French discussion on female headgear

[Eversfield]

If you have been following the drafting of a law in France on non-secular headgear, do you feel that people would feel free to have or express an opinion in this country on such an issue?

[KidKruger]

"do you feel that people would feel free to have or express an opinion in this country on such an issue?"

Yes I feel people would 'feel free' to have an opinion - why wouldn't they, I can't see anything preventing them ?

[The Chair]

There was a healthy debate in the Lounge on just this topic.

[Timster]

Eversfield Wrote:

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> If you have been following the drafting of a law

> in France on non-secular headgear, do you feel

> that people would feel free to have or express an

> opinion in this country on such an issue?

I'm confused. What is your point? Has someone done away with free speech without telling me?

[HAL9000]

Do you mean: are the British able to oppose the wearing of religious garb without feeling guilty of intolerance or racism?

[Magpie]

I think the French are right. I feel intensly uncomfortable about seeing women completely covered underneath black robes as a result of cultural (note not religious) attitudes about the role of women. I find it surprising that so many "progressive" people don't have a problem with this clothing. This not about covering hair, but about covering faces, it prevents human interaction.

[Jeremy]

Do I have a problem with people wearing them? Not as such.

Do I have a problem with a culture which forces/encourages women to wear them? Yes.

Banishing the garment is not going to fix the underlying issue.

[Magpie]

Do I think that people in this country are free to express an opinion on this? Yes of course. However, you may get sharp intakes of breath from all your guardian reading friends if you dare to state the obvious (ie support the French position)

[mockney piers]

Well two things. Firstly why is a ban the obvious position?

Secondly the pejorative 'guardian(ista/ reader)' is usually levelled at those who would dictate others' behaviour in the name of 'political correctness' (doubtless gone mad). Whereas here it's against those who simply believe we live in a free country where people can do what they want within the bounds of the law.

You can't have it both ways.

Anyway, I find clown outfits deeply disturbing, I suggest that's next on the list once we ban burqhas, oh and probably bikinis; my gran certainly doesn't approve and is a paid up conservative (and reads the mail and complains that my cousin married a 'darkie') so she must have some leverage with the incoming government to get that measure through.

[TE44]

This may be a little off topic

but under the anti terrorist law, you can be arrested in this country fot the refusal to remove face paint,

mask or anything covering your face.

[Magpie]

I agree that in the majority of cases the state shouldn't dictate what people wear. However, there are certain circumstances where the state should dictate what's appropriate or not. If you distinguish between a full face veil and a hijab (which just covers the hair), then banning the use of the veil in public spaces - ie schools, hospitals, law courts etc is obviously consistent with a policy that prevents people wearing motorbike helmets, for example, in public places.

I personally find the site of a fully veiled women in the UK offensive, if enforced then it is repression, if voluntary then it is a political statement that says I do not want to engage with the society I live in. As I understand it there is no requirement to cover ones face in Islam, and hence no religious necessity to do so. In certain circumstances as described above, I also think it should be illegal. Further, despite arguments that state that women find it empowering to completely obscure themselves from the public space, I find it slightly confusing that many people who consider themselves progressives or social liberals have no problem with such an obvious symbol of patriarchal power.

[HAL9000]

Magpie Wrote:

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> As I understand it there

> is no requirement to cover ones face in Islam, and

> hence no religious necessity to do so.

The practice of Islam is subject to interpretation. Some interpretations hold that male strangers should not be allowed to look upon the face of a married woman.

Without a veil, devout women might feel unable to venture out lest they disobey God?s will and act sinfully.

Legislation might have the effect of imprisoning some Muslim women in their own homes - as they are in some Muslim countries, where they cannot appear in public unaccompanied.

[Magpie]

Well at the moment they are effectively imprisoned in their veils - the distinction is "Public space" - defined, I believe, in France, as areas of "State" such as civic buildings, schools or hospitals not the street.

[HAL9000]

Magpie Wrote:

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> Well at the moment they are effectively imprisoned

> in their veils

Devout Muslim women would probably say that their veils sanctify and liberate them - it's a matter of perspective.

[KidKruger]

It always seems that the allowances are being made by the host country for minority groups when it comes to the UK example, not by the people that have moved into the UK.

This seems to smart of a certain weakness and lack of own identity to me.

[SeanMacGabhann]

KK - that sounds like one of Britain's historical traits and is in fact part of it's identity to (the same identity you profess is lacking) to me. It's certainly preferable to going around the world, invaiding countries and telling them how to live what?

[Magpie]

Exactly Kidkruger - when in Rome and all that

Although I think its as a result of self-hate from the political establishment, rather than a lack of cultural identity in the indigenous population.

[SeanMacGabhann]

Ah yes Britons - with their fine record of adhering to "when in Rome"?..

whether it's sex on Saudi beaches

stag parties across Europe

not bothering to learn the languge living in Spain - but quite good at taking over whole towns with Red Lion pubs and food

[mockney piers]

So basically you want them banned because you find them offensive regardless of how anyone else may feel about it.

HAL is spot on, it's about perspective. You want people to behave according to narrow feelings (can't call them definitions as have yet to have britishness defined other than the behaviour sean points to) of yours, without even the first hint of empathy towards other human beings. Something about other people's shoes springs to mind

All this projected as establishment self hatred or imposed guardianista thinking. Well I'm detecting a desire for imposition and if not hatred then antipathy emenating from someone, but establishment it ain't.

