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Apr. 14th, 2010 12:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsJohn R. Bowen's Why the French Don't Like Headscarves was another recommendation from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
schiarire. In 2004, a law passed in France that made it illegal to wear "conspicuous religious symbols" in public schools, which to me at the time (and to many not-me people, I would think . . .) seemed sort of crazy for a number of reasons, considering that it means kids can be expelled for wearing, among other things: yarmulkes, large crosses, Sikh turbans, and, of course, the Islamic headscarf or 'la voile'. The book basically undertakes to explain the origins of the law and the attitude towards headscarves and how the law came to be passed.
The law seems no less crazy to me now, really, but I think I at least theoretically understand the underpinnings of it better? The part that seems most obviously crazy is the fact that the main justification for the law was to make sure young women were not being forced by The Islamic Patriarchy to wear headscarves - obviously crazy because many of the girls involved in Dramatic Headscarf Cases were not in fact from super-religious families (two of them, the Levy girls, had a Jewish atheist for a father), and had clearly decided to start wearing the scarves as symbols of their own identity and independence. I mean, the subtext there, which Bowen lays out, is obviously that the idea of young French people finding strength in Islamic identity is frightening to many more mainstream French people, with racism and Islamophobia very much tied into that. Not to mention the fact that many North African feminists from Islamic countries were coming to France and actively speaking out against the voile - and their experiences are obviously very important to listen to, and not to discount - but at the same time, no one was actually listening to the girls in question or taking their viewpoint into account, and that can't ever be a good thing in a debate like this even without the basic problem that, hey, it just got a lot easier to kick immigrant girls from Islamic neighborhoods out of school, awesome.
But at least I can see and understand the reasoning and cause and effect there, even though I don't like a lot of it. The other point, that was much harder for me to grasp on an emotional/intuitive level, is this concept that seeing someone else's religious symbol can be considered an intrusion into 'public space' and a threat to freedom of religion. Bowen points out that people described seeing women walking around in headscarves as an offense to them, an offense to the idea of France as a secular country, and on an intuitive level that sort of boggles me, becaus what someone chooses to wear or feels necessary to wear for religious beliefs is about their choices, not about the observer! To me that seems self-evident. But the history of France regarding religion, and the attitude towards religion there, is very different than it is here, and Bowen does a very good job of explaining that and making that difference clear.
I'm sorry, guys, I feel like this is a very rambly and not super-coherent review. Anyway, the book made me think a lot about my own assumptions about what freedom of religion means, and . . . I still don't think my assumptions are wrong, but thinking about them isn't a bad thing regardless.
schiarire. In 2004, a law passed in France that made it illegal to wear "conspicuous religious symbols" in public schools, which to me at the time (and to many not-me people, I would think . . .) seemed sort of crazy for a number of reasons, considering that it means kids can be expelled for wearing, among other things: yarmulkes, large crosses, Sikh turbans, and, of course, the Islamic headscarf or 'la voile'. The book basically undertakes to explain the origins of the law and the attitude towards headscarves and how the law came to be passed.The law seems no less crazy to me now, really, but I think I at least theoretically understand the underpinnings of it better? The part that seems most obviously crazy is the fact that the main justification for the law was to make sure young women were not being forced by The Islamic Patriarchy to wear headscarves - obviously crazy because many of the girls involved in Dramatic Headscarf Cases were not in fact from super-religious families (two of them, the Levy girls, had a Jewish atheist for a father), and had clearly decided to start wearing the scarves as symbols of their own identity and independence. I mean, the subtext there, which Bowen lays out, is obviously that the idea of young French people finding strength in Islamic identity is frightening to many more mainstream French people, with racism and Islamophobia very much tied into that. Not to mention the fact that many North African feminists from Islamic countries were coming to France and actively speaking out against the voile - and their experiences are obviously very important to listen to, and not to discount - but at the same time, no one was actually listening to the girls in question or taking their viewpoint into account, and that can't ever be a good thing in a debate like this even without the basic problem that, hey, it just got a lot easier to kick immigrant girls from Islamic neighborhoods out of school, awesome.
