wrong. The state should not be trying to make the country less religious, nor should it be trying to “fight” fundamentalism. The state should stay out of religious matters entirely, and leave it up to each individual what beliefs he or she wishes to hold and express.
What you seem essentially to be saying is that the state should discourage religion, and ensure that public life is as non-religious as possible. I disagree with that. I don’t trust the state to make any decisions at all about religion. The state should just stay out of it, and leave it to individual conscience and the free marketplace of idea.
Secularism is important but it isn’t everything. Respect for human rights trumps it every time in my book. Jacobinism is secular, all right, but it’s the antithesis of respect for human rights. French secularism is fundamentally jacobin rather than liberal in nature. I consider that a serious flaw.
Am I allowed to wear a full head cover if I am an atheist?
Howsabout if I tell the government it’s none of their buisness what my faith is, can I wear it then?
Or if I say I was raised Moslem, but am not so certain any more?
What if I were to say I wear a burka because it makes my husband happy?
What if I were to say I wear short strapless dresses because it makes my husband happy?
What if I were to say I wear $1000 tailored business suits because it makes my husband happy?
What If I were to tell you it’s none of your damn business why I wear what I wear?
Assuming that a woman is incapable of choosing her own headgear, or lack thereof, if infantilizing and marginilizing women, irrespective if it is her husband, or father, or government that makes that call for her.
In terms of the slacks/skirts argument, made above, how large a percentage of women must want to wear slacks for us to outlaw skirts?
A round number is fine.
It’s fantastical thinking that all teenage Muslim girls would only wear a headscarf because their parents are coercing them into it.
Some teens choose to express themselves through belligerent religiosity. Adults don’t wear this shit.
And the poll I cited in #149 supports this. The youngest Muslims polled, ages 15 to 24, support the hijab to a ridiculous degree, 85%. This drops off after early adulthood; 66% of those 25 to 39 feel the same, and 50% of those over 40.
That’s not to say there’s no influence by the parents. It’s not unheard of for teens to take parents’ views to an extreme not shared by the parents.
But the issue here is not as simplistic as parents forcing teens to do something against their will. By whatever misguided choice, teens are choosing to be more conservative than their parents, and the public schools are denying these teens their own freedom of expression.
I think the biggest problem regarding this bill is that it will make parents send their children to religious schools, where headgear is allowed. If we truly want integrate muslim women and make them full citizens, aware of their rights they should be engaged in the public sphere as much as possible, starting with school attendance.
Walton,
this is what I can agree on:
All correct.
Nope, what I’m essentially saying is the reverse:
ensuring that all aspects of the state are strictly non religious will have for long term effect of discouraging religion and efficiently fighting fundamentalism.
It’s a positive consequence of the correct application of the principles of Laicité. When I say positive, it’s as a fervent anti-clericalist, which, as you’ve correctly noted, is not what the state should be.
The difference between you and me is that “the state should stay out of religion” seems to have a different meaning. For me it means no religion in the state (stictly speaking). For you it means tolerance of all types of religions within the state.
Kudos to Nawal El Saadawi.
somewhereingreece #166,
I see no evidence of this. In fact, the poll linked to by SGBM #149 shows the opposite, ie 3 times as many muslims would rather send their children to a public secular school than a muslim school. This poll is from 2008 when the law banning religious ornaments from public schools was passed in 2004.
SGBM,
No, this poll doesn’t support this conclusion.
That teens are more favourable than their parents to the fact that muslim women wear the hijab in France doesn’t mean that they’d like to wear it more or that they are more conservative. Only a small minority of those who are in favour of the hijab actually wear it.
It does seem to indicate however that freedom of clothing is more important for teens that for their parents, and that seems quite a general rule…
Walton, you are correct that the dangerous effect of a ban on burkhas is that oppressed women who are already not being allowed to be *seen* in public because they are made to cover everything up, would become even more oppressed because then not only would they not be *seen* while in public, they wouldn’t be in public at all, seen or otherwise. You are correct about this problem, and you are correct that it should have been taken into consideration and that it makes the law bad and causes it to have these unintended consequences – or at least you would have been correct had you used the word “unintended” or any semantic equivalent, but you didn’t. Where I get pissed off at you reading your comments here is how you keep insisting on blatantly lying about WHOM is at fault for this. You keep shifting the blame for this away from the husbands and relatives enforcing the rules that are keeping the women under oppression. Nowhere does any law say that women must not be allowed outside. That is the various muslim family’s *reactions* to the law, not what the law itself says. Stop blaming the wrong party and protecting the guilty. This is no different than blaming cartoonists and filmmakers for the fact that various (not all) Muslims overreact in an insane fashion and get violent and try to frighten critics into silence. Stop blaming the government, or Matt Penfold, for how the Muslim families are choosing to treat their own women. You’d get a lot further with your arguments if you stopped blatantly lying about the motivations of the people trying to liberate Muslim women and instead brought up these concerns as what they really are which is UNINTENDED consequences of such laws. You would get a lot further saying something along the lines of “this law won’t have the effect you want. Instead because of the reactions of other people, it will have this effect, and that’s why it’s a bad idea” instead of how your arguments do come across, which is “Because I see this as the effect of this law, that must mean that you see it as the effect too, and therefore it must be what you wanted and therefore you must have been deliberately trying for this effect, you evil bastard.” When you lie about other people’s intentions like that, you won’t get anywhere.
negentropyeater #169,
I’m afraid my understanding of French is so little I can’t read that poll for myself, but doesn’t that mean that one fourth prefers a religious school? That sounds like an awful lot of children being denied actual learning (yeah, I know that may be an overstatement. But I seriously doubt the teaching ability of any religious school, be it Muslim, Catholic of Pastafarian).
Can some France expert tell ignorant people like me what the test for “religious symbol” is?
Who are the inquisitors and what are their methods?
If my TrueBayesian friends and I decide we’re to wear purple shirts to affirm our faith that Bruno de Finetti was god incarnate, will we be discovered and punished, until we change our minds and wear red instead?
You’re misrepresenting what I said. I did not say that everyone who supports this bill must be an Islamophobe. That is manifestly not the case. negentropyeater, for one, is to the best of my knowledge a decent person with the right intentions, and is certainly not in any way xenophobic. That’s why I’m trying to point out to several people on this thread what the deleterious effects of the bill will be on the actual lives of Muslim women.
However, the Bill is in effect Islamophobic, whatever the intentions of its supporters: since it affects Muslim women to a much greater degree than any other group, and, as I have outlined and you have in part acknowledged, is likely to hurt them. And given that the French political right, and its counterparts elsewhere in Europe, have a strong and ugly strain of hostility towards Asian immigration, which is often manifested in hostility towards Islam, I don’t think it’s so absurd for me to suggest that some of the reason French politicians pushed for this bill was to pander to Islamophobia.
In any case, my arguments are not as restricted as you suggest. I am also arguing that it is fundamentally wrong, in a free society, to prescribe public dress codes or to tell women how they may or may not dress. You cannot liberate people by forcing them to do things. It’s an incoherent notion. As Jadehawk says – and it bears repeating – it makes no sense to say “Poor subjugated women; we’d better tell them what to wear.”
Some Muslim women are coerced into wearing the hijab or burqa by their families. Others do it of their own free will because they believe it is the right thing to do. In both cases, this bill is a bad idea: in the first case because it will lead, as you acknowledge, to those women simply not being able to go out in public at all; and in the second case, because it restricts Muslim women’s freedom of religious expression and personal autonomy.
@Walton 162
Walton, this is a very good interpretation of being secular. However, France does not share the same sentiment. For over a century the French have decided that they want a complete separation between the state and the religious. If the French people would like to change this then there are means to do so (as pointed out by negentropyeater).
@Hyptias Girl 159
Blockquote>The problem with your case there is two-ish fold – most obviously we’re dealing with a community that is already marginalized. Those who are supposedly going to benefit the most from the ban, women within extremely religious traditions who are likely to have already fewer resources to leave, think critically, etc. are the ones who are the most likely to be *further* oppressed.
Almost any decision made by the state for it’s people is going to marginilize a group. Who becomes marginalized if the decision is overturned? The scenario is only being examined from the negative outcome due to the implementation of the law. What about the benefit? Have the Muslims who attend school without the burqua seen a decrease in bullying? Are they befriending other students that may not ahve approached them before (since the xenophobia exists anyway).
What about the nonmuslims that are sharing classrooms with the muslim students not? Has their educational experience been improved?
The French have been pretty consistant over the past 100 years on this issue. The French people have pretty much decided, “What kind of state do we want to be?”
