I don’t know enough about this case to feel comfortable commenting on the all-things-considered rights and wrongs of it. But I was taken aback by the comments of the girl’s MP on Radio 4’s PM programme. Margaret Moran, who backs the school and the court, said, in their defence, that the girl had the option of going to a Muslim school, and her family also had the option of withdrawing her from school and home-schooling. She went on to accuse them of having ‘political motivations’ for their suit.
I can imagine good reasons for having uniform regulations, and for upholding them even in the face of religious objections, hence my relctance to comment on the all-things-considered merits. But the fact that the regulations might drive a girl into an educational situation in which her religious beliefs will not be challenged or tested seems to me a reason for bending, or revising the rules, not a consideration in their favour. The parents’ enthusiasm that their child should attend a state comprehensive school is to their credit. Telling them that they should school her religiously or at home doesn’t seem very helpful to me.
{ 43 comments }
Derek 06.15.04 at 6:26 pm
I listened to the same programme you did, and the information I got from it included:
# The dress code already allows shalwar kameez and headscarf, which is enough to completely meet the requirements of the Koran.
# The school in question already has an 80% Muslim girls attendance, none of whom have problems with the existing dress code.
It seems to me that the special clothing required by the girl’s parents is not “Muslim” clothing at all, but the custom of a particular part of the world, falsely described as a religious requirement.
It also seems to me that the girl’s parents are unwilling to compromise on the tiniest detail, and that you do the school an injustice in chiding them for not bending the rules, when the rules have already been extended so far.
q 06.15.04 at 6:32 pm
Disgraceful: As the current uniform meets Islamic requirements for covering skin, this action therefore is divisive, arrogant or small-minded and definitely disrespectful, and I hope that taxpayers did not have to shell out for this utter nonsense.
_Shabina’s lawyer Yvonne Spencer said her client was devastated and would not be returning to Denbigh school. “The family feels this decision doesn’t help integrate Muslims within our society,”_
The other 2 million Muslims don’t have a problem integrating wearing school uniform. The court case will itself just allow people to mock Muslims for being juvenile, and you can bet that this idiocy will cause some Muslims in the country to be bullied and beaten up.
Dave 06.15.04 at 6:34 pm
I have to agree with Derek. The school’s uniform code was already designed to accommodate traditional Muslims.
This student obviously wants to be seen as different from other students. I don’t claim to know what her motivations are, but knowing kids her age, I would not be surprised if that wasn’t the prime reason for her choice of clothing. This is precisely what the dress code is designed to prevent. Therefore, I have no sympathy at all.
Then again, I have little sympathy for European Muslims who are concerned about being persecuted for their dress habits, as they regularly attack and persecute Jews in their communities for doing the same thing. Mote in your brother’s eye and all that.
Fergal 06.15.04 at 6:36 pm
When are religious beliefs ever “challenged or tested” in state comprehensive schools?
pepi 06.15.04 at 6:43 pm
I saw this too on the news. I’m with derek and q. There does seem to be a political motivation, so I don’t think it’s that outrageous to say so. I also don’t believe in bending rules, especially when they’ve been already made so flexible as to accomodate all the other Muslim girls.
If what the parents/girl are after is not just a dress code that suits them to a tee but an even heavier influence of religion in schools then, indeed, they have the option of a fully religious school. It’s a free choice for anybody.
cokelly 06.15.04 at 6:44 pm
I agree with Derek. I also think it’s important to note that the school claims to have formulated their uniform policy in direct consultation with local Muslim organisations.
