I really have no idea whether this will work or not. But whether it triumphs or bombs (so to speak), I think this is probably Europe’s biggest story today. Certainly it’s the most portentous for Europe’s long term future.
Muslim headscarves and other religious symbols are almost certain to be banned from French schools and public buildings after a specially appointed commission told the government yesterday that legislation was needed to defend the secular nature of the state.
The 20-member group, appointed by President Jacques Chirac and headed by the national ombudsman, Bernard Stasi, recommended that all “conspicuous” signs of religious belief – specifically including Jewish skullcaps, oversized Christian crosses and Islamic headscarves – be outlawed in state-approved schools.
La France! You’re either part of it, or not, and not is not an option. (By the way, I love that France’s “national ombudsman” is called “Stasi”. You truly wouldn’t dare to make that up.) And since the French state and its doings are just about the most important thing in France, what the state ordains is a very, very big deal.
Meanwhile, here in the lackadaisical old UK, we don’t do anything very much to ensure that the U bit continues to happen. (See also my previous posting immediately below.) We just do to our human imports whatever we would have done anyway. We show them the Premier League, Coronation Street, the All New Top of the Pops (yes Samizdata is always at the cutting edge of what the youngsters are excited about) on the telly, and if they want to join in fine. If not, fine also. That’s how things are done in Britain. We just squirt all over them the general joy and misery of being British, and they swallow it or shake it off to taste. Whatever these soon to be ex-newcomers do to fit in, or don’t do, we then decide to be a Great British Tradition.
It will be interesting to see which of these two profoundly contrasting methods does the business better. And when I say “interesting” I really do mean interesting. I don’t mean I’ve already decided but want to hedge my bets, I mean I really will be fascinated to see how these two dramas work themselves out. This is the kind of thing that makes me want to live to be a hundred and fifty, to see how it all turns out.
Both approaches have their extreme hazards. Both could work out well.
What’s the French for fingers crossed?
I caught this on a TV news bulletin though I don’t remember which. Defending the secular nature of the State has what to do with students clothing? There was something else that bothered about the piece but I don’t recall all the details. Something about how this need for a new law has something to do with “Liberty, Egality, Fraternity”. There is more to this story than I have been able to figure out so far. What was the purpose of the 20 member group? What problem, real or imagined and by whom, was to be solved by this?
Sounds like a nasty interference with private life to me.
Note too, it is intended to attack manifestations of religious adherence, per se. It has different impact on different groups, despite its superficial even-handedness. Jews are not barred from wearing hats, just skull-caps. Are they banning the fish so beloved of Christian evangelicals?
Contrast a measure that is identical in its requirements of all but that incidentally disagrees with some religious practice. For example, the British crash-helmet legislation, which gave such practical difficulty to Sikhs until amended to privilege them.
It is transparent the French state is trying to bully the moslem population, and has adopted the cross and skull-cap ban merely in order to be able to claim it isn’t a piece of state religious persecution. They were widely criticised, you will recall, for trying without plausible reason to stop moslem girls from wearing headscarves in school. This is just dirigisme in action: if at first you aren’t obeyed, make a variant rule.
It looks like the French are beginning the attempt to shift from multiculturalism to assimilation. If so it is indeed the biggest story in Europe. It has nothing whatever to do with the power of the state, though, or dirigisme. It is about maintenance of the “sacred” traditions of La France (liberte, egalite blah blah), which the French are wholly entitled to take seriously. The North African population in France has a certain critical mass that our minorities, individually, have not reached. The meaning of this has finally sunk in amongst Frence’s rulers, though they probably knew a tipping point of some sort had been reached when Le Pen reached the Presidential run-off.
This ought not to be the biggest story in Europe. I understand that some culture junkies will consider it that way, but it’s really a very simple kind of expression and I think the French would win my and others’ respect if they just treated it as a simple matter of personal conscience- within a framework for the recognition of certain religious beliefs and practises.
That they seem unlikely to suggests that they wish to make a ‘party’ within their state that will seek to gain greater influence and political power. I suppose that’s the French Way and they will seek to make a political unit out of Islam which they can accomodate and ‘bribe’ with concessions by the state- gradually integrating through cultural ‘bribes’
One of the things which is interesting is whether this move will target Muslims or rather have more immediate impact on Jews who wear a skull cap. After all, a headscarf could be easily adapted to meet specific regulations, but could a skull cap, which is already a token?
