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Socialist Review Index (1993–1996) | Socialist Review 181 Contents

Jamie Rankin

Letters

Veiled attack

 

From Socialist Review, No. 181, December 1994.
Copyright © Socialist Review.
Copied with thanks from the Socialist Review Archive.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.

 

Behind the Veil by Chris Harman (November SR) does not address the profound differences of the British education system from the French system. The French state education is ‘lay, free, and obligatory’ by law. It is based on the principles that came out of the French Revolution of 1789, and is based on the equality of the sexes.

The problem of the Muslim headscarf became a national debate in France when Mr Harbi barred children from his school back in 1989. These are some of the reasons:

  1. Proselytising of Islam was perceived to be a problem – pressure was being applied by these children on other Muslim children to conform to the Islamic dress code, and to cut classes not thought appropriate for Muslims.
     
  2. The veil is a symbol of feminine submission.
     
  3. The point of the free, lay, state school is to create a ‘free space to learn’ away from patriarchy and authority.
     
  4. It was not a question of discrimination but of discipline – they were breaking the rules.
     
  5. The reason for the insistence on ‘lay schooling’ is so the student can be free of the outside pressures of his/her community.
     
  6. French schools are based on the idea that authority is based on reason and experience.
     
  7. Schools may not accept any mark or sign that one is a member of any grouping.
     
  8. Pupils may not skip classes on religious grounds.
     
  9. Teachers may not be influenced in what they teach on religious grounds.
     
  10. The veil implies that there are natural distinctions between human beings and that there is an authority above all others.
     
  11. The school must accept all children but not the religion of the parents whatever that is.

Curiously, one of the greatest weapons against coercion that a young Muslim girl has against authoritarianism is the republican lay school. Britain is in the middle of a debate about religion in schools. There would be no need, if we left our religion at the school gate in the morning as they do in France.

 

Jamie Rankin
London

 
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