liberty, equality, fraternity
French president Jacques Chirac, is to ask parliament to pass a law banning Islamic headscarves and other religious insignia in French state schools. If the law is passed, from next year students will not be allowed to wear headscarves, Jewish skull caps or large(*) Christian crosses.via the Guardian and the Beeb. This reminds me of, amongst other things, an article by former Liberal MP Jackie Ballard, who spent time in Iran and came to embrace wearing the chador as liberating:
I wonder how the media might have treated Ann Widdecombe [NB: one of her nicknames is Doris Karloff] or Blair's so-called 'babes' if all women MPs here wore the uniform of the chador. Perhaps then the women in Parliament would be taken more seriously as professional politicians doing a job, not as fat or thin women in grey or pink suits. Maybe then I would not have been described by some witty journalist as having 'a good face for radio' or be told by the late Auberon Waugh that I was 'too fat to be an MP'.A number of women I know have expressed an interest in anonymity and freedom obtained through wearing a hijab, though none have tried it.
(*) And on an entirely puerile note, how big is a large cross anyway?
Comments
Umamitsunami: Remove Your Tradition in School
Posted by: adriana | December 17, 2003 9:58 PM
I agree with Chirac, I dont think religion, or religious artifacts belong in school. It is a personal belief, and school is supposed to deal with known quanties. 1+1=2, or statistics on the rate of poverty at the tax code ceases to be progressive. The expression of beliefs which have been used to exclude and justify hatred for people who other wise would be considered friends does not belong in the public sphere.
Posted by: Subversity | December 18, 2003 3:15 AM
Thanks Adriana for that link, very interesting discussion.
Posted by: gwen | December 18, 2003 8:59 AM
they thought that outlawing gang gear in schools would reduce school violence, too. this was before harris and klebold.
unless they start using corporal punishment [and maybe not even then], kids in school will tend to wear whatever the fuck they want, and fuck the rules, and more power to them. last i heard european students were even more rebellious than our own.
i share your disdain for religious fanatacism of any stripe, SV, but in weighing the balance, i find freedom of religion to be just as essential as freedom from it.
Posted by: r@d@r | December 18, 2003 1:07 PM