Anyway, for his next trick Chirac will be specifying how long a girl’s dress needs to be not to offend the French notion of feminity- finally a topic that will engage his attention wholeheartedly. Surely, Jaques will say to his Muslim friends, it’s ok just to see a little bit of ankle? Possible a calf muscle? Ah oui.
Guessedworker – You are correct. I live in France and I seldom have anything positive to say about the place, but in this case they are right.
The scarf is not part of “their religion” – it is part of their primitive culture and the sooner they get over it and try to adapt to the host country, the less resentment they will generate.
I do not understand the tolerance of Guy Herbert. How dare they expect a Western country to accept that a little girl is obliged to assume responsibility for male behaviour? In the West, we do not even believe that grown women have to assume responsibility for aberrant male behaviour, never mind little girls of 10! The theory behind the scarf is, if men see an uncovered female head they will be driven beyond endurance with their sexual desires and the girl has only herself to blame for not “modest”. This is obscene.
In case you don’t know the background, here goes: State housing surrounding the northern industrial cities has large populations of N Africans, most of them unemployed and living off the state. They are in the majority on these estates. Native French girls are warned by their Muslim neighbours not to leave their flats without wearing a scarf. In other words, this primitive culture is trying to impose its medieval mores on its enlightened host society. A native French girl of 11 or 12 upwards who has the effrontery to leave her home without wearing a scarf risks gang rape for being a whore. They even have a word for it, although I can’t remember what it is, and a mobile phone ringtone.
France does indeed understand that it has reached the tipping point and is belatedly – although I hope effectively – taking action. Now that Jean-Marie LePen has retired, look for his daughter Marine, who has softened many of his more right wing policies, to make big gains in the next elections – especially in the big northern cities and along the Mediterranean.
This seems to illustrate a classic libertarian dilemma, so good it could be used to illustrate libertarian textbooks. Given that libertarian’s argue that a state should exist, but only to protect individual’s freedom against encroachment by other individuals (or states/companies, etc) does banning Muslim headscarves in schools constitute an entirely justified defence of the rights of those small girls and their neighbours who don’t want to wear them, (last post) or an intolerable intrusion into matters of private conscience (preceeding posts)? It’s such a good example for libertarians to ponder because it shows that while the principle may be simple the application is difficult on the edge. In particular, in a real world case where we can’t actually measure the exact limit between individual freedom (to express religious beliefs) and individual freedom (to be free from Muslim intimidation) we are going to have to err somewhat- so how do we decide which way to err, and justify the fact that we have?
Incidentally, much as Samizdistas generally like to bash France (usually deservedly) it’s far from obvious that they are necessarily wrong here. They might be, but it’s not obvious.
SC – You highlight an interesting dilemma. But I think we have to take into account that the Muslims are the intruders into an established, democratic society. Surely the native families who are obliged to live on these estates have a right to live according to their customs without having the customs of the invaders forced on them?
BTW, there’s nothing in the Koran about wearing scarves! It’s just a rule designed to keep girls and women inside the home, serving men. There’s nothing about being obliged wear black curtains when stepping outside the house either, although this is the custom in Saudi Arabia and other primitive societies.
In Malaysia, the Muslim women (who work in every level of society, from politics, university lecturers and surgeons to cleaners) wear scarves – usually brightly coloured and fastened with eye-catching jewellery. They’re big patrons of the make-up counters, and they wear figure-moulding sarong kebayas – and they are no less good Muslims for being unafraid to make themselves interesting to men! It is the difference between primitive societies and advanced societies. Nothing to do with religion.
I stand second to none on my French-bashing record, but I believe the host society has a right to repel invaders – whether it is an attempted conquest of physical territory or of their established customs.
It is transparent the French state is trying to bully the moslem population
But of course, any opportunity to bully Jews is not to be missed, so they threw in Jewish symbols, too.
SC – your dilemma is not too difficult for this libertarian to resolve. Banning 12 year old girls from wearing headscarves does not punish, and thus does not prevent, the gang rape of 12 year old girls. Aggressively pursuing and savagely punishing anyone who participates in such an activity will, over time, act to protect 12 year old girls. I believe the French authorities have been somewhat remiss in pursuing and punishing the wrongdoers, living as they do in closed and hostile projects created and supported by, yes, the French authorities.