Comment FAIL!!! Here is the repost :-)
Walton 162
Walton, this is a very good interpretation of being secular. However, France does not share the same sentiment. For over a century the French have decided that they want a complete separation between the state and the religious. If the French people would like to change this then there are means to do so (as pointed out by negentropyeater).
@Hyptias Girl 159
Almost any decision made by the state for it’s people is going to marginilize a group. Who becomes marginalized if the decision is overturned? The scenario is only being examined from the negative outcome due to the implementation of the law. What about the benefit?
Have the Muslims who attend school without the burqua seen a decrease in bullying? Are they befriending other students that may not ahve approached them before (since the xenophobia exists anyway)?
What about the nonmuslims that are sharing classrooms with the muslim students not wearing a burqua? Has their educational experience been improved?
The French have been pretty consistant over the past 100 years on this issue. The French people have pretty much decided, “What kind of state do we want to be?”
Muslim women are part of “the French people” too. I do not believe, in principle, that the concept of national self-determination ought to override basic human rights. Of course, in general, there’s nothing the international community can do about many human rights abuses, since we still live in a world dominated by sovereign nation-states..
But France is a party to, inter alia, the European Convention on Human Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, both of which guarantee the right to freedom of religion and freedom of expression. These rights are also guaranteed in domestic law by the Constitution of France. In domestic law, the Conseil constitutionnel has authority to adjudicate on the constitutionality of the law within a limited time-period after it is passed by the legislature; at the international level, the European Court of Human Rights can declare the law incompatible with the European Convention, though it has no power to strike down the law. Sadly, I have little hope that either of these organs will actually have the courage to enforce human rights in this instance; they both have a record of showing far too much deference to the wishes of governments.
I’m what’s sometimes known in some academic circles as a “true-blue human rights lawyer” (albeit not actually a lawyer yet). Fundamentally, I believe that there should be certain basic human rights which should be applicable to everyone in the world, regardless of where they happen to be born, and regardless of the wishes of politicians or the electorate in their country. And I want to see strong national and international judicial mechanisms for protecting these rights, even, where necessary, against the popular will. Obviously, given the fragmented and nation-state-dominated world order we live in, this goal is not fully attainable within our lifetimes. But we can start by opposing human rights abuses in those countries which have signed up to serious international human rights commitments – of which France is one.
If “this bill” is the new proposed law banning the burqa from the public sphere entirely, I have repeated many times in this thread that I am opposed to it because it goes beyond the principles of Laicité. It’s also most probably anticonstitutional. It has negative unintended consequences but no positive ones I can see. It concers a few hundred women in the country and we shouldn’t even be wasting time on this.
I do however support the 2004 law on banning all religious ornaments in public schools, which includes of course the burqa and many other non muslim religious symbols.
Walton, as a fellow European Unionian i salute you for your obvious interest, knowledge and enthusiasm in human rights issues. We sure need people like you around here.
Walton,
Again, which law are you talking about? The 2004 law on religious symbols in schools doesn’t violate the European Convention on Human Rights. Even a more stringent but similar law in Turkey has been upheld by the ECHR. And this law was clearly constitutional. This law also had overwhelming support from deputies (90%), from teachers (80%) and from the public at large.
If you’re talking about the new bill on banning of the burqa completely from the public sphere, it’s another matter entirely.
Walton,
I read the entire string, and was with you for most of it. Especially early on in the thread when you were arguing against Matt. He is usually pretty good at providing argument but today seemed more interested in callimg people names. Anyway, It was something Brownian said about choosing between different fiath-based norms and how to determine which are allowed that led me away. I agree that this law does in some way violate the freedom that the people wearing hats will lose, but I am willing to exchange that freedom to prevent religious texts the opportunity to gain power in our (or any) state system. It seams that France shares this view too.
I do think that the people of France do have ample opportunity to express themselves outside of public institutions too. But then that is not the isssue.
So for argument’s sake, let’s say that the group as a whole benefits from having a burkha free learning environment, but there are 98 students instead of 100. How can the benefit be kept and get the 2 students back into the classroom?
background:
I spent my first 9 years of school in a small, ruralish school with no discernable dress-code. I usually wore jeans and a t-shirt. (sometimes the hot-pink naugahyde&trade miniskirt from my aunt in California)
In the 10th grade (for me, 1970) we were bussed to a high school which had a policy of “females do not wear trousers, no one wears bluejeans”. With temperatures at -40°, this was sometimes a hardship.
By the end of my first term, us girls were permitted to wear non-bluejean trousers (resulting in a lot of ghastly polyester).
Later, everyone could wear bluejeans, as long as they didn’t have those little brass rivets.
Still later, everyone could wear bluejeans as long as they were “modified”; a little strip of decorative ribbon at the hem, or an inset of other fabric in the leg.
Even later, “They” just gave up*, and I was back to dressing normally.
Now to the point:
All of that bullshit set up in me a powerful, deep-seated, ineradicable loathing for “They” telling me how to dress**.
I don’t much give a flying fuck why you wear what you wear as long as it presents no danger to me. I want my surgeon to have clean hands and no extra cloth flapping in my intestines. As long as the pilot can fit the radio head-set over the turban, I’m OK with it.
Also, imposing some kind of NationalDressCode&trade gets my paranoid slippery-slope spidey-sense tingling. Yellow stars, red stars, McCarthy, etc.
.
.
**Since I am not brain-dead, I wear a hard-hat and steel-toed boots as required on a job-site and I don’t wear those items to most weddings.
*except for the guy who was sent home for wearing a “Fly United” t-shirt.
tutone21, I can’t understand how even “for argument’s sake” the exclusion of these two burqa-wearing students benefits the learning environment. Isn’t the whole idea of forbidding burqas supposed to help exactly those two individuals, who are supposedly forced to wearing them?
Thanks – though do bear in mind that the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is nothing to do with the European Union. Rather, it’s a separate treaty administered by a separate international organisation, the Council of Europe. Likewise, the European Court of Human Rights should not be confused with the European Court of Justice; they are separate courts with different remits.
All EU Member States are parties to the ECHR and are required to comply with human rights standards. The recent Treaty of Lisbon also requires the EU itself to become a party to the ECHR. However, the reverse is not the case: the ECHR has a much wider membership than the EU, as all European states except Belarus and the Vatican are parties to the ECHR, so there are several states, such as Switzerland, Norway and Ukraine, which are parties to the ECHR but are not members of the EU.
Just to make it even more confusing, the EU now has its own separate Charter of Fundamental Rights (drafted in 2000, and now integrated into the EU legal system by the Treaty of Lisbon), though it’s not yet clear what role this is going to play. But I digress.
tutone21,
First, it’s far from clear that this law will do anything to stop religion from spreading anywhere. In fact, as many have mentioned here, it might create a backlash and only push people to the extreme. Secondly, there are other (and in my mind better) ways to fight religion that don’t involve taking away people’s rights to express themselves.
Walton,
Does it feel weird to actually have a number of Pharyngulites on your side? ;p
Kiyaroru,
Don’t be fooled. There is a dress code whether you choose to see it or not. Ask Laywers what happens if they show up to work in Jeans and a T-shirt. We had one of our employees show up to work advertising a local cabaret. He was sent home for the day.
And think like a kid for a second. If a person is Muslim/Jew/Christian/Wiccan…and he/she dresses the part, is he/she more likely to associate with others that look like him/her? Now, if there are rules removing that barrier is it more likely that a person will interact will a a larger group of people in a social setting? I have no data to back up the statement as of now, but it seems to make sense to me.
re: me #182
NONONO
sorrysorrysorry
What with eeeeeeeeeepc, running Firefox, ultraslow Highspeed&trade connection I just realised that I invoked N-zis.
sorry I’m a bit stressed.
That’s where you and I fundamentally disagree.
Religious liberty, and liberty of conscience and expression in general, is one of the greatest achievements of modern civilisation. We often forget just how precious and important it really is – and how dangerous it is to allow the state to suppress, even for apparently compelling reasons, individual free expression.
The most important test of your commitment to liberalism and individual freedom is whether you are willing to accept that other people have the right to behave in ways which you despise. I do not believe, for instance, in Roman Catholicism, and I consider the Vatican a morally bankrupt institution. But I would go to the barricades to defend the right of Catholics to practice and promote their faith. You and I might consider that faith to be damaging and harmful: but our proper course is to speak out and advocate against it, not to seek to silence them by the power of the state. Because if we give the state power to decide which views can be expressed in public and which cannot, we make ourselves, in part, slaves to the state. And I do not trust any government to decide matters of religion, or to decide when it is acceptable to express religious views.
