Comments on: Conspicuous religious symbols

By: betty

betty — Thu, 19 Feb 2004 15:51:08 +0000

That’s oppressive and disgusting in my opinion. If the school offered a lunch program, would it be right to force Jewish kids to eat pork? Afterall, making accomodations would be wrong, right? You really can’t budge an inch to be understanding to a fellow human being’s faith. Not when your vaunted seclularism might have to actually evolve beyond it’s narrow (and outdated) fight against the Catholic church. Are Christian children being hindered from practicing their faith? As far as I know they don’t have to go to school on Sunday and there is nothing that they are forced to do that goes against their beliefs. The so called secular school system, really isn’t that secular. The whole culture deliberately makes accomodations for Christians (as they are the majority). It provides children with Sunday off. It provides them with important Christian holidays off. I’m all for keeping religion out of classrooms. I don’t want Jewish kids to have to hear about Jesus or Hindu kids to have to teachers telling them they are idolaters. That doesn’t mean conversely it is proper or kind to force kids to conform to what is essentially, at its heart, a Christian-centric culture. REASONABLE accomodations can be made if one has an open mind and a good heart. This has a great deal to do with anti-semitism sentiment. You just have your own battle to fight and you don’t care who gets hurt in the crossfire so long as you get what you want. It’s insensitive and wrong. You don’t care that Sikh, Jewish and moderate Muslim kids get tred on and forced to conform, so long as you can publically stick it to your fundementalists. Nor do you really care whether this law helps kids caught in a culture that is looking for a reason to demonize multicultural life. All you care about is misguided principles and a show of force against fundementalists. The actual victims mean nothing so long as the principle is clean and shiny in your eyes. I believe all public school educated kids should take science. It’s important for ensuring all kids attending public school receive have a proper education so they can then choose to do what they want. I believe even that they should probably take gym (which I view as rather unimportant but still part of the coursework). It’s really not the Jewish or Sikh community’s fault that YOUR community is plagued by fundementalism. I don’t believe covering one’s head harms anyone. If your community has problems, solve it without hurting others and without promoting the idea that Jewish or Sikh victims need to be forced to change because prejudiced scum find their exsistance offensive to the narrow minded view of what it means to be properly French. Solve your own problems without harming my community.

By: ginger

ginger — Thu, 19 Feb 2004 08:12:06 +0000

Betty: we all know this law is not primarily targeted at Jews and the kippa, because that’s not what’s creating problems of divisions in classes (Jewish boys do not ask to be exempted from certain classes or not speak to female teachers, do they?), and Jewish groups are not being the fundamentalists here. The problem is with Islamists using the issue of the hijab as a lever to push their agenda into state schools. Everybody knows that, that’s why the controversy is all about that. So this doesn’t look like it has much to do with antisemitism. It’s just that the rule has to be enforced for everybody, even in those cases where it’s about symbols that don’t really cause any significant problems.

By: ginger

ginger — Thu, 19 Feb 2004 08:10:58 +0000

By: Betty

Betty — Mon, 16 Feb 2004 20:43:08 +0000

“By removing the scarf, the cross, the kippa from state schools, you give a powerful message to everybody attending (and their parents), a message saying: you are all equal here, I as a state will treat you as equals, and you as citizens are expected to behave as equals, and respect my founding principle that dictates that religion has no place in the state education of citizens, as long as you decide to take advantage of that state education.” This is absolutely disgusting. They are not in any way equal. No Christian is being prevented from wearing a cross. They are prevented from wearing large crosses. No Christian dictate is being voilated. (As I understand, Christians are not required to wear a cross.) A Jewish dictate has banned from a school. So Jews are not equally able to follow their own faith (by following a dictate that harms no one and bothers no one unless you are an antisemite) in the so called secular equality of France. Seems to me that Jews are only to be tolerated if the French cannot tell they are Jews. When France has school days on Sundays, then I might agree. But it seems to me that some are more equal than others. And let me tell you, it isn’t the Jews who are the pig in this senario.

By: ginger

ginger — Sun, 15 Feb 2004 13:40:35 +0000

As a last attempt to ground this discussion back to reality rather than sophistries, compare the discussion on the French law with the discussion on the ban of the Islamic veil in Turkey. Perhaps it's not a coincidence that Turkish women enjoy many rights not extended to women in other Muslim countries:

Kemal Ataturk, founder of the modern republic, allowed women to vote as early as 1934 and encouraged them to work and shed the Islamic-style veil. Ataturk saw the veil as a symbol not only of sexual repression but also of Islamic militancy. Such thinking is shared today by Turkey's powerful generals, who view themselves as the custodians of Ataturk's secular legacy, a role enshrined in the current constitution, which they drew after their third and last direct intervention in 1980.