This libertarian believes the state should punish those who commit rape, not restrict the freedom of its potential victims. There is nothing wrong with wearing headscarves; it does not infringe on anyone else’s freedoms; therefor it should not be banned.
This move by the French is classic for statists – control is their objective, and it is far easier to control the law-abiding than the law-breakers. Thus, new laws are directed at the law-abiding, not the real wrong-doers.
This law is worded specifically to target religious groups for the symbols they wear publicly. It does not seem to be an effective repellent for invading peoples nor for preventing the enforcement of foreign mores and customs on French natives. The French have a lot of recent history in attacking minority religions and perhaps they don’t want foreign people coming in with different customs and beliefs but attacking the religious freedom of all people in France isn’t good for the French.
I have never heard of anybody dying from “passive headscarf-wearing”, and I cannot see how the wearing of such a garment affects anybody but the wearer. If individual liberty means anything in France, then Muslim girls will be allowed to wear headscarves.
I may be being thick here, but I cannot see how this issue is any more complicated than that.
The forced wearing of headscarves is oppressive and authoritarian and it makes girls self-conscious for having been born a girl – as though there was something wrong with them. There are normal children, in other words, and there are girls.
If grown women wish to save the male population from themselves, that is their option, but little girls should not be forced to hide their heads, as though there was something deeply disturbing about their heads.
RC – how many 12 and 14 yr old little girls would you tolerate being gang raped in order to preserve the “religious” (it’s not) freedom for Muslims to force all females to cover their heads? Little native French girls should be punished because you don’t like the French government?
Could some other woman come in and help me out here? Kelli? Abby? Both?
I’m under no illusion that headscarves are an intrinsic part of Islam. Nor am I very tolerant of Islam: it’s quite possibly the most dangerous of major religions, none of which I’m keen on.
But I am tolerant of other people holding whatever daft beliefs, and behaving in whatever daft ways they like, if they freely choose to do so, and do not in so doing injure others. I’d equally defend the rights of the same little girls to live in Western fashion–against the multicultis endorsement of barbarism as heritage.
I don’t know that there is a consistent theory behind headscarves, Verity. Though the one you highlight I reject as strongly as you, the reasons people give for behavioural norms vary even within narrow communities. The rationales for forms of dress vary as much as individuals and their cultural backgrounds do. It is indeed a cultural variable, not a religious one.
There are lots of English moslems with otherwise puritannical views who don’t bother at all. Others, though liberal, seem to have adopted it of late as a sign of identity–“it’s a moslem thing to do, and I want people to know I’m not ashamed of being a moslem”.
I’m prepared for people to dress in any manner they wish. That’s not tolerance of the cultural norms that they betoken. It’s tolerance of fashion choice. I may or may not feel able to draw conclusions about the intent in clothes; but I’m not entitled to veto them merely because the choice or its significance offends me.
PS – Guy Herbert – plse note: the government is not outlawing the wearing of scarves. They are free to wear them at home or on the street. Just not at state schools, where all children are equal. That equality extends to equality between boys and girls.
*sigh*
There is nothing wrong with wearing headscarves of course.
And there is probably nothing wrong either with young women formerly “assimilated” but suddenly deciding to wear hijab or even niqab just two years ago.
The French state is wrong simply because the piece of cloth is a consequence of the problem, not the problem itself. Since they still can’t grasp the problem, they can’t cast the solution.
Following this clumsy answer of the Secular Stasi (yep, couldn’t miss this one) I can actually foresee an increase of headscarves, although certainly not so much as two years ago.
According to the mindset of the people who can possibly push forward this kind of clothing to make a political statement (the majority of the Muslim who elected 26 fundamentalists – alongside 6 moderates – to represent them at Nicolas Sarkozi’s shiny National Council of the Muslim Cult I wonder?), a lousy repressive French law is not an incentive as cool as two planes and a mass murder at the heart of the Great Satan, in the name of Allah.
So yes, nothing wrong with wearing headscarves… In Britain or in the US.
That is in Anglo-Saxon societies with a strong tradition and record of civil liberties and assimilation. (yes, yes, I mean “at least compared to France”.)
In France where, for instance a lot of people on both sides still have an axe to grind with the war in Algeria, where the best of 20 years of Socialist egalitarianism produced the worse of multi-cultural ghettoization (and again, I mean on both sides), this could be one more checkmark on everybody’s Big Book of Bitter Grievances and one step closer to civil war, a word that I’m hearing far too often these days in the mouth of my fellow citizens.
