Steve (as 41oo) wrote:Perhaps we should refer to the utility argument.
Why are you wearing those badges/political slogans? Because I associate with them. Well this is a school, not a university...take them off.
Why are you wearing that scarf, are you cold? No, I wish to identify with Islam. Well this is is not a madrassah ...conform to the standard dress code like everyone else. Or attend an Islamic school.
What about:
... Why are you wearing that scarf, are you cold? No, I'm a Muslim and I consider it more decent to wear a headscarf ... ?
Wearing a headscarf is not necessary a political symbol, a means to profess Islamic conviction with, at all - not unless or until its made an issue.
For many young Muslim girls, wearing a headscarf is just something you "ought to do". This norm is culturally determined, for sure, but not necessarily a priori some kind of
statement about anything. They're not necessarily
proselytising - they're just dressing according to what is normal and decent to their standards. Its no different from how you can immediately recognize girls from protestant villages here by their long skirts. Hell, girls in some fishing villages and countryside towns here used to wear traditional Dutch headscarves .. thats just how you were supposed to dress, as a good modest Christian girl.
It doesn't become a
symbol unless one has been forced to wear it - as some who wear it have been, but many have not - or is
refused the right to wear it. For the French - and for a group of Muslim girls who have successfully fought off their folks because they did
not want to wear it - not wearing a headscarf is a political symbol about freedom. But for a group of Muslim girls who
do want to wear it, but now have to fight off white teachers and politicians to be allowed to, it's also becoming a symbol of freedom - the freedom to dress like
you consider right, instead of like what the government of the dominant ethnic group says should be.
It is
becoming political, very quickly. But for many Muslim girls, its just a feeling of it being more proper to wear one .. Now they're being told that their peers can freely wear miniskirts and tanktops, but their headscarf is somehow a scandal. That's incomprehensible to many of them, and to me kinda too.
I think noone should be forced to wear a headscarf - or anything specific, for that matter. And I'm glad Au posted that article that gives lots of ammunition to liberal Muslim folks in arguing that one doesnt
have to, in order to be a good Muslim. But I also think noone should be
forbidden to wear what they consider right or decent, just cause we don't like the look of it. If it doesn't get in the way of learning what you're there to learn, you can wear it.
The whole discussion of whether one should or shouldnt to be a good Muslim, should be left to the Muslims. Hell, we can give our opinion about it, or even fund progressive Muslim organisations who are fostering more liberal interpretations. But womens emancipation cant be enforced by school rules. Basically, either we say, OK, no more bother about any of this ****, we'll reintroduce school uniforms - or we accept that each schoolboy and -girl by definition expresses his or her identity, culture subculture, in every item (s)he wears - whether its an "Eat the Rich" t-shirt, a David's star. a shaved head, a headscarf, a long skirt or a tie-and-jacket.
Thaz what I say ;-)
