veiled4allah: France hijab saga continues veiled4allah: France hijab saga continuesChirac has also called for new rules to allow private businesses to ban Muslim head scarves and other religious symbols -- including Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses.Most of the news report is about a pro-hijab rally held in Paris:
Thousands of French Muslims -- many of them women wearing head scarves of various styles and colors -- marched through the rain-drenched streets of Paris on Sunday in the first large show of opposition to President Jacques Chirac's call for a law banning veils and other overt religious symbols from public classrooms. Many of the women carried signs reading "Don't Touch My Veil!" and "I Vote," a reminder to France's political leadership that the country's estimated 5 million to 7 million Muslims could constitute a formidable voting bloc, with regional elections coming in March.
The crowd, which moved from the Place de la Republique to the Bastille, a traditional protest route, chanted and walked behind large banners with other slogans, such as "The Veil Is Our Choice" and "Yes to Secularism, No to Islamophobia." The multiracial crowd was sprinkled with hundreds of French tricolor flags, and the marchers occasionally sang the French anthem, the Marseillaise. "French and Muslim -- and Proud!" one banner read.
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Subject: Re: France hijab saga continues
You are correct. Hijab (with other "religious symbols" but we know what that essentially means) is now being banned in one town's city hall, during marriage ceremonies (this is in Nogent sur Marne, and the mayor admits he was directly inspired by the debates going on in the country).Additionally a Paris branch of the Société Générale bank is now requiring Muslim women to remove their scarves to enter the bank premises.
So now sisters can't get married (I don't know if it's possible to marry without entering the City Hall), and cannot enter their own bank rescue their money and move elsewhere, without suffering humiliation.
It has been reported that two sisters here who tried to attend a TV debate on hijab and secularism were told that there was no more room, and were made to watch the debate in the hallways. There actually was more space, it was obvious that there was, and those were the only two wanting to appear in hijab. Things like this aren't getting reported in the States.
I am looking for ways to facilitate solidarity between American and French Muslims, and a kind of English-language "media watch" concerning hijab in France, but I have nowhere to go with this idea. Please let me know if you are interested or if you know someone who is. Allah Ta'aala didn't put me in this place for nothing.
Zafira
Subject: Re: France hijab saga continues
This article is in French, I'm posting it because it features an image of the Sunday demonstration. There are more images elsewhere but I think I need to get permission to post them.http://www.saphirnet.info/article_894.html
Zafira
Subject: Re: France hijab saga continues
hi, as a french non-muslim I just want to say that I think Chirac is wrong to try to ban girls from wearing headscarf,I agree with al-muhajabah, they will start by banning them in schools & then move on to banning in other places. Everyone should be free to wear what they want, and display whatever religious symbols (cross, skullcap, etc.) they want, so long as it doesn't harm other people. And I really don't see how a girl could harm anyone just by wearing a headscarf...There are plenty of other problems in France & I don't understand why the government can't be trying to solve them instead of thinking up new laws like this!
Esme
Subject: Re: France hijab saga continues
There are plenty of other problems in France & I don't understand why the government can't be trying to solve them instead of thinking up new laws like this!Esme,
I agree with you completely there...in fact, I would even say that it's not just that practising Muslims "aren't harming anyone"...it's that they have benefit to bring to society, and the French *need* them.
I'll give you an example...I personally know or have met four different Muslim women who are nurses (there are many more I don't personally know). Three of them lost their jobs when they started to wear hijab. The fourth takes hijab off to go to work because she is in critical need of the job.
The nursing shortage in France is alarming, yet they don't mind throwing Muslim staff away and allowing 10,000 elderly people to die in a heat wave because hospital staff can't handle the emergency. They say they don't have the money to staff the hospitals...yet they have the money to pay unemployment benefits to the fired Muslim nurses and other professionals, which is a lot of money per person as I'm sure you know.
I don't think that the French government realises that it's to the benefit of everyone when people are given freedom to be themselves and do their best.
Thank you for your supportive comment.
Zafira
Subject: Re: France hijab saga continues
Thanks for supporting the right of Muslim women to wear hijab. If France is turely a secular state and a democratic state, there should be freedom for all. If not, then they resemble communism more than democracy!