“The forced wearing of headscarves is oppressive and authoritarian and it makes girls self-conscious for having been born a girl – as though there was something wrong with them.”
I’m borrowing this phrase from somebody else, but if the state is making the presumption that the girls are being forced to wear the headscarves, then their individual liberty is already being infringed upon.
DF – So in other words, surrender to something you know is damaging to little girls just so Muslims can’t put another tick in their Grievances column?
Tim, you’re approaching this from an distanced, intellectual point of view. The taxpayer funded classroom is not the place to be using children to make a statement. If the little girls are made to wear headscarves at home or when they go outside, that is the parents’ perogative. The state cannot be endorsing such discrimatory (between boys and girls) treatment on state property. The parents are using these little girls to make a statement. I don’t care what adult females do. It’s entirely their business.
I can’t fight this corner any more because y’all are too lofty and dismissive to argue with. I wish Kelli or Abby would pile in.
Verity: The French use of the word equality seems to equate with conformity as you are using it. If the State doesn’t want Muslim children to be forced to wear head scarves in school then I still don’t understand what is going on here. Who, inside the scholl, is forcing these children to wear them? Surely the correct response would be to give the children back their power of choice even if only in the school buildings. So there would be no need for any law at all, just let the children wear whatever they want to wear in school. What you seem to have now is the State telling the children that there are normal children and then there are Muslim or Jewish children. You either have the State pushing this message or the parents. Who has the greater right here?
Verity:
I’m quite puzzled. I probably didn’t explain myself well, because I don’t see where in my comment you can deduce that I choose to “surrender” – And that was a cheap shot. Don’t tell me you didn’t pick this verb randomly in order to answer a French 😉
I understand you live in France, so you may have heard that French expression “mettre une cautère sur une jambe de bois” (to put a cautery on a wooden leg).
The reason I bring it here is that my position on that clothing issue – that you interpreted as “surrender” – is nothing shorter than:
I don’t give a damn about the color of the trousers, just cut that bloody leg off.
Banning the Islamic veil in schools won’t stop the Al-Qaeda training sessions in the Fontainebleau forest, or the spreading of Tarik Ramadan’s Fundamentalist agitprop in the Parisian suburbs and universities.
That’s where I would like to see the state hitting hard and fast.
On the contrary, I suspect this “Law for the Show” will give those bastards more rhetorical ammunitions: they preach that the Western world is oppressive to Arabs and Muslim. The French state does them a favor in demonstrating it is, by passing a law that will be interpreted by Arabs and Muslims as oppressive – No matter what you and me think about it.
Actually, you should trust me when I say that I fully share your concern and that pertaining to girls and women, there is nothing I’d like to see more than the total disappearance of the Islamic veil as far as it means that the root causes of the hijab, niqab and other burkas have disappeared, first and foremost.
Cut that bloody leg off.
Also, you seem to dismiss the fact that I wrote “everybody’s Big Book of Bitter Grievances”.
Everybody, as in “all the people”.
That is, the Catholics, the Jews who will fall under the terms of this law, and also the large chunk of people who are not so concerned about religion, but who certainly keep in mind that no Catholic or Jewish Fundamentalists ever planted bombs in the Parisian underground or planes in American buildings.
They too, are going to “put another tick in their grievances column” and probably keep talking about civil war.
That said, I never saw any Catholic kid going to school with those “big wooden crosses” supposedly targeted by this law, so it shouldn’t be such a practical problem for them.
The Jews are already getting rid of the Kippah, not so much to obey this law than to avoid being humiliated and beaten in just about any public place, so it shouldn’t be such a practical problem for them either.
The large chunk of ‘not so concerned about religion’, thank to 20 years of politically correct intellectual terrorism won’t dare to criticize Islam, and will silently grow their resentment.
What’s that thing they tell you when you board a plane?
Oh, yes: “… When you hear the words “Brace! Brace! …”
(And I do wish as well that Abby would, err, pile in. Haven’t heard of her for too long of a time)
Banning 12 year old girls from wearing headscarves does not punish, and thus does not prevent, the gang rape of 12 year old girls
Hilarious.
There is nothing wrong with wearing headscarves of course
There is nothing wrong with yelling “Heil Hitler !” of course.
