TITLE: The Politics of Hijab: Laicité vs Diversité? AUTHOR: Augie Fleras Abstract: Professor of Sociology-University of Waterloo ,specializes in Race and Ethnic Relations in Canada and New Zealand. His books include: (with Jean Leonard Elliott) Unequal Relations: An Introduction to Race & Ethnic Dynamics, 1991 - a third edition of which was published in 1999; Multiculturalism in Canada: The Challenge of Diversity, 1992; Social Problems in Canada: Issues and Challenges, 1995 (with E.D. Nelson); and most recent are: Recalling Aotearoa: Cultural Politics & Ethnic Dynamics, 1999 (with Paul Spoonley); Indigeneity at the Millenium: Rethinking Relations in New Zealand, Canada and Australia (with Roger Maaka),2000. Article:

What is it about people's appearances that incite both provocation and perplexity. Clothing fulfills a basic human need in many climates including Canada where covering up is understandably the rule rather than the frigid exception. But clothing also possesses significant social and political functions as a non-verbal medium of ideological communication - either intended or unintended (Hoodfar, 2003). The symbolic value of clothing should never be underestimated, despite our parent’s admonition to never judge people by their appearances or a book by its cover. As a marker of identity, clothing conveys messages that the wearer shares cultural values in common with others similarly attired, thus providing a visual means of creating community. By contrast, minor differences in clothing detail may convey individuality because of region or ethnicity or choice. Clothing as an identity marker may easily symbolize political expression or invoke social (re)action: Consider events in secularist Turkey. In May of 1999, a duly elected woman wearing the veil was removed from Parliament, stripped of her citizenship eleven days later, and remains in exile in the United States (Kavakci 2004). Earlier in 1998, a Turkish student was barred from the medical school at the University of Istanbul because her headscarf clashed with the official dress code. The European Court of Human Rights supported this move on grounds that banning the hijab was not a violation of religious freedom but a valid way to counter Islamic fundamentalism (Reuters 2004).

The notion that what you 'wear' is more important than being 'aware' should not be trifled with lightly in a world where appearances count because, like it or not, approve or disapprove, people continue to judge and be judged by how they look. For the powerful, clothing is used to reinforce power; for the subdominant group, clothing can be manipulated to shift the balance power. In contexts where visibly identifiable groups experience rejection or alienation, clothing serves as symbols of resistance in defending both individual and collective identity. The micro-politics of appearances has been sharply put to the test in France where the macro-politics of robustly religious symbols clash with the priorities of a staunchly secular society. Not since the Mao jacket politicized peoples' appearances in the 1960s has a dress code confounded a constitutional democracy in defending its tradition of civil liberties. On the surface, the debate seems to revolve around two competing rights: To one side, the right of France to preserve its secular tradition from erosion by the religious ‘right' versus the right of young people to wear distinctive religious symbols to public schools, including Jewish kippa and headscarves ("hijab") for Muslim women. To the other side, the tension between the republican/ liberal principle of secularism (or laicité) versus the multicultural principle of diversity (Kastoryano 2004). In reality, the underlying issues are much deeper, and the debate especially over the hijab conceals as much as it reveals by cloaking more fundamental issues involving the interplay of race and gender with citizenship and immigration, national and transnational identities, and globalization and human rights (Resnick 2004). Not surprisingly, French reaction to the ban was mixed - seen by some as critical in preserving France's commitment to liberty, equality, and fraternity; seen by others a blatant violation of those very principles that the French endorse.

