Secularism Meets the Hijab
This is always an interesting subject. There are so many boxes one could put it in, for one thing. How unhelpful, self-cancelling, and ill-founded talk of ‘rights’ can be. How difficult or indeed impossible it can be to meet everyone’s desires and wishes – which is just another way of saying how self-cancelling talk of ‘rights’ can be. How difficult or impossible it can be to decide what is really fair and just to all parties, which is yet another way of saying the same thing. How incompatible some goods are, how irreconcilable some culture clashes are, how differently we see things depending on how we frame them. If our chosen frame is religion, or identity politics, or multiculturalism, or tolerance, or anti-Eurocentrism, or all of those, or some of them, then head scarves look like one thing. If our frame is feminism, or secularism, or equality, or rationalism, or Enlightenment, or some or all of those, then head scarves look like another thing. If we see merit in both sides of that equation then head scarves look like a damn confusing puzzling riddle.
In France, meanwhile, two teenage sisters have been suspended from school after insisting on attending class with their heads covered. The school says it is simply enforcing secular laws that ban all displays of religious faith in state schools and public buildings. “The girls’ argument that they have a right [to wear a headscarf] is incompatible with secularism and school rules,” Education Ministry Inspector Jean-Charles Ringard said. Alma and Lila Levy, whose mother is Muslim and whose father is a Jewish atheist, say they are simply demanding that two basic rights be respected. “We are being asked to decide between our religion and our education; we want both,” said Alma Levy, 16.
Yes, but then what about other rights? What about the rights of other girls not to have to learn in the presence of a symbol of female inferiority and subservience?
A constitutional ruling gives schools power to ban any religious symbol – headscarf, Jewish skullcap or Christian cross – worn as an “act of pressure, provocation, proselytism or propaganda.” The headscarf, or hijab as it is called in Arabic, has stirred controversy in France for more than a decade…French feminists and left-wingers say the scarf is a token of servitude, a sign of submission to male dominance rather than to God, as devout Muslims claim it to be.
Just so. Pressure, proselytism, propaganda. A head scarf carries a lot of meaning, it’s not just some neutral bit of decoration. No doubt I ought to, but I find it very hard to feel much sympathy for girls who ‘demand’ their ‘right’ to advertise their subordinate status.
Couldn’t you make similar claims about make-up or western women’s clothing as representing male dominance and their sexualising of women or some such thing?
I’m all for banning religious stuff but even I find it hard to agree that wearing the hijab can accurately be characterised as an “act of pressure, provocation, proselytism or propaganda”. In a modern multicultural society like France I’m sure people are sufficiently familiar with muslim customs to not feel ‘pressured’, ‘provoked’ or ‘proselytised’!
If you don’t accept that wearing a particular piece of clothing is really a provocative religious statement (which I don’t, although I don’t really think wearing a cross is either) then the question is whether we have a ‘right’ not to have the state interfering in how we dress, as we believe it is morally right to dress even. And I think we do have this right, in common parlance. As to the ontological status of said rights, well I guess that’s another matter…
By the by, what do you think should be the basis of our ethical system if talk of rights is nonsense?
‘Couldn’t you make similar claims about make-up or western women’s clothing as representing male dominance and their sexualising of women or some such thing?’
Oh yes, indeed I could. Could and do. In fact I’ve argued about that very subject with my colleague. But of course that’s not to say that I advocate a ban (though rules for schools are another matter). Which means I distinguish between religious forms of dominance and non-religious ones. And you’re right, I’m not sure how to justify that. But wasn’t that the whole point of the N&C? That these questions are difficult to answer?
‘In a modern multicultural society like France I’m sure people are sufficiently familiar with muslim customs to not feel ‘pressured’, ‘provoked’ or ‘proselytised’!’
Eh? Familiarity means one doesn’t feel pressured or proselytised? Really? Why would that be? I feel pressured, along with various other things, when I see muffled women.
Which is not to claim that I have a right to do anything about that, it’s just to state that there is an issue there.
‘then the question is whether we have a ‘right’ not to have the state interfering in how we dress…’
Yes I know it is, which is why I talked about conflicting rights. But then again, the state in this case isn’t interfering with how someone dresses full stop, but rather with how someone dresses in state schools.