Dissident – thank you for a thoughtful and eloquent response.
May I address the most obviously disposed of point first? The Kippah is worn by males. Boys are not considered second class citizens in any society. It is the headscarf on little girls, the circumscription on their freedom to just BE (on state property) that I object to. It marks them as second class, “different”, to be noted.
Actually, I didn’t intend “surrender” as a cheap shot, although “ouch!” – I should have thought of that! I would have used the same word had Britain or Germany been the country in question. I do know what a difficult issue the French government is trying to deal with, albeit an issue of their own devising. Dealing with it – and not the wooden leg – is going to become ever more pressing.
Yes, I can see now where your Grievances list makes sense. One more tick for them. Yes, the population of France and the Western world is very aware that no Jewish or Catholic or Methodist fundamentalist has ever taken up a (very short) career as a suicide bomber. So one more tick on our list. D’accord.
Yes, cut off the bloody leg!
The French are unhappy with the 20 years you cite of political correctness and I think are ready to listen to Marine Le Pen.
I take all your points, and you and Guy Herbert, to a limited extent, seem to be the only ones who took mine. The surrealism of making little girls feel “different” (from the norm, which is male) and responsible for inflaming men by simply being girls. This is a terrible burden to place on a little girl. And, by extension, native French girls.
But yes, don’t cauterize the wooden leg. You are right. (But we need Abby and Kelli anyway, because I am getting exhausted.)
I believe there must be moderation there. A government is free until they limit your individual rights. In Turkey, they denounced only Muslims wearing headscarves, but when it comes to banning everyone, it becomes a totalitarian state.
Chirac doesn’t really care about the welfare of his people. If he did, he wouldn’t impose such harsh measures.
Verity,
Hang on in there kid. And leave something in the tank: you may shortly come under attack from a quite humourous but roguish LibDem over at Matty’s Blog, in case you didn’t know.
I want to return to the larger point because all this talk of libertarian scruples and little girls’ rights is really piddling stuff.
North African, Islaamic patriarchalism is the enemy of the western way of life. This is so culturally and demographically. There is one means of managing it (multiculturalism), one possible way of resolving it (assimilation) and one definite way of resolving it(repatriation).
Multiculturalism held out the promise of finessing native rejectionism by bending natives to respect newcomers equally. It carried the imprimateur of left intellectualism and, at bottom, is a cultural marxist/postmodernist methodology. But in fact it hasn’t failed because it’s bloody marxism again and so totally unrealistic and bound, in time, to do so. We have not yet reached an overview on that, though we will. No, it failed, as I have said, because North African, Islaamic patriachalism is the enemy of the western way of life.
Multiculturalism dicates that the majority must tolerate all things “foreign” – and never mind the grievance caused. In a multicultural school, for example, there can be no problem with headscarves. The mere fact that the French state, by God – not just a few Front Nationale types – identifies a problem hints at something much larger than the issue itself. It means that the multicultural perspective has been abandoned. How deep the abandonment runs or will run in coming years we shall see. If it develops into a complete abandonment there will be serious convulsions in French society, and elsewhere no doubt.
So, certainly DF is right about increased grievances – but only inasmuch as decrying grievance belongs to the multicultural perspective. But grievance encouraged and grievance ignored is the real meaning of multiculturalism anyway. Assimilation, on the other hand, may be thought to address that more effectively. Indeed, culturally it could, even should do so. But it does not answer the demographic issue, which is why another thirty years will pass before a second convulsion.
One important point : it’s not really a shift from multiculturalism to assimilation. The French Republic and its education system have always been about assimilation, from colonial times – yes, Senegalese boys really did learn about their Gaul ancestors – to today’s bloated Education Ministry. The rigidity and conservative nature of the system did come under attack after May 1968, in the 70s, and during 14 years of state socialism. To make it very short, we tried to have it both ways : “republican” and multicultural. Once in a while, it looks like one has to give, some fatuous commission of supposedly wise men – yeah, they actually call them that – is formed to ponder the issue and tell the government what to do (we don’t really elect people to make decisions anymore, we only choose guys to sit in office and pick commissions who will make the calls and take the flak for them…).
