Something aggressive about veils
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Something aggressive about veils
| Sat, 12-06-2003 - 10:38pm |
http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,11882,1101321,00.html
Jacques Chirac hinted strongly yesterday that France will soon introduce legislation banning Muslim girls from wearing headscarves to school, saying most French people saw "something aggressive" in the veil and that the secular state could not tolerate "ostentatious signs of religious proselytism".

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If only there were more Belgians interested in scrubbing French bidets...
Renee
I've already said that I think veiling is symbolic of these issues to the French. Additionally, if honor killings, beatings or gang rapes are being committed against women out of hijab or in Western clothing, then the veil is being violently forced on women. I did not say I agree with France's pending ban on veiling. I simply understand that there is a real problem over there, and human rights are already being violated every time a woman is attacked for not wearing the hijab. I'm glad you oppose honor killings.
<<"Of course, using the phrase "NAZI GERMANY" sounds really good in a rhetorical sense, doesn't it?"
If the shoe fits. Wake up and smell the anti-Semitism. As for anti-Islamic sentiment, one would only need to go to your post to see how much hatred is directed to them. >>
I have no clue as to what the anti-Semitism has to do with a French ban on hijab. You'll have to explain this one to me.
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http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/article/0,13005,901031208-552065-1,00.html
"Seven Days Of Hatred
Anti-Semitic attacks have been making headlines, but strikes against many minorities—Jews, Muslims, Roma, gays—are all too common in Europe
"What Yonathan Arfi, president of the Union of French Jewish Students, says about anti-Semitism in France could apply to prejudices underlying other hate crimes: "It's become a banality, part of the atmosphere."
Five days before the fire that ravaged the Merkaz Hatorah school in Gagny, a group of students was taunted by a teenage girl in the subway: "The Jews, we have to eliminate you," she sneered.">>
Minority status does not affect whether a crime is a "hate" crime. Hate crimes can be committed against members of the majority, and often are. Increasingly, I think hate crimes are minority against minority.
quote from the article:
"During the train ride from home, the boys replaced their yarmulkes with baseball caps but were still regularly hassled by other French teenagers, usually of Arab or North African descent, who called them "sales juifs" ("dirty Jews"). Once the boys made it to the school, a bright steel-and-glass building surrounded by trees and tidy homes, they felt safe. No longer."
Remember what I said about the French controlling immigration until they can effectively absorb the immigrants they have?
"3. In order to avoid conflicts, Western countries need to be more selective in their immigration policies."
Your "solution" was a very popular idea in the United States circa 1910-1940, when the influx of "undesireable" Europeans, Jews and Chinese flooded the boarders. On it's back came another "selective" idea, that everyone from the birth control movement to the president supported; eugenics. After Nazi Germany had their eugenic "experiments," we decided that eugenics wasn't such a good idea after all, lest we act like Nazis.
I have an amazing idea, an idea that has never been tried. LOVE. PEACE. UNITY. SHARED RESOURCES. You know, what Jesus said. Remember him?
It is a pipe dream, I know, because people would much rather force people to believe what they want them to, and would prefer to keep people out than integrate them. God bless you.
P.S. Sorry for my indignant tone - I'm just so upset that the entire world is letting history repeat itself, this time with heavier artillary and less mercy.
I won't address eugenics, which has nothing to do with the issue of selective immigration. Try sticking to the topic at hand.
Every country must, out of necessity, control the number and nature of its immigrants. Things which must be considered are the environmental, social and economic strains that certain groups or numbers of immigrants put on the country. Huge numbers of uneducated immigrants will probably have to be supported by our social welfare system, thus straining it. Large (or even small) numbers of sick or needy immigrants will strain our public health resources. Immigrants may become competitors with our working class, creating tension and job shortages that will cause people to go hungry or not be able to support their families.
You apparently think that you are a progressive messiah who wants to take in the needy of the world and make their lives better. You appear to have no real grasp of the financial and social logistics of integrating new immigrants into a country, and prefer to preach at me from your fairyland utopia. I consider your outlook to be a serious problem in this country and one which arrogantly ignores the fact that both immigrants and lower economic classes in this country suffer when we allow ourselves to be flooded with people that we're not prepared to take care of or integrate.
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It is a pipe dream, I know, because people would much rather force people to believe what they want them to, and would prefer to keep people out than integrate them. God bless you.>>
I don't think you're in a position to speak on behalf of Jesus here. To be totally honest.
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You're fooling yourself if you think that your illogical, romantic ideas about immigration are the result of some sort of righteous indignation on your part. They are the result of the fact that you have not thought through the reality of the situation.
No. I argued with the professor.
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Isn't that essentially what I said?
