8/9/2019 Times Literary Supplement Article on the French
headscarf law
1/1
Anation decrees to a religious group thatits participation in
national life is condi-tional on its members standardizationf their
appearances, particularly regardingheir headgear and beards. This
is not onlyrance in 2004, but also Prussia in 1812, theear of
Jewish emancipation. Europe has beenere before.
The headscarf bans greatly anticipated entrynto force last year
was in the event an anti-limax. Only seventy-two schoolgirls
werexcluded from school; the taking of Frenchostages in Iraq in
August last year muted the
protests of even the more uncompromisingrganizations. This is
unsurprising. Less than 1
per cent of Muslim schoolgirls wore le foulardo begin with; and
as in previous years, govern-
ent mediators did their work building suchocal compromises as
permitting students toear bandanas in the halls but not in
class-
rooms. Rather, Loi 2004228 was principallyhe occasion of popular
introspection about therelationship between France and its
Muslimommunity, and the proper reinterpretation of
republican norms of lacit laid down undervery different
circumstances a century ago, toshelter the public sphere against
encroachingecclesiastical domination.
The ban also provoked a startling number ofbooks of uneven
quality. Nicolas SarkozysLa Rpublique, les religions,
leesprance
ttempts to update the republican tradition,hile Les Islamistes
sont dj l by Christopheeloire and Christophe Dubois describesrench
fears of Muslim radicalism. In Luneoile, lautre pas, two thoughtful
Muslimomen, Dounia Bouzar and Sada Kada, argueith each other about
the significance of theeil.
Why was the ban necessary in the first place?here are several
reasons. The French Govern-ent fears that political and civic
integration in
he more deprived communities is failing, andhat radical
evangelists from abroad have been
tirring things up; hence the move to reduce reli-ious
demarcations and deal with potential dualoyalties. The veil is held
to introduce religiono a public space rigorously guarded against
itrom 1905 onwards, and to oppress women in aay not in keeping with
the principles of theepublic. There is a third particular
argumentbout schools, holding that the young require a
privileged neutral space to develop their values.inally, the ban
was seen as taking a standgainst the extremist elements in the
Frenchuslim community.A bestseller in France late last year,
Les
Islamistes sont dj l reflects these latter anxie-ies. Deloire is
a journalist at the weekly news
agazine Le Point; Dubois covers terrorismor Le Parisien. They
have collaborated beforen Enqute Sabote (2003), which
investigatedow the Corsican separatist Yvan Colonnaluded arrest for
five years after assassinatinghe prefect of Corsica, Claude rignac,
in 1998.he seventy-three chapters of their most recent
book provide a series of vignettes to make thease that the
Republic and Islamism are at war.
hey draw portraits of extremists seeking tompose shariah to take
the place of Frenchaws, and of disaffected youth, prey to
greenascism, training on French territory before
ravelling abroad to pursue jihad. Moderatesre, in their eyes,
foreign puppets, while radi-als dream of founding an Islamic state
inrance, pursuing a strategy of conquest and tak-
ng their orders from Saudi Arabia. Accordingo Deloire and
Dubois, French Islam is a contra-
diction in terms, a huge joke, because there isnot a piece of it
not under the control of a for-eign power. The authors do not mince
theirwords: the fundamentalist offensive is strong,and the Republic
is scarcely able to defenditself. They should show Saudi proselytes
havebeen dispatched to Toulon to spread hatred ofJews and
non-Muslim French; how salafistshave taken over the mosques one by
one, andfifth columnists used republican language toharass the
Republic and wear down its resist-ance.
Not all the two authors attacks hit theirintended mark. To treat
as equivalent privateprayer in an Interior Ministry building by
the
Secretary-General Fouad Alaoui of the Uniondes Organisations
Islamiques de France(UOIF), the omission of wine from the menu
atofficial dinners thrown for visiting Muslimheads of state, and
attempts by extremists totake over Parisian mosques is to miss an
impor-tant distinction. The genuinely troublesomebecomes mingled
with the overplayed and thewholly non-problematic. And the authors
char-acterization of French Islam as fascisme vertcoheres uneasily
with research that shows 78per cent of FrenchMuslims favourlacitas
aid-ing their religious freedom, 92 per cent decrythe attacks of
September 11 as unIslamic, andfor that matter only 36 per cent
practise Islamin any form whatsoever. Radicalism, if it is
adisease, is a disease of the part, not the whole.Algerian
influence over the moderate rector ofthe Paris mosque, Dalil
Boubakeur is, thoughpotentially troublesome, hardly a new story,and
is not substantially added to here over ear-lier tellings. Perhaps
more easily pardonable isthe authors lack of the Arabic necessary
for atruly fleshed-out portrait of mosque life in thebanlieues. The
story of radicalism in the FrenchMuslim community is an important
one, andrequires thoughtful telling; it does not receive
ithere.
