Rather than focus on the particular ethnic or racial make-up of immigrants I would rather focus on the numbers. The sheer volume of people entering Western Europe is a cause for concern. It’s legitimate to ask how many are too many? There is questionable economic logic behind the “we need young immigrants” to sustain ourselves argument. Wouldn’t it make more sense to encourage the native population to have more children rather than replacing them with a different ethnic group? I think there is a very real danger that certain groups will engage in a form of demographic warfare in order to increase their particular power base. We are far too glib is assuming that we can all just get along. Human history suggests the exact opposite. After all, weren’t the Yugoslavians integrated…I guess not. There should be limits to everything and immigration is no exception. A country has a right to control its borders and that should extend to refusing entry to millions of “asylum” seekers. Harsh but necessary I’m afraid.
So would you advocate discouraging the immigrant minorities already living in Western Europe from taking part in the programmes devised to encourage reproduction? How and what form would encouragement for the natives take?
By demographic warfare you mean a calculated campaign to increase the birth rate amongst their own kind yes?
For me, there is a strong utilitarian argument to be made for population growth by immigration. Why encourage people who need to be encouraged to reproduce when there is a surplus of people in other countries, many of whom are looking for a better life?
Pot calling kettle black. Somehow you didn’t read completely all this thread did you. :rolleyes:
But as a general rule, everyone thinks their culture, religion, and language are superior to others.
The question is how to adapt best to the presence of other cultures, religions, and languages. There are two sets of obligations involved here: immigrants must respect the host nation’s customs and laws; and the host nation has an obligation to make immigrants welcome and ensure their rights are intact. In those cases where the two sets of obligations clash, my personal sympathy would typically be with the hosts, if the customs and laws they are upholding are just.
While the world is full of hopeful persons and families who are eager for a chance at a better life, and who are willing (even grateful) to integrate into a host nation, there are always obstacles such as bigotry and fear that must be overcome even in the friendliest and most welcoming of states.
The most common problem in my experience is due to unfair generalization by the hosts: an immigrant is caught breaking the law in some way, and his crime is automatically applied by the bigoted or ignorant to the entire group (e.g., Muslims and honour killings), breeding more xenophobia and resentment in some of the hosts. But that “some” is often sizeable enough to cause no end of self-perpetuating problems and hinder integration.
Your cite doesn’t really argue that banning headscarves (and other overt religious symbols) is not a good idea, rather it describes why the movement to do so may have been motivated by other factors, such as the rising unpopularity of the Raffarin government, etc. That is all quite plausible, but I would like to see arguments against the ideology, rather than the political process (if I missed such material I apologize, but the style the piece is written in was putting me to sleep and I may have skipped a few paragraphs).
I still contend that less emphasis on displays of religion as a form of personal identity can only be a good thing for multi-ethnic integration, which most European states need quite badly.
It’s not just an issue of a small garment that women want to wear; it is a gender-specific, restrictive item of cultural indoctrination, much as is the case for honour killings or female circumcision. It is interesting to note that it is not only men who support and perpetuate honour killings and female circumcision in those cultures where they occur, but also women, even though these are clearly misogynistic, barbaric, and oppressive practices. That’s the power of indoctrination.
You may think a hijab headscarf is fine, but what if the hijab is of the variety that covers the entire head, veiling the face? What do you think of the burka, the loose garment that covers a woman from head to toe? It really is just an extension of the hijab. Neither of these garments are dictated by Islam, they are cultural adoptions in patriarchal societies where men dominate and women do not. They are a form of cultural identity, yes, but should they be exported to countries that consider the practice undesirable for a variety of valid reasons?
Since covering up a woman’s hair, face, or even entire body is a cultural article that has by interpretation been adopted (erroneously) by some cultures as an article of religion, the faster it is done away with, the better for Islam as far as I am concerned. Why should women be brought up to believe that displaying their hair, faces, or (in extreme cases) any hint of female quality at all in public should be in any way sinful? More importantly, why shouldn’t women enjoy the exact same rights as men?