Big press conference, Republican values are affirmed yet again. Except it is looking phonier and weaker every time. French assimilation is dysfunctional, if not broken in many respects. This PR exercise is a fairly regular recurrence and I wouldn’t see into it a lot more than political gesticulation aimed at justifying inaction. Which, in France, is the rule with anything difficult, whether at home or abroad.
Isn’t freedom of religion part of the sacred French Constitution, since Napoleon ?
Isn’t the ban on religious symbols against the Constitution ?
Verity,
How do you know those scarves are imposed by coercion on the 11 year old girls? Maybe they are the expression of those girls’ religious beleifs ? You don’t think the muslim religion requires scarves ? What if the girls think it does ? Are you willing to use gendarmes to settle this little matter of religious doctrine ?
I understand that France (and other European countries) have a grave problem with unassimilated, fanatic muslims. I have no idea how this problem can be solved. Arresting criminals might be a nice first step.
But banning scarves ?? (and kippot ?), will that save the Frech republic ??
Indeed, it was necessary to have a French commission of sages to come up with this weird idea.
les doigts traversés…
Here is an interesting follow up piece by an Iranian woman.
http://tinyurl.com/z4um
How about we let the people who want to wear these bad old religious symbols wear them, and then the people who don’t want to can, you know, not wear them? It just might work.
If people are being forced by violence or threat of violence to wear headscarves then clearly the problem is the violence, and not a piece of cloth. Banning them hides the problem – it doesn’t fix it. The people who’re being oppressed in this fashion can’t be helped until they’re willing to help themselves and able to count on the law being enforced. Make it clear that beating and gang rapes will recieve harsh and unwavering punishment and you might make some progress.
Jacob – We both know that the opinions of 11 year old girls are irrelevant. They are children. Their parents tell them it is wicked for a girl to go out of the house with her head uncovered. She believes her mother and father, naturally.
I have said above, do not conflate this with the kipput because no one thinks boys are inferior. They are not disguising, or tamping down, the fact that they are boys. Girls are taught that in order to keep men comfortable (and free of raging hormones) they must disguise their femininity. This is repulsive. Sorry. And it’s not required by their religion. It’s what some dickhead mullahs in the desert came up with to keep women in their place, like clitorectomies.
The parents know that they are in France, in an advanced society and they are putting their daughters at a terrible disadvantage by insisting on this custom – which is all it is. I am saying the state must not be complicit in saying that girls have to hide themselves and boys don’t. What they do at home or the minute they leave the schoolyard is up to the parents. But the taxpayer cannot fund such discrimination.
Again, if grown women choose to believe that they are saving men from being driven mad desire by wearing a headscarf, fine. That is not my business.
But it’s interesting to note that the Muslim women who are successful in France are women who do not wear scarves and do wear make-up, as is the custom of the country. And in Malaysia, which is an advanced, open society where successful women are everywhere, the scarves they wear are designed to be eye-catching and are often fastened with chic costume jewellery, and they wear very pretty figure hugging sarong kebayas. And major make up.
In France, in Muslim areas, any girl who does not wear a piece of cloth on her head – whether she’s a Muslim or not – is a whore and “deserves” what she gets. Whatever they want to believe in their own homes, their primitive beliefs should not be supported by the taxpayer.
Finally, those little girls are surrounded by a society whose women colour their hair, wear make up, short skirts, bikinis, low cut cocktail dresses and nothing bad happens to them. So she is living in a society which her parents assure her is damned. How can she ever feel at home in her native country, believing that her teachers and, as an adult, the people she has to apply to for employment, are wicked? Another Dissident Frogman tick in the Grievance column.
Verity,
“Jacob – We both know that the opinions of 11 year old girls are irrelevant. They are children. Their parents tell them it is wicked for a girl to go out of the house with her head uncovered. She believes her mother and father, naturally.”
But you think her parents are wrong, and therefore it is your duty to impose your ideas on those 11 year old girls BY FORCE.
It is generous of you to conceede that the force will not be applied in the girl’s home, only in the school.
No, Jacob. As I “generously” said, what they wear and how they behave once out of the schoolyard is no one’s business but that of the parents. In the school, which is funded by all taxpayers, I believe the French have a right to promote the French way of life. All schools expect some conformity.
If the parents are dead set on indoctrinating their daughters that they are responsible for male behaviour, they can send them to an Islamic school. If they send them to a normal French school, they will have to conform with normal French standards of individuality and enlightenment.