On second thought, I take it back about the distinction between religious forms of dominance and non-religious forms. I probably do make such a distinction in other contexts, but in this one I don’t think it’s particularly relevant. Schools often have dress codes of various kinds. So there’s a distinction to be drawn between ‘the state’ interfering with how we dress in general, and schools interfering with how students dress. Again, there are difficulties with whatever one decides, but I don’t think it’s self-evident that students have a blanket ‘right’ not to have the schools they attend ‘interfering in how they dress’. Very few schools allow students to attend naked, for instance, at least as far as I know.
Tentative reply at:
http://www.logopolis.org.uk/weblog/2003_10_01_archive.html#106509246580996401
As I haven’t been endorsed by Norman Geras I fear I need all the publicity I can get :-)
I have a feeling that state schools in France don’t have uniforms…is that right?
If so, what we have here is a case of a school preventing the wearing of headscarves for muslim women only…even if they ban it for all women the intention is to get at the muslims…which seems extreme, I guess its a question of weighing up the sides, I don’t think people are being particularly offended, pressured or whatever by the headscarves but I think the muslim women are being singled out and disproportionately affected by this ruling – there, all utilitarian and no talk of rights ;-)
Richard,
Yes, the French approach seems a little harsh to me too, that’s what I mean by all the talk of irreconcilable desires and so on. But I think the alternative of allowing headscarves has problems too – and not minor ones.
PM,
But the rule about conspicuous religious symbols does not apply to Muslim women only, it does also apply to yarmulkes and crosses. I take your point about the singling out, but then that’s exactly what headscarves do, and that’s exactly why they’re a problem. One could point out that it’s the institution of the headscarf itself that singles out Muslim women. So is it the fault of French secularism that the rule affects Muslim women disproportionately? Or is it the fault of a custom whose whole purport is to make women a special class? I think there’s a lot of reason to think it’s the latter.
Well done on avoidance of R-word though.
The question i would raise is: Why is the secularisation of individuals (and their clothing) necessary at all?
Don’t get me wrong, i’m not the least bit religious myself, and i definitely agree that state schools should be secular. The *schools* that is, not the individuals who attend the schools!
What is the harm of someone wearing a cross around their neck, or a headscarf, or whatever? If their religion is an important part of their self-identity, then i don’t see any good reason for the state (or schools) to suppress this.
Sure, you find it offensive. Well, to put it bluntly, that’s just tough, isn’t it? Surely J.S. Mill made it clear enough that we can’t go around restricting people’s liberty whenever someone might be offended. B&W are usually quite supportive of Mill in this respect. However, do you think in this particular case, that maybe you are giving the ‘offense’ felt by secularists (or perhaps by feminists) a special privilege?
The one justification, that i can see, would be if these religious symbols were somehow being misused, say, to harrass other people somehow. The whole “Pressure, proselytism, propaganda” thing.
But i’m far from convinced that this is the case here?
Hmm. Ophelia, on the whole I don’t think we disagree on any of the above points. What I am wondering is whether policies of this kind are particularly likely to induce the desired effect or prove counterproductive. That is, draconian exclusion of religion from the public sphere leaves religious minorities essentially cut off from ameliorating (secular) influences. As an analogy, consider the extent to which the publics of Britain and the US have religious affiliation and how that relates to the character of the state in both countries; clearly institutional norms are not a reliable way of engineering society when it comes to religion. Given that France is already suffering from some of the problems you identify suggests that their current approach is likely to be exacerbating the problem:
e.g.
http://www.techcentralstation.com/082803M.html
Richard (1, or 2, or howsoever),
I’m not talking about offense and offensive. Never said a word about offensive. That’s not my point at all. I’m talking about harm.
But of course it’s a kind of harm that’s pretty much impossible to prove. Influence, implied messages, intimidation, social pressure, groupthink and conformity, fashion and memes. They’re there, but they’re bloody hard to measure.
But think, for instance, not just of the secular French girls in those schools, think of other Muslim girls, who don’t want to wear a religiously-inspired badge of inferiority but might (indeed, I think, will) feel some pressure to do so, and will feel the more, the more other Muslim girls wear the thing. That’s not fantasy, that happens, it’s been happening all over the Muslim world, one can read accounts of it in many a memoir and article and novel.
But yes, I agree about the counter-productive aspect. That’s a worry. That’s why I keep saying it’s all difficult and complicated. But then again, permissiveness might turn out to be quite counter-productive too – depending on what it is one wants to produce, of course.
There’s also the paradox that “secular laws that ban all displays of religious faith in state schools and public buildings” presumably means that wearing headscarves or crosses is acceptable if the wearers’ motives are not religious