And the fact that a good number of women may actually want to wear the hijab or the burka signifies nothing except that they have been well indoctrinated by their culture. I have cited the examples of female circumcision and honour killings, but consider this example from the “West”: in addition to men, many women used to consider that it was improper and undesirable for women to spend less time in the home and join the workforce, struggle for equal rights, receive higher education, and so forth. Again, that is because cultural norms instructed women as to the appropriate behaviour expected of them, and deviation from these norms (the original feminist movement) was considered undesirable, vulgar, unladylike.
There used to be a reason for the custom of covering up a woman – essentially to protect women and keep them out of harm’s way in certain dangerous cultures – however the last centuries have seen a dramatic drop in female kidnappings accompanied by a conspicuous rise in law enforcement, so I argue the custom is now thoroughly superfluous in all Western countries, and a good number of non-Western ones too.
Whether the French government considered all this I don’t know (I strongly suspect they did) but my view is that if the banning of overt religious symbols is done well, consistently, and with as much respect as possible, the results could be very advantageous indeed for ethnic integration in France – which it is the government’s duty to provide. If it is done shoddily, if for example only Muslims are targeted and other religious groups are permitted their overt religious displays, then I agree that it is an extremely poor course of action.
I am not a great fan of religion myself. So I do have some sympathy for this argument. (And you’re right of course that this is not about religion but mostly about culture.)
What I am opposed to is coercion. I do not get to tell people what to wear. I consider my telling people not to wear a headscarf, to be at least as bad as them telling me to do wear one. Actually, it is worse, since for me wearing some piece of clothing is not an issue that affects my conscience, whereas for them in this case it is.
I do not think that indoctrination is a useful criterion here. Who gets to say who is indoctrinated? Aren’t we all indoctrinated by our respective cultures? Not to deny that it plays a role, but as a criterion, it is prone to way too much abuse.
You can spin the arguments (coercion, indoctrination) both ways. I base my opinion simply on the merits of the case. Female circumcision - yes, clearly misogynistic, barbaric, and oppressive. Ban it. Choice of clothing (including burqa) - no.
I too think it would be positive for cultures to move away from being overly prescriptive on trivial issues like people’s clothing. But those people have to make these decisions of their own.
I hope it goes without saying that I am equally opposed to laws forcing people to wear burqas as to ones banning it.
Again, I am sympathetic to your premise but I think this rhetorical question is on the slippery slope of second-guessing other people’s (religious or cultural) motivations.
IMHO banning of overt religious symbols in itself already constitutes heavy-handed oppression of minor conduct that should not be of concern to the state. Historically, and currently in France, you see that it results in precisely the opposite of the desired result. It stirs resentment and works against integration.
I agree, of course, that the state should implement policies to further the goal of integration. Heavy-handed oppression and discrimination does not fall into this category.
Indeed, very true, but in the context of immigrant integration what France is doing could result in the lesser of two evils: a small coercion to attempt to prevent and fix problems with the high number of immigrants and the changing demographics. An attempt to tip the scales a little bit towards the “everyone gets along” side of things.
Ah, but we are talking about certain European countries where certain standards are protected by law. Equality of the sexes and equal rights, for example, clearly becomes an issue when one sex (in the extreme cases) is expected to cover up completely and avoid the presence of all men who are not of the immediate family, receive schooling only up until a certain age, and so forth. Other (interlaced) problems include such things as domestic violence and, at the extreme end of the scale honour killings.
Obviously female circumcision is in a league of its own barbarism, but we’re still talking about the wholesale oppression of the female sex. The choice of clothing is one small segment of the bigger problem (which is, in turn, often one of many problems) among some cultures. Little steps, I suppose.
Yes, that is crucial. However in the case of immigrants whose practices may not fit well in host nations, well, I think the attempt is being made to nudge them along for the greater good. I’m guessing they are trying to raise a generation of girls more resistant to cultures of male oppression, who will help to break the tradition.
