The French and The Burka I

I remember a girl in my high school who wore a white headdress over the required white school uniform. Today I know that the headdress is called a hijab and is not tolerated in the schools of the secular state of France.

 

The French, in a controversial move in 2004, banned the hijab (Muslim headscarves) and other “conspicuous” religious symbols in French schools. According to the French, “ostentatious displays of religion violated the secular rules of the French school system”. So off went the hijab, the Sikh turban and the ( and may be more justifiable) kirpan, a traditional Sikh dagger, from classrooms all over France.

 

Like a lot of other nations, France is constitutionally secular. What’s different about La France is that she makes sure that all her citizens take secularism seriously. The irony in this whole thing is how the French make their secularism sound so fundamentalist!

 

[Secular Fundamentalism! Talk about the politically incorrect. Why is irony always a tragedy?]

 

Am I against this French idea? Not exactly.

 

I was born a Hindu but recieved most of my education from a Catholic school. I idolize the Dalai Lama and hope to read the Koran sometime soon. A lot of my beliefs are built on the Jain philosophy that all life is considered worthy of respect. I wish to learn more about Judaism some day. In all genuineness, I call myself secular.

 

To a French school or elsewhere, I would never wear anything that manifests a certain religion. Of course if I am required by law to follow a dress code, I would. It might sound very hollow, but in almost all situations I would put the Law before my religious beliefs. I chose to be secular and hence I should endorse this revolutionary French idea. But yet this isn’t about me right, I am not in France.

 

How secular is too secular?

 

My God doesn’t require me to wear a certain kind of clothing. To me God is above what people wear. But I believe that clothes are a form of human expression, an essential form of non-verbal communication. Clothes say something about you, and if you want to say something about your religion in the way you dress, should you be stopped?

 

I could bring up the Goths and Emos too you know, but thats the kind of thing you learn not to do when you prepare for the LSAT :)

 

The French mean well. They don’t want school kids to be segregated by religion. A fair one that is but I don’t think enough thought has gone into this legislation. I feel by banning the “religious displays” they are verifying for the kids and possibly others what was probably going on in their minds already - that your religions really do make you different. And “different” is a sub-species of Homo sapiens that we humans haven’t managed to make peace with.

 

Is eliminating difference any answer?

Part II coming soon