The debate over multi-culturalism is back in the news ‘cross the pond, in the land of the pickled:
An Indian origin Muslim teaching assistant in west Yorkshire, suspended earlier for refusing to remove her veil during school hours, has now been dismissed from the job.[link]
Aishah Azmi, 24, lost a discrimination and harassment case at an employment tribunal last month, and saw support collapse among parents at Headfield Church of England junior school in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, over what was seen as an uncompromising stand.[link]
That “lost the support of parents”-angle is extra interesting, considering
The school where Azmi was teaching had 530 students, aged seven to 11, and 92 percent were Muslim, mainly from India and Pakistan.[link]
A bit of backstory:
Mrs Azmi, who was awarded £1,000 by the tribunal in Leeds because of mishandled disciplinary processes, was dismissed yesterday after a hearing at the school. She started work a year ago but was suspended in the spring when she refused a male teacher’s request that she remove the veil when helping children in her role as a bilingual support assistant.[link]
This latest controversy comes on the heels of a column written by Former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, which provoked international debate about veiling and identity:
Straw wrote in a newspaper column last month that he asks women who visit his district office wearing veils that cover almost their entire face to remove the garment when they meet with him…
He said the piece he published in the Lancashire Evening Telegraph newspaper had been thoughtful and respectful, and that he had never challenged women’s right to wear a veil.
He emphasized that he only requested — and never demanded — that women remove the veils in his office and said he did not support banning the coverings.
He said those living in Britain should have a stronger sense of shared identity based on the country’s democratic values.[link]
Azmi was asked to consider modifying her stance:
Mrs Azmi, who made her stand after taking advice from an imam in Dewsbury, was urged to compromise last month by the local Labour MP Shahid Malik.[link]
Was this really about religious intolerance? Malik doesn’t think so:
“I’m disappointed that a compromise could not be reached. But while I would absolutely defend her right to wear the veil in society, it’s very clear that her wearing it in the classroom setting inhibits her ability to support children. This is not about religion.”[link]
Mountain out of a molehill. And that too because it came around the time of Jack Straw’s comments saying he did not like the veil much. That the woman lost her right to wear it as school is the right decision, though I don’t believe that ban should extend to the rest of the private sphere.
I don’t think it’s a mountain out of a molehill, but I’m with Sunny. I fully support the use of any sort of veil by choice, but if it interferes with your work, you need to either not wear it, or find another job. As a teacher myself, I respect the actions of the school in this case (now ask me about that teacher who was fired in Dallas because her students saw paintings of nude bodies in a museum and I’ll tell you something different). I had a friend (who was Muslim) in grade school. Her mother wore a veil that covered only her head, not her face. She was a lab technician and had to remove it for work. She chose to wear her veil in every other situation I saw: when visiting school, and at home, but she never had a problem with not wearing it at work.
The UK is FAR more liberal than the US in the culture wars. IÂ’m curious if anyone knows of any bills/ congressional motions to take a preemptive ala European style action about what is and is not allowable as far as religious dress codes- employment etc? Asians/Muslims are not such a visible monitory in the US as in the UK- but its only a matter of time before this debate crosses over. I remember hearing about a case in Florida where a woman was denied a drivers license who did not want to remove her veil 4+ yrs ago (?) but I don’t know what the outcome was.
The original statement by Jack Straw MP was probably a sincere attempt to raise the issue – he comes from a constituency with a significant Muslim population in which he wanted to open a debate on it. But overall as a percentage of the entire UK female Muslim populace, those wearing the burqa is such a small minority, and there are Muslim women who refuse and argue against it anyway, that a certain amount of perspective was lost in the ensuing debate.
On the specifics of the case of the school teacher — the children come first and if it impedes teaching them then the right decision was made in this specific situation.
The UK is FAR more liberal than the US in the culture wars.
which is why so many non-muslim women wore a headscarf after 9/11 to protest violence against muslims.
The UK is FAR more liberal than the US in the culture wars. IÂ’m curious if anyone knows of any bills/ congressional motions to take a preemptive ala European style action about what is and is not allowable as far as religious dress codes- employment etc?
