On Thu, 11 Dec 2003 11:02:55 +0100, Earl Evleth
wrote:



This is a ongoing battle in France over the head scarves.

Some wish to ban them in schools or worn by public employees.

Slightly more (49%) of the Muslim women in France were polled
to be AGAINST the wearing of the scarves than for (41%). So
the idea that this is purely a conflict between the Christian
and Muslim communities is not exactly true.

As far as I'm concerned, the government should make no rules about the
wearing of any religious garb unless absolutely necessary. I can see
that it would be necessary to forbid the wearing of a face veil for an
identity card photo and it might be necessary to forbid wearing a
Roman toga while on duty as a firefighter. However, in the case of
headscarves (or yarmulkes) in school, I don't see any reason why the
government or the school should have anything to say about it. The
fact that many Muslims don't want to wear veils is irrelevant. If many
young Catholics don't want to go to Mass, the government has no reason
to outlaw going to Mass.

4) Educators don`t like displays and especially anything which
interfers with their educational mission. That mission is
to put out ethnically French students, white, black or brown,
they must be French all educated in the same manner.

In other words, ethnically French means purged of all ethnic
diversity? This is the same sort of reasoning that led France to
forbid parents in Brittany giving Breton names to their children.

So how do Muslims girls take the required swimming lessons
with scarves on? The Islamic religious right does not want their girls in
bathing suits much less without their scarves! Other sports activities are
hard to participate in with scarves on. The religious right do not want
their girls taking biology classes where sex is discussed.

In a diverse society, schools have to do their best to accommodate the
beliefs of their various minorities. When I was a child, my family
belonged to a small religious sect that forbid dancing. My school had
folk dances classes as part of physical education. I was exempted from
these classes. Other children were Jehovah's Witnesses and were exempt
from the "saluting of the flag", an exercise that was almost universal
in my childhood but that had disappeared by the time my children were
in school.

In Pennsylvania, where I grew up, Amish children weren't supposed to
go to school beyond elementary school. This was a tough one, but the
state compromised by requiring the Amish families to send their
children to their (private) elementary schools until the eighth grade
and then to organize formal "apprenticeship" training at home for
another two years, for instance on the family farm.

More recently, a young girl in New Jersey who was a committed
vegetarian and animal rights activist won in court the right to be
able to study biology without having to dissect animals. The court
ordered the school to find some other way of teaching her anatomy, for
instance with computer simulations.

As far as I'm concerned, this tension between private beliefs and
public duties is a healthy one. However, there has to be debate and
compromise. I don't understand why only France has this huge problem
with its Muslim students. Other European countries have dealt with
this problem much more flexibly.

-----------
Barbara Vaughan
My email address is my first initial followed by my surname at libero dot it
I answer travel questions only in the newsgroup