I don’t want this to become a pro/anti headscarf in French schools argument - I’m not looking for that discussion (& it’s probably running somewhere here anyway).
What I want to know is why the ban extends to ‘large crucifixes’ and not ‘crucifixes’ in general - since they the same symbol.
By that rationale then, smaller skullcaps or little headscarves would be okay too??
Perhaps so that cross earrings won’t be banned?
Because the law talks of “conspicuous religions symbols in public schools”. Apparently small crucifixes are not deemed conspicuous. You want to discuss the rationale behind it? I suppose it’s a “more is different” thing.
If I may be permitted an educated guess: France is bound by the European Convention on Human Rights Article 10 provies for freedom of expression, which would cover religious expression as well.
This right may therefore be curtailed. However, case law by the European Human Rights Court has made clear that such a restriction must be proportional to the purpose served. This means in practice that restrictions that prohibit more cases are more likely to be struck down than restrictions of a more limited character.
My guess is that the limitation to the ‘size’ of expression is at least partly grounded in such considerations. Whether the restriction itself can pass article 10 is sufficient material for another debate.
the french law is intended to prohibit large, obnoxious display of any religious icon in public. The idea is simple–it is offensive to be forced to stand face-to face with somebody else’s wierd way of life. A small piece of jewelry ,like a cross on a necklace, doesnt stand out in an obnoxious way, and interfere with normal social interaction. But (for example) a punk mohawk hairdo does. Schools all over the world prohibit punk hairdos, and require both teachers and students to wear socially acceptable clothes, which do not offend others.
(slight hijack, with apologies:
And of course the real reason for the law is that the Islamic scarf isnt just a scarf–it’s a symbol. It’s like the pointy white hats worn by the Ku Klux Klan. It is a symbol worn proudly by a person whose beliefs are incompatible with the Western values held by the society she lives in,-- and that offends a lot of good people. I wouldnt allow anyone to work in my office wearing the white uniform of the KKK. When your “private” religious beliefs include lynching niggers, or blowing up infidels of the Great Satan, you are crossing the line–your private beliefs become a public danger, even before you act on them.
(and lets not get started on the old “jihad doesnt mean murder” I know that there are a billion muslims sharing this planet with me, and gee whiz,most of them arent bloodthirsty lunatics. But a few of them are,(a few million, actually)-and like so many things in life, a few bad apples spoil the whole barrel. And it just so happens that all the bad apples wear the Islamic head scarf.
… Let me get this straight… you’re comparing a headscarf to KKK robes and lynching blacks? That’s absurd on the face of it, and more than a little insulting. What do you even know about the Hijab? For most women, it’s a self-adopted symbol of humility with a rationale that is positively feminist - by forcing men to only notice their face, Muslim women feel they’re more likely to be taken seriously and respected. I think a more pertinent question, however, would be to ask what right you or any government has to tell someone they can’t ****ing cover their hair with a cloth. Also, I fail to see how the debate among European Muslims over how to reconcile Islam with living in a non-Muslim state has anything to do with their right to wear an innocuous article of clothing.
Ridiculous.
As for the OP: I’d chalk it up to hypocricy and ethnocentricism, something to which the French are no strangers. I would be less opposed to this law if they admitted they were trying to preserve the “French” character of France, rather than disguising it as secularism.
Where would the current prohibition of headscarfs leave traditionally-garbed nuns? Just wondering.
Any nuns in public schools? I don’t think so, not in France.
Well, the world hasn’t seen the last of this lunaticism.
There is a saying: when it rains in Paris, it drips in Brussels.
And to honour this tradition the voices in Belgium are already raised to come to a similar lunatical prohibition of scarves in public schools.
I can’t wait to follow the upcoming debates about this. The more they try to impose things on people who only want to follow freely (their interpretation of) their religion, the more those who don’t bother about this at all since they don’t wear scarf or hidjab, will change their view and start wearing it. And then indeed as a symbol = not as something they see as a religious obligation.
Because don’t forget that: for Muslim women who choose to wear a scarf or hidjab this is only done to follow what they believe as a command of the religion prescribed in Al Qur’an.
I do wonder when all these hidjab cryers are finally going to notice the chassidim Jew clothing as being a clear demonstration of their religion (and which is inherently part of their way of following it).
I don’t think the Belgium government is willing or even was ever thinking to act as if the black clohts, the hats and curls of chassidim men and the all covering clothing and the wigs of their women are imposed on them as sign of oppression. It would be very funny to witness though. Maybe I should listen to the silent call inside myself inviting me to instigate one and another in that direction… Just for the fun of the reactions on it.
As for Catholic nuns who indeed often wear a form of hidjab: They don’t teach in public schools as far as I know. They often work in hospitals though. But I guess those also fall under the “religious” institutions.
I have relatives from mother’s side in Belgium who went to Catholic schools. They were even there not permitted to wear the little golden crosses they had since birth visible above their school uniforms. It was a matter of respecting the restrictions of the uniform rules which among others prohibited wearing any sort of juwelry.
So if you place this discussion in such a context, then the prohibition of hidjab in such schools is understandable.
In that case it depends on how the director interpretes the rules. At one of the schools my relatives went - and where the uniform was white/blue - a white or a dark blue hidjab was permitted for Muslim girls.
Then we are all permitted to chase all the Bible waving Christian proselytizers, the Salvation Army, the chassidim jews, the Hara Khrishna and whomever who “forces us” to “stand face in face” with their “weird way of life” out of our way wherever we see them?
OK.
Are their any volunteers for me practicing on them before I start with cleaning our common Globe from those weirdos?