This is important even in relation to people whose views are considered morally repugnant by almost everyone. I despise Fred Phelps and everything he stands for: but it is greatly to the credit of the United States Constitution that he is able to exercise his right to free speech by protesting in public. There are countries in which, if he tried the same thing, he would be arrested and charged under “hate speech” laws. If that happened, I would speak out on his behalf and defend his right to freedom of expression. Would you?
Liberal values cannot be imposed by state force. Rather, paradoxically, those of us who are sincerely liberal – and I mean “liberal” in the classical, Millian sense – must defend the right of other people to oppose liberalism. Fundamentalist theocrats, whether Christian or Muslim, have the same right to free speech and expression that you and I do. If we take our principles seriously, we have to respect that right, even if it means that we end up with a less secular society. That’s why I think that the United States attitude to religious freedom is a thousand times better than that of France.
tutone21 #186
Or if they dress like metalheads/goths/emos/hiphoppers/punks? No, it’s absolutely not my/yours/governments business to dictate what people should or should not wear. Their parents might have have a word if they find the way their daughter/son dresses, but NOT US.
Oh sorry, there should be “is inappropriate” somewhere in the final sentence.
FCT,
I am not saying that a person shouldn’t be afforded the opportunity to express him/herself, I am saying that I would trade the freedom to do so during times when I am engaged in activities where it isn’t the primary goal, or could prevent others from being at there best. France believes that religious expression inside the classroom is inapropriate and I would agree. There are arenas for this expression
I am not saying that I am for or against the spread of religion. I am against religion and religious texts influencing state decisions. If a person wants to be envangelical and scream how much he/she loves god then fine by me. I don’t want to be around it. Again, find the proper arena.
Here we are discussing Muslim women, but Catholics have been subjected to this treatment for over a century and I haven’t seen a rise in Catholic extremism. Essentially France is asking the Muslims to conform to the agreed upon norm. I do agree that this is going to marginilize some fundamental women, both forced and by choice, but I think that there are better ways to remedy this than to allow religious expression in public schools/state activities.
Walton #188,
all that post is a completely dishonest strawman of the french Laicité.
As if the French state seeks to supress the right of Catholics to practice and promote their faith.
As if the French state seeks to silence religious believers and even fundamentalists.
As if in France, fundamentalist theocrats, whether Christian or Muslim, don’t have the same right to free speech and expression as you and I do.
Honestly?
Would Fred Phelps be charged with hate speech if he launched a homophobic protest on the streets of Paris?
Wearing religious clothing in public is a form of self-expression, just as much as words are a form of self-expression. Preventing it by force is a means of silencing self-expression.
negentropyeater, on reflection, my post at #188 was a bit hyperbolic. I’m sorry. It’s getting late here and I should withdraw from this discussion now, having posted a lot about this issue today.
Weed Monkey,
Sorry for being unclear. Let me try and fix this
The scenario that I had in my mind was:
100 students
5 of the student’s wear burkhas (they represent the Muslim women that we are talking about)
Now a decree comes and bans the burkha
98 students
3 formerly wore burkhas.
What I am stating (very crudely) is the law is intended to benefit the whole. Now all the students are equal where before there were 5 students that were allowed to display religious garments. Also, the subtaction of the burkha has allowed the 3 other students to increase their interaction with the other students (from my experience kids don’t like things that are different). However, 2 students are not present becuase of the change. How can those students that are lost be reincorporated without changing the rules back?
tutone21,
sorry, there’s a word here I dislike profoundly:
Laicité is not a norm. Laicité is one of our fundamental principles of legislation. Like the 1st amendement is to Americans. An immense majority of French peole, including muslims (see poll above liked to by SGBM @149) clearly support it.
I see no reason to change this and unlike Walton I think there is much evidence that it has worked “a thousand times better” than the American way of secularism.
As much as I dislike faith and religion, I still cannot accept laws regulating how and when people should be allowed to express their beliefs. In some of those fundamental Islamist countries there are clerical police enforcing things like are women showing too much of their skin. If we westerners start to enforce just the opposite, that would be pure madness – and not helpful for anyone this concerns: the veiled women.
Weed Monkey @189
I see the sentiment here, but I don’t rember any of those organizations imposing sensational stories, extreme morals, and kid fucking on the public. I suppose that the kids from Columbine (or other school shootings) liked to listen to off-color music, but I would say that there rage was from being bullied and the music was more of an outlet than a cause for what happened.
And someone correct me if I am wrong, but many schools systems in the US do forbid certain types of t-shirts and colors from being worn to prevent violence in the school.
Walton,
Probably. But so would you and I. And the same would also happen, thank FSM, in most developped countries (except the USA).
And the state doesn’t prevent them from doing so.
It does prohibit them from doing so in public schools but they are free to wear the clothing of their choice elsewhere (that’s if they are not an employee of McDonalds and forced to wear their silly uniform instead).
@ Negentropyeater #196
Not a problem! :-) I have lowsy spelling and grammar (not to mention 0 French Language skills). I am often intimidated to post on here when Matt, CE and Walton are talking. Better to just read.
WeedMonkey,
Why can’t you write:
“I still cannot accept laws telling people they are not allowed to express their beliefs in public schools.”
Yep, I lived there, and they are doing so everywhere, in the streets, shopping malls, parks, etc…
Yep, if we westerners started banning religious symbols everywhere, that would be pure madness.
Remark: we westerners have been imposing school uniforms for centuries, pure madness!
tutone21,
I’m with you, but how is wearing a headscarf or any other religious accessories doing that?
Well, I’ll say that I am against the spreading of religion. However, that’s just one of many things I am for/against. Like you, I value freedom of expression. In this particular case, I think that overrides the seperation of church and state.
_ _ _
negentropyeater,
I do think Walton overstated the case of America’s approach to freedom of religion. However, if you’re referring to the religiosity of US politics I think there are more serious factors that have had an influence than the government’s approach to secularism. The US was largely founded by religious extremists. It’s also largely a country of immigrants. Religion, for better or worse, often help unite people and ease the transition to a foreign culture.
Why should being in a public school limit their ability to express themselves by wearing accessories (even if that expression is stupid)? Yes, there are other places (such as businesses) that do it too and I’d say they’re just as wrong.
tutone #195,
thanks. Now I got what you meant. But I’m afraid I cannot give you an answer, although I wish I could.
#201 Oh yeah, I think I will write as you put so conveniently:
And by that I mean that the pupils should be allowed to practise their religion as much as they want, given they do not disturb the teaching or other pupils.
Yeah, I certainly think it is.
@ FCT #202
By allowing religious expression during activities funded by the state the message that the state supports religion is implied (loosy).
One issue that isn’t discussed a lot in this thread is whether or not a burkha would actually be a distraction in the classroom. Muslims are already in the minority, which is probably going to make them feel awkward. Now you are going to make the women wear something that covers their faces? That seems like it would be a big distraction and prevent interaction with other students. I know that limits the argument, but I think it is a valid point for the subject.
tutone21: I can see you wish them more freedom, but is the right way to do that by giving them MORE RULES?
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/04/10/1572798/dead-yemeni-child-bride-tied-up.html
Excerpt:
Feynmaniac,
The principle of Laicité, as it has been applied since 1905 in France, derives from our fundamental principle of equality, ie that the state must respect all religious beliefs equally, and that the only way of guaranteeing this fundamental equality is for the state to recognize none.
Note that this imposition is not on the part of private residents but on the state itself and on its employees. But how can one guarantee that a state employee, a teacher, will not recognize any religious belief, ie not discriminate against or favour a particular pupil on the basis of religion and treat all equally if some of them are wearing ostentatiously a religious symbol which clearly indicates their religion to the teacher?
Walton and others: Yes, it’s their choice.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88589
Just got around to reading this thread.
Dang Walton. This has been an issue that I’ve been kind of on the fence about. Thanks for giving me something to mull over. Jadehawk and others too. Its got me thinking. I usually just lurk and absorb, or make the occasional dopey comment because I’m not so hot at expressing myself in text. so I’m not going to come out and spontaneously make some awesome post or anything, I just wanted to say THIS is the sort of thing I come here for. Well done. You’ve changed at least one mind here today. I would like to think for the better.
The joys of Pharyngula. :)
KJ
Walton #188,
one last thing before I go to bed:
But I’m not commited to liberalism, and I’ve always recognized there was an unfortunate but necessary compromise between guaranteeing individual freedom and Equality of chances for all.
