Private and religious schools are free to impose any dress code. That's the solution the Sihks parents mentioned in the article have come up with: create their own private school.
A good solution for these children of immigrant families to grow up in the French society? You tell me...
The main target of the law passed a few years ago was the Muslim scarf worn by a small number of teenage girls at high school. The good souls who came up with this idea wanted to free the girls from the oppressive influence of their fathers / big brothers who supposedly forced them to wear the scarf.
Substitute the school authority to the family authority; that was the idea.
What struck me most was the obsession of mostly middle-aged men (our lawmakers) to tell young women how to dress. In the past (60s, 70s), girls were not allowed to wear pants at school, only dresses; also, many politicians wanted to ban the mini-skirt back in the days...
We are now in the early 21st century, but some things never seem to change... Europeans think a hundred miles is a long way. Americans think a hundred years is a long time.
Whilst it is certainly true that there are a number of women who wish to assert their muslim identity (we can discuss elsewhere that the more modernist and confident islam of 30 or 40 years ago wasn't so fussed about it) there are a large number of muslim women who deeply resent the cultural restrictions and burdens placed upon them. they are not in a position within their societies to speak up in their own defence, and need to rely on external "enforcements" in order to become free.
So, this isn't just simply about lawmakers making rules about how women should dress, it is about giving women the freedom to choose their presentation in the public space. keep to the Fen Causeway
The women freedom to choose their presentation in the public space is not as limited in a secular society like France as it is in more traditional Muslim countries.
You should note however, that here in France, the scarf is not always forced upon the young women in question: many of them decided to go that way against the will of their parents; often, their mother, aunts, etc.. don't and never have worn the scarf.
Speaking on TV, they sounded to me (white male, mid-forties) more like your typical rebellious teenage girl than anything else, and were often overachieving students at school which bodes rather well for their future, scarf or not. Europeans think a hundred miles is a long way. Americans think a hundred years is a long time.
Now islam, in its Saudi dominated Wahhabi form, the backward fundamentalist mode that has dominated global islam in the last 30 years, is felt to be incompatible with modern western democratic liberal ideologies, thus triggering a crisis in individual believers that suggests an either/or choice that is less determined by the Qu'ran than by politically motivated power brokers operating out of the Arabian peninsula.
It is a more subtle and interesting process, but that's the capsule version. keep to the Fen Causeway