The irony is inescapable: French society may take pride in openly flaunting its sex and nudity as progressive and liberating, particularly in the realm of individual self-expression through haute couture. Yet, paradoxically, France wants to strictly regulate religion content by restricting religious symbols to the private sphere (Teitel 2004). The case study serves three purposes: it demonstrates how the politics of hijab debate can be differently framed, with correspondingly different interpretation. While the French authorities demonize the hijab as “backwardness” or "aggression" (‘hijab’ as ‘jihad’), many Muslim women see it as part of their personal identity or religious conviction, without which they feel naked (Amdur 2004); Second, the case study explores how the micro politics of veiling may play out as symbols of resistance or instruments of integration in coping with the demands of a monocultural/secular status quo. Third, the politics of hijab is situated within Canada’s multicultural framework for balancing autonomy with order without sacrificing inclusion. The Crisis: Taking Religion Seriously in a Seriously Secular Society In late 2003, a major French report on the relationship of religion to a secular society made sweeping recommendations for living together differently. The report focussed on how France should balance the foundational principle of secularism with the demands of its minorities, most notably its growing Muslim population against the backdrop of an escalating anti-Semitism. The report urged passage of a law that would forbid conspicuous ("provocative") religious symbols in schools, including headscarves worn by Muslim girls, yarmulkes worn by Jewish boys, and large crosses worn by Christian students. The recommendations would apply to primary and secondary schools, but, curiously enough, not to students in private schools or to French schools in other countries. Sanctions for refusing to obey the removal order would range from a warning to suspension or expulsion (Gainey 2004). Admittedly the law was also aimed at Christians and Jews; nevertheless, Muslim headscarves appeared to be the main target of the government's crackdown since no such law would have been passed were it not for hijab (Dobuzinskis 2004). Moreover, the frenzy over head scarves was not new, having convulsed and perplexed both French authorities and the general public for nearly two decades. Dozens of Muslim girls had been expelled over the years from schools for refusing to remove the scarf, with most schools establishing guidelines forbidding the practice, although a 1992 state ruling indicated that the wearing of scarfs was permissible - unless deemed by the school to be aggressive or prosyletizing. With public support firmly in favour of the proposal, the controversial bans on head scarves and other religious symbols was passed by the National Assembly on February 10, 2004 by a massive 494 to 36 margin, and became law when the Senate ratified it on March 2, 2004.

Neither the debate nor the outcome over the proposed ban should have come as a surprise. France has had a long history imposing uniformity in school and suppressing difference (Amdur 2004) because of a longstanding conflict between religious and secular authorities over whose rules should prevail. For nearly 125 years after the French revolution, the Catholic Church tried everything to overthrow the Republic and replace it with a religion-friendly monarchy. A fierce strain of anti-church sentiment evolved as a result of this reaction, and culminated in the 1905 passage of a law that separated church from state. The law not only guaranteed free exercise of religious worship by ensuring a strict state neutrality toward religion, in addition to public spaces free of religious symbols, but also sought to emancipate individuals from those religious dogmas and community constraints that precluded people from full and equal involvement in society (Kastoryano 2004). The revival of religion among Jews and Muslims reinforced the anti-clerical sentiment among those who fear the hijab as symbolizing the 'thin edge of a Muslim wedge' in undermining France's secular foundations (Heneghan 2004). The proposed ban was thus justified on grounds that, for France to uphold its secular foundation, it must defuse any potential for ethnic entanglements by making public space as neutral as possible through removal of conspicuous religious symbols.

Why France? Why now? France is a devoutly secular society whose fundamentalist secularism is anchored in a commitment to liberal universalism. With liberal universalism, a model for living together with differences is proposed that privileges the equality and autonomy of individuals within a universal humanity rather than race based group differences. Liberal universalism is predicated on the premise that our commonalities supersede our differences. That what we have in common as rights bearing and free wheeling individuals is more important for purposes of recognition and reward than those differences that divide because of membership in racial or ethnic groups. To the extent that differences are tolerated, they cannot violate the laws of the land, interfere with peoples’ rights, demand special treatment, or challenge core constitutional values. Application of this agenda to religion is no less restrictive. According to the pretend pluralism of a liberal universalism (Maaka and Fleras 2004), a society of many religions is possible as long as cultural differences are not taken seriously as grounds for allocating recognition or reward, differences are restricted to the private or personal realm, people agree with the principle of agreeing to disagree without resorting to violence or penalty, and differences are not invoked to justify special treatment (either negative or positive) because of the principle that everyone is equal before the law. Clearly then a liberal universalism cannot be deemed to be diversity friendly unless these differences are of a superficial nature rather than “deep” and demanding of recognition or reward.