I am a little bit uncomfortable, however. At some level uniform rules – at least in this situation – are rooted in a distinction between legitimate and illegitimate modesty. Should public institutions take a stance on modesty and if so, on what grounds? Maybe the welfare of the child (as in, protecting them from their parents’ beliefs)? But is this a proper, or even effective, way to provide a child with tools that may help them make choices about belief in the future?
q 06.15.04 at 6:46 pm
Arguably, the family are not being good Muslims too:
Article: Islam online – Thoughts on Modesty
_Modesty also implies simplicity, and lack of desire for ostentation. A woman could be completely covered, but in some gaudy material, shrieking color, and also dripping with jewellery, gold and pearls. That’s one sort of ostentation. Or she might be the only woman in her community who chooses to be head to toe in black-that might well be genuine piety, but it could also be a form of ostentation too. Allah will judge the lady not on her clothes at all, but on her motives, her niyyah, and the quality of her life and what she does with it._
cokelly 06.15.04 at 6:53 pm
Thanks q. I never thought of that. Still, maybe your point only pushes the question back a step. The question becomes ‘should public institutions take a stance on ostentation?’ Certainly my memory of school is that, in fact, they do – no trainers or boys with long hair in my own rather conservative Irish schooling – but is that right?
harry 06.15.04 at 6:57 pm
bq. you do the school an injustice in chiding them for not bending the rules, when the rules have already been extended so far.
Not fair. I quite explicitly refrained from chiding the school, chiding instead the MP for *a particular reason that she gave* in defence of the school. And just to clarify, I said that the possibility that the child would go to a religious or home school was *a* reason for bending the rules (but not, by implication, sufficient reason, otherwise I *would* have been commenting on the all-things-considered rights and wrongs, which I was not willing to do).
q’s (or Maqsood’s) point on ostentation is great.
q 06.15.04 at 7:00 pm
Well I am certainly not in favour of a rule that says: “No ostentation unless you think you are holier/purer than anyone else”. These nutcases need to be stopped before any more damage is done. Nutcases in the White House and nutcases in the British courts. Same fascism, different perspective.
pepi 06.15.04 at 7:08 pm
That girl is so pretty, I would definitely encourage ostentation. I’m being silly, ok. But she _is_ so cute…
One-Eyed Undertaker 06.15.04 at 7:19 pm
My money’s on Europe’s new Muslims to have their way in most things–if not now, eventually.
q 06.15.04 at 7:22 pm
Pepi-
Go and have a cold shower. Anyway, even if she looks cute, she is still a fascist, don’t forget.
q 06.15.04 at 7:26 pm
one-eyed-
1) Open the other eye.
2) Don’t become an investment manager
laura, 11d 06.15.04 at 9:15 pm
Harry, you wrote: “But the fact that the regulations might drive a girl into an educational situation in which her religious beliefs will not be challenged or tested seems to me a reason for bending, or revising the rules, not a consideration in their favour.”
I think that a lot of homeschooler think that they have to educate their kids at home because their religion is not merely tested, but attacked, outside the home. And even if they protect their kids from those influences by keeping them at home, their beliefs are tested everytime they turn on the TV or walk outside the door.
I’m not a homeschooler, Harry, but I just felt like playing devil’s advocate (so to speak).
Ikram 06.15.04 at 9:51 pm
What’s the rationale behind a ‘school uniform policy’? What educational purpose does it serve? (I assume uniforms are common in the UK, having watched more than one Harry Potter movie, and thus being very familiar with that country).
For the most part, I don’t see why an arbitrary clothing policy should trump individual conscience. Wear your jilbab, burn your bra. what’s it the principal’s business?
Ophelia Benson 06.15.04 at 10:47 pm
“But the fact that the regulations might drive a girl into an educational situation in which her religious beliefs will not be challenged or tested seems to me a reason for bending, or revising the rules, not a consideration in their favour.”
