And you sir, also resort to personal attacks, which is not surprising from someone who apparently does not know the definition of “uniformity.” (BM)
Actually what is most surprising is how many just don’t have a clue about why this law is about to be passed. They just assume it is an unprovoked attack on a religious group.
The law tries to address problems. The problem of fundamentalism growing in France, the problem with segregation and the problem with fundamentalists opression of women.
I don’t know if it will have any effect, or if it will be positive, but at least they’re doing sometyhing. Here we have a group of muslim women trying to get the headscarves banned, since they believe it is a tool of opression. I for one support them.
Sorry for trying to make a rational point in the pit, feel free to disragard the above post and keep raving.
Guess what: even in a SINGLE culture, it’s possible that not everyone has to dress or think alike.
I’m not a multiculturalist. I’m anti culture. I want as free an exchange of ideas and expression as possible with no particular culture at all other than the civil laws that restrain ACTIONS, not thoughts or private practices and expression.
I understand that France may not be down with that.
But me and Gadhafi have a message for you:
“Yeah, you know what this means, bitch?”
Well, these are children, in school to learn fundamental life-skills and if they don’t learn how to read, well they ain’t gonna be exchanging very many “ideas” because they will be too ignorant.
They want to express themselves, that is what college and the rest of their lives is about. And if the parents don’t like it, well, there are options.
So basically, school is a place for suppressing individuality at the whim of what the government determines to be normal? What a charming concept.
Stoneburg, I’m somewhat bemused that you believe the pursuit of freedom is best served by banning something. You seize on the fact that there exist muslim women who do not want to wear headscarves, and reason that therefore they must be banned. You do not stop to consider that true freedom would be the freedom to wear one if you so desire.
As for suppressing radicalism, born of disenfranchisement and a feeling of being an outsider, I am frankly amazed that you believe banning religious symbols will not exacerbate the problem.
Thanks for answering the question I posted awhile back – the whole business of banning headscarves struck me as just a bad idea – all it would serve to do is infuriate Muslims, and let’s face it, they’re a very crabby crew to start with. While I’m sure there are a lot of people around in France who’d like to infuriate Muslims, it’s rare that you see a law passed to such effect.
The law being an attempt to end Muslim oppression of women makes much more sense. The fact that it infuriates traditional Muslims is just a wonderful happenstance for many, I’m sure.
Yes, school is a place to suppress individuality, because we know that when the religious fathers order their daughters to wear scarves to school, setting them apart from their classmates, that is really about the daughter expressing her individuality. Please.
Yes, because banning slavery never did anything to serve freedom. Not all restrictions cause less freedom.
I’m amazed how you managed to construe that from my post where I said “I don’t know if it will have any effect, or if it will be positive”. Please don’t make strawmen, there are enough of them.
I’m actually anticipating that it will polarise the problem, but I am hopeful that in the long run it will be for the better. I don’t think people like you help much though.
Sounds like this is a great recipe for further divisiveness, not assimilation. Or does anyone really think the observant Muslims aren’t going to see that they are treated differently than observant Jews? Would the hijab even be viewed as a problem in schools if Islam, and Muslims, weren’t viewed as a problem in French society at large? I think this is just going to create a large group of pissed-off, alienated French Muslims.
I agree with those who believe this will lead to more Muslim children, especially teenage girls who most need to be exposed to mainstream society and learn to think for themselves, to be pulled out of the public school system and either a) home-schooled, which sure ain’t going to help assimilation or multiculturalism, or b) even sent back to live with relatives and go to school in a largely unicultural society where the hijab-wearing isn’t an issue.
You know, my H.S. outlawed all headgear except that worn for religious reasons, but didn’t grill people about the specific nature of their religious reasons. I don’t remember any girls in hijab (or any Muslims at my school at all, although there must have been a few), but we had quite a number of yarmulkes and even a few of whatever the Sikh headcoverings are called. Never once did I hear them called a “classroom distraction;” the rule was aimed at gang-related clothing such as various baseball caps. And I still see Chicago college students in hijab all the time; why is this somehow not a problem in the classroom?
Please, can’t someone think of the children?
These fucking head scarves are not being worn because the “children” want to express their individuality. they are worn because of their culture or their parents (and probably occasionally becuase the child wants to).
But it doesn’t really make any difference because these are children.
Why don’t you let them express their individuality by not going to school if they choose not to? No, the children need to learn to read and write so that later in life they can express their indivuduality (and bitch about the repressive school system they were forced to endure).
I don’t know about France, but in the good old USA, even the most stringent military schools are not able to crank out little socially acceptable clones.
I’m sorry that you get your self-validation by hurling this kind of very ugly personal abuse around, but sticks and stones etc.
I am not a fascist, nor does anything I have written constitute a fascist point of view. Perhaps you didn’t read what I actuallly wrote, or perhaps you only see what you want to see (it happens). I am not advocating that any religious observance be banned out outlawed. My previous post made this clear: people are free to adopt whatever mythologies they wish, barring harm to themselves or others. If you think this constitutes fascism, you might want to learn a bit more about what fascism really is.
The innate contradiction of your own position is kind of hard to miss. Are you in favour of forcing - or trying to force - human beings to conform, and to eliminate or repress their individuality? You claim not to be. Are you in favour of social mechanisms which try to suppress ‘deviation from the hive mind’? You claim not to be.
