This is Just Plain Wrong

Posted on December 17, 2003 in Francophobia Human Rights

Just as I oppose school uniforms in the United States, so, too, I oppose the upcoming ban on hijabs in my ancestral France:

President Jacques Chirac of France said Wednesday that a law is necessary to ban the Islamic headscarf and other religious insignia from the classroom.

“The Islamic veil – whatever name we give it – the kippa and a cross that is of manifestly excessive dimensions: these have no place in the precincts of state schools. State schools will remain secular. For that a law is necessary,” he told a selected audience at the Elysee palace.

I disagree for the same reason that I oppose measures to prevent individuals from bowing their head (at their choice) in American schools or school dress codes that disallow the wearing of any paraphenalia that is not part of the uniform. Secular does not mean the absence of individual religious expression. It means that the State shall have no opinion where religious practices do no harm. The hijab, the skullcap, and the cross fall under this basic protection.

I say this not because I feel that the France of whose contributions to my American character make me proud is evil, but because I love her as I love the country of my citizenship and feel that I must speak out in the spirit of reverence for her civil protections and the rights of her citizens.