But surely the thinking behind this is that the matter cuts in two directions. That it’s not only a question of what’s best for this one girl, but also of what’s best for everyone else. It may be that what would be in some ideal-world sense best for the one girl would be a bad thing for the other students, or for the teachers, or for some of either or both groups. It doesn’t seem to me to be self-evident that what’s best for one girl ought to trump what’s best for other people. It’s also not self-evident to me that what’s best for even a majority of girls (if, say, a majority of girls in that school wanted to wear the clothing in question) ought to trump what’s best for even a minority of other people. What’s best is of course debatable – but it seems to me a mistake to think the issue cuts in only one direction.
agm 06.16.04 at 12:11 am
Hmmm, school uniforms in UK mean one thing, while school uniforms in Japan mean something else entirely.
Sorry, just had to go there.
Dave 06.16.04 at 12:31 am
What’s the rationale behind a “school uniform policy”?
Some of the arguments are as follows:
In places where students (especially girls) tend to wear revealing clothes, dress codes cut down on distraction and teasing/harassment.
Clothing styles are also used by teenagers to mark social and/or economic status, and allows students to form visible groups that are often antagonistic towards each other. Dress codes decrease the difference in appearance between preps and goths, cheerleaders and nerds, and even members of rival street gangs. Dress codes allow students to coexist more easily.
These may sound like silly arguments, but the results of studies are mixed. People – including students – in school districts where unforms have been introduced are generally positive about the change. At least one team of researchers, however, claims that there is no improvement in most areas – but I read their study, and suspect some of their reasoning may be fundamentally flawed.
Tom T. 06.16.04 at 1:09 am
I think that schools can legitimately assert that a certain level of clothing uniformity is consistent with advancing overall educational goals, and in this case the school seems to have worked hard to accommodate religious interests within that dress code. This strikes me as being roughly analogous to the Florida case where the Muslim woman was (rightly, in my view) not permitted to be veiled in her driver’s license photo.
pepi, you are joking of course, but your comment points out why so many societies place such value on modesty. She is only 15, after all, and all that is visible is her face and hands, and yet she’s a target of sexual attention.
q, based on what we know from this story, she’s not a fascist, she’s an anarchist.
Harry, I have to agree with Laura that your statement about her beliefs not being challenged or tested seems a bit condescending. Perhaps your experience is different, though, and it might help if you shared with us some examples of how your beliefs on religion were challenged and tested while you were in school.
Ophelia Benson 06.16.04 at 1:22 am
“Harry, I have to agree with Laura that your statement about her beliefs not being challenged or tested seems a bit condescending.”
Hmm. I have to disagree with Laura if that’s what she meant (that’s not how I understood what she said). Anyway I have to disagree with the idea that what Harry said about challenging religious beliefs was condescending. Is there some reason that religious beliefs should not be challenged? Or am I misunderstanding the point.
Matt 06.16.04 at 2:26 am
“The parents’ enthusiasm that their child should attend a state comprehensive school is to their credit. Telling them that they should school her religiously or at home doesn’t seem very helpful to me.”
Seems to me this argument is a bit backward. I agree that it if the parents genuinely want their kid to attend school so that she will grow up exposed to many different kinds of ideas and people, and learn to compromise and coexist peacefully, that is to their credit.
But if they want the school to change the rules so that the kid will not have to face religious ideas different from her own (in this case about clothing), then one begins to suspect that they do not want their child to learn about compromise and coexistence after all.
You might ask, but why should the girl have to do all the compromising? To which I give this overlong reply:
What is the difference between this case and a case where Christian Boy X demands that the school let him wear all white, to distinguish him from the muslim students, because he feels that Christianity requires him to draw attention to the gospel any way he can? What about Girl Z who argues that her religion requires her to wear a Slipknot t-shirt? You might say “That’s obviously facetious”, but in that case, to whom are we giving the power to judge the strength and sincerity of childrens’ beliefs? Come to that, I know kids who are more passionate about certain musicians than they will ever be about religion. Why should their passion be denied expression just because it wasn’t invented hundreds of years ago?
And what about someone who goes to church but doesn’t really believe, but wants to wear the white gospel clothes anyway? What about a Jewish student who, due to her religion, feels strongly about suicide bombers in Israel and wants to wear a dirty or red-stained jilbal in order to express her anger and provoke muslim students?