France like most liberal societies has few problems with a pretend religious pluralism. Tolerance is tolerable when religion is seen in largely symbolic and situational terms, with practices best relegated to the private and personal. But France like most societies is at a loss when dealing with religious differences that want to be publicly acknowledged as a basis for identity and treatment. Problems arise when religious minorities want religion to be taken seriously as a living and lived in reality rather than a compartmentalized symbol that is activated on those occasion when the situation demands. For many Muslims, religion is not not simply an incidental marker of a person's belief that can be negotiated as seen fit. To the contrary, religion matters, because it is lived in and full time - especially when under assault by unfriendly forces. Not surprisingly, Islam is emerging as a key element in peoples identity, especially for those alienated, in hopes of restoring a moral community in which religion becomes the element of internal cohesion, belonging, and distinction (Kastoryano 2004). Or as Gary Younge (2004) writes "...a mosque is not just a place of worship - it is a place you won't be spat at, where you will find people who look like you and have an understanding of what you are going through". The Debate: Laicité or Diversité? Supporters of the ban relied on several lines of argument. The Head of Commission that produced the Report argued that banning all conspicuous religious symbols reflected and reinforced France's strict secular tradition. Such restrictions are deemed necessary not only for protecting French secularism from Islamic fundamentalism but also as a way of curbing Muslim demands for special privileges such as treatment of female patients by female doctors only (see Sciolino 2003). Others have argued that the head scarf itself is a symbol of Muslim patriarchy that subjugates women while hiding behind the platitudes of a religious observation. Muslim girls were seen as victims manipulated by Islamic militants, parents, and brother in advancing political and religious agendas (Reuters 2004). In short, banning the veil not only meant breaking the chains of bondage, for example, countering the pressure imposed on unveiled Muslim schoolgirls to join a religious revival, on but also in preserving the core constitutional values of liberty, equality, and the brotherhood at the heart of French society (Heneghan 2004). Not everyone agreed with these lines of argument. Questions were raised: Will banning the hijab help to integrate Muslim women or further isolate them, critics asked? If the hijab is seen as the 'thin edge of the wedge' in destroying secularism, will the slippery slope argument be manipulated to justify a host of discriminatory practices against racialized minorities? Critics of the bill criticized the proposed legislation as discriminatory since it ostensibly was aimed at the Muslim population. Restricting the hijab could spark more aggressive religious expressions by driving moderates into the arms of the extremists (Contenta 2004). Besides, as Harvey Simmons argues (2004), the ban conveyed the wrong message in tarnishing those very institutions at the vanguard for integrating people of all faiths through exposure to democratic principles of tolerance and understanding. Finally, the implementation and enforcement would prove a costly and logistic nightmare, given the vagueness of the restrictions and difficulties of ensuring enforcement.

Critics also saw the ban as little more than political expediency. The government was accused of pandering to the right wing by appearing to be tough on diversity but strong on French culture and constitution while reassuring the French public by explicitly controlling the threat of a militant Islam. Yet the content of the ban was wildly inconsistent: Headscarves are to be banned in primary and secondary schools, according to the Report’s recommendations, but not at the university or in other public places such as in public or in workplaces, including government offices. The report also recommended that public school cafeterias cater to the dietary preferences of observant Muslim and Jews, while endorsing the public observation of Jewish and Muslim holidays on the calendar (Sciolino 2003). Interestingly, there appeared to be no mention of a ban on the wearing of the burqa - a much more conspicuous item of clothing that entirely covers Muslim women. Such inconsistency suggests there is more to the ban than meets the eye. Implications: Human Rights? Whose Human Rights? Is there a right or wrong answer to this controversial ban? References to the hijab ban resonated with claims and counterclaims over conflicting notions of human rights. One side claimed human rights violation by imposing restrictions on an individuals right to religion and expression; the other side countered by saying that the human rights of all French citizens must prevail over the narrow religious agendas of fundamentalist religious groups. True, France has legitimate right to worry about its cultural survival within a globalizing world dominated by English language and commercial values. As a sovereign state, France is entitled to promote strategies for securing their survival, even if this kind of nationalism raises troubling questions about the ethnic definition of citizenship in pluralistic societies. In that every society has a right to make itself safe for diversity, safe from diversity, France can legitimately claim the right to secure its internal borders by ensuring conditions that allow cultural minorities to live together with their differences - a not altogether insignificant challenge in a society where Muslims now account for nearly 8 percent of the population (or 5 million) and Jews number around 600,000. The hijab ban is also consistent with the French states historical impulse to impose its republican value system including secularism on its increasingly diverse population, arguing that the French ideals envisions a uniform secular French identity as the best guarantee of national unity, equal rights, and social order (Sciolino 2004).

