The French headscarf law

M

Myrrdin

Still Mildly Glowing
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3531151.stm
Apparently it passed. Not only does it ban headscarfs, but also jewish head caps aswell as larger crosses at schools. Don't know if it has been discussed here previously, but isn't the law rather controversial? Some more liberal muslim women seem to think of the different kinds of scarves as oppressive, whilst others see it as a symbol of faith which they bear by their own free will. Do you think that this is taking secularism too far?
 
Religious wear is, as often as not enforced on young Muslim women. I see no reason why the scarfs should be controversial, they have it in Turkey. The Jewish/Cross thing seems a bit silly.
 
Its a battle of wills; French-1, Religious Freaks-0.

Assimiliation is good IMO, it doesn't mean that you can't express your culture but dismissing the culture of the country you choose to live is uncool.
 
ConstinpatedCraprunner said:
Religious wear is, as often as not enforced on young Muslim women. I see no reason why the scarfs should be controversial, they have it in Turkey. The Jewish/Cross thing seems a bit silly.
Click to expand...

You have obviously not been following the issue

The question was whether or not muslim women who wanted to wear scarfs, as they believed that to be right, would be allowed to do so on school. The teachers' claim seemed to be that "it was interfering in teacher-pupil interaction"

It's good that if they ban those, they also ban crosses and jewish caps, tho'
 
I think it's good that they ban them. It's like wearing a sandwich board saying 'PICK ON ME PLZ', then they cry about it.

Bizarro.

The large crosses are also bizarro. I remember this big cross in my old school with a 'jesus' on it wearing a red robe, a golden crown and he looked pissed off.

I don't mind whatever people choose to wear or do, just don't cry about it when someone makes fun of you or it interferes with other people mebbe?

Cherers.
 
There were two big cases on free speech in the US that I can think of relating to this issue. Both occurred during the Vietnam War.

In the first, a young man got in trouble for wearing a jacket with the words "Fuck the Draft" in a courthouse. In that case the person was arrested for "obscenity". But the COurt overruled this. Not only was the idea of obscenity silly, but the person was engaged in symbolic and expressive political speech expressing his outrage against the draft.

In another case students were kicked out of school for wearing black armbands, also against the draft and the war. In that situation the school argued that the black armbands were disruptive. The Court found that they were valuable symbolic speech and that students did not abandon their right to free expression at the school yard steps and fruther that the Court didn't buy the disruption argument.

Now I am not saying that the French should follow American jurisprudence or feeling on this. But I am suggesting that this idea of free speech does need to be considered as a moral weighing of alternatives.

Why shouldn't Muslim girls get to wear head scarves? Is this a move to push muslim girls or people of stronger religious persuasion out of school? If so is that fair?

I wonder how much this disrupts the functioning of a class. A culture like France I would imagine is a polygot of different cultures, including many minorities. What right is it of the majority to deny a minority their right to an education merely because they are believers of a specific faith? This sounds like an act of discrimination.
 
This is a religious issue not really a cultural issue. Its like if AMish decided to start coming to public schools but refused to take a school bus or still wanted to wear their funky old clothes. It would be interfering with classes. I say if the muslims want to make a religious issue out of it, then they shouldn't go to the public schools?
 
The question was whether or not muslim women who wanted to wear scarfs, as they believed that to be right, would be allowed to do so on school. The teachers' claim seemed to be that "it was interfering in teacher-pupil interaction
Click to expand...
Are you certain? Because from what I saw, the reason for banning religious symbols was that the school was a wholly secular institution, and that therefore, religion should not be part of schools.

I see no reason why the scarfs should be controversial, they have it in Turkey.
Click to expand...
This is a really really sentence. "They have it in Turkey, so it shouldn't be controversial."
Tsch.

This is rather...interesting. I'm split intwine here. On one hand, I feel that people should be allowed to wear whatever the hell they want. The government cannot decide what does and what does not belong on a person's personal wear.

On the other hand there is the problem of religion. Will you allow teachers and pupils to wear obvious forms of religious expression, or will you allow the support for their religions to continue??

I'm leaning more towards the freedom side, though. People should be allowed to wear whatever they want.

PS: The ban on religious symbols is probably nothing but a way of banning headscarfs, but avoiding the discrimination problem, by simply banning all religious symbols.
 
Do they have uniforms in France? They do in English schools and allowed to wear head-scarfs but not hats! WHAT THE FUCK DUDE! WALLA-WALLA BING BING! OO EE OO AA AA TING TANG WALLA WALLA BANG BANG!

Hey ! Witch Doctor ! Give us the magic word !!
All right, you go ooo ooo ooo ahah ting tang
Walla walla, bang bang !
All right !

Ooo eee,ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla, bang bang
Repeat 8x

I told the witch doctor
I was in love with you
I told the witch doctor
I was in love with you
And then the witch doctor
He told me what to do
He told me

Chorus:
Ooo eee,ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla, bang bang
Ooo eee ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla bang bang...
Ooo eee ,ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla ,bang bang
Ooo eee ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla bang bang

I told the witch doctor
You didn't love me true
I told the witch doctor
You didn't love me nice
And then the witch doctor
He game me this advice

Chorus

You've been keeping love from me
Just like you were a miser
And i'll admit i wasn't very smart
So i went out and found myself
A guy that's so much wiser
And he taught me the way to win your heart.