A point being ill made, though, does notrender it wholly false.
Acts of anti-Semitic vio-lence in France have risen, from 185 in
2002 to233 in 2003; and the first half alone of 2004then exceeded
that. (An interesting pattern theydetect is that while most
perpetrators eventually
convicted were of Maghrebian origin, virtuallynone was connected
with Islamist religiousorganizations.) A majority of French
prisoninmates are now Muslim, with Islam becomingtodays successor
of Marxism as the religion ofthe repressed. Hard-talking movements
such asLhaj Thami Brezes Muslim Brotherhood-inspired UOIF swept
regional elections to therepresentative body of French Islam. Both
mod-erates and hardliners are heavily funded fromabroad: Boubakeur
from Algeria and Brezefrom Morocco, with both governments
thusseeking to keep control over their expatriates.The
international dimension is amplified by thefact that some 95 per
cent of French imams
come from overseas. Integrating banlieusardyouth into French
society and removing foreigninfluence from French Islam, both noble
goalsfor which the authors call, will require betterunderstanding
than they offer.
The sales of the book, though, reveal thenerve it has touched in
French society. It mightthus serve less usefully as a window into
FrenchMuslim fundamentalism than for what it saysabout France. The
encounter with the veil and anon-Christian minority lays bare
something ofthe complex harmony between the Fifth Repub-lics
attractive liberal traditions and the contra-
dictions of memory, history, and ideology lin-gering under its
surface. Lacit has after allalways had a Catholic tinge, whether
inFrances bank holidays largely being saintsdays or in school
cafeterias serving fish onFridays. Nuns do not have to remove
theirheadscarves for passport or drivers licencephotographs; Muslim
women do. Francesencounter with Islam has also been moreintense
than that of any other Western democ-
racy, with its Muslim population larger bothabsolutely and
proportionately (5 million, 8 percent) than Britains (1.8m, 3.06
per cent), theNetherlands (1.0m, 6.15 per cent), or Ger-manys
(3.2m, 3.88 per cent).
Nicolas Sarkozy takes an entirely differenttack from these
authors. A charismatic politi-cian cast from the post-ideological
mould ofBlair and Clinton, Sarkozy has spoken of theneed to create
an Islam of France, and not justhave Islam in France. As Interior
Ministerfrom 2002 to 2004 (Sarkozy is now FinanceMinister), he
midwived at the birth of the Con-seil franais du culte musulman
(CFCM) in2003, launched under the ken of Dalil Bou-bakeur. As an
official interlocutor with theState regarding issues of public and
Muslimcommunity interest, it has secured broad iftenuous support
from rival factions; among itscharges are such tasks as ensuring
public school
cafeterias offer non-pork dishes, negotiating theselection of
Muslim chaplains in prisons andarmed forces, organizing markets for
Halalmeat, and making certain Muslim burial prac-tices are
respected in municipal cemeteries. Thepress called him Super Sarko
for this.
Sarkozy writes with passion, arguing for thestate funding of
mosques, and balancing a morepositive republican view of religion
with themore traditional position of affirming that reli-gious and
nonreligious citizens are strictlyequal in the eyes of the
Republic. Lacitis notthe enemy of religions, but rather a
precondi-tion for religious freedom, for those who wouldbe
religious. The UOIF represents a significantpart of French Muslim
youth; and the Statemust therefore reach an accommodation with
it.Sarkozy argues that conservation on the part ofthe State, rather
than foreign influences, is theroot cause of fundamentalism. What
troublesthe authorities is not the minarets, but rather thecaves
and garages which give rise to clandes-tine cults; the Republics
rules are more likelyto be respected within the grand mosques.
Frances Muslim community, unlike other reli-gious denominations,
also has not inherited apatrimony from history, being relatively
new onFrench territory. Not only is it thus poorer, butwealthy
donors are more frequently from out-side France. An obvious
solution is to providemore state funding to support the growth of
anindigenous French Islam. When the Statefinances thousands of
cultural associations,sporting clubs, and other groups, why
shouldreligiousassociations not receiveany aid? Occa-sionally
Sarkozy disappoints, as when heresponds to a question about foreign
govern-ments influence on French mosques with thelukewarm retort
that the Vatican selectsFrances bishops. But his book is generally
per-suasive, and his effort to update the republicantradition with
creativity and courage ought notto be underestimated.