But at least I can see and understand the reasoning and cause and effect there, even though I don't like a lot of it. The other point, that was much harder for me to grasp on an emotional/intuitive level, is this concept that seeing someone else's religious symbol can be considered an intrusion into 'public space' and a threat to freedom of religion. Bowen points out that people described seeing women walking around in headscarves as an offense to them, an offense to the idea of France as a secular country, and on an intuitive level that sort of boggles me, becaus what someone chooses to wear or feels necessary to wear for religious beliefs is about their choices, not about the observer! To me that seems self-evident. But the history of France regarding religion, and the attitude towards religion there, is very different than it is here, and Bowen does a very good job of explaining that and making that difference clear.
I'm sorry, guys, I feel like this is a very rambly and not super-coherent review. Anyway, the book made me think a lot about my own assumptions about what freedom of religion means, and . . . I still don't think my assumptions are wrong, but thinking about them isn't a bad thing regardless.
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Date: 2010-04-14 05:30 pm (UTC)I'd point out, though, that as much as the French like to say the word "secular" and "public space" it's just not true that religion is completely absent from the public sphere. Nativity displays that would be unconstitutional in the United States are common practice in France; training for Catholic clergy is provided by public institutions (and there's been a lot of friction between the French government and the Muslim institutions in France that there hasn't been success in arranging a similar program for imams). One thing I've found pretty consistently is that when the word "secular" is used, they really mean "Christian," because Christianity already has cultural and identity connections to French national identity, whereas Islam especially (there are other minorities - Antisemitism has been the target of a lot of anti-racist legislation in France because that's how racism has been characterized in France, not that it's necessarily been all that successful; and one of my favorite lines in the book was "We have Sikhs?" - Islam is still the most numerous and tends to be the most strongly associated with poverty and crime) is not connected with that identity.
The hardest thing for me to get my head around in the French model, then, wasn't so much the idea that there was a "public space," because frankly, I do think what they really mean is a "French space" - and anything that isn't considered "French" yet isn't permitted. The public school system is a central and highly important part of that space, much more so than we can imagine in the United States. But what was hard for me to remember was that, in France, it's not about separation of Church and State. The Church has to stay out of the State - but the State has a responsibility to regulate the Church. And in the U.S., that would obviously seem to impede on religious freedom. It really did take a lot of thought and going back to the religious conflicts of the past in France for me to get my head around that.
... and now that I've blabbed over your journal, uh. I LOVE THAT BOOK. Yeah.
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Date: 2010-04-14 06:17 pm (UTC)I loved the part about "We have Sikhs?" too - I mean, it's just such a good example of how a law that really was targeted at a very specific group can have all kinds of unanticipated consequences. (And I think possibly being Jewish also ties into my visceral reaction of what, how can you make them do that - because Jewish women wear headscarves, too, and while obviously I am secular enough that it doesn't affect me, it would be so infuriating for me to have any kind of regulation saying this wasn't allowed. I mean, the stories about doctors refusing to treat women in headscarves - it was hard to make myself think non-emotionally about that.)
Yeah, that distinction that you're talking about was hard to wrap my head around as well. And, I mean, Bowen also makes the point that State control of training imams could in some respects be just as problematic as the lack of it - because the value there, and the push there, is all about assimilation, and if assimilation is not the value you're going for that's a fundamental conflict right there. The entire perspective and value system regarding the religious freedom question is so different from what it is here.