If no, then you might like to notice that these are characteristics of every mainstream religion. They all seek to compel children to adopt their own arbitrary code, and they do not tolerate deviation very well if at all. There are many examples, from every mainstream religion, but telling youg women that they have to wear a headscarf is just one example. There are millions of young women all around the world who manage to complete their high school education without wearing a headscarf, so we know it serves no practical purpose and the wearing/non-wearing has no practical bearing on the purpose of attending school. So why insist on it? The insistence serves no purpose whatsoever. What terrible, harmful, bad, evil or wicked thing would happen, what calamitous event, if these girls decided not o wear a headscarf? Answer: none.
You seem to believe you have strong feelings in favour of personal liberty and freedom. Yet you are supportive of social obedience mechanisms (religions) which seek to eliminate many aspects of personal freedom. What about the personal freedom of a young woman to choose what she wants to wear - headscarf or not? What about her rights to choose what she wants to eat (including any kind of meat she wants if that’s her choice), and whom she wants to marry and when? It is religions that seek to impose arbitrary codes of conformity and obedience and which use assorted brainwashing techniques (and threats) to achieve these ends.
Make up your mind - are you in favour of imposed conformity, or not? If not, then you contradict yourself every time you defend social control mechanisms which seek to impose arbitrary dress codes of no practical value whatsoever.
These arbitrary myths about, for example, dress, don’t even reflect well on the religions themselves. If we accept for a moment that god exists, do you really think it cares if you wear a headscarf or not? My guess is that it isn’t a high priority, and that other things would come a lot higher on the agenda (e.g. learn to use the intellect you were given, try to learn about your own individual potential, be kind, seek to love and to achieve inclusion and to accept other people as your equals, rather than promote hatred and separatism and division).
I think it’s a good idea if we learn to respect and love one another. I don’t think this is helped by organising ourselves into ‘us and them’ tribes, backed up with notions akin to ‘ours is the One True Way and people who think differently are wrong / bad / infidel / ignorant / destined for damnation / legitimate targets for terrorist acts’, especially when these tribal divisions are based on arbitrary and out-moded mythologies left over from less enlightened understandings of how the universe works.
And that ain’t fascism.
Happy holidays to you, and I hope you get over your anger habit.
Yeah, that’s pretty much how it works.
People can choose what religion they practise. Someone who chooses to follow a religion is hardly being forced to conform. You can argue that some children are forced to follow a religion by their parents, but this law is not going to address the problem in any real sense.
The irony of this statement is shocking. Care to rethink your position?
Um, I think I meant to say way, not sense.
Considering your hate-filled diatribe against religion that constitued the whole of your last post here, I find this really quite amusing. I’m sorry you have to get your self-validation by mocking the beliefs of others.
Your previous post made that perfectly clear: Whatever mythologies they want… so long as you don’t have to see or think about them.
Strawman. The debate here isn’t on the merits of religion, it’s on wether the state has the right to determine where and when its citizens can make free expression of their religion.
And what terrible, harmful, bad, evil, or wicked thing would happen if the girls continue to wear headscarves?
So you think the best way to strike a blow for personal freedom is to pass a law limiting personal freedom? And you’re calling other posters hypocrites? Here’s a pack of matches. Now get out there and save that village.
Sorry, are you talking about Islam or the French government here?
Another strawman, although I do note that you read a hell of a lot into a simple fucking scarf.
It’s clear that your “love and respect” only extends so far as to cover those who think, act, and dress exactly like you. You want to see a good example of tribalism? Take a look in the mirror.
Nope, it’s just stupid.
Well, that is your opinion of what the debate is about. A lot of people are debating a lot of issues in this thread. That said, you definition of the issue fails to take into account that we are talking about children in school - not adults in a public setting.
The idea that these children are “making free expression of their religion” flies in the face of the parent telling the child what she will or will not wear. Explain that. Does the parent not have the right to tell the child what to wear? If the parent does, is the parent interfering with the childs “free expression of religion?”
No, the kid needs to leanr to read and write and let the political issues take care of themselvs.
Question for you guys. How is it that generally the same crowd who adovcates the removal of religion from American public schools, i.e., no school prayer, removing “under God” from the POA, secular “holiday pageants”, etc. is now in the position to call the French “fascists” for trying to preserve the decidedly secular nature of their public schools and society in general? I thought you wanted secularism???
Well, anything to bash the French, damn, I’ve been arguing in their favor, well, never to late to change sides.
Jesus Christ, county, you are so fucking stupid it makes my teeth hurt.
milroyj: I want every citizen to be able to make their own decisions about God without coercion from the state. I no more want an atheist state than I want a Christian state: I want my state to be religiously neutral.
Just as a reminder: the last time that I looked, France was independent of the United States.
Well, they can, even in France. But soon they won’t be able to express their religion (in an overt manner) in the state’s school system.
I noticed you took time to call me stupid. That certainly wins points in most debating societies (not). (BM)
Great: belittle children just as you belittle their parents desire to raise them according to their families traditions and convictions.
Why should we do something merely to piss off parents when accomodation costs nothing, and gains everything?