In this case we are talking about a cultural de facto law being imported to the host nation. It is being countered (in part) with an opposing law. This is why I refer to it as a necessary evil, and why I think the experiment could have positive results.
That is the very clear danger, and I refer to it as the clam effect, though I am sure I once heard a name for it. However from what I have read it strikes me that France would not be taking such actions if they didn’t consider the situation serious and the risk necessary. They may be pandering to voters to a certain extent as you suggested, but they are developing a problem with immigrants and they must try to address it with the tools at hand. If nothing else, this will be a telling experiment in social engineering, should it be implemented properly and allowed to run its course.
We seem to differ in our interpretation of headscarf wearing by Muslim women. There’s a difference between e.g. Saudi Arabia and France. In a Western European country, it is not a matter of oppression or coercion, has nothing to do with domestic violence, and least of all with equal rights. In a free society, women should have the freedom to wear a headscarf if they want. In my interpretation, there are women who want to do that of their own free will. Not because they are ashamed or sexually repressed. Not because their father or husband tells them to. But because they genuinely want to and feel comfortable doing it http://www.islamfortoday.com/hijabcanada4.htm.
Strange as it may seem (admittedly even to myself), I even see plenty of very fair-skinned, obviously local women wearing elaborate Muslim outfits (not just headscarves) around here.
I don’t think a headscarf-banning law is appropriate to fight domestic violence in the tiny minority of immigrant families where that is a problem. There is plenty of regrettable domestic violence in the native Western European population; do we fight it by passing laws about what people can wear, or other such trivia?
We may also differ on the situation in France. My interpretation of what I have read, is that it is already proving counter-productive to the furthering of the purported goals. Although that situation is far from having run its course yet.
No, my point (and the problem as I see it) is that there often is no difference at all. A large number of Saudis, for example, export misogynistic customs to all sorts of countries. Of course, not every arrival has misogynistic patriarchal customs, and many integrate well with the host culture, some to the degree that they even marry locals – obviously these types are not the problem here.
Absolutely on the last sentence, I disagree strongly with the previous ones. Please explain the rationale for wearing the headscarf, veil, or even burka as you understand it, because I suspect we have rather different views of it (more later on the link you provided below, but I would be interested to hear your thoughts on this). I have argued that this custom once had a valid purpose; today, it is simply a way to oppress women, to keep them out of sight of other men and society, to restrict their freedom so that they will conform with patriarchal expectations of virtuous girls and good wives. It is a symbol and exponent of sexual disparity.
Surely not in all cases, but in my decades of exposure to and interaction with Muslim cultures (and particularly Arab, Kurdish, Iranian cultures, since Asian Muslims tend to be milder in this respect) I have yet to see an instance where a woman covering herself up is a liberating and fulfilling experience, no matter what some of them may say (I have heard no end of compensatory apologies on this matter, it really is quite sad). It’s simply conformity to the demands of patriarchal cultures, and is so deeply ingrained in the population that it becomes the norm, and is excused, rationalized, and apologized for as the norm. There are many such items of conformity in several cultures, and put together they result in environments that are generally hostile to fully realized and independent women.
Besides which, covering up is most often not a choice at all but a de facto law, a rigorous cultural requirement that tends to be exported outside the original culture through emigration. This requirement is reinforced through indoctrination, peer pressure, physical punishment, the danger of being branded an immoral and lascivious woman, and so forth, all elements springing from fundamental patriarchal tendencies (I know you object to the indoctrination argument, which I think is not only valid but painfully in evidence, but let’s assume that the customs in the host country are the norm; the arrivals must therefore indoctrinate their families and offspring to preserve aspects of their patriarchal culture).
The hijab may not be as severe an item as (for example) forcing women to live their entire lives indoors and away from the sight of males, but it is founded on the exact same patriarchal reasoning. As such I contend it would be best to eliminate this mode of perception and bring women in patriarchal cultures forward to participate fully in society.