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Date: 2010-04-14 09:30 pm (UTC)And there is something to be said for the bottom line that... none of it ended up mattering that much in terms of school attendance or issues surrounding it. Catholic schools got something of a bump from Muslim enrollment, but that's about it, because once it was passed, no one actually cared that much. Which doesn't make it not problematic, but what kind of goes unsaid in a lot of these discussions is that even with all the crime/racism/poverty issues, the Muslim population in France is the most integrated in Europe - higher percentages of the Muslim population identify with French national identity than Muslim populations in any other European country. The percentage of Muslims attend religious services regularly is not significantly different from the population as whole. Covering is a nebulous issue in Islam anyway, let alone the identity issues French Muslims contend with and the reality that most people are in fact more interested in making sure their children get a good education. When these "ethnic riots" happen, the participants are almost entirely French-born youth who aren't raging against the French structure, but protesting the sense that they are being excluded from it. So regardless, France generally (Muslims and non-Muslims) is going to have to find a way to deal with that.
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Date: 2010-04-14 11:59 pm (UTC)What's astounding to me, really - well, astounding and depressingly plausible at the same time, because goodness knows human beings like to believe certain things - was the concept that controlling this very superficial outward manifestation of the issue was going to fix everything that it sprang from. Once again, it kind of comes back to the fact that the debate and the law had so little to do with the women that were theoretically at the center of it.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-14 07:11 pm (UTC)I haven't read the book, but that's largely what it's like here (Sweden) too. It's very common to see an attitude of "if WE do it it's not religious." I've even seen comments (granted, from xenophobic assholes) along the line of "OMG THEIR KIDS ASK FOR PORK-FREE FOOD IN SCHOOLS, OUR FREEDOM IS THREATENED" which, dude. Why do you care what other people eat?
Anyway. Can't really contribute much to the discussion except to say that both the original post and this comment made me go "oh boy, do I ever recognize that" followed by "and it sucks."
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Date: 2010-04-14 07:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-14 07:26 pm (UTC)It should. It completely should.
I mean, I'm all in favour of working against religious and cultural habits that are actually harmful, such as child marriages and so forth, but so very much of the protests (at least here) seem to be based on the notion of different = wrong. If your instinct tells you that's effed up, listen to your instincts.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-14 09:06 pm (UTC)And yeah, like Becca said, there are similar stories about OMG WHAT IF THEY SEE KIDS NOT EATING PORK OR EATING AFTER SUNSET BECAUSE OF RAMADAN? The attitude is, to some extent, that displaying these kinds of differences and discussing them openly erodes national identity and unity. That... whole idea is very foreign to me, really - the two main attitudes in the United States that I've encountered have been more outright rejection of anything considered antithetical to "traditional America" (and those who disagree will openly call it bigoted and racist), and the multicultural approach that emphasizes exploring and discussing differences, and uniting through the fact that we're all pretty different from each other.
But the U.S. also doesn't have the kind of emphasis on preserving national unity that France does - my main problem is almost less that attitude (though it's still not something I'd advocate having over here), and more with the fact that while it suggests that everyone more or less gives up some part of their identity to unite under a public French identity, some people are asked to give up far more than others.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-15 02:08 pm (UTC)For the most part, I'm grateful that we don't get the same level of religious craziness as the US does (singular freaks like Åke Green notwithstanding), but I sometimes fear that the sheer low key-ness of it all makes it all the more insidious. That people honestly believe that there's nothing religious about having mandatory church events for school children where a priest talks and everyone sings "born is our Lord Jesus Christ, our Saviour and God." Which is kind of insulting to Christians, too, when you think about it.
But the U.S. also doesn't have the kind of emphasis on preserving national unity that France does
Sweden has more of a positive attitude to non-Swedishness, I think, but it also means that Swedishness is defined very narrowly; the thought that someone might be Muslim (or Buddhist, or even religiously Jewish) and Swedish hardly ever arises.