Out of sheer curiosity, I'd really like to know, do the people who criticise this French law as intolerant or short-sighted or "racist" or whatever also criticise Ataturk's and the Turkish secularists position establishing the very same principle in the law and in the Turkish constitution?

By: ginger

ginger — Sun, 15 Feb 2004 12:10:15 +0000

Oh good heavens ginger, you are engaging in blatant doublethink. Whenever it helps your argument you assume that the girls in question are able to resist— now apparently they can go to social services. Sebastian, what part of “different individual cases” didn’t you understand? No matter what the social and religious pressures there are, there are still different cases. Can you at least make an effort to imagine that, or is your mind only filled with visions of catastrophe to blame on this law only, rather that on individual decisions? Did you read the part about: some girls may have internalised the pressure to wear the veil, some others will be more likely to rebel, and all degrees in between – and now that there is a clear rule that says that pressure won’t be accepted in school, those already inclined to rebel to that pressure will know the state – starting from the school itself, from teachers to social assistants – is on their side, not their fathers and mullah’s? Do you have any idea whatsoever of the many ways in which parental and social pressures in a traditional environment can work? If you still insist on ignoring that point, as well as all others raised by Ophelia, Randy, Rana, Luc, Pierre, etc., only to go around and around in your unbelievably close-minded and mysoginist circles, well, it’s a waste of time. You don’t give a damn about the actual consequences so long as the principle is something you cherish. No, Sebastian, you haven’t understood one single thing there. You haven’t even understood what the law is about. You are sticking to what you decided will be the one consequence and that it will be catastrophic and you believe that is enough on your part to dismiss everything real that motivated this law. The reasons Rana and Randy and Ophelia and others explained so well. So much better than I could. No wonder you’re not even replying to them…. It seems to me you’re the one stuck on abstract arguments. I don’t care about reasoning in the abstract, I’m speaking also out of experience in a French school, and experience of Muslim girlfriends in class and with their parents. You don’t care about anything that relates to reality here. You don’t care about considering these girls and their parents as individuals, and what their different situations and attitudes might be. So who’s indifferent here? You say yourself that even if my supposition about the greatly increased repression for the vulnerable Muslim girls in question is correct for 99% of the people, I can’t use that as an argument because it is beyond the scope of the law. But that was to emphasise the point about what the law is about, and about what the state can and cannot do! A point you also entirely ignored. Or is your entire interest to show how cold-hearted it is to simply observe the limits of state intervention? You’re unbelievable really… Do you want those limits lifted? Do you want more or less state intervention? You’re so contradicting yourself. The heart of the matter here is that this is about setting rules in state schools. No state can interfere directly with parenting and upbringing of children in the home, in the community, in the family, in the mosque, unless there are clear signs of abuse and all premises for state intervention to protect children – a rule that applies to all situations, not just to religious groups. You refuse to accept the reality of what state laws can do in terms of education, and you want to throw the law away and not even try and consider its premises, just because it cannot automagically bring ALL Islamic traditions up to date with feminism and secularism! When that intent is not and cannot be within the scope of the law, or any law, in any democratic state – and that’s a fact, not my belief or anyone’s, it’s simply the reality. And again, you know too that is highly unlikely, not to say outright impossible, that 99% of French Muslim girls will be “yanked out of state schools” as you say. Do you want to reason on reality for once, or only on if’s? I am pointing out a completely forseeable problem that this policy will make worse, and you want me to ignore it because you celebrate French secularism so much. You’re so dishonest in arguing it’s amusing really. I never said or implied I want you “to ignore it”. I’m pointing out to you that no state can prevent parents from putting their kids in private religious schools, either as a consequence of this law or as a decision already taken before it; and that you will have to consider all aspects of your catastrophic hypothesis, including: 1) there are not as many Koranic schools in France as state schools 2) they’re not free and not as accessible as state schools 3) there will be also many parents who are not so strict on the hijab and will be willing to compromise in exchange for the advantages of state schooling 4) there will be many girls who are already against the obligation to wear the veil and the may be more encouraged to rebel now that they know the state does not tolerate that obligation either; 5) the scope, intent, motivation, practical principle of this law is to set rule in its own schools that will favour both integration and equality between religious groups and boys and girls Also, it’s been pointed out to you that the majority of French Muslim girls and women support this law. Do you still want to ignore all that, fine, but don’t turn it around and blame it on others. Furthermore you have spent so much time talking about the oppression caused by the hijab No I haven’t really. It’s not the main point here. But I’m not sure what’s so annoying to you about talking of the hijab and the associated view of women as a form of oppression? In any case, I have pointed out it can be also something embraced freely, either because of internalisation of pressures, or because of choosing one ’s group identity over one’s personal and sexual identity. I have specifically pointed out to you that those pressures from within the family can also come in a gentle, loving way that a girl will not be willing to rebel against. I’m thinking of instances I’ve known of first-hand. Repeating myself again, if it was only a matter of giving voice to girls who all already want to be free from the hijab and all that’s associated with it in terms of behaviour, it’d be a lot simpler. Reality is not simple, Sebastian. your whole ‘individual choice’ analysis is hopelessly muddled. No, it’s that there are different individual cases (this is getting boring, isn’t it?), different ways by which the pressures on Muslim girls to behave accordingly to strict traditions can act, different ways by which parents can push that tradition, different ways by which girls can react and relate to it. Reality is “muddled”, in the sense it’s more complex than ONE single monolithic picture like the one you seem to entertain. French Muslims are not all “Islamic thugs” beating their girls into submission, you know that? How about that big slice of Muslim women supporting this law, for instance? Care to comment on that? OR is that too much of an annoying fact for you? You admit that the choice to pull from the state schools belongs to the parents, but you refuse to look at that any further. Oh dear. I’ll try again: I’m only observing the state cannot interfere with that choice, be it in France or in the US or Britain or Germany or Canada. Understand that? (And again, you keep reasoning like that will be the only one outcome of this law, for everybody affected…) You suggest that the state can’t do anything about these choices. Clearly they can. For example they could choose not to ban the hijab when they know full well that this will cause the most vulnerable Muslim girls to be cut off from nearly all secular contact. Thats completely self-defeating circular reasoning. You’re saying, basically, that because the law cannot prevent what remains a matter of choice for all parents in any democratic country in the world (ie. send children to private schools of any kind whatsoever), then the state should do nothing at all, and refrain even from setting rules in its own state schools. ! Do you see how absurd your argument is? Whether or not there are religious schools, and independently of how many parents will choose them, the state has a right to set the standards for its own state education. Crikes, t’s such a simple, clear concept I’m amazed you keep ignoring it. Plus, it’s not just a principle. See the five points above. There are many factors, from economic to geographical to mentality-related, that will lead a good number of people to still want to benefit from state schooling rather than private schooling. We are supposed to bow at the altar of secularism and avert our eyes at the consequences for the Muslim girl with fundamentalist parents. Oh yes, that’s precisely my argument here, indeed… sing the praise of French secularism just because. Oh you soo got it right. I have a better idea. Let’s make all state schools in France rule-free. You can come in covered in a burqa as well. Who cares about teaching a secular foundation that can grant respect for all religions as long as they respect basic principles like the separation of state and religion and the equality between the sexes? AS long as we can feel all warm and fuzzy that we are doing our best to prevent you from being “yanked out” by your parents to a private school, anything goes. So the state should basically give up its own laws, its very right to legislate on itself, its right to manage its own state education in its own schools, to “compete” with fundamnetalist religious schools. A wonderful idea, isn’t it? By the same reasoning, creationism should be accepted in state schools in the US, as long as this can be argued to be likely to “prevent” parents from pulling out their kids from those schools to put them in some wacko institute where they’ll learn man was made out of clay, not evolved from monocellular organisms. Does it even cross your mind that there is no proven direct “prevention” effect there, because as long as private schools and religious schools of any kind are available, they are available as choice to any parent, no matter what? What you’re advocating is, that legislators refrain from doing anything just because they cannot do everything. We should all tolerate and accept and endorse views and behaviours even if they are not compatible with the few simple basic rules that are accepted to work for everybody and to accomodate all religions, all beliefs, or none, as long as they respect those basic rules. We give up on all that, we allow fundamentalist views into secular state schools, and that’s how we beat their competition! So smart! All girls and boys in the class should all accept that the stricted Islamic views of women are ok even for the state (and therefore, for the school, for the teachers, etc.). Kids should accept that creationism is ok even for the state. You’re right. It’s such a wonderful solution. Now, let’s go tell those teachers in Afghanistan to stop trying to tell girls to take off their burqas…