To the other side are the human rights of Muslims. Yes, the French state may have a right to invoke a secular neutrality in the public sphere. But should this infringement be at the expense of individual rights to conscience, especially when religious symbols such as the headscarf involve a divine requirement that transcends the power of secular authorities (Cochrum 2004)? For many, the real issue revolved around perceptions of the hijab as a symbol of female oppression. Yet proof is thin that wearing the headscarf is synonymous with backwardness or patriarchy. For young Muslim girls, the symbolic value of the hijab is not the same as their parents. The young girls are growing up quite differently from the way their mothers or grandmothers did in North Africa. They are integrating quickly into French society, but, paradoxically may rely on the hijab and Islam to make the transition. The hijab allows young Muslim women to maintain connections with their parents through religion rather than through the more archaic village traditions such as arranged marriages. In other words, religion has replaced ethnic origin as one way of connecting with their families, since the link with parents is no longer through repressive village customs but through more open and progressive Muslim beliefs (cited in Heneghan 2004). To be sure, some Muslim woman are forced to wear the veil; such an imposition is to be expected in a religion within immense internal diversity. But many Muslim women do as a matter of choice and dignity (Kavakci 2004). They are choosing to wear the hijab for modesty sake, out of religious conviction, from rebelliousness because of parental pressure, and as liberation from sexist and consumerist cultures. As one Muslim woman put it "There are quite a lot Muslims who don't classify themselves as feminists, but they are adamant that at the end of the day, the wearing of the head scarf is a way of choosing to decide who gets to see their body and who doesn't...And it's a matter of personal conviction rather than a form of oppression or something that's imposed on them" (cited in Heneghan 2004). Veiling in Canada: The Micro politics of Identity Canada no less than France has had to confront the challenges of religious pluralism because of its commitment to a secular multiculturalism. In the aftermath of September 11 that spotlighted Muslim dress codes and veiling, many Muslims were shocked and dismayed to find that they were perceived as "the other" (ie. Not really belonging to Canada) as well as the "enemy within" (Hoodfar et al 2003). In theory, there should have been little to fear. The situation of Muslims in Canada is radically different than in France, in large part because many Muslim-Canadians are mostly reasonably integrated into the economy by virtue of their degrees and professional status. By comparison, Muslims in France reflect the French policy of recruiting millions of poorly skilled immigrants from North and Sub-sahara Africa, who continue to arrive in large numbers, but increasingly find themselves unemployed and on social assistance (Dobuzinskis 2004). Furthermore, the right to free religious expression and freedom from religious discrimination are constitutionally protected human rights issues. Not surprisingly, perhaps, a survey of 1500 adult Canadians in June of 2004 by the Centre for Research and Information on Canada indicated that two thirds of all Canadians would oppose laws preventing students from wearing religious symbols or clothing in public schools, including the Islamic veil (CRIC 2004). Nor would an official multiculturalism take issue with the hijab since Canada's official multiculturalism is predicted on the belief that all Canadians have a right to identify with the religious/ cultural symbols of their choosing, provided that religious and cultural practices do not violate the law of the land, interfere with the rights of others, or challenge core values and institutions.

So much for the theory, how about the practice? How to balance the constitutional principle and core cultural value of secularism with the demands and rights of religious minorities to freely practice those religious practices that do not coincide with mainstream values especially those of liberal universalism. From afar Canada looks good; up close, the image blurs. First, Canada is not immune to pitched battles over religious symbols, including bitter debates over the feasibility of Sikh turbans in public institutions such as the RCMP. Second, Canada has a history of compromising minority rights when majority interests are at stake. Restrictions on English speaking Canadians in Quebec to use English as a language of public communication is one case in point (though subject to debate). Third, Canadians indicate a willingness to accommodate others if the concessions are perceived as reasonable. Canadians are much less tolerant of diversity if cultural differences are seen to threaten core Canadian values or national security, challenge widely accepted Canadian practices, or impose an unacceptably high cost (Fleras 2001). Not surprisingly, Canadian reaction to the hijab debate is mixed: To one side, especially in English speaking Canada, the practice of veiling is tolerated as part of the multicultural mosaic. To the other side, reference to the hijab has become highly politicized in other parts of Canada- see also McDonough 2003 for controversies involving the hijab in Quebec schools - culminating in suspensions and expulsions from schools both private and public.

How does the hijab play itself out at the micro level? The veil (hijab) plays a critical role in advancing the adaptation and integration of young Muslim women into Canada. By balancing the modern with the traditional (Hoodfar 2003), the veil allows Muslim women to participate in public life without compromising cultural values and religious rights, while resisting those patriarchal beliefs and practices imposed in the name of Islam. A veiled woman can defend her Islamic right to choose a spouse and reject arranged marriages without alienating family and community support. Wearing a veil allows daughters to engage in unconventional practices for Muslim women, such as going to university, mingling with men, travelling long distances, living alone, or seeking non- conventional employment. Insofar as the veil symbolizes a continued commitment to tradition within the context of Canadian society, veiled daughters may be seen as publicly asserting their Muslim Canadian identity while taking steps to participate in Canadian society. To be sure, the negative portrayal of Islam and Muslims has prompted some Muslim women to veil to openly assert the presence of a viable Muslim community in Canada. For many Muslim women, veiling symbolizes piety and spirituality, and they are clearly unhappy with either Canada's demonization of the veil as symbol of oppression or its elevation by extremists as a symbol of Muslim identity, resistance, and even jihad (Alvi et al 2003). Nevertheless, it is not the veil that precludes the integration of Muslim women into Canadian society, according to Hoodfar (2003) but the colonial image of Muslims and continued demonization of Islam that has proven a major obstacle to integration and involvement.