This is what the US can do:
Repeal the 1964 Civil Rights Act or at a minimum repeal the discrimination protection in employment and public places situation at both the federal and the state levels. This would leave the employers with the tools to screw with women who wear hijab/veils etc. The problem of course would be that protection laws for other minorities would also go away. So another option would be to explicitly put down that veils/hihab discrimination would not be included in the definition of ’employment discrimination’ or narrow the ‘reasonable accomodation’ restriction to exclude hijab/veils. This of course would create serious 14th amendment problems so short of repealing the whole sections in Federal and State law on employment/public place discrimination itself, I am not sure what Congess or the states could do about the hijab.
The states of course can use the ‘safety issue’ (terrorists in Burqas argument) to justify the banning of the Burqa in public places (what Holland is doing now) but that would open up a first amendment clash. I dont think there are enough conservative justices in most federal court of appeals and definitely not the Supreme Court to not hold such laws unconstitutional/violating the first amendment.
It would appear as if Aishah was fired for reasons that go beyond her refusing to remove her veil. The fact that she lost support of parents in a school that is 92% Muslim speaks volumes. Maybe we will learn more about the details of her firing in time. However, one cannot dismiss the ever increasing religious intolerance towards Muslims. If all of England were really multicultural this would not be an issue.
As a woman I find it hard to support the wearing of the hajib. I can understand a woman wanting to dress modestly, but covering the face and head seems to be taking it rather far. I understand the Quran requires women to dress modestly, but does it say anything about covering their faces? Maybe the hadiths tell women how to dress, but wouldn’t the Quran take precedence over the hadiths?
There is definitely a mood in some parts of the media that loses perspective on the issues relating to Muslims in Britain, in part fired by the events of July 7th 2005 in London. But the second sentence, ‘if all England were really multicultural this would not be an issue’ confuses me. What do you mean exactly? The facts behind this case have more or less come out in full — the Muslim parents of the Muslim children she taught were aginst her wearing the veil in the classroom — the operative part was that she refused to remove it because male teachers (Muslim and non Muslim) might walk into the classroom and see her face, and for that reason she insisted that her classroom be placed in ‘male quarantine’. Clearly, that was an unreasonable demand to make of the school and rather than compromise for the sake of the children she decided to insist on her stance.
But generally speaking the UK in terms of legislation and protection of rights is a progressive society. So I don’t think your comment is entirely fair.
Isnt there a difference between a hijab and the niqab which covers the entire face? Hijabs are fairly common amongst British Muslim girls and women — the niqab is worn by a miniscule amount of them. Therefore the way that it was presented as an overwhelming tsunami raging across the British Muslim community was overblown by the media at times. To that extent, the reaction touched on a raw nerve between the tensions between mainstream society and minorities, particularly the issue of ‘Muslim integration’, the hot topic of the day. Some of the level of debate was disconcerting.
ThatÂ’s good. Violence against Muslims/Gays/browns/blacks is wrong.
Thanks AMFD– I guess the lexicon of dog whistles and code words will have to be revised then. I am an evangelical christian- conservative in my politics but I resent the way the ‘ moral majority’ has confused politics with practicing their faith. I also see so much hypocrisy in the way some debates are framed around ‘ culture’ issues. As we only have a two party system- and that might be a good thing for now- I am conflicted about identifying myself as Republican because I suspect a fair number take on that label more as being against something/some group vs being for something. I support freedom of religion/expression/speech. However (living in the UK now) I can definitely see how shielded the US is to a large extent from some really gritty multicultural issues.
Yes, there is, which is why I made sure to include a picture of women in niqabs with this post (if you click the picture, it takes you to wikipedia’s “niqab” page). I think this is a very important distinction to make.
Please excuse my ignorance. Niqab is for the face, right? Hijab for the body? Why is it necessary to cover the face?
What does the Quran say? Does it require women to wear niqab or do hadiths?
As a public official in England how can Straw request women not to wear niqab in his office? Where is the multiculturalism there?
Veiling and unveiling have been used as political gambits throughout history – the French who forced Algerian women to unveil during their subjugation, to women veiling as a protest against French occupation; Reza Shah Pahlevi forcibly unveiling women in his attempts to modernize Iran, to Khomeini using women in chadors as a sign of the Revolution/Anti Westernization; women today who veil themselves in solidarity ,protest and cultural pride, to the various govts. debating and taking steps against the resurgence of the veil.
As Foucault suggests sexuality is a great conduit of power, a social construct that makes us easier to control.
Kali Billi. The reasons for wearing hijab are not always b&w. The reactions though, are always strong.
