Texts about Hijab Controversy

On October 1, 2003, I was suspended for 3 days from the Muskogee Public Schools for wearing my hijab--which is a headscarf required by my religion--Islam.

I didn't know it was going to be a problem because on August 18, 2003, my first day of school, I explained to my homeroom teacher that I am a Muslim and I wear a hijab, and that I also pray between 1:00 and 1:30.

From that day forward, I received compliments from other kids as well as school officials.

And this is how the battle of being obedient to God by wearing my hijab to be modest in Islam versus the school dress code policy began.

While that might be controversial enough, the measure also would prohibit other "ostentatious" displays of religious allegiance at schools, including yarmulkes and large crosses.

Only about 2,000 French girls, by government estimate, wear head scarves to school, many out of religious conviction.

This clothing conundrum wouldn't happen in American public schools

French government threats to impose a ban on the wearing of the Islamic headscarf, or hijab, in schools has created fury in sections of the country's Muslim community.

Demonstrations on the streets of several French cities in January served to confirm that the ban on "overt displays of religious paraphernalia," will extend to the wearing of Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses, will only serve to exacerbate racial tension in the country.

In a speech recommending the ban should become law, President Jacques Chirac warned that if France chooses to capitulate to the will of its religious communities "it would lose its soul."

However, this is by no means a one sided debate, while some who profess to have no religious beliefs are outraged at what they see as a serious threat to the infringement of civil liberty, others, including Dalil Boubaker, head of the leading Paris mosque and president of the officially sanctioned umbrella organisation of Muslim groups in France, supports the ban and has attempted to discourage Muslims from participating.

Many French feminists, including prominent Muslim women, also support the ban, arguing that the hijab is a patriarchal symbol, imposed on Muslim women by male family members.

Historically, female emancipation has been closely linked with dress, fashion, and the casting off of restrictive garments such as long skirts, hats, gloves and shape altering undergarments.

In reality the proposed ban plays right into the hands of extremist national parties that have found favor in the Republic in recent years.

Jews and Muslims have been the chief targets of these racial attacks; synagogues have been burned and mosques attacked and defaced.

The veteran leader of the xenophobic National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen, described it as a step towards "positive discrimination" towards immigrants.

Francois Fillon, the Minister of Social Affairs condemned the car bomb, in which mercifully no one was hurt, as "the odious act" of someone wishing to "impede" racial and religious integration.

So is this about headscarves? Yes, and much more; it is also about the need to uphold personal freedoms, the necessity for dialogue, compromise and the nurturing of mutual respect between France's white, Christian majority, its five million strong Muslim population and all the other ethnic groups that contribute to its development and success as a leading European power.