VLVL II: "What is Fascism?" (fwd)

[Otto]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ghetta Life" <ghetta_outta at hotmail.com>
To: <lycidas2 at earthlink.net>
Cc: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 2:59 PM
Subject: Re: VLVL II: "What is Fascism?" (fwd)

>
> >From: Terrance <lycidas2 at earthlink.net>>
> >
> > > How the West should deal with Muslim fundamentalism and the head-scarf
> >(or other religious symbols) in public classrooms is a conundrum.
> >
> >I let students wear Ché T-shirts and doo-rags, colors, bandanas, met
hats,
> >yankee hats, rangers suck hats, whatever. I wear a Baltimore Orioles hat
> >with my Long Island Duck's sweater vest (both orange on black) and on
> >halloween I just strap on a pair of black pumps and carry a matching
purse.
>
> Yeah, but you're talking about the US (and especially NYC) where diversity
> is the norm.  Europe has been largely insulated and very resistant to such
> changes in their "norms."  France seems to have suddenly developed a great
> fear of their Mid-East population, and is grasping at scarves.  The only
> schools in the US that have avoided the issue of style and the messages
sent
> by personal dress are those where everyone is required to wear a uniform,
> and even hair style are regulated.
>
> Ghetta

Remember that the new law in France forbids open Muslim, Christian, Jewish
or any other obviously religious symbols at school for teachers and pupils.
(The same law for everybody) -- as Kai says.

The reason is that France is much more secularised since the French
Revolution than (for example) the USA. At France they take the division
between the State and the personal belief quite serious.

I don't know if I agree to it because I tend to the opinion that everybody
should be free to express his belief but the French position is at least
consequent. On the other hand, given the post-Taliban Afghan example I'm not
sure if the veil/head-scarf aren't indeed elements of suppression and we
maybe shouldn't open our society to them:

"Many women and girls are essentially prisoners in their own homes," Human
Rights Watch declared. And Amnesty International quoted an aid worker as
saying: "During the Taliban era, if a woman went to market and showed an
inch of flesh, she would have been flogged. Now she's raped."
Change in Afghanistan was never going to come overnight. Honor killings of
girls and forced early marriages are deeply ingrained. An Afghan proverb
says, "A girl should have her first period in her husband's house and not
her father's house."
(...)
Even now, in the new Afghanistan we oversee, they are being kidnapped,
raped, married against their will to old men, denied education, subjected to
virginity tests and imprisoned in their homes. We failed them.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/14/opinion/14KRIS.html

Now that in most German federal states the head-scarf is forbidden at school
I wonder they are going to do with those people wearing a little cross
around the neck, which is quite common in catholic Germany.

What troubles me is that the head-scarf or the veil aren't religious but
much more political symbols. You won't find a word about it in the Qu'ran.

Like the German fascism which had hijacked the national idea Islamic
fundamentalism has hijacked the religious idea of the Islam; both ideologies
further can be compared by their attitude towards violence and by the high
level of intolerance. Another point of comparison is that both have
developed out of a feeling of inferiority, a lack of self-esteem.

Otto