RC – how many 12 and 14 yr old little girls would you tolerate being gang raped in order to preserve the “religious” (it’s not) freedom for Muslims to force all females to cover their heads?
Not a single one, Verity. However, I fail to see how it is necessary to gang-rape females in order to preserve ethnic customs, religious freedom, call it what you will. I am all for the state (a) protecting these girls against rape and (b) not giving a crap what they wear.
But the state is not forcing these girls to wear headscarves, so it is not infringing on their liberty. You are advocating state intervention into the family and ethnic/religious lives of Moslems, a fundamentally non-libertarian position. Further, you are doing so in a way that will do absolutely nothing to address the real problem – the oppression of women in these societies.
Lets not lose our focus on the state, here, folks. There is a world of difference in parents “forcing” their beliefs and customs on their children, and the state forcing beliefs and customs on its citizens.
You can disagree with modern Islam all you want (and God knows I do), but I also oppose state intervention into their lives.
“Further, you are doing so in a way that will do absolutely nothing to address the real problem – the oppression of women in these societies.”
Also a non-libertarian position, if I may say so. It is not our business to address oppression of women in these societies.
I’m sorry, RC, but I will not move from my position that the state should not be complicit in the oppression of little girls. And, as I am saying for the last time, this has nothing to do with religion.
And the people who are being gang raped for not wearing a scarf are not Muslim girls alone, but native French girls who live on the same sink estates. In other words, they’re trying to extent their grasp on French behaviour. Muslim immigrant families need to understand that the state will no cooperate in the furtherance of forcing little girls to cover their heads. If they want to wear a scarf out on the street as they walk to school, that is their right. Once on the schoolground, they have to conform to life in an advanced society.
I totally agree with you that these brutish thugs who rape girls as punishment for not toeing the Islamic line should be punished. But no one will inform on his mates. And the French police have had a bad case of political correctness thrust down their throats and have grown frightened of confronting the human rights industry parasites. Arresting a Muslim is “racism”.
This is why I say, look for Martine Le Pen to make some real inroads in the next election.
I note that previous posts speak of “the parents” being behind the wearing of the head covering. OK, for them requiring the scarf/hajib to be doffed at the school door/gate may work. And, as at least one rabbi has said, Jewish boys may use a baseball cap – though I expect that such must be taken off in school precincts anyway, as they are in most of the US.
But the extremists, not necessarily, will indeed punish a girl from their area who bares her head. And elsewhere I’ve seen “well, these girls can switch to Moslem schools” – nope, most will not allow females to be educated past being able to lead their potential sons in prayers.
Do I think the State is correct in trying to keep symbology out of the schools? Well, not always: it isn’t easy to learn recent history with the laws against depicting the swastika, or much European history without the Cross or Crescent. But yes, clothing/jewelry standards may be applied.
This one, however, is a political band-aid over the bleeding wound that is reluctance to handle physical violence within a sub-culture. And it is quite likely to backfire, at the least removing many youngsters from any chamce at education and assimilation.
women are not on an equal stand to men in the Islamic religion. I have encountered several Islamic families in my job and the woman is around to serve her husband and sons, sisters obey theur fathers and brothers (please note the obey, they have NO RIGHT to an opinion)… Some families embrace a more modern interpretation of Islam and are more moderate, but you can’t deny the oppression. Women have been known to be burned alive so their husband is free to remarry. Women are just a replacable commodity in too many Islamic families. Hence the westerners’ belief that it is a symbol of oppression.
I am not prepared to argue this issue, these things happen. The question of clothing is a question of perception in an occidental country. I wouldn’t dream of wearing revealing clothes on the streets of a muslim country, out of respect. So, again, out of respect for the occidental country, women must remove their hijab/scarf… to go to work or school.
The headscarf issue is mostly a red herring. The government is successfully boilding down the whole integration debate into one single, simple, cosmetic, clothing issue. Instead of admitting the failure of integration, it intends to look strong and decisive by banning mere expressions and consequences of the problems it has either created or neglected to address.
Verity, the political correctness is imposed on the police from the top. I knew cops in the suburbs and every attempt to bring order resulted in blame from the top if it caused any complaints from the poor ‘victims’ of the “police state”. As for kids not informing on their mates, that is not true either. They are kids and they’re not anywhere as tough as they make themselves out to be. Tough people don’t need 14 buddies to assault or rape one person. Having one rat out the others is actually quite easy. But having bosses up the chain of command resisting the media uproar – they are only “children”, and their environment is reponsible for all their actions – and the political pressure is another story entirely. The cops are not to blame here. They’re scapegoats on both sides; the street hoodlums blame them for their abject behavior and their masters jump on them if they dare doing something about the problems they face every day.
