It’s all French to Livingstone

Letter in Morning Star, 2 April 2005

I know that Yasmin Qureshi came to Paris on behalf of her boss, the Mayor of London (Morning Star, March 23), but I don’t know why she bothered to cross the Channel.

Convinced, like Mayor Livingstone, that the one-hundred-year-old ban on the wearing of religious clothing or symbols in state schools is a bad thing, she only talked, as far as one can deduce from her article, with those who share the same point of view.

But the law insisting on strict secularity in schools and public agencies has the support of the large majority of French people.

And before this is dismissed as an indication of racism amongst the French, it should be understood that the law is supported by a majority of French Muslims, many of whom, particularly women, are the most fervent supporters of secular education.

It seems clear that Ms Qureshi didn’t find it worth her while to talk to anyone from the French Socialist Party, the trade unions, anti-racist organisations, to teachers, representatives of parent-teacher organisations, or from French women’s organisations, in particular Ni Putes Ni Soumises, all of which overwhelmingly back the law.

If she had, she probably wouldn’t have agreed with them, but she would at least have understood the reasoning of French progressives, and have been able to explain in her article the cultural and historical differences which lead French anti-racists and feminists to regard the stance of those like Ken Livingstone as ignorant and reactionary.

Her visit would also have been more useful to mutual understanding if she had talked not only to those close to Tariq Ramadan, hardly representative of French Muslims, but to the Rector of the Paris Mosque, or from the French Council of Muslims, who, though unhappy with the law, advised students to comply with it.

If so, readers might in future be spared the shrill, confused, but smug article by her boss (Morning Star, March 19) which verges on xenophobia in its regard of the French.

The London approach is neither the only nor necessarily the best way to encourage and celebrate multiculturalism.

Peter Duffy
Choisy le Roi, France

Fear and hatred of Muslims on increase in young generation

Children as young as 13 are displaying signs of Islamophobia and are voicing their support for the British National Party, researchers have found.

Young teenagers are increasingly saying they have negative views towards Muslims and do not want Islamic culture expressed in the classroom. The study of 1,500 students aged 13 to 24 was presented at the annual conference of the British Psychological Society in Manchester yesterday.

Researchers asked students from 14 secondary schools and one further education college in York for their views on Islam since 11 September 2001. Three of the schools were from the independent sector and the others came from a wide geographical and socio-economic area.

Nathalie Noret, the lead researcher, from York St John’s College, said: “The younger pupils were more likely to exhibit extreme views and Islamophobia than older students, and there were no differences between schools.” She added that Islamophobia was a “double whammy” as it discriminated against people not just on the basis of religion but also the colour of their skin.

Overall, 43 per cent of the participants said their attitudes towards Muslims had got worse or much worse since the attacks. A quarter said they had worsened still further since the invasion of Iraq.

Ten per cent of girls and 23 per cent of the boys said they would object to female Muslim school pupils wearing a hijab in the classroom.

When asked about the British National Party, almost 10 per cent said they either agreed or agreed strongly with the views of its far-right politicians, with 15 per cent saying they were neutral.

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‘Wrong from head to toe: a ridiculous and ominous decision in Britain’

“In the long annals of judicial stupidity, there can rarely have been a more idiotic judgment than that recently given by Lord Justice Brooke of the British Court of Appeal. It reads like the suicide note not of a country alone, but of an entire civilization.”

Theodore Dalrymple expresses outrage over the Shabina Begum case. “No expressed desire by a child or young woman to wear traditional clothing such as the jilbab can be taken as arising from free choice – even if, in any given instance, it is the result of such a choice – because of the oppressive nature of the subculture.”

National Review, 28 March 2005

Muslim girls unveil their fears

“French education”, declares a trim man behind a big desk, “aims to allow each person, irrespective of their religion or their community, the chance to start on an equal footing and receive the same education.” This impassioned defence of French secularism comes from Raymond Scieux, headmaster of Lycee Eugene Delacroix in Drancy, a suburb northeast of Paris.

By Elizabeth C. Jones, director of “The Headmaster and the Headscarves”, BBC2, 9pm, Tuesday 29 March

BBC News, 28 March 2005

Two German states reject hijab ban

The legislatures in two German states have turned down proposals by the opposition Christian Democratic Party to ban Muslim school teachers from wearing hijab. The parliament of Nordrhein-Westfalen, western Germany, rejected the party’s  request as having no legal merit.

The Christian Democratic Party claimed that hijab places woman at a lower status and was a political symbol not entrenched in the Muslims’ holy book, the Noble Qur’an. Thomas Kufen, the party’s immigration affairs officer, alleged that disputes could emerge in schools over the issue of hijab and that a legislation was needed. The party, yet, said nuns should be exempted for any ban on religious dress codes.