In short, veiling and the hijab remains an indisputable symbol of Muslimness, in addition to its status as potent vehicle of symbolic communication (Alvi et al 2003). Far from being a static symbol of female inferiority in Canada, the veil can mean different things in different contexts in a lived experience that already is full of contradiction and multiple meanings (Hoodfar 2003) - ranging in scope from religious conviction, resistance to the forces of assimilation, to escape control by men and senior family members, assertion of identity (Meshal 2003). In some contexts, veiling remains a means of controlling women's lives, in other contexts, women use the veil to empower themselves, bring about structural changes in society, and challenge some of those cultural and patriarchal practices that have denied, silenced, or excluded women. The decision to wear the veil also reinforces how women use Islam as a flexible resource to support their own views and practices (Predelli 2004). In other words, the veil may have originated in patriarchal circumstances to control women; nonetheless, Muslim women have appropriated the symbol to ways both empowering and subversive. Reference to the veil symbolizes a means of turning the tables - of actively asserting identity and defining themselves in relationship to others as opposed to being identified and defined as different by exclusion or ostracism (Hoodfar 2003). In other words, Muslim women are not passive victims, like wheelbarrows of earth waiting to be pushed around with relatively impunity by patriarchal structures. To the contrary, they increasingly assume a role as active agents who want their difference to be taken seriously in a society that claims be multicultural in principle and inclusive in practice. References: Alvi, S.S. et al. (eds.) (2003). The Muslim Veil in North America. Issues and Debates. Toronto: The Women's Press. Amdur, Rueul S (2004). "French Go For Uniformity". Echo May P. 9 CRIC- Centre for Research and Information on Canada (2004). “New Canada, Revisited. July 1, 2004". Ottawa. Cochrum, Alan (2004). A French Fracas Over Faith. The Sun. February 2004. Dobuzinskis, Laurent (2004). “Reasons, Reasonableness, and Reason”. Inroads 15:80-85 Heneghan, Tom (2004). "Muslims Say French Misunderstand Headscarf Issue". Agence France Presse. February 9th Hoodfar, Homa (2003). "More Than Clothing: Veiling as an Adaptive Strategy" in S.S. Alvi et al (eds.). The Muslim Veil in North America. Pp. 3-40. Toronto: The Women's Press. Hoodfar, Homa et al. (2003). "Introduction" in S.S. Alvi et al. (eds.). The Muslim Veil in North America. Pp. xi-xxiii. Toronto: The Women's Press. Kastoryano, Riva (2004). “France’s Veil Affair”. Inroads 15:62-71 Kavakci, Merve (2004). “Headscarf Controversy”. Foreign Policy. May/June: 66-67 Maaka Roger and Augie Fleras (2004). The Politics of Indigeneity. Dunedin NZ: University of Otago Press McDonough, Sheila (2003). "Perceptions of Hijab in Canada" in SS Alvi et al (eds.). The Muslim Veil in North America. Pp.121-42. Toronto: The Women's Press. Meshal, Reem A. (2003). "Banners of Faith and Identities in Construct: The Hijab in Canada" in S.S. Alvi et al (eds.). The Muslim Veil in North America. Pp. 72-104. Toronto: The Women's Press. Predelli, L N (2004). “Interpreting Gender in Islam: A Case Study of Immigrant Muslim Women in Oslo Norway.” Gender & Society 18 (4):473-493 Resnick, Philip (2004). “Republicanism, Multiculturalism, and Liberalism” Inroads 15:77-79 Reuters (2004) “Turkey’s head scarf ban is upheld by rights courts. International Herald Tribune June 30 Siddiqui, Haroon (2004). "Why Hijab Disturbs Dictators, Democrats." Toronto Star. Feb 15th Teitel, Ruti (2004). Through the Veil, Darkly: Why France's Ban on the Wearing of Religious Symbols is Even More Pernicious Than It Appears. Available at: http://writ.findlaw.com/commentary/20040216 teitel.html

This article was originally published in Cross Cultures Magazine in Volume 10 - Issue 1 - 2004. Unauthorized copying, distribution or other usage without express written permission of the publisher is prohibited.