My friend the witch doctor
He taught me what to say
My friend the witch doctor
He taught me what to do
I know that you'll be mine
When i say this to you
Chorus

You've been keeping love from me
Just like you were a miser
And i'll admit i wasn't very smart
So i went out and found myself
A guy that's so much wiser
And he taught me the way to win your heart.

My friend the witch doctor
He taught me what to say
My friend the witch doctor
He taught me what to do
I know that you'll be mine
When i say this to you
 
JJ86 said:
This is a religious issue not really a cultural issue. Its like if AMish decided to start coming to public schools but refused to take a school bus or still wanted to wear their funky old clothes. It would be interfering with classes. I say if the muslims want to make a religious issue out of it, then they shouldn't go to the public schools?
Click to expand...

Yeah, but JJ, the Amish have gotten all sorts of exceptions when it comes to public education because of their faith.

I mean really, so what if they have different clothes. What did we make schools into, the fashion police? Schools are there to educate the citizens of a country, not regulate their dress code. You take your citizens as you find them, regardless of religion or culture or ideology.

Let me add that schools can indoctrine their students for secularism as well.

Let me add that I am not into the whole school uniform thing, unless they are porn stars playing naughty school girls, which is another issue entirely.
 
I did make a similar comment about this before in an unrelated post.

The French are historically very secular with examples such as the French revolution and experience of the enlightenment.

However, according to one French friend the main problem with the religious symbols is culture. Many of the Islamic immigrants do not assimilate and form enclaves and slums which cause trouble and whose people have completely different values and culture. The French secular idea is inflamed by the intolerance for the outsider 'French', causing people to passionately attack the things they see as foreign or isolating.

Personally I have not decided if the scarf is appropriate for places such as school, but I do disapprove of anything that makes people clearly different and exclusive ( I agree with getting kids to wear uniform). Maybe it is just that the French take such things so seriously because of their snooty, conservative radicalism.
 
And what is Blade Runner's opinion on this subject?

Well... :lol:

Blade thinks it's a good thing of course. No headscarfs, no yarmulkas, no crosses... Hell: these Frenchies are smarter than I thought.

Next on the agenda: churches and mosques. :twisted:
 
Apparently there was an article in today's newspaper (which I so far have failed to find, partly because of not looking), about the fact that Christian groups are no longer allowed to meet on school property.

They're allowed to have meetings, but they have to be interfaith discussions - so they can't bring in Christian guest speakers or pray, or most of what they apparently do.

However, people of other religions - like muslims, and I can't remember what else - are still allowed to meet.

This brings to mind the discussion of "reverse discrimiation" we had in the "white only scholarship" thread.
 
toresica said:
Apparently there was an article in today's newspaper (which I so far have failed to find, partly because of not looking), about the fact that Christian groups are no longer allowed to meet on school property.

They're allowed to have meetings, but they have to be interfaith discussions - so they can't bring in Christian guest speakers or pray, or most of what they apparently do.

However, people of other religions - like muslims, and I can't remember what else - are still allowed to meet.

This brings to mind the discussion of "reverse discrimiation" we had in the "white only scholarship" thread.
Click to expand...

Seriously, I can't even see how that could be a discussion. That just sounds like some of fascist idiocy to me, however non-religious I personally might be. Why shouldn't they be able to meet and do whatever they wanna do, it's just like some other club or organization. And the discrimination that muslim groups are able to meet just makes it sound worse. If it was during actual lectures or something, sure that I could understand. Are you really sure that's an actual law?
 
Myrrdin said:
Are you really sure that's an actual law?
Click to expand...

It's not a law, it's a school regualation.

Kind of along the same lines of not being allowed to chew gum or run in the hallways or whatever.
 
Blade Runner said:
And what is Blade Runner's opinion on this subject?

Well... :lol:

Blade thinks it's a good thing of course. No headscarfs, no yarmulkas, no crosses... Hell: these Frenchies are smarter than I thought.

Next on the agenda: churches and mosques. :twisted:
Click to expand...

Yeah, and how about, no freedom of speech, not being allowed to wear the clothes you want because it's too absurd or something, or maybe they should ban you from being allowed to perform science in school. Maybe just force nationalistic crap down your throat?

next on the agenda: if you aren't white, you die :twisted:

I mean c'mon man, people need a fucking hobby or something. banning crosses, headscarves, and yarmulkas? I seriously think that maybe fifty years from now, America will not recognize any calendar, since almost all of them, if not all of them, are religous. Some people really need a hobby.
 
This decision of the French government is very communist. Expressing your religion in public was strictly forbidden in communist countries. Now, I know France is not a totalitarian dictatorship and motivation for this law is entirely different, but still, if a democratic country passes a law that looks like it came straight from the Central Committee, shouldn't it reconsider the wisdom of such decision?

Enforcing assimilation is a very non-democratic method and no country should attempt such a thing. By promoting understanding between various cultures, government can create an atmosphere of tolerance and trust. Eventually members of minorities would no longer have an incentive to publicly display their belonging to a particular culture or religion, so Muslim headscarves and Jewish yarmulkas would disappear naturally. But banning them merely makes the minorities feel threatened and even more prompted to show their beliefs publicly.
 
Ratty said:
This decision of the French government is very communist. Expressing your religion in public was strictly forbidden in communist countries.
Click to expand...

The fact that it was common in communist countries doesn't make it evil by definition

Wellfare was also very communist

When you're talking about something being purely communist dictatorship, a la, but then it stands as an evil in-and-of-itself

To consider something only by the merits of "has it ever been done by a dictatorship" is retarded. At best.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top