France, the culture wars over head scarves

laurent writes:

These churches are buildings inherited by local towns and villages,
it's part of the "patrimoine".

Why are they still ruled by the Catholic church, then?

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Earl Evleth a écrit :

France has a list of names which you can give you children, yes.

No, not anymore. That law was changed at the beginning of the 90's. It was replaced
by a "reverse" law: You can give any name you wish to a child, but it must not
expose that child to ridicule (so that really offensive names, or ridiculous ones,
can be refused by the State).

Nathalie in Switzerland

On 12/12/03 6:21, in article , "randee"
wrote:

Looks like Zachary Taylor didn't do his job?

Earl Evleth wrote:


Since the Hispanics will eventually take over a portion of the USA
they have a vested interest in not losing their language and culture.


Zach and his fellow Imperialist Americans (some Americans were against this
war of aggression and acquisition of territory through war), in taking over
Mexican territory, created a situation in which "racial memory" may be
operative. "Pay-back" lies in the future.

Next, I believe there are over a million Cubans in South Florida and do you
think they will go "home" after Castro?? It is more likely Cuba and South
Florida will be integrated into a single ethnic unit. After all, Florida too
was Hispanic turf before acquired by the US.

Another feature of Hispanic population concentration which escapes the
Anglos is their concentration into various cities. American Blacks
were forced to do this, especially in the North. Chicago, I believe, is
the most segregated city in the USA with regard to Blacks.

But some Texas cities are 80-90% Hispanic, like Brownsville. This
concentration must yield a heavy use of Spanish in these areas.

California is about 30% Hispanic, 10% Black, and a quantity of Asians
which add up to make the Anglos a minority. California will not have
Mexican but Mexicans was a heavy admixture of Anglo culture but they
will neither be Mexicans nor Anglos.


There is a book which I have not read yet

Mexifornia: A State of Becoming Mexico

by Victor Davis Hanson

Hanson is a good writer, an academic historian and what I would call
a member of the intellectual right in America (there are only a couple
of them at that!). He is also from a central valley farmer background.
He teaches at Fresno State University. But he is first class and
certainly would qualify for a better academic job, but I think he
is central valley all the way. As a lefty, I don`t like his politics
but I do like his intellect.

My simple advice to people in South Florida and the western USA is to
learn Spanish. Our daughter, who lives and works there, and detests
Cubans, speaks the language, as well as French and Japanese (and a bit
of English). She gets a kick in listening onto the Cubans talking,
thinking she is another Anglo who does not understand!

Earl

On 12/12/03 7:31, in article ,
"Mxsmanic" wrote:

Explain state-owned churches, then.


Please do, where are they?

Earl

On 12/12/03 10:11, in article
, "Bjorn Olsson"
wrote:

Well, it seems to have worked almost perfectly for icelandic. It is
still almost completely free of anglisisms, despite their country
being exposed to even more anglosaxon cultural influence than France.

Bjorn


Iceland is small and would have to worry about external cultural
pollution.

France is bigger and historically it has had a habit of culturally
gobbling up whoever came onto its territory.

Your Viking ancestors came down from the North and mess around in
Northern France, settled in. But where are there the vestiges
of Viking presence?

Your ancestors probably married local women and the women
raised the young and taught them the "French" of that epoch.
A couple of generations later, Viking genes were still around
but not Viking culture and language.

This French gobbling up process occurs through the language.
To speak French is to become French. To speak English is
not to become English or American. The French language does
not need protection in France. The percentage of English
words in French is perhaps now around 5%, yet the percentage
of French words in English is 30%. If anybody needs
protection it is English!

The problem we have in France right now is a lack of full
assimilation of the recent arrivals from North Africa.
That has to be worked on. Exclusion is certainly not the
answer and so it is a "bad" word right across the French
political spectrum. Trying to deal with the head scarf
problem is part of total problem. The French culture
works on the principle of cultural homogeneity, not linguistic
purity. So dumb issues on what to call a "bulldozer"
(which was a subject of long debate at one time) no longer
play a role in the debate, head scarves do.

I am just updating people here as to the here and now,
any linguistic debate is depassé.

Earl

Mxsmanic wrote:

Padraig Breathnach writes:

Implicit advocacy of hatred.

Implicit, or inferred?

Implicit.

And why is advocacy of hatred unacceptable? Because you don't like it?

Because it is bad for society. And I am a social being; I even enjoy
dining with others.

Some people might feel the same way about the advocacy of a particular
religion "implied" by religious garb.

They cannot justify it if the religious belief is not based on or
particularly supportive of hatred.

--
PB
The return address has been MUNGED

(Yves Bellefeuille) wrote in message ...
On Thu, 11 Dec 2003, B Vaughan wrote:

As far as I'm concerned, the government should make no rules about the
wearing of any religious garb unless absolutely necessary.

The French attitude is not only that the state should be neutral in
matters of religion, but also that it should be neutral regarding
whether one should believe in religion or not. Any expression of
religious opinion in a state context -- and public schools are obviously
run by the state -- is unacceptable.

American presidents like to say "God bless America"; the French find
this shocking and unacceptable. (And I agree.)

In fact the principle of laicity mainly tries to says that no religion
is superior to another, without opposing itself to the implicit
(not-sayed) existence of God in itself : to take an extreme... case,
Robespierre for example was proclaming the existence of a "common"
"supreme being" to all... The representants of each religions
apparently didn't agree. :+) So, as the US presidents apparently
think, this simple expression should not be considered contrary to
laicity in itself. But IMO such an expression traditionaly and
regularly linked to the function of a chief of state would
nevertheless be considered has an expression of faith and so,
implicitly (unfortunately or not), towards a particular religion. That
could be considered unfair for those who don't believe in god. In
France the politicians who make proclamations of faith (like Mme
Boutin) are so rare that it would be also more amasing to hear one
from a president.
But such a tradition is not really a problem IMO. All people prefer to
keep some of their particular traditions. Beginning with France. :+)

didier Meurgues

Padraig Breathnach writes:

You asked her?

Sometimes I refer to myself in the third person.

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On 12/12/03 13:13, in article , "Nathalie Chiva"
wrote:

Earl Evleth a écrit :

I gave the statistics in the original post, it was 49% for dumping the
scarfs, 41% against it.

It's not exactly that (I read the piece), it's 49% for a law against scarves,
41%
against such a law. Which means that 49% of muslim women in France are so much
against scarf wearing that they want a law against it, while 41% doesn't - but
it
doesn't mean that those 41% want to wear a scarf - they just don't want a law
against it.

Nathalie in Switzerland



Agreed, I overly simplified the debate.

Earl

Padraig Breathnach writes:

Implicit.

That is only your inference.

Because it is bad for society.

Do you hate the KKK and Nazis?

They cannot justify it if the religious belief is not based on or
particularly supportive of hatred.

They can't justify it to you; but you don't seem to have any objective
arguments in favor of your position, which apparently varies greatly
depending on your subjective opinion.

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