Yes it does. As a Muslim I could take it even as a demonstration of blasphemy and you said it is " offensive to be forced to stand face-to face with somebody else’s wierd way of life." Or does that only count for special cases like you because in some miraculous way you are above the rest of humanity.
No they don’t. I’ve seen a lot of punkers going to public schools everywhere.
No, I’m sorry, you can’t get apologies from me. You spread ignorance - and try to sell it as truth - on a place where it can’t be fought without disturbing the essence and goal of this thread. You should have made an other thread to post this.
Salaam. A
Originally posted by MLS
Exactly where they were before.
They don’t teach their students in French Government schools while wearing that garb.
Posted by my fellow student in Islam Aldebaran
You may wish it were so, where you happen to live, but have no fear Aldebaran.
It’s all happening, in Indonesia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Sudan, Nigeria and all other parts of the Deen.
From your statement, I don’t believe you have genuinely started to follow the example of the Prophet in terms of action, neither have you observed too closely his life, his works and his deeds (Unless my copies of the Koran and the Authentic Hadiths are missing a few pages).
You appear to be firmly ensconced in the passive observer stage.
That’s all very nice, but it does not help progress Jihad, which, we all know, is an inner struggle, and Islam is a religion of peace. (George W Bush said so, therefore it must be true).
AOB, the issue here is not Islam or what you take for Islam.
Please don’t feel afraid to finally open a thread to give away for free your breathtaking courses of **The Wisdom of Those Who Know Nothing **.
I don’t know of anybody posting on this message board who is more scholared in that then you are.
Salaam. A
Originally posted by Aldebaran
Thank you. I’m really chuffed by your fulsome praise.
One day, you may learn as much about the history of Islam as I do. (Provided you study broadly and diligently).
Of course AOB.
Where I was educated they know nothing of your Wisdom of Those Who Know Nothing.
Maybe I should introduce you there.
Poor students deserve to be offered free distraction and fun now and then.
Salaam. A
Will you please take your snide little pissing match to e-mail or the pit?
You bring it from thread to thread and cheapen the lot.
If that is directed to me… I’m sorry, but I’m not responsible for the obsession to disturb topics with stalking me and/or my religion/culture/traditions, as is demonstrated by AOB all over the boards where I participate.
I you have complaints about that behaviour you can always report them to a moderator.
And I don’t feel any temptation to answer mails of that individual. My mail belongs to my privacy. So may I ask you that you don’t take the liberty to invite others to use it for sending me idiocies. Thank you.
Salaam. A
If that is directed to me… I’m sorry, but I’m not responsible for the obsession to disturb topics with stalking me and/or my religion/culture/traditions, as is demonstrated by AOB all over the boards where I participate.
I you have complaints about that behaviour you can always report them to a moderator.
And I don’t feel any temptation to answer mails of that individual. My mail belongs to my privacy. So may I ask you that you don’t take the liberty to invite others to use it for sending me idiocies. Thank you.
Salaam. A
Should they also outlaw other instances of offensive behaviour like homosexual PDAs, smelly pan-handlers and gangsta rap music. :smack:
I guess liberte is the least important of the three in France.
AOB, I respectfully (OK, I confess, maybe not so respectfully) ask that you state your credentials for evaluating all things Islamic. Basically, why should the rest of us pay any attention to you? On what sources do you base your opinions, and why should we believe them? Exactly where have you studied so “broadly and diligently”?
Well, the headscarf represents a movement that has killed alot more Americans recently than the KKK has, so I don’t see it as absurd.
Puh-leaze. That smacks of post hoc rationalization in the highest degree. Up until 9-11, it would have been decried as a tool of patriarchal cultural reactionaries still stuck in the middle ages. Now, because Islam is the fad du jour of the college professor crowd, suddenly it’s a pro-feminist statement? Baloney.
Well, the government has a say in this because they’re government schools. You wanna start a private school in France and make your own rules about headwear, be my guest. They can have all the “right” they want to wear distracting symbols of oppression in your school if that’s what you like.
Public schools aren’t the place for students to wear shit that pisses everybody else off, that doesn’t create an environment conducive to learning.
I assume a tiny crescent moon necklace would be just as acceptable as a tiny cross, those are discreet symbols with only personal significance.
RexDart, you don’t think the individual scarf-wearer has the right to decide whether she feels the scarf is a symbol of patriarchal oppression? Aren’t you basically saying to Muslim girls that you know what’s good for them better than they do? Sounds awfully patriarchal to me.
Are Jewish sheitls (wigs) also a symbol of feminist oppression? Long skirts? I’d like to know; I happen to like wearing long skirts myself, because I find them more comfortable, especially in Chicago winters, and because I’m self-conscious about an old leg injury. If I’m a victim of patriarchal oppression, I’d like to know about it. And why is it that apparently the French government didn’t consider Jewish kippot to be a classroom distraction until just recently? They’re just as visible as headscarves.
I think if any given French student considers a headscarf to be something to be pissed off about, the pissed-off person is the discipline problem, not the scarf-wearer. That’s how it worked in my high school, anyway; we had kids wearing kippot, Sikh headcoverings, and just about every other kind of religious headcovering you can imagine.
The standard our school administration applied to clothing and accessories was that they should not leave the wearer too exposed (i.e. no bikini tops, but shorts were allowed), or create a physical danger for other students (i.e., there was somewhat of a controversy regarding spiked bracelets, dog collars, and other punk-type gear). It worked just dandy for us. Calling a headscarf a distraction sounds an awful lot like blaming the victim.