By: Sebastian Holsclaw

Sebastian Holsclaw — Sun, 15 Feb 2004 04:31:27 +0000

Oh good heavens ginger, you are engaging in blatant doublethink. Whenever it helps your argument you assume that the girls in question are able to resist—now apparently they can go to social services. We won’t analyze the fact that this doesn’t strengthen the social services that the hijab-wearers were already not using. At other times when it will help your arguments in different ways the girls cannot resist, they have to wear the hijab. I’m sure that you believe you are engaging in amazingly subtle distinction-making, but frankly it appears to me that you flip-flop on definitions any time you think it gives you a positional advantage. That is great for successful argumentation, probably not so great for analyzing the problems of the oppressed Muslim girls in question. I find the most problem with this: “I don’t expect you to agree, but you cannot escape the principle the law is set on, and judge it only on an adverse effect you pick out and turn into a damning condemnation of the law itself. That effect, even if it included 99% of people affected by this law (which is unlikely), is outside the scope of this law. ” You don’t give a damn about the actual consequences so long as the principle is something you cherish. I’m astonished to see you admit this, even though I could tell from your arguments that you believed it. You say yourself that even if my supposition about the greatly increased repression for the vulnerable Muslim girls in question is correct for 99% of the people, I can’t use that as an argument because it is beyond the scope of the law. That is a ridiculous way to make policy, but it is so typical. I am pointing out a completely forseeable problem that this policy will make worse, and you want me to ignore it because you celebrate French secularism so much. Ridiculous. Furthermore you have spent so much time talking about the oppression caused by the hijab, that I think I can be forgiven for mistaking it as important to the topic at hand—at least as important as the ‘cherished secularism’ side of the debate. Furthermore your whole ‘individual choice’ analysis is hopelessly muddled. You admit that the choice to pull from the state schools belongs to the parents, but you refuse to look at that any further. You suggest that the state can’t do anything about these choices. Clearly they can. For example they could choose not to ban the hijab when they know full well that this will cause the most vulnerable Muslim girls to be cut off from nearly all secular contact. The state could do that couldn’t they? In fact the state has done that until now, haven’t they? They could decide that it was more important not to doom these girls to a completely insular Islamist life by allowing them at least to attend schools. Oh, I’m sorry, they are ALLOWED by the SCHOOL SYSTEM to attend. We are all supposed to pretend that their PARENTS will not pull them from the schools, the very same people who (as you even admit) oppress their daughters with the horror of the hijab. We are supposed to bow at the altar of secularism and avert our eyes at the consequences for the Muslim girl with fundamentalist parents. After all, you aren’t ordering the parents to make life worse for their daughters. It is all about good intentions. Damn the real-world consequences and the Muslim girls who get hurt on the way. So long as the principle of the thing is defensible, we can ignore the rest.

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Sat, 14 Feb 2004 14:00:57 +0000

Ginger, Yes indeed, isn’t it maddening. And thanks back, triply and with bells on – because last time this was discussed here, as I mentioned, there weren’t any Ranas or Randys or Gingers (or Pierre, Luc, Yabonne), so my mentions of Ni Putes ni Soumises were simply dismissed as racism. At least that ploy is more difficult this time.

By: ginger

ginger — Sat, 14 Feb 2004 10:35:54 +0000

Ophelia: that also amazes me, how the opinions those women, like Rana here who’s speaking from first-hand experience, can be ignored. Thanks to you and Randy for putting the main points so well. I’d also like to hear Sebastian and Andrew answer your posts, possibly without straw men and arbitrary inferences. My apologies to everyone for not managing too keep concise, English is a second language for me and I get repetitive and redundant when trying to explain something that’s very obvious to me.