The Socialist and the Green parties, the ruling coalition, as well as the Free Democratic Party had opposed the proposals. They particularly took issue at the Christian Democratic Party’s attempt to exempt nuns’ wear from the ban as a violation of the constitution which demands equal treatment for citizens irrespective of their religious affiliations.

Islam Online, 24 March 2005

Intolerant ban dressed up as secular ruling

Intolerant ban dressed up as secular ruling

By Yasmin Qureshi

Morning Star, 23 March 2005

It has now been just over one year since the introduction of a new law in France forbidding the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols in French state schools.

This law has been of considerable concern to London’s Asian communities in particular.

Sikh and Muslim groups in Britain asked the mayor of London to take the issue up and look into the impact on community relations across Europe of the so-called “headscarf ban.”

I visited Paris last week on the mayor’s behalf, meeting, among others, representatives of Muslim organisation le Collectif des Musulmans de France, as well as the French civil rights group the Ligue des droits de l’Homme and representatives of the Sikh community – including the two Sikh boys who have been excluded from their school as a direct result of the law .

There is a widely held view among those opposed to the ban that it came at a time when the French government needed to divert from the country’s economic problems.

As an attempt to divert attention from high unemployment and budget cuts it was very successful, tapping into long-held French secular political traditions.

The overwhelming focus of the debate about the new law – which is why it has become known as the “headscarf ban” – was the Muslim community.

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Mayor of London condemns French hijab ban

A basic right

Morning Star, 19 March 2005

By Ken Livingstone

This month marks the first anniversary of the French law banning students from wearing conspicuous religious symbols in schools.

I have given the fullest support to the campaign against this attack on the rights of minority religious communities in France.

In February last year, just before the French parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of the ban, I wrote to prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin warning that the new law would be a blow to good community relations throughout Europe, and would inflame tensions between communities and encourage attacks on minorities.

Earlier this month the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination drew attention to the problem of racism in France.

The committee urged the French government to prevent the law against conspicuous religious symbols “from denying any pupil the right to education and to ensure that everyone can always exercise that right”.

But this is precisely the right that the French law does deny many pupils.

According to the French government’s own figures, when the law came into force at the start of the September 2004 school term, over 600 students defied the ban.

Some were forced out of the state system and into private education, while many others were obliged to comply with the law under threat of expulsion.

At least 47 Muslim girls have been excluded from French schools for continuing to wear the hijab (Islamic headscarf), and hundreds more have been compelled to renounce a form of dress that they believe is an important aspect of their religion.

In addition, three Sikh students have been expelled for refusing to remove their turbans and another two have been refused admission to their school.

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Mayor’s human rights adviser meets opponents of hijab ban in Paris

On the first anniversary of the ban on the wearing of the Muslim headscarf in French schools, Yasmin Qureshi, the Mayor of London’s human rights adviser, is to visit Paris to meet opponents of the ban.

The visit follows a new poll conducted by MORI for the Greater London Authority which found that 53 percent of Londoners disagree with the ban with just 33 per cent supporting it.

In the same poll 63 percent said that children should be allowed to wear clothing or items that are part of their religion, such as the Muslim headscarf, Christian cross, Jewish skullcap and Sikh turban at school. Only 26 per cent disagreed.

Ms Qureshi will be in Paris to meet with faith, community, and human rights organisations as well as French local government representatives campaigning against the ban.  Among the groups she will be visiting are Collectif des Musulmans de France, United Sikhs and Ligue des Droits de l’Homme.

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Protect Hijab vows to continue campaigning against the hijab ban

“March 15th 2005 marks the first anniversary of the French Government’s decision to ban ‘religious symbols’. Since last year we have witnessed the oppression of an entire segment of the French society, namely, hundreds of Hijab wearing young Muslim women who have been forcibly excluded from schools by this draconian law. This open discrimination by France and other European countries is an unacceptable position for states that are party to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and makes a mockery of the French declaration of ‘Liberté, egalité, fraternité …’.”

Protect Hijab press release, 15 March 2005

Austrian minister calls for banning hijab

Liese ProkopIn what some fear could be a curtain raiser for a major policy shift in a country considered somehow tolerant, Austrian Interior Minister Liese Prokop has called for banning hijab-clad Muslim women from teaching at schools.

“I consider now the legality of banning hijab in schools,” Prokop told the state-run Falter Magazine Tuesday, March 8. “But, anyhow, I will throw my weight about the ban.”

She argued that wearing the hijab in schools runs counter to the values of Austrian society.

“Muslim women suffer from oppression and their rights are down-trodden,” the minister claimed, urging for stopping what she called “forcible marriage” and “honor killing” spreading among Muslims.

Islam Online, 9 March 2005