A white Amreeki friend married an Irani guy. She changed her religion and started wearing hijab. Soon the ma-in-law came for a visit from Iran. My friend was expecting compliments. Got yelled at instead. “Thanks for setting us back to stone age”, spat the mom.
A few second gen American Muslim women actually prefer wearing hijabs. They did not grow up w/ the baggage. ItÂ’s more of a cultural identity issue for them. There was an interesting piece on NPR couple years ago. A liberal professor at a liberal U flew into rage when he saw a hijab-wearing student. The student had to patiently explain that it was her choice and nobody forced her to wear it. “So you are a born again Muslim now”, sneered the prof.
Thank you Shireen. I think you have answered my question.
shodan: A white Amreeki friend married an Irani guy. She changed her religion and started wearing hijab. Soon the ma-in-law came for a visit from Iran. My friend was expecting compliments. Got yelled at instead. “Thanks for setting us back to stone age”, spat the mom.
Azadeh Moaveni writes on this topic at length in Lipstick Jihad.
Btw, I have not seen the hijab so much in India, but have seen the niqab. The burqa worn by Muslim women in India has a “net” for a visor. Anyway, Shabana Azmi got into a controversy by stating that it was not required by religion.
I see so many Muslim voices — both clerical and otherwise (e.g. Shabana Azmi in Quizmaan’s link above) — against the veils and niqabs, that this could be one unifying issue for the moderate Islamic voice to wrest power from their more incendiary leaders. All this talk of multicultarism is Western-centric, and does not take into account the situation in South Asia — the same problems exist there as well even without the baggage of culture and skin-color, and where there is actually a large Islamic population. The problem essentially is that the Islamic leaders are incendiary and corrossive, and focussing on multicultarism as a solution plays into the hands of these incendiary leaders, when one should be strengthening the hands of the moderate Islamic voice that they could gain a greater influence over the Muslim peoples.
The niqab really doesn’t have a place in the west because it is a barrier to how people normally interact here, with a premium placed on face to face to communication. It is a right of a Muslim woman to wear the niqab if she feels it is a religous necessity…however she can’t demand to fully participate while wearing a piece of cloth that is a purposed to be a public barrier. If Muslims are to live, engage and thrive in non-Mulsim countries, they need to be as sensitive to western cultural norms if they expect to receive the same amount of cultural sensitivity from foreign visitors in Islamic countries. If Ayeshah’s same logic were to be used in the opposite setting, a western woman should have the inalienable right to wear a bikini in Saudi Arabia.
Don’t British schools require all adults to be identified (photo id etc) before entering the campus for student safety ? Wearing a veil would make that difficult. I think most American schools require adults on campus (teachers, parents, maintenance workers etc) to be identified.
Leaving the religious BS out (or even the Saudi/west comparison), is it practical for anyone to teach/speak loud while covering their face.. ??. She could use technology to teach from her home through broadband internet.. Read this At the end of every school day, eighth-grader Taylor Robison heads home for a session with her tutor.
But Taylor’s tutor, Gary Ishwar, doesn’t come to her house. In fact, he’s never been to America.
Ishwar lives in Bangalore, India — 9,000 miles from Taylor’s Modesto, Calif., home. A former schoolteacher who says he holds two master’s degrees, Ishwar is one of a growing number of highly educated Indians now tutoring U.S. students over the Internet.
note on hijabs in teh workplace and the U.S. civil rights act:
currently, even though religion is an explicitly protected class, an employee could be prevented from wearing a hijab or head covering at work provided that it is a generally applicable rule that no one may wear any form of head covering (ex: baseball hats, yarmulke, etc.) and provided that there are no exceptions to that rule
however, once the employer begins creating exceptions for secular or other types of religious headgear, you open the door for religious discrimination/failure to accommodate claims
so, in theory, an employer could have a policy that no one covers their head at work provided that there are no exceptions to that rule (but, they generally do not for practical reasons)
re: the florida driver’s license case – i believe the woman was not issued a license b/c her face was covered as well – she wasn’t just covering her hair
Thanks for the book link Quizman. Will definitely check it out. Marjane Satrapi covers similar themes in Persepolis.
This is very true of the girls my brother and I grew up with who started wearing a hijab mostly after 9/11. Of the 3 women I know who wear a hijab now, neither of their mothers wore one ever, nor were their husbands so conservative but the girls chose to wear it and also married extremely conservative men by choice. All the girls and the men they married were born/raised here. I must admit however. That always baffled me and I still don’t understand it to this day. Not the hijab thing but the going ultra conservative.