By: ginger

ginger — Sat, 14 Feb 2004 10:26:56 +0000

oops, sorry, that was in reply to Sebastian, not Andrew… Sebastian, to make it absolutely clear again, I did not say what you infer here: “You know full well that the girls in question do not make their own choices on these matters. Yet you still use rhetoric as if they were making the choices. If they were making free choices there would be no question of the ban at all!” I know I wrote a lot, but please if you’re interested in discussing at all re-read carefully and you’ll see I’m considering a range of different individual cases. What I know full well is that some girls have choice, some others don’t, some others don’t see it as a matter of choice, some others see the scarf as something to be proud. I assume you know full well yourself, even if you’re a man, how strict rules and authoritiarian education from parents can work, be it on girls or boys. They can be internalised so much that one does not see that strictness as repression. THAT is where the whole problem lies, dear Sebastian. IF it was only a matter of giving voice and choice to girls who ALL want to be free from the most oppressive aspects of strict Islamic tradition, then it’d be a lot simpler, n’est-ce pas? It’s not about being cold-hearted, it’s about being objective on what the state powers of intervention are. Again, name me one democratic country in the world where you or me or anybody else or the social services can PREVENT a parent from putting her daughter into a private school of any kind, unless there are factors for state intervention. You’re demanding something that cannot be done, and would open up a whole can of worms of state interference (where would you draw the line, do you want those girls sent to Koranic schools to be all removed from parental custody?), and refuse to consider what can and is being done, and is not state interference because the state is only legislating upon its own state environment. There are a lot of aspects to this legislation that you are ignoring to keep hammering on something (how parents bring up their children, in the absence of identifiable factors of abuse that can trigger state intervention) that is totally outside the scope of any law in any democracy.