Republican citizenship as enshrined in theschoolssecular temples
is the resultof anunfin-ished rebellion against Catholic domination
thatleft little space for recognition of religiousbeliefs as a
personal choice, or for religious plu-
ralism. The headscarf affair reactivated thisrebellion, but this
time it was also against com-munautarisme, enclosure within a
communityin preference to French public life and itsshared
republican values and identities. Underthe Republics ideology,
there can be no inter-mediate body between it and the citizen. But
itis precisely the tricky no mans land betweenthese two
alternatives, fraught with the wreck-age of past symbols, that
gives rise to a new ver-
sion of a familiar question: when is a headscarfjust a
headscarf?
The answer, of course, is never. And so theheadscarf has become
an ambiguous meton-ymy, what Harvey Simmons compares to ablack
hole, drawing into its vortex all the con-cerns and fears of the
French regarding theirMuslim population: violence, crime,
terrorism,integration, citizenship, lacit, and painfulmemories of
the 195462 Algerian war for inde-pendence. But what of the French
Muslimsthemselves? In a remarkable volume, DouniaBouzar and Sada
Kada debate at length on theheadscarfs significance. Bouzar is a
sociologistand until recently a member of the Conseilfranais du
culte musulman. She is theunveiled of the pair; her counterpart,
Kada, isan activist and the president of Femmesfranaises et
musulmanes engages. They enlisttwelve further female French Muslim
voices;
each of the testimonies is centred on particularpoints, such as
sexism, the national schools orpostcolonialism; each features
young, profes-sional Muslim women. For both authors, theveil is to
the public and the Republics official
caste a sign of refusal to integrate, to assume cit-izenship,
and to adopt the republics norms of(gender) equality and
secularism. To those whowear it, it is the colonial spirit that
denies themthe Republican liberty to wear their headscarfwith such
meaning as they themselves chooseto impart it. For Kada, doing so
symbolizes sub-mission to God.
For Bouzar, to put on the headscarf is toadmit one will never be
considered an equal asGod willed. Articulation of anti-immigrant
sen-timent has become permissible if couched in adiscourse about
Islam and public secularism,she says. Kada questions the boundaries
of thepublic space which must remain secular inlight of the
burgeoning size of the dirigisteFrench state. Both regard
suggestions thatMuslims are seeking to render France along aMiddle
Eastern model as absurdly misplaced,given the greater degree of
freedom the country
has provided for the religious life of Muslimsthan their
sometimes purportedly religious, gen-erally authoritarian countries
of origin.
As Timothy Garton Ash has noted, drawingon Europes own better
liberal democratic
traditions presents a more substantive routefor Continental
self-definition than negativelyagainst the others of the United
States orIslamic world. Frances Republican ideology,more explicitly
enunciated and ritualized thanBritish constitutionalism, is a
promising peda-gogical tool for assimilating new members intothese
political traditions so long as it main-tains its substantive
character and does notbecome a legitimization for social
prejudicesagainst those who are not of French stock. Pon-derously,
the headscarf laws implementationneglected several more sanguine
recommenda-tions: more Muslim chaplains, and bank holi-days for Ad
el Kebir and Yom Kippur, both ofwhich failed to get support from
Prime MinisterRaffarin or the parliamentary Centre Right.Even so,
opposition came from a minority ofthe Muslim population. The Grand
Sheik of AlAzhar University, Muhammad Sayed Tantawi,
declared that he had no problem with the law;vehement protest
came only from smallerfringe organizations such as
MohammedLatreches Parti des Musulmans de France. Byaccepting the
headscarf law, Frances Muslims
mtKiFccs
Dsal
I
mChtta
Boaid
The Other Voice in Early Modern Europeseries allows little-known
womensvoices to be heard, with translations ofsixteenth to
eighteenth-century European texts.The approach is feminist, and
each volume isprefaced with a historical account of the system-atic
oppression and frustration of women. How-ever, the books reviewed
here feature fourwomen who, in different ways, succeeded incarving
out independent lives in a mans world.