The headscarf issue may be unimportant in itself, but it is certainly very complex.
For my part, I am in favor of sending the Arabs back to Arabia. Failing that, I would like to make the Afghan burqa mandatory for Arabs of both sexes and all ages. And I am more worried about my own rights than about the rights of Arab schoolgirls to wear a headscarf. My most important right is that no-one should force me to live with Arabs or have my children sent to school together with them. And I should not have to pay anything extra if I decide to give my children an Arab-free education.
Having said that, if you like Arabs and want to defend their human rights, here is what I think.
There is no satisfactory solution to the headscarf problem. Maybe Arabs schoolchildren should be sent to separate state-funded religious schools. But for those who stay in the public system, if you are primarily concerned with their education and well-being, THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS THAT THEY SHOULD RECEIVE PART OF THEIR EDUCATION IN ARABIC or in the Berber language (but it is completely impossible because the whole idea of “france” is about wiping out differences). It would simply involve hiring Arabic and Berber teachers, but the french trade unions would never accept that.
Breton bilingual schools (there are very few of them) have shown that bilingual pupils get better results in french than children who can speak only french. They also get better results in their third language. For Arab children, it would be easy to learn because their parents still speak the language at home. Learning to read and write Arabic would cost them little effort and give them access to their vast cultural heritage. They could take pride in it. It would even slightly improve their french. Most of all, it would improve their self-esteem instead of breaking their personality. Maybe that way, they would not turn into suburb scum like most of them do. It would make them easier to assimilate (although my preferred solution would be to have them expelled from the European soil). But the french government and teachers will not tolerate any teaching in Arabic. Their first concern is certainly not the interest of the children !
For those who know very little about france :
There has been a Parisian tradition, since the french monarchy and up until now, to try and destroy everything that did not come from Paris. It is a kind of sick nationalism that reached its climax during the french revolution. Inside the french borders, you impose a centralised authoritarian government that rules the country without any consultation from the people. You try to destroy every language (Breton, Basque, Alsatian, Francisque, Occitan, Corsican, Flemish, Tahitian, Creole, Provençal, languages spoken in french Guiana… + french dialects) except standard french. And beyond the borders you try to invade Europe. When invading Europe becomes impractical, you start pestering the United States. You also try to suppress the catholic religion and have it replaced by a cult of the french state. I am not just describing french behavior. That behavior is backed by a real ideology. For example, some french people keep giving you lessons about how you must promote universality (=frenchness) and crush “communautarism” (=being Arab, Breton, etc). You must also discourage “obscurantisme”, which usually comes either from “the province” or from foreign lands (especially the United States). It works really like a sect. You can recognize members of the sect (especially teachers and members of the governement) by their vocabulary. It has not changed since the revolution and makes heavy use of words like “citizen”, “republican”, or “equality”. So, ideally, the french would like to wipe out Islam and Arabic from the french territory. But at the same time, the government keeps Arab immigrants coming in great numbers. Go figure !
What I cannot understand is why everybody is focusing on the muslim religion and nobody cares about the language. As if it was all right to destroy everything in the Arab culture apart from their religion. (Even the Arabs themselves do not understand that they should be demanding some protection of their linguistic rights. After all, last October at the Unesco in Paris, Chirac (big liar!) made a vibrant speech in favor of linguistic diversity). Besides, I am sure Islam is going to give us a lot of trouble, but I think the religious faith is nevertheless subsiding among Arabs who live in france, and I suspect islamism is more about politics than religion.
this is out of order every one has a right to have a religeos simbal the christians have chains why dont they band that too.
I believe that socity is about free choice, and although the islamic religion maybe oppressive in certain ways, what right has Jack Chirac got to dictate what people want to wear. he should be told that he is not aloud to wear suits and see how he feels. the trouble is with the French and many other societies is they see the muslim people as terrorists. However if people actually read the Koran they will find out that the biggest sin is killing someone. the muslim people are not terrorists. The terrorists which claim to be muslisma are not muslims, muslims are pieaceful people.