Chirac and religious expression.

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This post is mainly but not exclusively for the European posters. Australia is rather...different...from Europe so I wanted a European perspective.

Chirac made a speech to parliament that was a request for the banning of religious symbols in public schools and/or departments.

What do you think? Should French people (or anyone for that matter) be allowed to express their attatchment to their religious/cultural traditions or should the state forbid any such expressions since it is "anathema" to secular government?

 

well it's a hard question, on one side you free religion on the other side you have all the problems that comes with it. But since France ban all religious trademarks in school I don't have a problem with it, since it will make the school more Equal. when I went to school we had a problem with people wearing caps, they argued that since, Muslims and Jews where allowed to wear "hats", then they should to. my point is that if you allow someone, to look different then others, then it generates hate, which is a big problem in Europe right now. but at the same time, by banning religious trademarks you might make a lot of religious people angry, so that might generate more hate too.

 

The problem is , for France, that they have some 5 million or so algerian muslims in their country and that islamic fundamentalism for them is a genuine domestic problem.

The idea behind it is to counter that problem. The state, and its schools are religiously neutral. To ban islamic symbols while allowing christians would mean discrimination and there would, predictably, a lawsuit against it, because of discrimination.
And the french government would loose, because banning islamic symbols alone would violate the principles of nondiscriminiation and equality. Banning all religious symbols avoids that.

And you have to consider frenchs historical heritage. It was them who invented the totally secular state and the separation of church and state, it is one achievement of their revolution. They still value it.

To cal it restriction of the freedom of expression is misleading, people will still be allowed to wear their religious symbols in private life.

 

It is a difficult situation and i think that this proposal was made to protect, more likely, than to offend the various religious groups. Like it or not people do go judgemental and sometimes offencive against different religions than theirs.
This proposal, at least the way i understood it, is to eliminate any optical difference between the most sensitive group of humans (children) in order to avoid any possible offend (and therefore phycological trauma) or any physical injury.
Lets not forget that the last 10 or so years the extreme right parties in Europe have gained power and people support. And these people are a******s that would hurt without second thought an innocent child just because it does not match their criteria.
Then again this is the way i perceived it and only a personal opinion. And maybe i am too romantic and good intented

 

Well, there's a thread about the same topic, just from slight different angle already.

After having read an article in th paper yesterday, I changed my opinion vaguely and think now it's even a good measure on a practical level.

Well, for the principal. The West-European continental countries (France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, I think even to some extend Spain and Italy) have all to some degree secular traditions in their state, i.e. separation of church and state. But their are huge differences among those mentioned countries in how it goes principally and how far it goes. But those make a huge difference to the UK, I think as best example, where theire protestant flavours still are closely linked to the state and, as far as I know, there are even school prayers.

To France which has it's laicistic tradition. Banning of religious symbols in schools is nothing new there. The first daughter of the church has strict secular rules since about a century or so.

The one aspect, it is no question at all, that in a state which separates church from state, teachers in public schools wear no religious symbols at all. That's fundamental.

The other aspect, banning the scarves of children. This is actually nothing new in France (I repeat, nothing new and again, you will not find catholic symbols in French public schools). Banning scarves in school is the usus in France public schools for a long time. Indeed, they just refresh an old law which was in use all along and make to some degree stricter.

The next point is, I think it's a mycopic fallacy to think, that laicist traditions would somehow hinder religions to "bloom". The UK is formally a very religious state, yet, the British aren't known to be more religous as their neighbours. I think the "weakening" of religon in Europe has nothing to do with laicist-traditions (dubbed "atheist" by interest groups). One may better search in the historical incidents of the last 200 years, which, in my view, had a bigger impact on the average mind than secularity in schools. I even think the opposite is the case, as state-neutrality in religious matter is the only thing able to garantee that religious freedom is more then a hollow word or not an individual right, but a "colleciv" right, by furthering religious "ghettos", people of this faith tend to live there and go to those schools, people of another faith live at another place and go in different schools.

In my view, laicism is the best way to facilliate peaceful co-existence of different religions.

Edit: Tried to made it resemble English and even readable to some degree.

 

I do think that government should stay out of religious issues, but that aside, I really don't think this is as evil as people are making it out to be. When religious violence is a problem, wearing clothing that proclaims to the world as loudly as possible what religion you belong to doesn't strike me as the best idea, and while disagreeing with the government's response I can see the logic of their position.

It would be different if the laws really were interfering with the practice of religion, but wearing a yarmulke or a burqha or a hijab is cultural rather than religious. A prominant French rabbi has suggested that Jews wear baseball caps instead of yarmulkes, for their own safety. Some Jewish sects wear hats instead of yarmulkes anyway - so long as their head is covered somehow the religious requirement is met. As for women covering their hair - that is an Arabic practice rather than a Muslim one. I know plenty of Muslim women from eastern Europe, and for that matter one from Iran too, who are quite offended by the idea that they should cover their hair so that men are not driven wild with lust and forced to rape them, which is where the whole burqha/hijab concept comes from. It's not about religion, it's about the oppression of women in Arab culture, and I don't think it deserves much more legal protection than female genital mutilation.