By: ginger

ginger — Sat, 14 Feb 2004 10:10:24 +0000

Andrew, look, I have understood your insistence that France do more to police the banlieues. But that is a crime issue, if you’re referring to policing you’re talking about crime. There is already policing of crimes, so my question is, what extra measures do you advocate that would be targeted specifically at Muslims? Police measures? New laws? That would target what crimes exactly that are not already covered? Or simply more controls for crimes already covered? Then fine, but point is, that is entirely a separate matter. Not even related to the topic here. This is about how the state rules for its own state education. It’s about mentality, culture, principles. Not crime. Ok? And for the 100th time, pressures on a young girl to wear a headscarf and behave accordingly to a strict and repressive tradition do not have to come by way of beatings and violence. It can all be a lot subtler. As within any family with a strict and authoritarian father, he might be a loving parent as well. That’s exactly what makes it more complicated, in fact, for such situations. Because a girl might love her authoritarian father and may be convinced she has to respect his rules. Here, you tell the girl attending a state school in France that the first rules she has to respect, when there is a conflict between those set by her tradition and the state’s, are the latter. That’s also a message that goes out to the parents. Since we’re talking individuals, there’ll be all sorts of reactions. There’ll be mothers and fathers who will accept that compromise. There’ll be those who won’t. But, when the pressure from parents, father or mother or both, is still too strict, you are giving the chance to that girl attending a state school to free herself from that pressure. It doesn’t have to result in further intransigence. To use your example: “the girls who are most vulnerable, the girls with the most rigidly fundamentalist families, the girls in the most rigidly Islamist neighborhoods, these are the girls who will be pulled from the public schools and put (if anywhere) in Koranic schools. ” Well, have you ever heard of social services? They exist in France too, you know. A girl getting such pressures from her family has the chance to go to her teacher and talk about it. If those pressures fall within the scope of psychological abuse, then the state has a chance to intervene. A girl will be more encouraged to come out and “rebel” if she understands that the rules of the state are on HER side, not her father’s. I should add, I’m a female, I went to school for a certain time in a Paris banlieue, indeed, with Muslim girls. Some of whom had that rebel instinct, some not. Some submitted to the rule of behaving like a good-Muslim-girl, which is not just about wearing a hijab I can assure you. Just like choosing not to wear it is not just about not wearing it; and it’s not easy either. I can give you tons of examples but I can’t explain it if you don’t get it. I don’t expect you to share my views at all. But it seems to me you’re stuck on abstract reasoning, catastrophic hypotheses, unconnected arguments, and not facing the reality of all the implications of wearing or not wearing that “conspicuous religious symbol”. The law may backfire for some, or be positive for others. But keep in mind the first and immediate purpose (and principle) of the law is to make it easier for classes to operate on an equality basis – between boys and girls, different religious groups, and non religious ones. It is functional to how state schools operate. Randy said it perfectly above. Teachers will no longer have to condone a tradition that entails a physical and psychological wall between Muslim girls and others, girls and boys alike. In class, there should be no such wall. And since state school is where future voting citizens are educated, I see it as a good move in this specific respect. The fact that some parents will still be able to pull their girls out of state schools and put them in Koranic schools (unless the girls rebel and ask for the support of the teachers and social services or something) is a matter of individual free choice granted to families is very relevant. The state cannot do anything about it, unless there are the premises for state intervention in that particular case (abuse, as said above). Just like the state in the US cannot do anything about parents wanting to put their kids in Koranic schools either. Or in schools where creationism is taught instead of scientific theories. Or in schools where, to use Randy’s instance, teachers preach about how gays are perverts. No (democratic) state in the world can do anything about it, if I as a girl am being brought up by parents who teach me things that are not productive to my psychological growth, wellbeing, independence, and self-realization. UNLESS I or someone else close to me takes a step in the direction of escaping something which becomes suffocating to me. But it can’t be forced by law, unless there is abuse, and unless I or someone else caring for me denounce it. WHEREAS the state can do something about how young girls and boys in its own state schools should be expected to relate to each other and to the state’s own rules. Understand my point? If the state wants to pass a law reintroducing school uniforms, it can. Actually, that’d have been an even smarter idea, eh… Let’s have nice uniforms for everybody so it’s not even a matter of “the ban of religious symbols”. But I guess that would have brought other problems. Laws are compromises, always. After months of hearing all the different arguments, after my initial perplexity, I simply have come to think this compromise, of removing any and all religious identification and everything that’s associated with it, is a rather pragmatic and intelligent way of setting that principle of equality and French secularism in the environment where