The solution is — compromise. The uniform -is itself- this compromise. The vast majority of the school community reportedly has no problem with the uniform (understandably, because it saves time, money and hassle for students and parnets). This means that if you want to be part of the school community, you go along with its entirely reasonable rules — which are reportedly accepted by all other muslims at the school and, of course, by mainstream Islam itself.
Part of growing up is learning how to be part of something larger than yourself. Not to mention picking your battles.
harry 06.16.04 at 2:31 am
You’re challenging me from different directions Laura and Ophelia, so I’m going to try to respond without sounding incoherent.
Ophelia, you’re right that the actual policy (whatever it is) should be guided by what’s best for everybody or, more precisely, consideration of everyone’s interests. I assumed that none of the other kids would benefit from the girl defecting from the school, and that she would benefit from staying in the school. I think you’ll agree with me on the second assumption at least. So, given the very narrow point I was making, which was just that I didn’t see the availability of other options (Muslim schools/home schooling) as mitigating the policy. BUT, of course, as I said, *all-things-considered*, where ‘all-things’ includes the non-Shabina-related effects on other kids of relaxing/altering the uniform policy, it may be that the school and the court are right. I guess the point is that I’m not making a claim about trumps, just about what cards are on the table. I did not criticise either the school or court in my post, only the MP, who put a card on the table that I don’t think should be there.
So, Laura, yes, its ok, I know where you’re coming from! I was making a big point very briefly and imprecisely. Maybe even completely confusingly. I agree that many religious people feel their beliefs challeneged every time they walk out the door. So here’s what to say about them. Some of them are just nuts, or, more generously, whiners. But most aren’t. We live in a crass materialist (in the worst sense) culture, in which grotesque values are routinely endorsed and promoted by corporate interests in the public culture. I see little value in adolescents having their values challenged or tested *in that way*. But I see tremendous value in them having their values and beliefs challenged and tested in fora where they are respected, and in which others provide reasons for alternatives, and articulate alternatives in the way they live.
So, tom t, if you want anecdotes about the way my values were challenged and tested — I attended 2 high schools, in one of which High Tory values were preached from the Head down; completely at odds with my own beliefs, but a good testing ground for them. In the second school I knew (among my peers) Sikh, born again Christian, and Muslim believers, whose defence of, and articulation of, their ways of life challenged many of my beliefs, and from whom I learned a great deal. A good school, to be sure, and we don’t know whether Denbigh is good in that way, which is another reason I didn’t want to make an all-things-considered judgment about the case. This is one reason I am so troubled by the flight of the religious from public schooling; because their flight diminishes the challenge to the pervasive materialism in our culture. But, also, because I don’t believe that anyone should be captive to the values of their parents or community, and mixing in institutions like schools helps prevent people from being captive to their parents and communities’ values.
The comment may have sounded condescending to you, tom, because you think (as Ophelia surmises) that people shouldn’t have their beliefs challenged. If so, no apology: I’m with Ophelia. It may, alternatively, sound condescending because you think I am implying that I can/will do what I doubt the girl’s parents can/will do. Again, no apology because I did not imply, and don’t think that. It seems incredibly hard realistically to challenge one’s own fundamental beliefs with one’s kids. I’m an atheist, and cannot effectively present religious alternatives to my beliefs in a meaningful way. My kids need contact with people who really believe and live by alternatives to my way of life just as much as Shabina does. That’s (one reason) why they need to be in religiously/non-religiously mixed schools, and not in single-faith schools or home-school. Its also one big reason why I deliberately sent my school-age daughter to a CofE school in the UK (when we lived there) and have my younger daughter part of the week at a daycare run by a deeply religious (indeed fundamentalist) Christian (the same daycare my elder daughter attended). You can see more on all this at a previous post on faith schools in the UK at https://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/001958.html
q 06.16.04 at 2:57 am
_q, based on what we know from this story, she’s not a fascist, she’s an anarchist._
I really don’t understand how you reach this conclusion. She gets a free education, and she demands to change the uniform rules for the whole school. She wastes other people’s time and tax money on education services and then legal services. Next time I visit Italy, maybe if I take legal action to enforce my right to drive the wrong way down the motorway I am being an anarchist.