Remember that we, the French, have this motto “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité”, and the way I understand this is that none of the three is more important than the other.
You, Walton, value Liberty above all and are willing to sacrifice Equality. I accept, with regret, that it’s not possible to have absolute guarantee of both. And in schools I’m willing to make less sacrifice on Equality than on Liberty.
Walton,
I realize you’ve gone to bed already but I must tell you how impressed I am with most of your arguments. You’ll make an excellent lawyer after you get your degree.
Gustavus II Adolphus of Sweden once had an argument with his chancellor, Axel Oxenstierna, about a particular law which Oxenstierna wished to see enacted. Gustavus felt the law was well meaning but application would be impractical. He finally told Oxenstierna “Never pass a law you can’t enforce.” I think Gustavus’ advice is appropriate in this case.
It’s a close call but I am against the ban for the reasons Walton forcefully addressed. If someone could show me that the burqa actually interfered with pedagogy, e.g. in a gym class, I might change my mind.
negentropyeater,
I’m sorry, but I really don’t understand why you would like to deny some people from wearing some clothes in the name of egalité & fraternité. I could understand and support you if you were opposing teachers from forcing their values & beliefs on pupils, but this is quite the opposite.
John Morales, no one is arguing for child brides. That’s a legitimate issue, but not relevant to this discussion.
SGBM, the relevance is that what these women “want” is what’s been indoctrinated into them, much like any other cultist.
It’s no co-incidence that ‘Islam’ means ‘submission’.
By extension, I suspect that what many Muslim women in France who feel a need to advocate and submit to the ‘modesty’ their religion demands (as they see it) are in the same boat; there may well be a better way to challenge that than by such laws, but appeasement certainly will not help matters.
That’s a fine principle. However, if an individual citizen not acting as an employee or agent of the state walks into a government building while wearing a cross or a hijab, the state is not recognizing that person’s religion. The state would have to take some positive action to somehow recognize a religion, and simply ignoring their manner of dress is not a positive action.
John Morales #215,
That’s just utter and complete bullshit. And just as much as you and I would like to shake them off their silly beliefs you know that won’t do any good. Forcing a dress code upon Muslim women is nothing more than oppression. And yes, I’m well aware that it may happen in some families. But do you really want it to happen nationwide?
You can extend that to everyone, John. It’s not by coincidence that so many secular Westerners think that their happiness depends on keeping up with the Joneses. It’s not coincidence that Walton has a weird thing for the monarchy, or that I have a weird thing for guns.
It’s not a coincidence that I happen to espouse typically US American viewpoints on hate speech laws. Realistically speaking, huge portions of our selves are learned by imitation, and I would undoubtedly have different political opinions if I was raised in a different country.
So does that mean that my views on hate speech can be dismissed? I didn’t invent them, and it’s more than a little suspicious that they are shared by so many of my fellow citizens, but not by many other nation’s citizens.
Or can I dismiss negentropyeater for having typically French views regarding the proper interaction of religion and the state? I hope so; that would be a lot easier than taking him seriously. Here I’ve been trying to argue against the substance of what he’s saying. How much easier if I could just observe “well of course he’d say that, he’s French.”
That’s what you can do instead of taking Muslim women’s own opinions seriously. As I said in #98, “I am not disputing that the burqa is a symptom of internalized oppression. For a woman to prefer the burqa for herself is to seek relative power within the constraints of patriarchy”. Undoubtedly there is some indoctrination going on. So you can just tell yourself that we don’t have to listen to Muslim women when they express stereotypically Muslim opinions, and if they don’t turn against the communities that raised them then they don’t deserve to participate fully in civil society. We’re the majority, they’re the minority, and we have the power to make them do what we want. And fuck anybody who says the government should not prohibit nonviolent expression of religious belief — they’re just appeasers.
tutone21,
I don’t see how. What I see it saying is that the allows individuals the right to express themselves.
If they feel awkward for wearing it, then they can choose not to wear it. If they don’t feel awkward or want to wear it anyway, then let them.
There are ways to fight discrimination against minorities without limiting people’s rights of expression.
This isn’t about making them. This is about allowing them if they so choose to wear it (even if the religion it represents is incredibly stupid).
I’ve had classes with women in headscarfs and it was never an issue. I imagine it’s similar with burqas and can’t see how this is a distraction. Even if students are being distracted then we shouldn’t be considering banning these things, but asking why are these students being very easily distracted.
_ _ _
negentropyeater,
I agree with that sentiment. Where I think we disagree is over interpretation of it means to for a state to recognize no religion. For me, it means that the state won’t make laws based on religious principles nor establish a state religion nor outlaw a religion.
I don’t see how allowing an individual to wear a religious accessory in a public schools is the state recognizing a religion. It’s just an individual expressing themselves.
I’m sure even without religious accessories many French teachers will be able to point out the Muslims in their class. Religious discrimination will be a problem with or without these bannings. The way to deal with it is to strongly discourage discrimination (of any kind) and fire anyone who engages in it.
To go slightly sideways:
in Alberta, Canada we have been, for several years, engaged in a legal kerfuffle about some Hutterites having their photographs on their driver’s licenses (they consider it a graven image). The latest ruling (late 2009) was that if they want a driver’s license, they will have a photo. This Hutterite colony cannot function without someone driving legally.
Is this even the same question?
Weed Monkey, SGBM, I should’ve written French Muslim school-girls, rather than women.
John Morales, that really does not matter.
Various comments have said that relying on Nawal el Saadawi’s opinion commits the logical fallacy of argumentum ad verecundiam. This is however a misunderstanding of the fallacy. This fallacy refers to opinions outside the cited authority’s area of expertise. Clearly Nawal el Saadawi is well within her area of expertise when talking about Islam and women and her opinion has value. If she were to offer her opinion on quantum physics then it would be reasonable to ignore it citing this as the reason.
Obviously the state has the right to legislate clothing norms. We may not get around naked nor may we wear motorcycle helmets into banks. The problem with legislating religious symbols is that anything can be a religious symbol. I feel that the burka moves from being clothing or symbolic into clear opression when it covers the face and restricts a woman’s ability to perceive her surroundings effectively. I think anyone who supports the wearing of this hideous garment should wear one for a week and see how it goes.
As to its promoting modesty, I don’t see how standing out like a sore thumb is any degree modest. On the contrary, it is a clear statement of difference from the rest of society. And since no one would wear such a thing if they didn’t think it was a good thing to do, it obviously implies that those not wearing it are making a lesser choice. That is, wearing a burka says ‘I am a chaste woman, you are a whore on your way to hell’! Hardly a recipe for social cohesion.
What really worries me about this sort of legislation is the what it indicates about the divisions in a society that feels the need to enact it. Islamophobia is a label which is meant to denigrate people, but just because you’re Islamophobic doesn’t mean Mulims aren’t trying to bomb your public transport! I think fear of Islam is a rational response to a religion which considers global domination to be the only acceptable outcome and often seems to have no compunction about its methods. Read the Koran, it is not a book of peace and toleration. I know it scares the crap out of me.
Again, some teens and adolescents choose belligerently conservative religious displays — more conservative than their parents in this case — as part of the process of delineating their own identity.
It doesn’t matter if there are only a few schoolgirls who want the hijab for themselves. They are not hurting anyone else by wearing it, and they should be allowed to make bad decisions for bad reasons. We should not be in the business of taking away young people’s right to freedom of conscience just because they are young. I could have made fewer mistakes if I was not free as an adolescent, but it doesn’t simply follow that I would be better off had I not been free.
Again, we are already talking about a country where only 13% of Muslim women regularly wear the hijab. Any young Muslim girl can see for herself that about 6 out of 7 Muslim women don’t do it; she can see for herself that it’s an option. It is absurd to imagine that the typical situation of Muslim girls in France is to not even realize that they have an option.
By this profound logic, when the state outlawed interracial marriage, obviously the state had the right to outlaw interracial marriage.
What really worries me about Jim Crow laws is not the damage that they inflicted upon the black population, but what they indicated about the divisions in a society that felt the need to enact them. :(
If this is what’s guiding your mind when you deal with average Muslims trying to live their average lives, then you’re a hateful bigot.
If this is what you think the Muslims in your neighborhood are up to, then you are an incredibly stupid hateful bigot.
French Muslims are not dangerous outsiders. They are very interested in French national identity. On average, they identify their French citizenship to be as defining of them as their religion. And 78% say they want to adopt French customs. It is bigoted and unacceptable to center a discussion of average French Muslim citizens on the basis of a few individuals’ acts of violent terrorism.