principles must be set, ie. schools. It is a way of dealing with a practical situations and the problems that have arisen in these last years. It is a way of setting rules for integration – I, the state, shall respect all religious habits as long as they respect me first. I, the state, am based on that idea of laicite, and if you want to take advantage of the kind of education I, the state, have envisioned for my citizens, then you have to submit to that simple rule that sets equality for all and total separation of religion and public life. I don’t expect you to agree, but you cannot escape the principle the law is set on, and judge it only on an adverse effect you pick out and turn into a damning condemnation of the law itself. That effect, even if it included 99% of people affected by this law (which is unlikely), is outside the scope of this law. If you don’t understand that, try and name an instance of a state in the world that can force parents to NOT put their kids in the wackiest private school there is just because they can. (Excluding factors of abuse). the girls who are most vulnerable, the girls with the most rigidly fundamentalist families, the girls in the most rigidly Islamist neighborhoods, these are the girls who will be pulled from the public schools and put (if anywhere) in Koranic schools. No, “individual choice” refer to the parents – again, excluding factors that can trigger state intervention, in any country in the world parents can do what they like with their children’s education. If I teach my kids that gays are evil, you cannot do anything about it. You will try and correct it by way of state education, but you cannot force me to send them to state schools if there are also private schools. My concern is with the law itself, not just the overall situation of girls in Islam. It would be LOVELY if that could be tackled as a whole; but it cannot be tackled as a whole from the outside. IT can only be tackled in each specific setting. If for instance I own a restaurant, I can set rules that all my employees will have to wear a uniform on the job. They won’t be allowed to wear religious head covering while they take orders and deliver them to customers. That is a much simpler instance, and nothing much in common here. But say, my best waitress is a Muslim girl and she wants to keep wearing the scarf, OR she has been brought up with intense pressures to wear it and doesn’t want to give it up for all the reasons such pressures cause. She’ll have to pick wether to keep working for me or not. It’s her choice (assuming she is old enough legally to decide for herself). I am only setting my own rules for the environment I own and operate. Because that’s what I can do. I cannot force her to rebel to something I (and other Muslim girls) view as oppression if she’s been brought up not to consider it so. Compris? Similarly here. I, the state, do what I can and have a right to do on my premises. I cannot do more than that. But what I can do already has a tremendous weight in setting a principle about the prevalence of state principles over religious principles, in a state environment. That is of huge relevance to the issue of integration of communities where there may be an excessively strict adherence to religion over state rules. The whole basis of the conflict between those among Muslims who are most intransigent and the democratic state where they live is there, in that strict instransigent Muslims want the state to come second, and their religious traditions to come first. When the latter conflict with the idea of that state’s secularism and equality between the sexes and between all citizens of all faiths, then the state can take action to re-establish that its own rules come first. That’s what it did here. The rest – as with any law – is up to individuals, in all their different individual reactions that cannot be boiled down to one, be it catastrophic or overoptimistic. But since we’re talking girls under the legal age to decide for themselves (not sure, as I don’t live in France- but it should be 18), then there is also more of an opening for the state to intervene in case of pressures and psychological abuse within the family, and that opening can be even larger once the state has set a precise rule about equality. The girls need not be forced to leave schools. Those who have internalised those set of repressive rules, and do not see the headscarf and the Islamic idea of woman associated to it as repressive, will not make a fuss if their parents want to move them to Koranic schools. Those who feel those Islamic views of women are repressive, will have more of a chance to stand up because now they know that the state does not endorse those views in the school. Why don’t you even consider that? That is a clear dividing line. Those other factors – how the girls themselves perceive the Islamic tradition about women, and how they relate to it, how they react, and what room for manoeuvre they have – depends wholly on individual cases. But the state has set a clear principle from which to act there. Besides, there will be also practical factors at play. I doubt there’s as many Koranic schools in France, as as nearby and accessible everywhere, as state schools. I even doubt they all legally comply with what’s required even of private schooling. I doubt all parents, even among the strictest ones, will be willing to give up the advantages of state schooling just because of this law. I can think of many different cases and different outcomes. The law cannot legislate on that, it can only set a principle. Disagree or agree with it, but that is the only thing it can do. The rest belongs to the private sphere and parental rights over their children, and the state can only act when there is a conflict there, and a case of abuse, and/or a call for help from the girl herself. Sorry for repetitions and redundances, but you don’t seem to be getting that…