Anarchism: Rejection of all forms of coercive control and authority.
Fascism: Oppressive, dictatorial control.
The actions of the family are petulant in the least. I suppose to the extent that if everyone engaged in such extreme petulance it would result in the collapse of the state, then she is an anarchist – is that your argument? However, as she claims to be a devout Muslim, then a label of anarchism is accidental.
q 06.16.04 at 3:52 am
Harry-
Good points all along. If the girl is planning to live in Britain, she’ll need to learn about toleration and compromise at some time in her life, to cope with interactions with society. The “opt-out” option seems to be a “cop-out”. Her biggest problem at the moment is her manipulative or weak or ignorant parents, and a possibly greedy lawyer, who:
1. should never have let things go this far,
2. have been humiliated in front of her,
3. tried to make her a political pawn.
Now it looks like she may lose her school friends. Very sad. I hope she has some nice friends, and caring extended family.
Tom T. 06.16.04 at 1:54 pm
q, I don’t see how the girl is exercising oppressive, dictatorial control. Over whom? It looks to me like she’s attempting to reject a form of state-sponsored conformity. As I said above, I don’t support her in this exercise, but I’m baffled as to why her resistance to a school uniform constitutes fascism.
Harry, what you said sounded condescending because it sounded like you considered religious beliefs to be more in need of challenge than non-religious beliefs; i.e., inherently defective ideas that needed to be overcome. Many atheists (at least in the argumentative world of the Internet) freely admonish religious folk to challenge their thinking without ever seeming to examine their own. That was why I was curious whether you had ever done for yourself what you were counseling for this girl, and I see from your most recent comment that you are indeed intellectually fearless in this way. I withdraw my aspersion, and I apologize (or apologise) for it.
Tom T. 06.16.04 at 2:10 pm
Many atheists (at least in the argumentative world of the Internet) freely admonish religious folk to challenge their thinking without ever seeming to examine their own.
I should hasten to add that I certainly recognize this sort of behavior to be a universal phenomenon. I do not mean to imply that it is any more prevalent within atheism than in any other belief system.
q 06.16.04 at 3:08 pm
_q, I don’t see how the girl is exercising oppressive, dictatorial control. Over whom? It looks to me like she’s attempting to reject a form of state-sponsored conformity._
Tom t-
School uniform is state-sponsored conformity like taking exams when you are 16 is also state sponsored conformity or having a lunch-break at 12.15. Do you accept that she is not really an anarchist?
She is in a minority of 1 (in 1000), trying to force the school to allow her to make ostentatious statements in the classroom.
A minority trying to force its views on a majority through force instead of reason: it struck in me a chord with some recent events, which definitely have a fascist overtone.
The force I allege she was using was to manipulate the dialogue over religious freedom, to make it appear that the school was oppressing her. (This manipulation is made easier by the ignorance of many people about Islam.) OK maybe I was wrong, it might not quite constitute fascism, but do you see the trend?
NS 06.16.04 at 4:48 pm
Radio 5 interviewd a number of girls from this school yesterday evening; the response was generally that the girl in question’s familly had an elitist agenda. We find elitism distasteful in our own culture, yet tolerate it in others – “embracing diversity” no doubt – for fear of being accused of neocolonialism or racism, or some other simplistic, misguided right-on ‘ism’….
pepi 06.16.04 at 4:55 pm
q: I was only being silly, I don’t fancy girls, I have two daughters her age myself, and no, I don’t think she is a fascist and I don’t think I said so. What have _you_ been taking?
pepi 06.16.04 at 5:06 pm
oops, sorry, q, I get the “fascist” part now – I thought it was sarcasm… nevermind.