I submit that teenagers do not make very good sources of life experience, and the women quoted in the article range from 14 to 18. There is a woman who is 30 years old who has some interesting comments, easily the worthiest in the piece:
My emphasis. Once the hijab is no longer a requirement for respect in women, I am fine with it as a personal choice. That day is nowhere near us I’m afraid. The rest of the quotes and write-ups were rather vapid – teenagers grasping at straws in order to justify a custom they themselves do not fully understand. There is one good explanation provided in the article, though of course the piece lacks the fortitude and motivation to address the underlying issues:
Why is this? Why should it be so? And, above all (for this is the argument) what place does this prejudice, this outright and acknowledged bigotry against women, have in French public schools?
My point is that the way women are perceived must change before progress can be made with reliable and long-lasting integration of substantial numbers. One way to alter such perceptions in France is to remove the hijab requirement in public schools, and make all boys and girls truly religiously equal. Ostensibly the French are targeting all overt religious symbols (including large crucifixes) citing French secularism as the reason; I accept that, but I also think they are attempting to engineer more integrated generations of Muslims, who often come from patriarchal societies and thus carry unnecessary and undesirable cultural baggage.
Well, there are fair-skinned and fair-haired Muslim cultures around Europe (e.g. the ex-Yugoslavia) but you could be seeing women who have just joined the community (usually as a result of marriage rather than independent conversion, it is quite common for Arab Muslims to leave their country and marry foreign women), or the offspring of mixed marriages, etc.
It’s not a standalone solution, but part of a large mosaic. As I said, little steps, and you have to start somewhere to distinguish culture from religion in an attempt to integrate growing numbers of immigrants. Domestic violence is by no means a small problem or taking place in a small minority – according to statistics I posted in the thread on honour killings, one in three women world-wide is abused. One in three is not a small minority, but a substantial one, and in patriarchal cultures the rate of abuse is higher (obviously) than in non-patriarchal cultures. In some groups, such as Kurdish immigrants from Eastern Anatolia, the occurrence of domestic violence is very high, with honour killings as peaks. Domestic violence among Muslim families living in Western European countries also tends to be woefully under reported, since it is shameful to bring outsiders and foreigners into family matters and since the man is under cultural expectations to resolve the problem as head of the family and bring his family members into line.
This is entirely possible, I have hopes though that the experiment will work, even if in the short term it will quite predictably cause problems and stir resentment. Islam itself was a grand work of social engineering that addressed and mitigated several fiercely patriarchal traits in pre-Islamic Arabia; unfortunately many cultures require more modification, and it seems strangely fitting that another experiment in social engineering should take up where Islam left off over a millennium ago.
an error in my previous post, the first paragraph should read:
“… many integrate well with the host culture, some to the degree that they even happily marry locals …”
Lots of mixed marriages take place between immigrants and hosts, but they are not necessarily happy marriages or indicative of good integration.
Well, my point is actually that my opinion isn’t important. I look at the merits of the case - it’s about what people want to wear - and conclude that this is an issue where I am going to let every person decide for themselves.
I am opposed to oppressing women, keeping them out of sight etc.etc. And I am in favor of reasonable measures and attempts to combat such tendencies, whether they exist in immigrant communities or native ones. Or maybe even elsewhere.
Funny you should latch on to that particular comment! I originally wrote a paragraph highlighting just that fragment in my own post, but deleted it before submitting.
My angle was: look here, a person who doesn’t want to wear a headscarf, and indeed she doesn’t have to. Isn’t freedom great? It also says “She applauds those who wear the hijab”.
I think the only right way to alter such perceptions is to show tolerance ourselves. Demonstrate convincingly what I said earlier: “Isn’t freedom great?” Encourage individual independence. I’m not referring to customs that are actually criminal, of course (I don’t think perceptions are considered criminal in our society).
