By ZOSIA BIELSKI, NATIONAL POST
Added: Mon, 08 Oct 2007 23:00:00 UTC

Thanks to Catalin Sandu for the link.

Reposted from:
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=e34f88e3-8254-46ed-908c-a1339f350c22

'Message Of Submission'

The group that 12 years ago fought vehemently for the rights of students who wore a hijab in Quebec's public schools is now trying to ban their teachers from wearing the Islamic headscarf and other "ostentatious" religious symbols while at work.

The Quebec Council on the Status of Women, a 20-member body that advises the government on issues relating to women, is urging the province to force public employees to remove visible religious signs when they are on the job. Aside from large Christian crosses, Sikh turbans and Jewish yarmulkes, these also include the hijab, a veil that generally covers the hair and neck, and the more controversial niqab, which covers the face, leaving only the eyes exposed.

The council argues that equality between men and women trumps religious freedoms, and that the symbols oppress.

"Freedom of religion must be limited, intrinsically, by the right to equality between women and men," a "hallmark of the Quebec identity," president Christiane Pelchat said in a statement, declining to comment last week.

"The niqab sends a message of the submission of a woman, which should not be conveyed to young children as part of a secular education, which is required to promote equality between men and women," the council said.

In the proposed ban, it also stressed the protection of Quebec culture and the religious neutrality of state institutions.

It is a quite a different stance from the one Ms. Pelchat's predecessor took in 1995, when Montreal high school students were being expelled for wearing a hijab and the council was defending them.

Then, council president Marie Lavigne advocated for the headscarf. She argued that a prohibition would infringe on freedom of choice and actually be sexist, as it would only affect female Muslims.

"Banning the veil is not the best way to fight fundamentalism or the best way to ensure equality between the sexes," Ms. Lavigne said at the time, as the council published a 54-page document on Islamic veils in the school, part of a report on women's rights that it prepared for the provincial government.

Then, Ms. Lavigne reasoned that girls who were allowed to wear hijab to school would better integrate in Quebec, a "pluralistic" society.

Today, Ms. Pelchat argues that when they are worn by such civil servants as teachers, symbols such as the yarmulke, the turban and the niqab run contrary to the "long march of Quebec towards secularity."

Many critics see the council's move as a shift toward laicite, which has long informed France's heritage and which played itself out most recently when the country banned religious apparel from public schools in 2004. In France's drive to disconnect government from religion, religion is given no special status, although it can be freely practised.
Asha Varadharajan, a professor who teaches women's studies and English at Queen's University, says the logic behind the ban is problematic.

"They're looking at it from the point of view of civil servants being members of public institutions who abide by federal law, which is a secular law by any stretch of the imagination. But the trouble is, the secular law is precisely what also allows for freedom of religious expression."

Prof. Varadharajan says religious artifacts such as the veil are hardly a national costume, but have everything to do with the "everydayness of the wearer's existence." She takes issue with how the council has framed the issue, between women's equality and religious freedom.

"Feminism tends to be conceived of in a kind of a monolithic way. It's usually a kind of ill-examined Western form of feminism that's upheld as the kind of equality all women need to strive for."

Alia Hogben, executive director of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, which works to integrate Muslim women into Western society, says the proposed ban also fails to properly distinguish between the hijab and the niqab, and their context in Canada.

"If you go to the argument that a woman has the right to dress as she chooses, a state should not be telling people how to dress."

The most vocal opposition came from the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CAN), which demanded an apology last week.

"I don't know why they keep going after Muslim women. We do have brains under these scarves," she said.

Ms. Pelchat, a former Liberal member of the provincial legislature, will present the council's recommendations before Quebec's roving commission on the "reasonable accommodation" of immigrants and religious minorities before Nov. 30.

TAGGED: LAW, POLITICS, RELIGION