France clearly believes that to "preserve cultural norms" it must limit the wearing of hijab as a form of religious expression. I consider this to be extreme, and not compatible with the level of religious freedoms granted in the United States.
Ultimately, it is France's fault for importing millions of religious Muslims into a country which is determined to be secular. I suppose the Muslims must also shoulder some blame for moving into a country to which they are not suited and then complaining when things don't work out.
No. I argued with the professor.>>
I don't think you meant to, but you just explained so much, oh, so well, and made me finally realize there's really no point in conversing with you at all.
Renee
Up-date: French headscarf ban recommended.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3309885.stm
The official commission headed by former minister Bernard Stasi has released its findings on issues relating to religion and the state.
French President Jacques Chirac will announce next week whether he supports the commission's recommendation.
The ban would also include the Jewish skull-cap and large Christian crosses.
Discrete displays
Mr Stasi consulted a wide cross-section of public opinion, including teachers, religious leaders, sociologists and politicians before handing in the report to the president on Thursday.
Although the report was into the wider question of French secularism, debate on the issue has focused on the wearing of Islamic headscarves in schools.
The commission's recommendations would outlaw the Jewish kippa, large Christian crosses and the Islamic headscarf, which would be considered overt religious symbols.
"Discreet" medallions and pendants which merely confirm the person's religious faith would be allowed.
"Muslims must understand that secularism is a chance for Islam," Mr Stasi told a news conference on Thursday.
"Secularism is the separation of church and state, but it is also the respect of differences."
The commission's proposed law was intended so people of all religions could "live together in public places", he said.
Mr Stasi stressed that the commission's work did not target France's Muslim community but was aimed at giving all religions a more equal footing.
Public holidays
The report also recommends that Yom Kippur - the Jewish Day of Atonement - and Muslim Eid al-Kabir festival be celebrated in state schools.
French public life has a strong secular tradition which has existed since the revolution, but the commission has now recommended that the plan be enshrined in law.
Last week he said France felt "in a certain way under attack as result of the display of ostentatious religious signs, which is totally contrary to its secular tradition".
He added: "We cannot accept ostentatious signs of religious proselytism, whatever the religion."
The issue has led to a number of celebrated cases where girls have been suspended or expelled for wearing headscarves to school.
Other schools do not act against pupils who come to class wearing headscarves.
Integration
France has the largest Muslim population in the European Union, with around five million people.
The BBC's Caroline Wyatt in Paris says the Islamic headscarf has become the focal point of an agonised national debate in France.
She said it reflects many of the nation's unspoken fears about its failure to fully integrate its Muslim immigrants or to give them a purely French cultural identity.
France's chief rabbi, Joseph Sitruk, has joined Christian churches in arguing against a ban.
"What an aberration it is to want to muzzle religion in the name of secularism," he said in a newspaper interview.
Some Muslims are also opposed to the wearing of headscarves, while others believe the debate has more to do with French concern over its growing Muslim population.
Two German states have begun moves to ban state teachers wearing headscarves in schools.
This follows a recent federal Constitutional Court ruling that a state could not ban a female Muslim teacher from wearing a headscarf because there was no law against it.
But the court said German states could ban headscarves in schools if they passed new laws.
Second German state to ban scarf.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3304801.stm
cl-Libraone
Up-date: Bad press for headscarf ban.
>"A proposed ban on conspicuous religious symbols such as headscarves or crucifixes in French schools is roundly rejected in the press."<
>"Covering one's head is illegal, but showing breasts, bottoms and legs, that is legal."<
Quotes from.............
cl-Libraone
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
PARIS, France
Hundreds of Muslim women shouting "The veil, my choice!" marched through rain-soaked Paris streets Sunday against a proposed law that would ban their head scarves from public schools.
The unusual protest was the first in Paris since President Jacques Chirac announced last week that Islamic head scarves and other religious symbols, including Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses, should be banned from schools to protect France's cherished separation of religion and state.
He urged parliament to pass the law in time for the 2004-2005 school year that starts next September. He also proposed giving company bosses the right to decide whether religious symbols can be worn at work and said a law should stop patients from refusing care from doctors of the opposite sex - aimed at Muslim women who have rebuffed male medical workers.
About 1,000 people marched Sunday, more than half of them women and girls wearing head scarves. Protesters said the proposed measures would stigmatize Muslims and made a mockery of France's core values of liberty, equality and fraternity.
They sang the Marseillaise, the stirring French anthem, waved red-white-and blue French flags and shouted "Beloved France, where is my liberty?" and other slogans.
Protesters said it was the first time that Muslim women have marched en masse together in the French capital, although newspapers said there were similar protests Saturday in Strasbourg in eastern France and in Avignon in the south.
Renee
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