Headscarf ban and former Western views of modesty

Dec. 12 - The French Presidential commission recommendation yesterday that religious symbols be banned in public schools initially brought home to me one of the underlying differences in how I understand religious tolerance as an American and how the French view it.

My immediate reaction was that the French federal government was prohibiting the "free expression" of religion. My immediate reaction was that it is highly desirable that members of different faiths realize that they can co-exist peacefully and tolerantly with one another. (This is not an attack on the French, but simply a comment on the difference in how the two countries view freedom of religion.)

But it's not that simple. IIRC, one of the reasons the commission looked at this issue - particularly the wearing of head scarves - was because of reports that Muslim girls who didn't want to wear head scarves were pressured to do so by members of their communities, so they are looking at tolerance within religions more than between religions.

But the article cites another reason:

Commission head Bernard Stasi said the proposed law was aimed at keeping France's strict secular underpinnings intact and at countering "forces that are trying to destabilize the country," a reference to Islamic fundamentalists.

Stasi said the panel was not discriminating against the Muslim community but sought to give all religions a more equal footing.

The panel recommended a ban from classrooms of all "obvious" political and religious symbols, including Islamic head scarves, Jewish skullcap and large crucifixes. More discreet symbols such as small crosses would be acceptable, it said.

My inner historian yearns to speak! Until the 20th century, "decent" women in Western countries always covered their heads when they were out. In fact, the failure to cover her head was a clear signal that the woman was a prostitute. Unfortunately, none of my history books chronicles how that came to change, although I have to think that as hemlines grew shorter, culminating in the 20's, mandatory head coverings were also dropped.

When I was growing up, hats and scarves were worn as a matter of course, and even as wearing hats outdoors began to fade, no woman would ever enter a church with her head uncovered (that went for Protestants as well as Catholics.) Hair was considered a woman's chief vanity, and covering the hair was a sign of modesty before God (a concept better in theory than in practice, as witnessed by the flamboyance of many hats.)

I've always considered it a sign of God's wisdom and mercy that I only had boys, and was spared from confrontations that began with the words "You're not leaving the house dressed like that." The increasingly younger ages at which girls dress like sexual beings saddens me (in a none of my business way, admittedly) mostly because they left childhood so early and are physically pretending to be that which they are not emotionally.

Where are the lines to be drawn between the parents' right to protect and control their children, a young girl's desire to be very modest or less than modest, restrictions on religious symbols in publicly funded institutions, and banning traditional dress codes that might "destabilize the country?"

I doubt the answer lies in regulation, but the French experiment will be interesting.

Posted by: Debbye at 09:13 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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