Marjane Satrapi is great!
If Ayeshah’s same logic were to be used in the opposite setting, a western woman should have the inalienable right to wear a bikini in Saudi Arabia.
Great point, Asra. But the fact is, ideally any woman should have an inalienable right to wear a bikini in any part of the world. We are quite far away from that. A lot of people who defend the right to wear the hijab/niqab make the point that regardless of what freedoms people in Islamic countries do or do not enjoy, liberal democracies must not impinge on the same freedoms.
On a related note, there has been a recent development in India whereby Sikhs will be allowed to carry Kirpans aboard planes (subject to some limitations on the size).
This has got to be a seriously hairy situation considering the very common use of yarmulkes and turbans worn by different ethnic groups that are NOT prevented by anyone that I know of.
Excellent point JoaT. Freedom of religious expression is an integral part of personal rights that every liberated nation must provide it’s citizens. For instance, the bikini-in-Saudi-Arabia argument proposed by another commenter does not hold precisely because the bikini does not AFAIK constitute the religious garment for any Western religious belief (no, the South Beach Diet is not a religion). Similarly, the schools, the parents and their wards are entitled to education along the lines that they want and are willing to foot the bill for.
Aishah would be perhaps best placed in a school where there is a requirement for modern British teachers that nonetheless cleave staunchly to the Koranic prescriptions – perhaps in a private school for Muslim kids in the UK or in a different school where the parents WANT such a teacher.
Alternately, she needs to come to a compromise. She can continue to follow her faith by using a scarf and dressing conservatively.
Further, it is important for Aishah to personally examine up to what extent she would agree to follow the prescriptions of her religion. Much in the same way as Hindu surgeons cannot wear vibhuti on their forehards into the surgical room, or that Jewish bankers need to respond to the demands of their Blackberry’s on Saturdays, she needs to understand how deeply she feels she would like to commit to her religion. It is, ultimately, a personal choice that she needs to make – on one hand there compromise without losing her inner faith and her right to express her religion, on the other hand she could hew literally to the book and hope for some appropriate employment to come her way.
tamasha, shodan: If anyone has not yet read all the books by Satrapi, they ought to be packed up in a burqa and sent to Jesus Camp. 🙂 The books written by Iranian women (including their diaspora in the West) is quite extraordinary.
Re this topic: The matter of hijab/niqab is not as simple as being/not-being liberated. In fact, Azadeh looks at both angles; those Iranian women who find the veil oppressive, and those that do not. According to her, most ultra-conservative parents of Iranian girls would not have allowed their daughters to go to school/college/work were it not for the hijab. Yes, there is terrible hyprocrisy and chauvinism in all of this, but one of the observations made by her is the extraordinary increase in women’s education in Iran as a result of the hijab law. Blame it on the men & backward women like Aishah Azmi[1]. That said, she expresses terrible frustration and anger with the fact that it is enforced by law leading to all sorts of terrible consequences – notably by psycho-tyrannical teenage basijis.
However, my sympathy lies with the European authorities who want to ban the niqab/burqa at jobs which require interaction with other human beings. I agree with Mr. Irfan Hussain.
[1] Especially with regard to the treament meted out by people like Aishah Azmi to other Muslim women.
Let me advance the Sam Harris argument: even if the niqab is “required” to be worn as a religious belief, that, by itself, is no reason to respect it or accept it. I find niqabs to be just mindless perpetuation of patriarchial power on women. I do not respect the women who wear it, even if it is by choice because I find that choice itself to be an act of subjugation. It’s just so medieval and barbarci a tradition that I just can’t find any redeeming virtue in it. So I fully support the School Board’s decision to fire her.
I remember a parallel situation : in the late eighties in India, a young widon in Rajasthan committed the act of Sati. That’s when many people advanced this argument : “if the widow loved her husband so much that she wanted to sacrifice herself at the funeral pyre, why is that wrong?” or “if she had a religious belief that Hindu women should commit Sati on their husband’s death, why can’ she have the right to do so?”. My answer to that was just the same : it’s wrong becaue it’s patriarchical, barbaric and stupid, period.
Sam Harris’ lecture at Idea City 2005 in Toronto.