Personally I wouldn’t call it “fascism” by far, but I do agree with your points, and Ophelia’s.
Ophelia Benson 06.16.04 at 6:54 pm
“what you said sounded condescending because it sounded like you considered religious beliefs to be more in need of challenge than non-religious beliefs; i.e., inherently defective ideas that needed to be overcome. Many atheists (at least in the argumentative world of the Internet) freely admonish religious folk to challenge their thinking without ever seeming to examine their own.”
The trouble with this is that it seems to assume that theism and atheism are symmetrical – that each is a belief. But that’s not right. Theism is a belief, and atheism is not a belief. Atheism is abstention from a belief. People who posit the existence of supernatural entities do have more of a burden of proof than people who refrain from doing that. That’s not to say that all atheists have rational or coherent sets of ideas, of course, but it is to dispute the assumption that there is – that there can be – nothing inherently flawed in theistic thinking.
harry 06.16.04 at 7:51 pm
bq. Theism is a belief, and atheism is not a belief. Atheism is abstention from a belief. People who posit the existence of supernatural entities do have more of a burden of proof than people who refrain from doing that
Ophelia, that’s interesting. Let’s suppose you are right (and I agree that the burden of proof is on the person positing the more highly populated ontology). Theism is only a part of any given religion (albeit an important part). My concern is not so much with people’s beliefs about God, but their beliefs and assumptions about how best to live their lives. I think each kid (adolescent) should have those beliefs and assumptions challenged, and in this arena I think that ways of life associated with non-theistic metaphysics *are* symmetrical with those associated with theism. In fact numerous young religious believers probably do ahve their assumptions about how to live more routinely challeneged (in contemporary secular societies) than do numerous non-religious kids. Its easier to avoid being confronted by religious values than it is to avoid being confronted by capitalist/commercial values.
Ophelia Benson 06.16.04 at 8:10 pm
Yup, true enough, Harry. I must say, I wish it were otherwise! I wish one could have discussions about morality, about what sort of life to live, independent of theism. I wish people didn’t take it for granted that discussion of morality has to be tangled up with theism. And I wish discussion of theism could be separate from discussion of morality and what sort of life to live. I also wish one could (more easily) resist cultural forces like commercialization and the hyper-sexualization of children independently of religion.
But I agree completely about which one is easier to avoid.
novalis 06.16.04 at 8:23 pm
School uniforms teach children that the solution to disagreements among people of different cultures is to smash all evidence of any culture but the dominant one.
Why doesn’t the school just switch everyone over to the jilbab? There would be no “modesty” issues for Muslim students, and everyone would be wearing the same thing.
Antoni Jaume 06.16.04 at 9:33 pm
Novalis,
Why opt for any one wants? Why not a roulette for the kind of dress for the following day, in which the kind of dress worn is chosen from the typical, or not, of the thousands of societies, including nudists.
DSW
Tom T. 06.17.04 at 12:36 am
q, I’ve made our conversation much too serious. Let’s compromise on quasi-crypto-fascist.
Theism is a belief, and atheism is not a belief.
Ophelia, that’s fine, and you go right on believing that. (Sorry; couldn’t resist). More seriously, I think we’re using the term “belief” in somewhat different ways. Surely we’re all pomo enough here to agree that any system of ordering one’s view of the universe, whether through belief or unbelief, ultimately rests on axiomatic, unprovable value judgments and assumptions. I.e., there is no absolute truth.
As for the burden of proof, the believer posits God; the unbeliever posits a Big Bang. How is one more ontologically populated than another? Moreover, selecting the criterion of ontological population is itself an arbitrary value judgment; you’ve chosen it because you find it useful and consistent with your view of the world, but a believer might choose a different criterion because he finds that one to be useful and consistent with a different view.