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Sat, 14 Feb 2004 01:02:57 +0000

Postscript. I too, like Ginger and Randy, have reservations, worry about the consequences, etc. Nor did I ever say otherwise. My main point was that opponents simply ignore the fact that (as I keep saying) many Muslim women support the ban. I don’t see why their opinions should just be ignored. Or why what Rana and Pierre said should.

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Sat, 14 Feb 2004 00:56:54 +0000

Double quote here (quoting Ginger quoting Andrew) – “I just noticed there’s been a feast of extrapolations – ie. putting words in people’s mouths and inferring all sorts of nonsense – courtesy of sebastian and andrew, like this: ““Great, the whole world should become little Americans and eat at McDonald’s… Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”” That is so not what I said or what Randy said. I’m exhausted at the moment and can’t go through it line by line, but both of you have been misreading wildly. The discussion would be so much more interesting if you didn’t do that. Also more concise. You go on and on at great length but addressing phantoms. A tad pointless.

By: Randy McDonald

Randy McDonald — Sat, 14 Feb 2004 00:48:58 +0000

Mr. Holsclaw: What? I don’t have to think that ALL Muslim parents will pull their kids. I just have to think the girls who are most vulnerable, the girls with the most rigidly fundamentalist families, the girls in the most rigidly Islamist neighborhoods, these are the girls who will be pulled from the public schools and put (if anywhere) in Koranic schools. On a side note, if France is anything like Canada, private schools have to meet certain basic requirements. Parents who provide inferior educations to their children are held legally responsible in most developed countries, inasmuch as it involves negligent parenting. On your main note, the goal of this legislation is to empower as many French Muslim young women as possible, preventing the hijab as it is being imposed from becoming the footsoldier for the spread of this sort of misogyny. It’s a defensive holding action, aimed at ultimately destabilizing the hold of conservatives in the French Muslim community on women. It’s an imperfect first step—I, like Ginger, am concerned by the effect that this may have on the minority of young women who voluntarily and freely wear the hijab—but politics isn’t for the pur et durs.

By: Randy McDonald

Randy McDonald — Sat, 14 Feb 2004 00:40:06 +0000

Mr. Boucher: “Surely, sir, you’d think that a society where it would be possible to assimilate would be better than one where it would be impossible to assimilate.” And, surely sir, a society where it isn’t necessary to assimilate is better than one where one is forced to. Which is actually more what I’m talking about. A certain degree of assimilation is implied by most multiculturalisms, in their visions of a diverse society where different subgroups are able to coexist without infringing on the rightful liberties of others. This vision implies that all groups should assimilate basic liberal-democratic principles of tolerance, for instance that majority populations shouldn’t oppress minority populations. It also implies that minority populations, in their dealings with other subgroups as well as in their internal relationships, should embrace the same principles. Multiculturalism certainly wasn’t intended by its creators to conflict with the goal of a just and equal society for all. It was intended to supplement the latter goal, in fact. Besides, Henry Farrell on this blog argued that the ban would be justified if the headscarf was being used to oppress women. It’s insulting to assume that immigrant minorities are incapable of absorbing the norms of the societies they live in; these norms include a basic respect for female autonomy and rights.