Gujjubhai,
a critique of Sam Harris.
also, ‘reification’ reappears in the above link, the same reification that ANNA noted a couple days ago:
As mon petit chou Brimful would say, “Squeee, B*tches!” You read ALL that and you remembered my favorite word??? 😀
She might as well stay at home, then, and engage in the act of purdah. Why subject her students to the heinous act of a man seeing her face? Why leave her house at all?
It’s all in how you interpret the Qur’an. As for many women (like myself) who cannot understand nor read Arabic, we have to rely on those who actually can translate the abstruse verses and THEN place them within context… usually this job falls on Muslim Clerics who tend to opine a more conservative stance.
“And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments . . . that they should draw their ‘khimar’ over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their husbands…”
In the above passage, ‘khimar’ can signify anything from ‘loose covering’ to ‘wrap yourself tighter than a mummy’. Depends on who’s doing the translating.
BINGO. The wrong Islamic leaders are in power. The moderates are too afraid to step up and voice their views (lest they be seen as ‘Not muslim enough’) and instead watch from afar as the fundamentalists speak for both moderates and non-moderates alike.
I’ve seen this as well. It’s a scary thing but one explanation for it can be a backlash to the greater restrictions and suspicions placed upon Muslims post 9/11. As in, “the government can do whatever they want to regulate my rights in the name of freedom, but that isn’t going to change how the western world is going to view me as a Muslim, be it wear hijab, beard, niqab, etc.” I have a friend who did not wear hijab pre-9/11 because she actually wanted to maintain inconspicuous to people (in particular, men) by NOT wearing a covering, however after the incident occurred that idea reversed itself.
See France. Negatory on any kind of ‘khimar’, yarmlukes, large Christian crosses and turbans.
NVM,
Come on, dude..Meera Nanda, of all people? Is that the best you could find? She’s not exactly the sharpest ool in the shed. Rarely have I found anything she wrote to be of any value at all, an impression that was reinforced after reading that “critique” of Sam Harris. Only an Indian-Left’ard like her would see an attempt to promote Buddhism/Hinduism by Sam H and then go on to proclaim moral equivalence between religious jihad and a so-called secular jihad launched by Sam H. I have read the End of Faith and nowhere does Harris try to propagate spiritualism. He only talks about spiritualism in the context of deep personal experiences that people are known to be able to attain and he’s fine with that as far as that goes. What he is against is the retrograde beliefs and customs that are being justified in the name of religion and therefore being treated as sacrosanct.
All Sam H is pointing out is the idiotic tendency of your garden-variety seculars to cringe from criticising religious beliefs that are just plain dumb and/or barbaric, such as the niqab or homophobia in the name of religion. Why should religious beliefs be beyond criticism if they are against simple common sense? Niqab/Sati/homophobia etc would have no place in a civilzed society except for the legitimacy conferred upon them by religion. In such a scenario, religion must be reformed and common sense must prevail – after all, we don’t desire to live with the plumbing systems inherited from a couple of thousand years ago then why should we be subject to other ancients remnants of idiocy passed down in fairy tales? If Meera Nanda had a modicum of intelligence in her, she’d see that Sam’s criticism is applicable as much to the attempted rationalization of Sati in the name of Hinduism as it is to the niqab in the name of Islam or homophobia in the name of Christianity.
Okie… my two cents…
As a
modernconservative muslim, I believe that Islam is an ideal religion. To be a muslim (which means – surrender to the will of God) you either obey all the tenets of the religion… or you dont. You cannot take what you want, ignore what you wish, and practice something entirely different. The reason it emphasizes an “outreach” program like christianity missions is to ensure that the whole world would be living in this ideal society.[This sounds a little too fantastical (as opposed to “for the real world”) to me too… but I am sorry i cant explain it all here]
I understand how you guys believe that if it interferes with her work then its best if she compromises … but it shouldnt… and i am sure it doesnt interfere with her work. How could it? I am not sure how it would interfere in the work of a lab assistant either…
The only point i am willing to give on this issue is… the Niqab or the Hijab… the hijab is obligatory. The niqab isnt. And its your wish on what you wish to do about it.
And a question – if these societies are so tolerant of other religions and stuff. And they want everyone to live happily… why make a mountain out of a molehill?
Strike my post… I realize that I am not the right person to explain anything eloquently/clearly so that you may understand what Islam is all about… I so wish I were better able to explain…
Just a thought – Feminism should be about a woman wearing her niqab and no one be able to tell her anything, instead of her prancing around in her bikini.
