Bradley,
Geesh, if we're on the same side on an issue it must really be wrong.<~~wants to buy Brad a beer.
French MP's ban all overt religious symbols from the classroom
by yxl1 57 Replies latest jw friends
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bisous
I have to chime in with shock and awe that I am unbelievably in agreement with Yeru!
who'd a thunk it!While I'm not French, I travel there 2-3 times per year. My kids were educated in French schools. I am a Francophile! and yet on this, ma belle France and I are in diametric opposition.
I agree with Narkissos that this may have the opposite effect that feminists are seeking... it is likely that the girls are likely to become further isolated, avoiding school or attending Arab only schools.
Assimilation some posters say? This is discrimination plain and simple. I do not believe for a minute that the wearing of a cross will receive the same attention as a scarf or yarmulke. The French are too deeply Catholic for that.
What should be happening is stronger consequences for discrimination due to religion or race in France. Violence due to anti-semitism runs rampant in many areas, and forbidding yarmulkes and scarves is not the answer. Suppressing freedom of expression or religion is not the answer. Strict Consequences are.
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Abaddon
I've been away in Ireland on Guiness... I mean business... but this is a topic I've been following for a while (it was first mooted a few weeks back).
This nicely illustrates difference cultures.
First, as already noted, France was founded giving people the guarantee of freedom from religion. Now, there are contradictions in this that can be seen today, as France is still quite a Roman Catholic country, and the ruling doesn't apply to a little crucifix you can't see, but to overt displays - in fact, all this legislation is doing is underlining previous legislation which forbade the display of 'ostentatious' symbols of relgious affiliation.
Second, in most of Europe the attitude towards immigrants is focused on integration; you've come here, now be French, Dutch, German, etc..
Of course, this integration-focus attitude has its good points... and its bad points.
Someone who 'plays the game' can fit in very well indeed. Others end up in exactly the same sort of areas as loads of others exactly like them, and ghettoisation is never a sign of integration. Even when the 'ghettos' are very comfy and pretty much like the houses where the other (French, Dutch, German) people live, the fact some areas are 80% local and 20% immigrant and others are vica-verca show real integration is really a distant goal.
The UK is a little different; on Dutch TV, for example, although the percentage of immigrants is equal, you won't find Morrocan- or Turkish-specific comedy programs on the state-run TV channels (like the US PBS). In Britain there have been Indian and Afro-Carribian specific comedy programs that have crossed-over massively.
No one (in the UK) really expects someone with Afro-Carribian parents to act like someone who hasn't got Afro-Carribian parents; it would be like expecting someone with Scottish parents to act like they haven't got Scottish parents. It's this difference that makes me like the British attitude. Tolerance over integration any day of the week.
No one in England would really expect a law banning the hijab in schools to get passed, as that's someone's own business.
This 'integrate (conform)' focus is very culturally French; the Revolution was never about the individual, it was about the community.
The USA has similar contradictions with its roots. Its focus has been on individual liberty and freedom of religion. Just as France is very RC for a place where you're meant to be free from religion, so to the USA contradicts their roots of individual liberty with deep-rooted assumptions about religion.
All religions are equal, but Christian ones is what the country was set up for so they are just that little bit more equal, and as far as atheism goes, well, I think we're likely to see a Black President and a female President before we see an atheist President, as you can be what religion you like but having a religion is implicitly assumed in the 'freedon of religion'. As the individual's liberty (an idea that is quintessentially English, sorry guys, and I can quote 16th C literature until you're comatose to prove it's what the English prided themselves on way before 1776) is the focus, imposing a law for the good of the community that restricts an individual's freedom (which is how the French see what they are doing) is far far less attractive an option as the community was never the focus of the American Revelution.
As for symbols causing problems; walk through Queens with a Confederate flag, or a West-Bank Jewish settlement with a Sawastika banner and you'll see that they do... just let us know what flowers you'd like...
... and the problems can be because of the beliefs of those choosing that symbol OR because of the reaction to that symbol by other people, or both at the same time. For example, a Confederate flag may be seen by some as no more racist than a mint julip, but if a black person feels it's racists, the flag wavers perception doesn't really effect the perception of that flag by others. Some pro-Confederate flag people may disagree with that opinion, but I'm sure most of them would react to upturned Crucifixs in pentagles over the local Satanist church, even if the people in the church saw the symbol as an amusing irony.
One area where there are concerns perhaps more important than others is that of cultural isolation. People bringing up their children in a 21st C country with the cultural expectations of a 19th C pastoral villager. Absolute obidience of children, arranged marriages, worse. There's no doubt that there is an implied hope that allowing children growing up in the 21st C to actually act like that at school no matter how old-fashioned and misogynous their home life might be is an aim of the legislation, and in itself, not a bad one.
In the USA, the ease of withdrawing a child from school and teaching it at home means you're less likely to see the real hardcore fundies kids whose presence in the school population would prehaps make American attitudes on the French's action less polarised.
I don't think anyone here wants people being raised in a religiously prescriptive environment. But there seems to be an assumption that freedom of choice of religion is a good idea as religions are a good idea.
It's like saying smoking is not harmful to either the smoker or those around them, and that is as wrong as saying that religions cannot cause harm to those that practice them or those around them.
What we, I think, can all agree on, is that, even if it is all made up, someone should be free to practise a religion that doesn't harm them or those around them. The very way some religions are taught and practised (i.e. fundamentalism) is what we are ALL against, or should be if we learnt a thing in a cult.
What society has to to is to put human rights ahead of religious rights and to stamp on the religions groups that by their very forms of practice compromise human rights. That won't effect the religious lives of millions, but will free those under religious oppression as harmful as what we were once oppressed by.
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Sirona
Abaddon
What we, I think, can all agree on, is that, even if it is all made up, someone should be free to practise a religion that doesn't harm them or those around them. The very way some religions are taught and practised (i.e. fundamentalism) is what we are ALL against, or should be if we learnt a thing in a cult.
What society has to to is to put human rights ahead of religious rights and to stamp on the religions groups that by their very forms of practice compromise human rights. That won't effect the religious lives of millions, but will free those under religious oppression as harmful as what we were once oppressed by.
Exactly. Noone is condoning harmful cults, but on the other side of the coin we cannot ban all types of religious practice.
Sirona
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LittleToe
Abaddon:
Hear, hear!!!
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Abaddon
Oh no, I'm being reasonable again aren't I?
Damn... no one to argue with... mark you, it's POETS day today... piss off early tomorrow's Saturday, so the less time I waste getting people to
arguediscussimportant issuesany old bollocks the better...Okay; black is actually white
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LittleToe
Abaddon:
Okay; black is actually white
You're trying to get your name on the "B*st*rd" thread, aren't you
We all know that black is actually orange!!!