 

I have a hard time seeing headscarves as equivalent to female genital mutilation. Seeing that some Muslim women actually want to wear the burqa or similar dress, it's not hard to think that they want to wear headscarves.

And it's not like headscarves are necessarily Muslim or Arabic. Others wear them too. And you can bet that the other students are still going to be able to tell who's a Muslim, because there's still a high correlation with being Algerian, Arabic, etc.

But even if we were talking about wearing crucifixes (a clearly religious symbol) in schools, it seems to me (and Laches put it well in another thread) that it's a wrongheaded approach to stopping religious violence. If you just try to stop the visible signs of religion, you're going to fail. Are you going to force Catholics to stop making the sign of the cross? Prevent Muslims from praying toward Mecca? Put a gag order on anyone who starts to talk about their religious beliefs? If you start doing all of that, then what kind of a civilization are you trying to protect?

(An aside: There's been some talk of a compromise between French officials and Muslim women.)

[ December 19, 2003, 20:31: Message edited by: Shralp ]

 

Fighting dragons with plastic swords ? I can't help but recognise your fine climax you made there. But it's nothing but bashing in open doors, as the freedom of religion in spare time isn't questioned at all. All the things you mentioned weren't touched all this time and will not be. And the roman church and the other faiths have survived laicism. True, the roman church hasn't it's former govermantal glory and supermacy it held as it had in the time of the napoleonic concordat. But what the heck ?

And Laches analogy with the old aristocracy of Dixie also hadn't anything to do with the topic at hand. This is aimed at integration, not segregation. This is Europe, There aren't vast spaces which help install religious harmony by pushing farther west, where minority religions can form their own states. People have to live together.

Besides, there aren't many countries which have as many people from different major religions as France. And one of the aims of this measures is to facilate integration, and in my mind, there is no doubt, that only a laicistic state can succeed in integrating many different faiths and therefore establish individual freedom of religon.

And one of the main aims is to better the perfomance of muslim girls, without veil, they perform better in school. No one will hinder them later strolling on the streets and spend their money earned as doctor with a headscarf. (Yeah, I fine picture I paint, but the underlying message is clear, I guess).

A whole other issue which is closely entwined, is the veil and it's position in muslim religion. You know, the Koran, not unlike the bible (coincidence ?) demands "decent attire". If this is a headscarf (or any derivate) or not, that's not at all a clear-cut case among muslims as pictures from Saudi-Arabia might suggest.

Yes, I know that I only repeat myself over and over again. So what ! There are to few secular fanatics on this board, really. Bah, I should start post in CS.

Edit: Some spelling mistakes I myself even noticed.

[ December 20, 2003, 00:53: Message edited by: Iago ]

 

I'm just passing through but just glanced at this. I don't think you understand the history of integration in the US. You reference pushing farther west - you're thinking of the wrong era. As I mentioned in the other thread, my boss worked with the FBI on integrating the schools in North Carolina - he also worked with the integration in Boston (or tried, but that's another issue). Point is, my boss is an older gentleman but he isn't THAT old - no cowboy hats and spurs etc.

There are of course similar issues with hispanics, primarily Mexicans out west, ongoing. Then there is... perhaps as a nation of immigrants though the US deals with these type of issues in a different manner. Once Europe gets more experience maybe they'll learn to embrace multiculteralism rather than pay it lipservice.

I'm largely poking fun - don't get your dander up.

 

From my experience when more than one large group of people exist, both tend to actively seek out secularism. If there is one group, and many minorities, or no group that is existant in larger numbers than another, then this is not the case and all people integrate better. This is especcailly the case with children, and as I attended several different schools with different ethnic or racial mixes, I can testify that it is so. From this point of view I have been persuaded that perhaps a broad-ban in schools, if not solving a problem, could serve to diffuse the rivalry that is existant.

This may just force catholics to private catholic schools and musilms to private muslim schools, but if that is their wish than so be it, but as has allready been stated, no-one is stopping anyone's activities outside of school, and no-one is prohibiting something that is against any of the faiths -no-one is required to wear specific items according to their religion, it is a culture which has been taught to people, and is not found in any of the books, and I know some members of that faith who are disgusted by the way it is wrongly indoctrined to un-educated masses in their home countries.

Now it is true that this could be construed as an assault against all involved, but if it is France's culture itself to keep such things seperate, then that culture should take pre-dominance over any other, and thus I can see nothing wrong with this from France's perspective. I don't think anyone is being hurt by this, so even if it is not the best solution, I think it is the easiest to enforce.

No-one is banning religion here, they are only trying to reduce conflict in schools between the children, and I believe, the teachers conflict of interest as well.

I think that if we are going to defend the culture of people within the country, we should be defending France's culture as well. If this was against only one specific religion I might agree, but it is not, nor do I think that banning all atheist symbology as well would help, if it could be ascertained what such symbology was, and I am sure that it could be. Allowing all signs of atheism or religion may be argued as the more neutral, but that has been tried, and found that it was not working in these cases. It is a shame that it is has come to this, but until the roots are adressed, is not some sort of solution better than none?