Feminism is about both. Whether a woman decides to wear her niqab or “prance around in a bikini,” it is her choice.
I think for many in the west, including self confessed bleeding heart liberals who support religious festivals, the building of mosques etc. seeing a woman in a full niqab goes one step too far because of stereotypical associations with repression and ignorance.
Even though I support women’s right to wear any religious symbols from tiny rosaries to full burqas, I know that the picture above instantly reminds me of books I’ve read about Saudi Arabian women, honour killings, young girls growing up with severely restricted life choices… things I wouldn’t want for any woman.
I think the difference can be subtle but provokes way different reactions. A woman in the office I work with wears brightly coloured headscarves and no one bats an eyelid. If she came in with a heavy black niqab, I think most people would be more than a little uncomfortable. And even though I support her right to wear it, I would probably be one of them.
For me a headscarf is a powerful expression of one’s faith, just like a Jewish or Christian necklace. But wearing a huge symbol of your religion so that it defines your whole identity like a niqab makes me uncomfortable. We are spiritual beings but we are social beings too.
I empathise with Aishah and believe she was unfairly dealt with by the law… but as a speech and drama teacher when you’re working with helping kids with their language and speaking skills, the physical reality is that it’s best not to have things obstructing your face, especially your mouth. Obviously there are heavy political overtones in the judgment but I think there were probably practical concerns too.
Gujjubhai,
I read that Nanda piece thinking that her critique of Sam Harris’ book is that Harris “declares ‘the end of faithÂ’ only to celebrate the beginning of a new age of spirituality.” Nanda is saying to Harris that to advocate mysticism and rational atheism is a conflicted position. I have not read Harris’ book but when reading Nanda’s essay, which would qualify as a book review, it surprises me that she would criticize a position that Harris has never argued. Is she making this up?
Or is she confusing an alleged advocacy for mysticism with an acknowledgment that mysticism, as religious belief systems now stand, is better than monotheism?
There’s the textual interpretation of covering one’s beauty and the historical and social genealogy of hijab and niqab, and they are different things, though they often merge in the public imagination. The injunction to cover one’s beauty was interpreted as meaning “cover your hair” in the Arabian peninsula because hair was considered a great attraction (if we’re relativist about it, we might say it’s similar to women not showing their midriffs in the US today), and also because there’s a general Abrahamic association of covering one’s head with piety. The face-covering thing was, I think, more of an Arabian peninsula tribal norm, but since hadiths and the prophet’s tradition reflect norms prevalent in the prophet’s time and place, the covering of the face (niqab) has come to be associated, rightly or wrongly, with piety. You have lots of rural north African women who will simply tie a scarf around their heads, and on the other hand you’ll have urban women who tie their hijabs in such a way as to reveal no hair or neck at all. Then you have the “new” veiling, with college girls in headscarves adorned with sequins, tied in the latest fashion, and colour-coordinated with their clothes, and quite often they’ll be wearing tight (albeit long-sleeved) shirts and killed high-heeled boots along with the I’m-so-goody-goody headscarf. It gets kind of tokenistic and not really about modesty at that point.
It’s all about association, IMO, folks who are really conservative Muslims will favour the niqab and full blackbird outfit because they associate it with Saudi. Just the headscarf is more likely to be an identity statement, not so different from the conservative Christian kids in the US who take virginity vows to show how moral they are and as a rejection of permissive social norms, or Jewish kids who wear yarmulkes.
Islam in it’s current incarnations is incompatible with modernity. It has failed to come to terms with science and post-enlightenment thinking like the majority of Christianity, perhaps even Hinduism, has. The only exception may be Turkey, but recent events show otherwise.
If you accept this as true, you also accept an inevitable great conflict between fundamentalist religion and the forces of secularism. Barring a major catastrophe, secularism will inevitably triumph, even given massive Muslim immigration to Europe and higher Muslim birthrates because technology in the next twenty or thirty years will simply progress to a point making fanatical belief untenable for all major world religions.
Gazsi
I’m fascinated by this statement:
I don’t think this is true at all. Neither of those examples are inherent to their faith traditions. They’re cultural biases, and while they may be informed by or reinforced by religion, they’re not necessarily a result of it. Indeed, most of the really extreme elements of faith traditions come from pre-existing cultural norms.
