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More on French Hijab
EFLEarlier this week 20,000 women and girls clad in black sheets and headscarves topped by blue, white and red headbands, surged along the streets of central Paris, directed by hectoring men on loudspeakers, to protest the proposed French ban on the wearing of headscarves in state schools. Similar protests took place in Stockholm and other European capitals in solidarity â and, as thereâs something about wearing a shapeless sheet that renders Atkins a moot point, these gals were plenty solid. They held aloft banners on which were variations of âFrance est ma patrie; la voile est ma vie!â (âFrance is my country. The scarf is my life.â) In London, men and women protested (separately, of course) carrying signs proclaiming "secularism has failed the world" and chanting for "female dignity" and an end to "secular vanity." The proposed ban is being condemned by many of Franceâs Muslims (there are five million Muslims in France, eight per cent of the population; the largest in Western Europe) as a form of "religious harassment." Native French see it as about time. There are suburbs outside Paris, Lille, Lyons and other big industrial cities where Muslims make up the vast majority of the school-going population. Some classrooms may have two or three native white French girls and 19 or 20 headscarf clad Muslims. And the presence of the scarf and all that it implies in the way of religious imperialism has finally lit the tinderbox of the clash of values between the enlightened West and the bigotry of some Muslims. First, it is divisive. Given the large majority of Muslim girls in the classrooms in industrial areas, it marks French girls whose families have lived on French soil since time immemorial, as âdifferentâ and strangers in their own country. Second, France has equality between the sexes, and wearing the scarf â in a Western secular country, as opposed to an Islamic society, where it is the norm and thus unremarkable â subconsciously gives males the advantage of not being âdifferentâ. Third, it puts the onus of male behavior onto the shoulders of girls. Who can blame a male for becoming inflamed if a girl is so bold as to reveal her hair? France considers this an unfair burden on schoolgirls. The French government could turn a blind eye â indeed, has turned a blind eye â to the last two aspects, but it is the hijab-clad majority, with its implied criticism of native French girls as being âshamelessâ that is now being used as an excuse for young male Muslim aggression against girls, and for Muslim aggression against the host society. In the projects where native French are very much in the minority, native French girls are being bullied into adopting the headscarf. Girls who are âboldâ enough, or disrespectful enough of the Muslim majority, are being gang-raped by Muslim adolescents on the grounds that they need a lesson. This is part of a new, rapidly developing âtraditionâ. Teaching white girls a lesson for not wearing a headscarf not only has its own argot, but there is a mobile phone ring tone associated with it, too. Small wonder that the parents of white daughters in the projects insist on them donning a scarf to leave their homes. So the aggressive fist of militant Islam reaches out to control the host community. In any event, the issue of the headscarf is, in a sense, a phony one. It is not a religious requirement. Nowhere is it required in the Koran, which merely directs that women dress âmodestlyâ. In the suburbs of the French industrial cities, it is a cultural badge. A trademark. Will the government I think the hijab - and the rape of western children/women who refuse to wear it, is going to be turning point in our PC views of the world. You canât have multicultural society if the groups canât coexist, respectful of others. The hijab, rightly or wrongly is quickly becoming an emotional symbol of the Muslim inability to coexist within a secular framework. Posted by: B 2004-01-23 |
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