Reading 11A: Multiple Meanings of the Hijab in France

            Dress code is a cultural symbol, a religious experience, and politically important statement of identity. The Hijab, Islamic headscarf, is an item with political, sociological, and coded cultural significance. The chapter analyzes the debate in France about wearing Hijab in a French Muslim context. The hijab means different things to different people and it can be misinterpreted. Muslim leaders have said that the Quranic injunction for women to veil themselves shouldn’t be taken literally. It should be understood as prescribing education for women. Some Muslim women see the hijab as liberating because it can be an affirmation of their identity. Some refuse to wear it.

            The l’affaire du foulard means the scarf affair and it occurred in 1989. Three Muslim schoolgirls wear expelled in a town not far from Paris called Creil. They were seen as having infringed secular Republican principles. The Republic’s framework states they neither recognize, pay for, nor subsidize any religious act of worship. Some people judged that the wearing of the hijab in school was a request for recognition. The author states that there are rarely any problems with school students in France wearing a crucifix or yarmulke. When the story came into prominence, the right were opposed to what they perceived to be an attack of French institutions and culture. The left saw them as defending equal rights for women and the lacite, the juridical principle of equality and religious freedom. Muslim women who refuse to wear the hijab fall into this category of the following idea: Muslims who are valued by the West come to be valued based on what they have in common with the West. Women who do wear the hijab is perceived as a rejection of the West or even an attack on its values and principles.

            Some self-appointed followers of the lacite who possess a certain kind of Islamophobia and paranoia have labeled the scarf as disturbing. They have also attempted to link women wearing the headscarf with religious extremism, terrorism, and subjugation. The general idea of the reading asserts that some people see the hijab as oppression, others see it as religious identity or freedom. The author believes the hijab in state schools should be permitted because the ban would have the effect of fulfilling the extreme right’s agenda in France. Freedom of conscience should be recognized. His hope is that Islam and the West can have a mutual discussion on the matter and prevent further misunderstanding