I'm painting the devil on the wall here - obviously not everyone is like that - but, yeah.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-14 09:16 pm (UTC)I can kind of see why this upsets people. I've sometimes felt uncomfortable driving around my hometown around Christmas time and seeing giant nativity scenes on church lawns -- not public property, of course, but so large as to feel a little in-your-face. (Though that's also a product of growing up in said town, where people were occasionally offensive about religious matters, so I probably read it that way more than I should.) I could see how it would be possible to go from there to "the really large religious symbols other people wear offend me," though I personally don't see it that way.
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Date: 2010-04-14 11:48 pm (UTC)But again, context is everything - like, you say you're made uncomfortable by the nativity scenes because of past offensiveness, and the people quoted in the book talked about having problems with the headscarves because of connotations with oppressed women, and I assume that if someone had traumatic or unpleasant associations with yarmulkes they might feel uncomfortable seeing people in yarmulkes walking around too. But then again, it's another huge leap from that makes me feel uncomfortable to and therefore there should be a law against it.
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Date: 2010-04-15 02:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-15 04:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-14 10:18 pm (UTC)I believe it's true that "secular" in France implicitly means "nonpracticing Catholic." I also believe there's a sincere attachment to the idea of a totally neutral public space in which all citizens are indistinguishable according to a contract they entered into with the state by living in its territory. The latter is historically motivated by the former, which is one reason that is so invisible -- in its omnipresence -- to many people involved in this debate. Unfortunately that's a form of privilege. So as long as "secular" is not detached from its "nonpracticing Catholic" context, it will favor Catholics (practicing or not), and other Christians by extension, while disadvantaging other groups. And that is balls.
I think debates about universal public space are worthwhile, especially as that idea is a cornerstone in French political/national culture/identity, but there's no meaning in them at all if "universal" only really means "universal ... for some."
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Date: 2010-04-14 11:53 pm (UTC)Yeah, I think the framework that it sets up is maybe the most important part. You're absolutely right that without that background none of the arguments made much sense to me; now at least, while I find many of them inherently bemusing still, I can turn my head sideways and squint and see where they're coming from. The concept of a totally neutral public space being the absolute goal is - in some ways a very alien ideal, more alien than I think I expect from a culture that is superficially so close/exports as much surface imagery as France does (if that makes sense). But now I feel I can sort of understand it as an ideal. While fully agreeing that . . . neutral as it is imagined in France, with all the privilege and assumptions attached, is not neutral for many people. (And true universal neutral may be an impossible achievement.)
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Date: 2010-04-15 12:10 am (UTC)Yes, that does make sense. I find it incredibly alien as well. So it fascinates me! I wish there were similar books for other countries that could help me understand things I hadn't noticed I was ignoring.
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Date: 2010-04-15 12:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-15 02:07 am (UTC)Having grown up in the Bible Belt, I am adamant in my position to have a separation of church and state, but I am also adamant about people having freedom of religion. Those two positions can sometimes conflict, but on the whole, if it's on your person or on your property, go for it.
Working at my former Head Start, which is federally funded and has some pretty strict guidelines to ensure inclusiveness, we didn't celebrate holidays. Except Valentine's Day, but it was called Friendship Day. This worked very well, since we had Muslim and Hindu families. The use of pork in meals was not an issue; it was eliminated as easily as you eliminate peanut butter from centers where kids have severe allergies. It doesn't take a lot to be inclusive or respectful.
Okay, this was rambly, too. Please forgive! It's a very interesting topic, and I am glad you chose this book to talk about.
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Date: 2010-04-15 02:17 am (UTC)...wait, how do those conflict? *bewildered*
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Date: 2010-04-15 02:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-15 02:36 am (UTC)Possibly I have a blind spot here, given that separation of church and state is generally what allows me most of my freedom of religion.
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Date: 2010-04-15 02:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-15 03:59 am (UTC)- so, uh, in other words, I would not term that a blind spot.
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Date: 2010-04-15 03:51 am (UTC)(. . . though now I'm curious, because while I am all for equality of holidays . . . did the poor kids just never get off? :O)
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Date: 2010-04-15 03:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-15 05:22 am (UTC)