First they came for the burqah clad roving mugging gangs...

[Timster]

To go back to the point of the OP, do we feel free to discuss this issue? Well, self-evidently yes!

Anyway, it seems to me the discussion so far has ignored the fact that the background to the proposed law is the separation between church and state in France and the significance the French attach to preserving that principle (which is a matter of law). What has been proposed will, in fact, only apply to schools, hospitals etc - not private buildings or on the street - and is consistent with France being a secular country.

The UK is not secular and there is no separation between church and state. We couldn't enact a similar law in the UK without arguably discriminating against one religion. We would have to be equally intolerant of all religious outfits - perhaps asking nuns to take off their habits when they went to hospital.

Personally, I think the French have the right idea but a lot of the people in this country who support the French law would be up in arms if, like France, public schools were banned from having Christan assemblies.

[KidKruger]

Well I guess you could extrapolate that the 'weakness' I allude to is a part of the UK's 'identity, fair point.

I'm not talking about how UK people behave abroad and I have personally never seen UK folks shagging in public in Saudi have you ? Oh yeah you read about it in the paper. Sometimes I lose touch with how frequently the UK citizens are going over to Saudi and abusing the system there - which is the point you're making, right ? We just stroll over to Saudi and take the p!ss all day long. Not the best point you could have made. Regardless, the points made don't automatically delete my observation. Because I'm not saying get out foreigners or we're better than anyone else.

I didn't say "every UK citizen has never done any harm to anyone abroad has and always respected local customs" etc etc, so you can argue to the contrary but you're arguing with someone else, not me !

And who was talking about Britishness ? I'm not fighting for that myth. I'm not saying everyone who comes here has to be a clone of a UK person (God forbid !) but I do believe 'integration' is a 2 way street. My Pakistani uncles and cousins agree and I come from another country - just to save any predictable comments.

What exactly is your contention against my point ? :

"It always seems that the allowances are being made by the host country for minority groups when it comes to the UK example, not by the people that have moved into the UK".

Are you saying it is completely innacurate ? ie.:

"It always seems that the ALLOWANCES ARE NEVER being made by the host country for minority groups when it comes to the UK example, BUT ALWAYS BY by the people that have moved into the UK " ?

Easy to hurl accusations but I think my observation is reasonable !

Talk about the empire, stag parties, sex on the beach in Saudi if you need to - can YOU speak Spanish and are you THE example we should all follow ?!

I think most UK residents don't (bother) speak foreign languages because most places they go there are people who will speak English and also it's because I think educationally (school) we pay lip service to learning languages, I haven't done research to back this up, just my thoughts on why, either way I don't think language in Spain or elsewhere has anything to do with my observation.

Unless you need to paint the 'racist' / xenophobe tag, which is really, really cheap !

[Magpie]

And so back to Eversfield initial point - freedom to express opinions, but not freedom from being accused of:

"a desire for imposition and if not hatred then antipathy emenating from someone"

And as to Brits behaving badly abroad, then cases routinely lead to prosecution, deportion, and generally getting a hiding from the police, and are usually accompanied by tabloid agreement in the UK . The sex case in Dubai, was a great example, the consensus opinion appeared to be one of "Stupid feckers".

It makes perfectly logical sense to make it a requirement that someones face is visible when in a public place, especially if this is defined in a limited sense, as being somewhere "official" such as a school, hospital etc.

Fine if you want to cover your face in the street then do so, but it is an obvious statement that you do not want to conform with the society you live in, in fact you do not want even to make the tiniest compromise with the culture of the society you live in.

And note I say face, not hair.

[HAL9000]

Does French law say anything about the dress code of its 25,000 Haredi Jews: the men wear distinctive wide-brim hats, dark overcoats and, sometimes, long beards and side curls - the women wear long skirts and cover their hair (in public), usually under a wig and often a headscarf too?

It seems there's an on-going furore against France's banning of Sikh turbans! Sikhism in France

[mockney piers]

It's nothing to do with seperation of church and state, it's simply legislating for behaviour. If people are happy to ban union flags from any bar or cafe in Spain and legislate that all retirees or holidaymakers must learn Spanish before being granted residency then i guess at least there's consistency.

[david_carnell]

Is it a case of the French having a stronger sense of national identity to the British and thus are more prepared to legislate to defend that identity, real or perceived.

Libertie, Egalitie, Fraternitie

In Britain we have a much weaker and ill-defined sense of what it means to be "British" therefore we allow, tolerate or encourage diversity which includes religious garb. Meanwhile our French cousins have clearly defined ideas of being French and that includes not wearing religious dress-ups in public/state arenas but also allows for freedom of worship. I guess for them egalitie means the equal treatment of women rather than upsetting an Imam or two.

I'm not sure I agree with that approach - it can lead to just as much racial and religious tension as multiculturalism does but if you are an immigrant moving to France then the message is clear and simple - welcome to western Europe and social democracy... please leave your third world religious mumbo-jumbo and misogynistic tendencies at the door. In Britain the message is much more muddled. You can come and seek work or refuge and are welcome to continue practising whatever you are use to - just be prepared to be ostracised by the local populous.