The “fair-skinned” Muslim women I referred to were obvious locals, spoke the local language etc. Married to recent immigrants in many cases, but I have read that independent conversion is not unheard of in these parts.
I guess it all comes down to balance and compromise. We agree that isolationist and oppressive tendencies in immigrant cultures should be countered. Reasonable people can differ on what measures are appropriate or effective. Also, I am not forgetting that tolerance needs to go both ways. Plus, immigrant people will necessarily face alot of pressure on their culture already by immigrating.
I might add one thing. In the course of googling I came across the fact that in the Netherlands some schools and members of parliament are thinking of banning face-covering clothes from schools - nikaabs, chadors and burqas (not hijabs - those have been allowed for years).
The reason given is that they hinder teacher-pupil communication, and thus the process of education, when the teacher can’t see the pupil’s eyes. Dutch link from Google cache
Although the concern sounds a bit overblown to me, I am not an educator so I will defer that to the experts. So in this case I concur that the case for a ban is stronger. Also considering my criterion of mutual tolerance, I am less hesitant to tell those pupils, hey, could you please tone it down a bit, OK?
Assuming that the hijab truly is a symbol of patriarchal reasoning and oppresses women (arguable both ways, clearly), this is still your opinion. Banning the hijab isn’t going to advance integration or bring muslim women forward because they have not come to the same conclusions themselves. Instead, they’ll see you imposing your cultural views on them because you feel they are superior. Either that or someone with a different political agenda will easily convince them that this is the case. It does not present an image of tolerance. In my mind, forcing a group to do something for their “benefit” has some unattractive overtones. The longer muslim women in Western countries are exposed to examples of women who gain respect without a specific dresscode, the more likely they are to understand and eventually adopt your reasoning, possibly shedding the hijab in the process. People are capable of recognizing when a new idea will benefit them, even if it takes time to unravel existing cultural prejudices and perspectives.
Iridium has a point. I recall the protests in Iran in the late 1970s (while Khomeini was still in Paris) frequently included many women wearing the burqa–which the shah had prohibited. When interviewed, many of the women said that they were not inclined to wear a burqa for day-to-day life, but they rejected the notion that the shah should dictate rules that conflicted with their religion. (Of course, they got more than they bargained for when Khomeini returned from France–not including the burqa, which the Mullahs do not insist upon–but their intent was to resist the interference in their lives.)
Well it seems we are all essentially in agreement here: personal freedom is paramount and people ought to be free to do what they want, even if (as I think) what they want may ultimately be undesirable.
Regarding whether the need for a woman to cover up is an item of patriarchal society, I submit it is based on the reasoning I already jotted out here and in the more detailed arguments thrashed out in the honour killings thread. It is indeed my opinion, yes, but it is not a fringe one and also I don’t think it is an unlikely hypothesis, since (rather selective and forced apologies aside) there is no real need for women to conform to radically different standards of dress and behaviour in a modern Western society. It is in some cases their decision to do so, true; but indoctrination is a dangerous beast and I no more accept it as a reason for this behaviour than I condone persons who are beaten as children and grow up thinking that beating their kids is acceptable and good. Indoctrination can be extremely effective.
My (utilitarian in nature) argument, which is where I think I differ slightly from my distinguished fellow posters, is that it would be ultimately desirable to reduce the incidence of certain immigrant customs in certain European societies in order to maximise successful integration of growing numbers of immigrants. As I said earlier, I see France’s public school initiative as an application of Fraternité et Egalité, with a small hit to Liberté. And my position is of course restricted to those customs where it can be argued that the ultimate intent and/or result is incompatible with the customs, laws, and rights of European host nations (specifically customs that tend to restrict women’s freedoms and place them on an unequal footing in society).
It is of course better to allow exposure to another culture to do the work, but the difficulty in quite a few countries is the rate of immigration; it is because integration is proving difficult that other measures are being considered. Exposure can work wonders, but with large and to varying degrees insular immigrant communities exposure is often limited.