There are many, many, many examples of intolerance among supposedly secular or atheist societies. Consider how kindly the Soviets treated homosexuals or Jews, for example. The US, with its government protections of free religion, has had a hard time incorporating certain religious minorities as well (particularly Catholics and Jews). And there’s always secular India, which may be the most religiously diverse country on Earth and has the scars to prove it. Very little of this has any real theological meaning to it — it’s just people being parochial and clannish. If it weren’t happening along religious lines, people would be divided around some other arbitrary measure of difference.
This is where Harris falls down for me. I agree that anyone should have the right to criticize anyone else’s beliefs (which is becoming an unfortunately radical position). But this idea that we can trace all these fundamental inadequacies in human behavior back to faith is ridiculous too.
Anecdotes: Don’t know what they mean, but here they are….
The most glamorous woman I knew in medical school was a resident who used to wear a white head-scarf with her white scrubs. A surgery resident. She was so incredibly beautiful….funny, the headscarf had the effect of emphazing her beautiful features, which I don’t think was the point. She was divorced, had a child, and married another surgery resident who was sandy-blond and blue-eyed, the very picture of the sturdy young Iowan…I always remember her because she stood out in that sea of men.
A friend from high school back in Iowa, a cheerleader and all, converted to Islam and used to wear a burqa for a few years although her Syrian born husband (I think she converted before she met him) didn’t really care if she did o rnot. She stopped and she dresses now like all the Syrian women I happen to know: very elegantly. She is one of the most gentle people I have had the fortune to meet.
On the T in Boston: I saw a young woman in a silk headscarf, perfectly applied makeup, a very expensive bag and Armani clothes and shoes. I thought to myself: interesting that she should be so dressed to the nines and then wear a headscarf, but in her case it must be because she is marking herself out. I mean, that’s the reason all lot of us choose to wear this hat, or that pair of shoes. We are signalling to the world who we are, to a certain extent.
Meera Nanda :
Such a stupid argument. The whole Hindu nationalist politics only became of any substance in the 1980s. What about the period before that?? What about J. Robert Oppenheimer quoting Gita?? I guess he was a Hindu nationalist too.
Completely off topic: A N N A, you’ve been doing quite a bit of blogging lately. As Borat said,”Ees nice!”
Relatively relevant: At first, I definitely thought the school was in the wrong. But then I read that 92% of the parents from whom Azmi lost support were Muslim. This fact leads me to the conclusion that the veil must have had some negative impact on her ability to effectively communicate with the children and that’s why she was asked to remove her veil. However, I’m thinking logically here, and religion does not always follow logic. The question then becomes one of whether discrimination was involved (against women, Muslims, etc.) Illogical though this may be, I feel as though the Muslim parents have either lost interest/care for the subject or are simply backing down. Sadly, it wouldn’t be the first time a woman was left to fend for herself.
You sound like a caricature of a muslim by some hindutva types! (of course, u realize it is practically impossible to clearly define and for everybody to agree upon those ‘tenets’, right?)
Oops, strike my previous post. Didnt read #34 and #35 fully.
It’s not necessarily that simple in this particular case.
Her brother’s a member of one of the most extreme radical Islamist groups in the UK — one which the British government has been repeatedly threatening to ban and is alreadly illegal in many countries — and there have been considerable suspicions that it’s his hand behind her actions.
Following on from the above, her adoption of the niqab is suspected in many quarters to be motivated by political reasons, not a simple wish for “freedom to practice her religion”.
Hold it, strike the above. It was a British Muslim schoolgirl who was similarly involved in a high-profile court case a few months ago regarding Islamic dress whose brother is involved with HuT. I got the two ladies mixed up.
SM Intern — Please delete my previous comment at your discretion. Thanks.
This is a very common (the most common?) critique of the hijab situation in France and Turkey. The question becomes, does it matter? Separating out both political and religious extremeists, aren’t freedoms religious and political expression and affiliation equally protected?
Does the place of work have to be the proving grounds for one’s religion, garb and other personal/political leanings? A place of work is a neutral platform where people and other resources are assembled to achieve a goal. I would wear my kurta-pajama on my own time but show up at work dressed in the mainstream attire, whatever that might be.
Did have an interesting personal experience that is unreconcilable with my earlier remark. I hired a guy who was a rasta. I asked him politely to “do something” about his hairdo because our company is visited by clients often. He asked me if I was Indian. I said yes. He asked me what I would do if a Sikh had applied for the job. I told him to please ignore my comment on the hair.