So let’s have some substantiation of this claim:
Millions? I ask because during the actual enactment of the law, the BBC reported that there were only 1200 French schoolgirls who wore the hijab.
I might have thought they meant that was the number who were fighting the law, but no, that’s lower still. Only 600 registered any dispute with the law, and the majority of those were resolved very quickly. Only 72 actually refused to comply; some of them were expelled.
Well, it’s hard to believe that the French government would go through so much trouble to target 1200 Muslim girls. Except, the French government is about to go through a great deal of trouble to attack only 1900 Muslim women. That’s only 1900 French Muslim women who wear the integral veil, and the government is working very hard to target those few women. Absurd, but it’s true, and it makes me wonder whether you can document these millions of Muslim schoolgirls who were so recently wearing the hijab.
Feynmaniac,
So if you have a pupil in your class wearing a cross, another a skullcap and another a hijab what do you think they are expressing? Don’t you think if a pupil expresses his religious belief in a class that way, it makes it a lot easier for a teacher to recognize his religion than if he is not allowed to express his religious belief?
The only way to guarantee the neutrality of the teacher vis a vis religion is to ensure that no form of religious expression be allowed in the school.
You can tell someone’s religion by looking at someone’s face? I think you are following a very dangerous line of argument. And you can tell who is a muslim from who is not ? Very good. Maybe in some parts of the USA where the assumption “looks arab, must be muslim” is common place amongst the teabagging types. But I didn’t think I’d hear this on Pharyngula.
I would love you to tell me what religion I am by looking at my face if you saw my Malaysian boyfriend, or my Algerian aunt. I’m quite certain you would guess both of them wrong.
Hint: my malaysian boyfriend looks Malay but is an atheist and my Algerian aunt looks north european but is a muslim and without her hijab on no teabagging types would ever think she might be a muslim.
Religious discrimination will be a much smaller problem in class if religious expression of any sort is not allowed in class.
negentropyeater,
So what if the teacher can recognize their religion? As long as it doesn’t affect their attitude toward the student it shouldn’t matter. If it does, then fire their ass.
It’s not just their face. Their names could also be a hint. No, that olive skinned guy named Muhammad isn’t necessarily going to be a Muslim, but it’s good bet he is. In any case, many teachers will draw that conclusion themselves, rightly or not.
I’m sure there are plenty of young French Muslims who don’t publicly express their religion yet can tell you that they’ve experienced Islamophobia nonetheless. It would be foolish to pretend there’s also not a racial element to this.
Pffft, please. If you really want to bring personal stories to this I’m a mixed race Hispanic who grew up in the US/Canada. I know what it’s like to be a dark skinned kid in a predominately white culture. Certain assumptions are made of you just based on your looks, whether you like it or not. Hell, I’ve had Muslims think I’m Muslim because of the way I look.
While I don’t think you’re racist/xenophobic/Islamophobic I do think there is a significant racist/xenophobic/Islamophobic element in this legislation. So if any side is behaving like teabaggers…..
(It’s 4 in the morning here and I’m off to bed.)
SGBM,
first, I don’t know where that number 1200 hijab (headscarf and any other types of veils) wearing girls is comming from. It’s all the more ridiculous when you link to another article that indicates 1900 burqa (integral veil) wearing girls, when the burqa is worn by an extremely small minority of muslim women in France compared to the hijab.
Wherever I walk in the streets in France, I will come accross a few women wearing the hijab. But I’ve only come accross someone wearing the integral veil once during the entirity of last year.
That number 1900 for the burqa seems about correct, but the number 1200 for the hijab seems to be underestimated by several orders of magintude.
There are about 4 million muslim women in France. According to various reports, the % wearing the hijab is around 15%. That’s 600,000 women.
You can also check this poll on the opinions of teachers with regards to this issue and will note that at the time 78% of teachers (which are, I think somewhat competent to judge the issue) thought that the veil was an important problem in the class room. It would seem surprising that they’d answer this if the number of occurences of the “problem” was of only 1200 in the whole of France.
Second, I spoke of all types of religious symbols, not only muslim ones. I know that you keep thinking that the law forbidding religious symbols in schools was targetted only at muslim women, but it was not. There is also a substantial minority of vocal fundamentalist catholics in this country, as well as fundamentalist jews, who look for any kind of special allowance towards muslims in order to react and demonstrate their persecution complex.
As I’ve said earlier, the only way to guarantee neutrality of the state vis a vis all of these in the classroom is not to allow any form of religious expression in the classroom. An add on benefit of this is the one I mentionned before, ie reducing the coercive influence of these fundamentalist parents on their children, but here I talk as a fervent anti-clericalist and not as a government official.
You might be a liberalist, like Walton, for whom freedom of expression should never be transgressed, but bear in mind that this is not a choice we have made in France, election after election, public debate after the other. And when I say “We”, I mean this it is a very conscious choice for most French people, a rejection of that concept of Liberalism that so many in the Anglo-Saxon world hold dear for what we consider is a better choice for the society we want to live in. So we favour a better compromise between freedom of expression and Equality which are equally fundamental, and that means sometimes transgressing freedom of expression when it comes to Hate Speech legislation or religious expression in schools.
You and I know that we can’t. But generally, the Islamophobes are not so enlightened. Over here, there have been instances of xenophobic attacks on South Asian Hindus and Sikhs because the racists mistook them for Muslims. So it’s certainly extremely unlikely that
Like it or not, European Islamophobia is a form of thinly-disguised racism. The Islamophobes dress up their position as opposition to Islamic beliefs and culture, but what it’s really about is opposition to Asian immigration.
I think this idea – that “we”, meaning the voters and their elected representatives, get to decide what rights people should have, and whether some rights should be suppressed in order to promote a broader social objective – is a very dangerous one. If you think the French people are entitled to vote to take away individual rights because other values are more important, where does it end? A Californian could equally say that taking away the right of gay couples to marry is “not a choice we have made in California, election after election”. A Ugandan could equally say that legalising gay relationships is “not a choice we have made in Uganda, election after election”. In my view, it is very dangerous to argue that “the people” of each country have a right to decide whether the rights of minorities should be limited. Rather, in an ideal world, I am in favour of universal human rights norms which should apply to everyone, whether they’re American, British, French or Ugandan, and regardless of what their fellow citizens think about it.
This is, of course, unattainable to a large extent: we still live in a world order governed by sovereign nation-states, which have a right to govern their own internal affairs. But we can, and should, impose what sanctions we can at the international level, within the legal constraints of international law, to ensure that all states observe fundamental human rights norms. In the case of France, we in Britain have both the opportunity and the responsibility, since France is a fellow member of the EU and the Council of Europe, to put political pressure on France not to enact this illiberal law.
This is not some sort of anti-French cultural imperalism on my part. We should not pretend that the American, or British, people are more liberal than the French. If American voters and legislators could have Fred Phelps locked up for hate speech, they would do so. Indeed, they did everything they could to suppress him; all but three Congressmen voted in favour of the “Respect for America’s Fallen Heroes Act” which was intended to stop Phelps protesting at funerals. Rather, it is the courts, not the voters, who protect the right of Fred Phelps to free speech. The voters don’t get to make that decision – quite rightly, because it’s an individual rights issue that should be outside the realm of democratic politics. And that’s why I think the First Amendment is one of America’s greatest contributions to civilisation.
Sorry, this should of course read
negentropyeater, if you think the French people have a right to suppress freedom of religious expression in the name of “equality”, do you also think the Californian people have a right to suppress gay marriage in the name of “protecting marriage”?
I have to go, but I’ll answer this one real quick:
No, I can’t thik of a way to justify rationally a right to suppress gay marriage in the name of “protecting mariage”. Can you ? Not in a secular country. Maybe someone could argue that suppressing gay marriage in churches, “protects religious marriage”, but that’s another matter entirely.
Any suppression of freedom of expression must be extremely limitted, and fully justified rationally. Whether it’s hate speech or religious expression.
Walton, it’s not exactly a blanket suppression of religious freedom, is it?
It’s a ban on wearing conspicuous religious symbols in schools, not a ban on actually practicing their religion, and it applies equally.
As for your “comparison” — well, it’s unworthy of you.
As a female South African of Indian ancestry living in France*, I’m pretty much obliged to comment on this one..
1)Forcibly “freeing” the poor opressed women (sniff sniff) is in no way different from the religion that requires the hijab in the first place.