Ophelia Benson 06.17.04 at 1:19 am
Tom,
No need to apologize, I’ve heard that joke several million times. No one can resist.
“Surely we’re all pomo enough here to agree that any system of ordering one’s view of the universe, whether through belief or unbelief, ultimately rests on axiomatic, unprovable value judgments and assumptions. I.e., there is no absolute truth.”
Well I’m not pomo enough anywhere, let alone here. But leaving that aside – your i.e. isn’t. Because a system of ordering one’s view of the universe is one thing, and the truth (the ‘Absolute’ truth if you really feel a need for a supererogatory capitalized adjective) about the universe is another. So your conclusion that there is no Absolute truth doesn’t follow.
“As for the burden of proof, the believer posits God; the unbeliever posits a Big Bang.”
No she doesn’t – not necessarily, not by definition. An atheist is simply a non-theist. That doesn’t entail any beliefs about the Big Bang – it simply entails not being a theist. And not believing someone else’s positive belief is not the same thing as having a positive belief oneself. If you tell me you have a four ton strawberry on your head and I decline to believe you, that doesn’t commit me to any beliefs about what you do have on your head. One can decline to believe implausible assertions without declaring or having any positive beliefs at all.
Tom T. 06.17.04 at 2:12 am
Ophelia: “No absolute truth” was indeed inaccurate on my part; “no absolutely provable truth” is perhaps a better way of expressing my thought. Or even “no absolutely provable truth within a given system without the use of axioms from outside that system,” with apologies to Godel.
As to your other point, perhaps I’m again confusing the issue through imprecise use of language. I’ve taken “atheist” to mean one who believes that there is no God, as distinct from an “agnostic,” which I would take to mean one who has no settled view on the matter. Under these definitions, I would posit that the atheist is committed to the view that I have no four-ton strawberry on my head, while the agnostic declines to commit one way or the other.
Are you considering the term “atheism” to include what I’ve referred to “agnosticism” in the previous paragraph? Perhaps I’ve misunderstood you all along.
q 06.17.04 at 9:55 am
_And I wish discussion of theism could be separate from discussion of morality and what sort of life to live. I also wish one could (more easily) resist cultural forces like commercialization and the hyper-sexualization of children independently of religion._
Ophelia-
I totally agree. It irritates me that people think “no religion” = “no morality”. Guilt by association I suppose.
PM 06.17.04 at 3:17 pm
Further to Derek and ns,
I think the feeling is that the shalwar kameez and headscarf are often considered fine, as far as modesty and the koran goes. She had already been attending the school, before her ‘deepening religious beliefs’ lead her to adopt the jilbab. So presumably her parents were fine with the uniform.
I was interested to notice that the jilbab the girl was wearing to court was reasonably figure hugging (more so than a shalwar kameez) and actually didn’t really cover her arms either.
Combine this with the school’s fear that she would be bringing a sort of pressure to bear on other pupils (precisely the kind of thing unforms are designed to avoid), implying that she is a better Muslim, and I get the impression that there really was an elitist fashion cum religion ‘look at me’ type of agenda – if you’ve ever seen high caste Hindus wearing their caste marks you’ll know the kind of thing I mean.
Ophelia Benson 06.17.04 at 10:37 pm
Tom,
This thread is probably dead now, but I’ll just answer your specific question so as not to be rude.
The literal meaning of atheist is simply non-theist, and I take that to be its primary meaning. It is commonly used to mean, affirmatively, ‘someone who believes there is no god’ rather than more neutrally ‘someone who does not believe there is a god’ – but I think that meaning is misleading. But non-theist is also not exactly equivalent to agnostic, especially not the way ‘agnostic’ is generally used. So, in short, I take atheist to mean what it literally does mean: simply non-theist.
Tom T. 06.18.04 at 1:10 am
Thanks for responding.
Comments on this entry are closed.