From the sixteenth century we have someforty pages of religious
polemic by MarieDentire (14951561),a fearless and wildly out-spoken
Protestant reformer. Mary B. McKinley,her translator, provides a
full and interestingbiographical introduction, which reveals
theexcesses of Dentires zeal. We see her storm-
ing into a convent to harangue the outragednuns about the
pleasures of conjugal relations,or arguing with John Calvin himself
about thelength of his disciples robes on which occa-sion Calvin
commented, sinisterly imprecise, Itreated the woman as I should
have. Her ownwritings are unsophisticated and direct, andreveal a
violent hatred of the Catholic Church,that great Roman lecheress,
full of abomina-tion and filth: What greater blindness can
youimagine than . . . teaching [children] to turn todoctors who
cure all ills, like Saint Rock forvomiting, Saint Wolf for the
teeth, Saint Fox foreating, Saint Cosmos for the castrated,
andDamien for the crippled on all sides?. She isaware of the
anomaly of her position as awoman daring to question the accepted
religionof generations past, but the sheer force of herconviction
sweeps the reader along. And thosewho do not dare join her crusade
are bold asslugs.
Writing some hundred years later, Madeleinede Scudry (16071701)
is a very differentembodimentof the early woman writer. Though
she published mostly under the name of herbrother Georges, she
was known as one of themost prolific novelists of her age, lionized
byher contemporaries under her prcieux pseudo-nym of Sapho. The
writings presented hereare selected from her rhetorical works, and
areas polished as Dentires are crude. Indeed, onewishes Scudry
could have shed some of herpoliteness and let herself go a bit. The
first partof this volume is a fictional correspondence
between two lady friends, who address eachother as Madam, and
spend a good part of
each letter praising each others excellence.Each then lists her
own shortcomings only forher correspondent to upbraid her for her
excessof modesty, and in turn denigrate herself. Thewhole thing is
like a formal ritual, which some-how fails to get anywhere. The
next sectionseemed more promising: a series of imaginaryorations
given by famous historical women atcrucial points in their lives
for example, KingHerods wife Mariamne, faced with her hus-
bands determination to put her to death. Sadly,though, Scudry
fails to infuse the speecheswith any colour or individuality, and
ultimatelythe women all seem the same, determined tospeak out for
virtue, unflinchingly fearless inthe face of death. Even when their
situationsseem opposed one can scarcely distinguishbetween them.
Both Sophonisba and Zenobiashow identical firmness of purpose,
though thefirst is desperate to avoid being chained and ledin
triumph, while the second glories in havingsuffered precisely that
fate. The third group of
Scudryswritings comprises imaginary conver-sations about social
mores between male andfemale interlocutors with precious
classical-sounding names like Cilnie and Nicanor. Theystart by
complaining that their friends are bor-ing, but the details
givenfail to bring the charac-ters to life: What diversion is there
. . . to hearthat such a house in which you have no interest,which
you never visited, and where youllnever go as long as you live, was
built by thisman, bought by that one, traded by another, andis at
present owned by a man you do notknow? (Compare that dull little
speech withthe vivid portrayal of boring characters in theplay Les
Fcheux by Scudrys contemporaryMolire.) Overall these writings are
of interestchiefly for their rhetorical technique, which
isremarkably accomplished; all form and notmuch content.
Mme de Villedieus Mmoires (16724) isthe exact opposite. Full of
incident, the novel isa relentless stream of far-fetched, racy
adven-tures. The heroine, the beauteous Sylvie, is indeadly peril
on almost every page: she fights
duels in drag, escapes from convents, evadesthe pursuit of
amorous noblemen, is threatenedwith discovery, imprisonment, even
rape. Coin-cidences and shock discoveries follow thickand fast.
Villedieu relates these improbable hap-penings with gusto and
energy. The novel isgiven spice by the fact that it echoes its
authorsown life. Villedieu, while still a minor, man-aged to shake
off masculine control, and livedher life as an independent woman,
enjoying a
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The Nuns tales
PATRICK BELTON
C h r i s t o p h e D e l o i r e a n d C h r i s -t o p h e D u
b o i s
L E S I S L A M I S T E S S O N T D J L Enqutesur
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349pp.Paris: AlbinMichel. 19.50euros.222 6151494
N i c o l a s S a r k o z y
L A R P U B L I Q U E , L E S R E L I G I O N S ,L E S P R A N C
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K a d a
L U N E V O I L E , L A U T R E P A S213pp.Albin Michel.15
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Super Sarko?
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S o c i a l St u d i e s S o c i a l S t ud i e s
MAYA SLATER
M a r i e D e n t i r e
E P I S T L E T O M A R G U E R I T E D EN A V A R R E P R E F A
C E T O A S E R M O N
B Y J O H N C A L V I NEditedandtranslated byMary B.McKinley
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S E L E C T E D L E T T E R S , O R A T I O N SA N D R H E T O R
I C A L D I A L O G U E S
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M a d a m e d e M a i n t e n o n
D I A L O G U E S A N D A D D R E S S E SEditedand translated
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