2)This law is designed with the idea of forcing integration of the large Algerian/Moroccan/Libyan etc muslim community in France, rather than out of any real concern for opressed woman. [at least they dress like “us”]
3)Penfold states that the few woman who do wear the burqua/hijab do so out of pressure from their male relatives. Since Penfold doesnt give a reference for this, I can argue from my personal experience that every muslim woman I know who wears the burqua does it out of choice and to fulfill the obligations of her religion. Not cos daddy told me to…
4)The feminists who do approve of this law perhaps acknowledge that this is one of the few rare ocassions in which Islamic opression of woman is addressed. However, the overall cost to Human Rights and freedom is not worth the small gain.
*trying saying that in french three times…
davita22 (my emphasis),
Um, this implies that those who don’t aren’t fulfilling the obligations of their religion, according to those who do. No?
Feynmaniac,
But you know very well that religious discimination, like any form of discrimination, is a really insidious problem that in the vast majority of cases is extremely difficult to prove in court and justifies the firing of a public servant.
Now if neither the teacher nor the student can tell each other’s religion from the way they dress nor any other form of religious expression (which is often also associated with a politically sectarian statement for many teens in fundie families), it greatly reduces the likelihood of religious discrimination.
It’s perfectly true that this doesn’t solve the problem of racial discrimination but I see no evidence that it is negatively affected by this law. I’d argue the opposite, ie that it also reduces it because in a religion free environement like the French public classes the likelihood that children amongst themselves make the kind of religion/race association that are so common elsewhere is greatly reduced.
So I think this law faciltates the reduction of the propensity towards discriminatory and sectarian attitudes of the young ones and this is a HUGE long term benefit for society.
Next time anybody on this blog argues that religious endoctrination of children is a form of child abuse, I’ll refer them to this thread.
@John Morales
“her” religion: muslim women who dont wear the burqa argue that there is no real mandate for it in the qu’ran. Like all religious texts (i.e. ficiton) this is subject to personal interpretation.
-and that was entirely besides the point.
@negentopyeater
Look I completely agree that religious indoctrination IS child abuse. My point was these woman were educated, independent and (in spite of that), still religious! Ofcourse that is religious indoctrination, and ofcourse Islam is a horribly misogynisitc way of life, but banning the burqa or hijab is not doing anything to solve the deeper problem!
Like Voltaire said:
“Monsieur l’abbé, je déteste ce que vous écrivez, mais je donnerai ma vie pour que vous puissiez continuer à écrire”
Walton said: ‘I think this idea – that “we”, meaning the voters and their elected representatives, get to decide what rights people should have, and whether some rights should be suppressed in order to promote a broader social objective – is a very dangerous one. ‘
Government not by the people? Does this involve laws made by people that cannot be altered by people? It is indisputable that people govern themselves very poorly (paraphrase of de Tocqueville), but the alternatives I imagine are worse, unless you mean that I will be the emperor.
French society and law are well within an Egyptian’s expertise?
Negentropyeater
“It’s perfectly true that this doesn’t solve the problem of racial discrimination but I see no evidence that it is negatively affected by this law. ”
Promoting superficial homogeneity in a mixed society DOESN’T affect racial discrimination? Seriously?
Walton:
‘Like it or not, European Islamophobia is a form of thinly-disguised racism. The Islamophobes dress up their position as opposition to Islamic beliefs and culture, but what it’s really about is opposition to Asian immigration.’
There is no such thing as ‘Islamophobia’. The term was created in order to try and conflate those who have legitimate objections to the ideology of Islam with racists, which is what you are doing.
I object to Islam because of its authoritarian nature and appalling stance on human rights, particularly women’s. Just because the majority of Islam’s practitioners in Europe happen to come from another ‘race’ does not make it an issue of racism; stop confusing causation with correlation. In any event, how can racism explain Turkey’s similar approach on the banning of religious symbols in schools, a country with a predominately Muslim population?
As to the issue in question, I, like negentropyeater, reject the proposed banning of Islamic dress in public. I agree with you that such measures would be infringing upon a person’s right to dress how they choose. However, I must part company with you re your opposition to the current legislation prohibiting ostentatious religious symbols in public schools in France.
You have repeatedly said that such a law is a breach of a girl’s human rights as it may have the effect of excluding her from an education by putting her in the impossible position of choosing either her faith or being educated. You reach this conclusion by including within the human right of freedom of religion the right to wear anything that is considered a ‘religious obligation’.
Using your reasoning any uniform policy, in the workplace or school, will breach a person’s human rights and result in excluding them from employment or an education if they can demonstrate that they are subject to religious obligations of a sartorial nature.
This is absurd. Do you recognise any limits to this approach? If a person’s ability to adhere to arbitrary religious obligations trumps all then surely this can apply to not just uniform policy, but the terms and conditions of their employment.
Why should a Muslim shop assistant be forced to handle ‘halal’ items at the checkout such as alcohol?
Why should a Christian registrar be forced to conduct a civil partnership?
Why should a Catholic pharmacist be made to dispense the morning-after pill or contraception?
Surely all these terms would have the effect of excluding these religious people from employment. They would be placed in the position of not being able to fulfill their religious obligations and they can’t very well leave their religious scruples at the doors of their workplace now, can they?
If a person doesn’t comply with a uniform policy or the terms of their employment that everyone else must comply with because of an arbitrary religious reason, they are the ones who are excluding themselves from an education or employment.
I cannot see how the right to wear a piece of cloth in school is essential to exercise one’s right to freedom of religion or how a ban can impede an individuals practise of their faith, least of all a piece of cloth that represents a religious ideology that considers half of the pupils in the school as inferior beings and the chattels of men.
There are limits on what people will tolerate in the name of permitting practice of religious obligation. In the U.S. we simply have higher tolerance for some disruption to protect freedom of expression.
There is no such thing as “anti-Semitism”. The term was created in order to try and conflate those who have legitimate objections to the ideology of Judaism with racists. See how that game is played?
It’s no accident, by the way, that France is a country with a plentiful history of both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. One could easily find plenty of quotes from the head-scarf debate that are uncomfortably redolent of the 1930s
Yes, there is a very great deal to object to in Islam- as there is in Christianity. But to contend that that is all that’s going on with this stuff (or that most of the Europeans who are so worried about Islam have equally forceful objections to Christianity) is either culpably naive or disingenuous.
Steve:
‘There is no such thing as “anti-Semitism”. The term was created in order to try and conflate those who have legitimate objections to the ideology of Judaism with racists. See how that game is played?’
A poor example.
Judaism is different due to being akin to a ‘race’ as well as a religion due to the lack of proselytisation and the marrying within the group. I think you will find that the rhetoric of the 1930s was less about religion and more about race: e.g., the master race being polluted by Jewry and so on.
Islam, like Christianity, is a proselytising religion and the only thing its many adherents share is their ideology, not race.
‘But to contend that that is all that’s going on with this stuff (or that most of the Europeans who are so worried about Islam have equally forceful objections to Christianity) is either culpably naive or disingenuous.’
I don’t. I acknowledge that there are people who fail to make a distinction between a follower of Islam and that follower’s ethnicity and say ‘dirty Muslims go home’ when they mean ‘dirty Arabs go home’.
But we already have words for people like that: xenophobic, racist and so on. There really is no need to create a new one that makes no sense and is being used to silence debate on anything to do with Islam.
P.S.
Steve:
Forgot to comment on your hypocrisy point that most Europeans who worry about Islam don’t about Christianity. I would have thought it was quite obvious why Europeans fear Islam more.
I am not a fan of Christianity, but to take a few points:
(a) there haven’t been any suicide attacks carried out by Christians in Europe inspired by their religion;
(b) you can blaspheme all you want about Christianity and the most you can expect is strong criticism, not being murdered; and
(c) Christianity (generally) is much more progressive in its attitude towards women.
To compare the generally reformed Christianity of Europe with the extreme form of Islam being imported in is laughable. Islam makes even the Catholic Church look reasonable.
You mean, an inconvenient one for you.
In the eyes of anti-Semites. A very revealing comment, unintentionally so I suspect.
The rest of your tripe is about as convincing and does not justify wasting time in reply. You may not be willing to confront the true nature of much of the anti-Muslim movement in Europe, but many others are not so blind.
”Judaism is different due to being akin to a ‘race’
In the eyes of anti-Semites. A very revealing comment, unintentionally so I suspect.’
If all else fails, label the opponent as a racist.
Next:
‘The rest of your tripe is about as convincing and does not justify wasting time in reply.’
Because you don’t have one…
‘You may not be willing to confront the true nature of much of the anti-Muslim movement in Europe, but many others are not so blind.’
Umm, I thought I already had. What is the ‘true nature’ then? If it is racist why not just call it racism?
davita22,
Problem is that this is not the promotion of superficial homogeneity in a mixed society: it’s not as if the state is imposing a school uniform or something of the sort. Are you suggesting that there is no other way to express one’s difference in a school than by expressing one’s belonging to a religion?
This is, however, promoting a religion free environement in public schools, Laicité, which is a choice the French people made more than 100 years ago which despite the numerous attempts of the Catholic church at reversing this has remained one of the fundamental egalitarian principes of the French republic and is ovewemingly supported by its inhabitants. And apparently they want this to continue, especially in view of the reemergence of religious fundamentalism in France and the rest of the world(and very clearly not only muslim fundamentalism).
You might call it “forcing integration”, but I’d rather call it “reminding people that their religion is not above the choice this society has made for a religion free public education system”.
I fully respect the fact that not everybody is in agreement with this. And I absolutely respect their right to campaign and try to overturn this fundamental principle of Laicité. But they’ll have to convince a majority of French people for that and elect representatives who support this.
Knowing that Sarkozy has made clear that he is in their camp and favours the American system of secularism to Laicité (of course, he’d love to see a French society where religion regains a strong influence on the state) they already have a strong advocate.
Like Voltaire said:
“Monsieur l’abbé, je déteste ce que vous écrivez, mais je donnerai ma vie pour que vous puissiez continuer à écrire”
And Voltaire would be happy today because Monsieur l’abbé can still write what he wants.
Why do you keep thinking that France bans religion from its territory? P u b l i c S c h o o l s, not the whole country for crissake.
There seems to be a misunderstanding as to the law and how it is being implemented in France. It is not a new law that arose from islamaphobia. It is an old law that prevents ANY type of religious expression in state activities (i.e. school, state workspace). The French are holding the line and saying that the burkha is a religious garment and can’t be worn in these spaces.
Further, The discussion revolves around a subset of a small set of the entire population that is effected by the law. While I agree that the women have a very real and immediate concern I would hope that the state would not make a decision that benefits this small group and takes away from the large majority.
Also, In this specific case I do think that expression would detract from the task. Wearing a Burkha would alienate these women from the rest of the class and prevent them from interacting with their peers.
I share the same sentiment as negentropyeater on this. I wish that we could all express ourselves without infringing on others, and others wouldn’t discriminate based off of these expressions. We don’t live in this utopian society so these liberties need to be dulled in favour of equality.
You like everything about her? How about the fact that she approves of the state forcing students not to wear religious symbols? That’s a blatant violation of their rights. A secular society is one that does not infringe on the freedom of conscious of its members.
*conscience
alex,
“rights” and “secularism” are different in the USA and in France.
Not in France. It’s the opposite, it’s the defense of a fundamental right that we have in France, the right to a religion free public education system.
Not in France. A secular society is one where religion and state are completely separated. A state that treats all religions equally is one that recognizes none, ie a religion-free state. As the public education system is part of the state, it must also be religion-free. Outside of the state people are free to exercise the religion of their choice.
…unless you want to maintain that the American bill of rights and the American version of secularism (ie 1st amendment) must be imposed in France. But first I’d like to see some evidence that this leads to a better society.
It’s a minor point, but he didn’t.
I’m probably going out on a limb here, but…
I’m not sure I quite understand what the problem is with uniforms.
You are misreading the 1200 and 1900 numbers. It is not 1900 burqa-wearing girls, but women, without an age group specified. BBC reported 1200 hijab-wearing schoolgirls. It’s not inherently absurd for a number of schoolgirls doing X to be smaller than a number of women doing Y, even when the group of women doing X is larger.
Four million Muslim women is at the high end of estimates, but let’s go with it. Six hundred thousand of them wearing hijab. Assuming common age distributions for developed nations, that’s 15-20% of them between adolescence and high school graduation, so maybe 120,000 schoolgirls. Except we don’t know the effects of peer pressure, or in general how girls were opting to deal with an already hostile schooling environment. I’m prepared to believe such a number, but this is why I hoped for citations, so that we don’t have to rely on such rough estimates. Regardless, it’s at least one order of magnitude lower than “millions.”
The school system prizes conformity above all other goals, to the extent that public schools are requiring school uniforms just because they can. I see no reason to believe that the “problem” is anything more than “I am seeing a headscarf, and/or I have heard other teachers talk about seeing headscarves.”
This is false. Perhaps this is the agreed-upon narrative in French society, but it is a fiction, blatantly obvious to anyone who cares to look.
Other nations’ media do not simply repeat the French narrative uncritically. The 2004 law is a continuation of a debate that has been going on in France since at least 1989. It was specifically the expulsion of three Muslim schoolgirls in that year which led the government to investigate specifically whether the headscarf was acceptable under laïcité. It was Muslim headscarves which caused the expulsion of dozens of girls throughout the years. The hijab is a symbol of immigration in France, and Chirac’s government was under pressure to keep from losing votes to the racist National Front.
You may observe that the law’s wording does not target only Muslims, but this is as convincing as to argue that US literacy tests for voting did not target black Americans. The historical circumstances of France’s law cannot be ignored.
I might indeed disagree with the balance you wish to find between freedom and equality. But such disagreement is not yet relevant to this discussion, because you have not yet explained how this law increases equality in any way. No example of what sort of equality is at stake, how it is at stake, how it might be lost without this law, or how it might be gained with it.
Instead, only these hypothetical worries:
Maybe without this law, some teachers will illegally promote a student’s religion (#227). Unlikely. The teacher is more likely to promote the teacher’s own religion, and if a teacher is going to break that law, no trigger is needed.
Maybe without this law, some teachers will illegally discriminate against a student based on their religion (#236). But knowledge of individual students’ religions, particularly those who do not fit the norm, is passed freely in schools by word of mouth without need for visual cue. It’s gossip, it’s small talk, it’s already part of the milieu of information that is naturally passed around schools and towns. There are legitimate concerns about discrimination by teachers — headscarf-related expulsions are a real example of such discrimination — but look who is punished. This law prefers to blame and punish the victim. The Muslim girl is the victim of discrimination, so the law takes away her right to free expression. Instead of correctly noting that the fault for discrimination is with the teacher who performs a discriminatory act, the law blames the girl for bringing it upon herself, and punishes her proactively by taking away her right to dress in a manner which hurts no one else.
And then the real evidence of how this law has damaged equality: dozens of expulsions of Muslim girls in previous years, and dozens more expulsions during the implementation of the new law. The education ministry authorized punishment of 72 students in 2004. Educations severely compromised and in some cases ruined. This law falls hardest upon a subset of the French community which is already marginalized and systematically denied full participation in civic life. As a socialist it pains me to hear equality abused to excuse authoritarianism, but this is not even equality.
You are wrong. If an individual citizen not acting as an employee or agent of the state walks into a government building while wearing a cross or a hijab, the state is not recognizing that person’s religion.
Indeed the public education system should not be promoting religion, but the student is not an agent of the education system. It is simply false to claim that the education system somehow magically becomes religious just because citizens who attend school happen to be religious.
Citizens who are not agents of the state are always outside of the state apparatus. Everything they do is outside of the state, even if they happen to be on state property. The teacher’s actions must be held to strict scrutiny, because the teacher is an agent of the state. The student is not.
It seems that you are not only distorting basic human rights for this discussion, but also the concept of laïcité as it is commonly understood. If the individual citizen’s privately-funded expression of religious belief is so obviously a violation of laïcité, then how is it that this was controversial enough in 1989 that the government then came to the opposite conclusion? Headscarves at that time were declared to acceptable, or not necessarily unacceptable, under laïcité and discretion was granted to school administrators instead.
It took fifteen years for the law to evolve to its current interpretation, so this is not nearly as clear or as widely agreed upon as you imply.
It is a new law, enacted in 2004, and the racist motivation behind it is already documented here.
You are distorting the discussion, tutone21. No one is arguing that Muslim girls should have “special rights” that non-Muslims don’t also have.
What we are saying is that everyone, regardless of religion or irreligion, should be allowed nonviolent freedom of expression. To wear a headscarf is nonviolent free expression, and so should be protected the same as all other nonviolent free expression is protected.
Please pay attention. The burqa is not even the issue here. We are talking about headscarves that cover only the hair. And while your concern is exaggerated, it is nevertheless not your business if some people choose to isolate themselves.
Why is it that every single whine about “special rights” turns out to be a blatant lie?
EvilSooty, that’s a rather grand claim. “Islamophobia” would refer to irrational criticisms of Islam or Muslims. To claim that there is no such thing as Islamophobia is to claim that there is no such thing as an irrational criticism of Islam or Muslims.
That is, all criticisms and all fears of Muslims, no matter how divorced from reality, are rational and legitimate.
Well, that would be a blatant lie, and an extremist xenophobic assertion. Such a lie could serve no truthful or decent purpose, but it would function as a cover for racism.
And that is exactly how it functions here in your statement; by denying the existence of Islamophobia you legitimize all hatred and racism toward people who happen to be Muslim. Denial of the very existence of Islamophobia is a racist’s goal.
SGBM,
just got home, I’ll need time to reply but I must go to bed. Please check back tomorrow and thanks for making it so interesting :-)
That’s all I’ve got for now;
Agreed, but “hundreds of thousands” doesn’t invalidate the original argument I made. Note that I referred to girls of all religions, not only muslim. I’ll get back to this later on this comment.
Also this gross estimate of 120,000 is 100 times larger than the amount reported by the BBC (which gives no source for their number). This puts seriously in question the partiality of the BBC on this issue. And it isn’t unheard of to see the British media taking an opposing view to the French media (and vice versa), especially at a time when the Blair and Chirac governments were opposed on so many things, especially wrt the consequences of Americano-British policies in the middle east and Iraq…
If this were the case, they’d have answered that the problem is not so important (17%) or not important at all (5%), and not very important (35%) or quite important (43%).
Moreover the same poll shows that there is an overwhelming majority of teachers who believe that:
. the veil is incompatible with the public education service (79%)
. girls who wear it are are forced by their families (84%)
. girls who wear it are influenced by islamist peer pressure (73%)
Teachers aren’t necessarily correct or unbiased in their interpretation of this issue, but its obvious they don’t consider it as minor as you suggest it is (nor as the BBC suggests).
Now maybe you’ll suggest that teachers or people like me have been brainwashed by the agreed-upon narrative in French society?
Other nations’ media do not simply repeat the French narrative uncritically.
This was the subject of an intense public debate in French society, a countless amount of arguments pro and con have been exchanged many similar to those on this thread.
strange gods:
”Islamophobia’ would refer to irrational criticisms of Islam or Muslims. To claim that there is no such thing as Islamophobia is to claim that there is no such thing as an irrational criticism of Islam or Muslims…’
Islam is just another ideology, a system of thought, like any other. There is no need to create a special term to describe criticism of it, no matter how irrational or ill-conceived it may be. Is irrational criticism of a political party’s policies given a phobia suffix? Is someone who detests post-modernism described as a ‘post-modernophobe’?
The term was created for political reasons to silence criticism of Islam by, ironically, evoking the words used to describe prejudices against individuals such as racism, homophobia and misogyny. The problem is that Islam is an ideology, not a race, sex or sexual orientation. To attack Islam is not to attack its adherents personally, no matter how strong the attack is.
‘Well, that would be a blatant lie, and an extremist xenophobic assertion. Such a lie could serve no truthful or decent purpose, but it would function as a cover for racism.’
The first of your many non-sequiturs and distasteful personal slurs I am afraid.
You have leapt from a reasonable argument that there can be irrational criticism of Islam (although I struggle for an example given how dreadful Islam is) to one alleging xenophobia and racism on my part. Now, unlike Islamophobia, these do exist. How you inferred these merely from my rejection of a special term for criticising an abstract concept is unclear.
‘ And that is exactly how it functions here in your statement; by denying the existence of Islamophobia you legitimize all hatred and racism toward people who happen to be Muslim. Denial of the very existence of Islamophobia is a racist’s goal.’
Again, I am not following your line of reasoning. Islam is not a race. I think I need to repeat that due to your confusion:
Islam is not a race.
If you mean racism when you say Islamophobia, why muddy the waters and instead just say racism?
Racism and criticism of Islam are not the same thing. Just because many of Islam’s adherents happen to be from a different ethnic background to Europeans does not mean that criticism of Islam and its practices has anything to do with racism. Do not confuse causation with correlation. I would be just against Islam in all its manifestations if the Prophet (peace be upon him!) were an Anglo-Saxon and its base were southern England.
Just one more thing on the ridiculous term ‘Islamophobia’. A phobia is a fear, often irrational, of something.
Is it a phobia to fear the spread of a religion that is antithetical to Europe’s self-proclaimed values of freedom of speech, equality regardless of sex or sexual orientation, religious freedom and (albeit there is room for improvement) secularism?
Is it a phobia to be horrified when watching a woman draped in a black sheet with only a slit exposing her eyes on a sweltering day in July in London walking several steps behind her husband?
Am I being irrational in fighting against such an appalling ideology that labels half the population as inferior and a chattel of the relevant male?
Am I mistaken when worrying about the erosion of freedom of speech on religious matters and the self-censorship of writers due to threats of violence?
You are a fool if you do not fear its increasing influence.
Again, I’m not sure it would reduce religious discrimination in any significant way. However, it would certainly lessen freedom of expression, even if only a classroom. Adolescents and young adults are already very limited in their freedoms. I don’t want to see it go further. I don’t like the state limiting an individuals ability to express themselves (yes, even if that expression is stupid). The state should certainly look for ways to minimize religious discrimination, but this is not a good way to do it.
“Not in France. It’s the opposite, it’s the defense of a fundamental right that we have in France, the right to a religion free public education system.”
You can have the right to a religion-free public education system. That’s what secularism is all about. The state, which runs the public schools, cannot endorse religions. That means teachers cannot promote their religion as well (at least while in school); they represent the state. However, when you tell students they are not allowed to wear religious symbols, you’re blatantly violating their freedom of conscience.
“Not in France. A secular society is one where religion and state are completely separated. A state that treats all religions equally is one that recognizes none, ie a religion-free state.”
Secularism is secularism, regardless of whether you’re in France or Iran. A secular state is one where religion and state are completely seperated, I agree. However, that means the state cannot infringe on the rights of its citizens to practice their religion. They can and should stop teachers from practicing their religion during the school day since they represent the state during that time, but stopping students is unjustifiable.
“Outside of the state people are free to exercise the religion of their choice.”
…are you stupid? The entire point of secularism is that you are free to believe and practice whatever you want as long as you don’t infringe on the rights of others. That means if a student wants to wear a cross, a Star of David, or a crescent moon at school, they can.
“…unless you want to maintain that the American bill of rights and the American version of secularism (ie 1st amendment) must be imposed in France. But first I’d like to see some evidence that this leads to a better society.”
No, it’s not that the American version of anything should be “imposed” on France. Nice attempt at framing, though. The issue here is that France is infringing on the freedoms of students. That in and of itself is negative and leads to a worse society.
@negentropyeater, you’re an idiot.
alex.asolis.net:
‘However, when you tell students they are not allowed to wear religious symbols, you’re blatantly violating their freedom of conscience.’
In my post at 243 I pointed out the problems in this approach if you take it to its natural conclusion. There have to be limits to the exercise of the right of freedom of religion otherwise it leads to unreasonable outcomes.
Alex #266,
No you are not. Even the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which is part of the International Bill of Human Rights distinguishes the freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief from the freedom to manifest religion or belief. It does not permit any limitations whatsoever on the freedom of thought and conscience or on the freedom to have or adopt a religion or belief of one’s choice. These freedoms are protected unconditionally. But the freedom to manifest religion or belief may be subject to limitations. Article nine of the European Convention on Human Rights allows only such limitations if they are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.
On this basis, the European Court of Human Rights recently upheld a ban imposed by Istanbul university in Turkey on a student who refused to take off her Islamic headscarf.
If I’m an idiot, so is the Europen Court of Human Rights apparently.
No, there are different concepts of secularism, ie interpretation of what separation of church and state means. French Laicité is a concept of secularism which is different from The American concept.
This is more complete ignorant nonsense. For instance if a woman wants to drive a car she will need a driver’s license and the state can impose her to have a photograph of her face even if her religion says she cannot show her face in public and must hide it behind a burqa. If a child wants to go to public school and his religion specifies that he must pray 5 times per day at specific times and needs to leave class for this the state can prohibit him from doing so in a public school. As mentionned above specific limitations on religious practice or manifestation of one’s religion are absolutely permitted within a secular society.
Freedoms as defined by what? The American Constitution?
Infringement judged by whom? The SCOTUS?
And what’s clear is that you are an ignorant arrogant assclam.
Bravo, negentropyeate.