On the Secular & Sacred in France (30 DPC: Day 17)

Day 17: A Picture of Something You Recently Received in the Mail

I came up with this prompt dually to show you the adorable little ducky my Mom sent with her last care package as a preemptive Easter gift and in reference to some letters I hopefully will be receiving this summer from my friends at school. Thank you mom! I love it so much, especially the enormous daisy in its hand :)

And speaking of Easter (don’t you just love vague but functional transitions?)…

In my French language lab today we were speaking about religion. Of course I had to blog about my thoughts on this class, because no religion argument goes un-blogged, apparently. As you may or may not know, in France there has within the last year been a ban on women wearing a niqab. Also called a burqa in English, this style of wearing a headscarf/veil is an emblem of faith for certain women within the Muslim faith. The French government passed a law decreeing the wearing of a burqa to be illegal and any woman wearing one must pay a fine of 150 Euros.

The law was passed with three main intentions:

1.     For “Security,” so that people (not necessarily Muslims) don’t disguise themselves under a Burqa while committing a crime.

2.     Because wearing the head-to-toe veil is seen as a violation of women’s rights and therefore the government took it upon themselves to “liberate” these women by decreeing it illegal.

3.     To promote universal public secularism.

The religious attire ban has extended beyond the Islamic tradition. French president Nicola Sarkozy has now pushed legislation through that deems any sign of a religious affiliation or faith to be illegal in state schools. This tactic is to make the burqa ban appear as if part of a larger movement towards the complete separation of church and state, but also to “unify” the citizenship of France. In the words of my language lab leader (a native Frenchwoman) “The citizen comes before all else in France under this law.”

As already evidenced, this is a complex issue that even on the surface appears to be convoluted with alternative motives. And I am incredibly frustrated by the entire premise of the law.

As you may have surmised, I am a person of faith. Not one faith, but of faith. And any act that infringes on personal liberty and inclinations to ANY religion (or lack thereof!) I perceive to be a gross injustice. These laws ideally are meant to separate church and state, a principal I think extremely important and crucial to running any nation with multiple religions represented among the population. But even John Locke, the famed Western philospher and proponent of what would become the Establishment Clause in the American Constitution said no law could be made that infringed on religious liberty.

If, by the unilateral removal of religious emblems in all schoolchildren, unity were to be achieved, it would be a sense of unity rooted in falsehood. Community is about people coming together, bringing with them all of their personal baggage (good and bad) and sticking together because of and in spite of differences. Part of your belief in the divine (in whatever manifestation) or profession that there is no such thing defines who we are in some capacity. If a true community is to be promoted, it must be one where crucial elements of ourselves are open and accepted. This doesn’t mean religion has to be in governmental policy, but it does mean that in order for a country to be run fairly for all citizens there must be recognition that all citizens have diverse faith practices and beliefs. Therefore the outlawing of wearing religious accessories and outfits is promoting a false sense of being clones, not community members.

Furthermore, the French government has stated that their intent with these laws is to ensure liberty for all women. But in the act of mandating liberty the French government is only creating a new kind of oppression. And in banning the burqa, one is assuming that all women who wear a hijab/burqa/niqab are forced to do so. This is absolutely not true.

Yes, many women all over the world are forced to be covered head to toe, either directly by the government or family or by cultural expectations. But just as many women wear the burqa (or some variation) freely out of choice and devotion to God. No, there is no dictation in the Qur’an that demands women be covered. But neither does it say in the Bible that one should wear a cross on a necklace. It’s a matter of personal preference. And in the past it’s even been a sign of solidarity and revolution; in Indonesia in the 1980s many women wore the burqa freely while their Muslim faith was being attacked. And Islam is an enormously wide-spread religion, meaning that the reasons women wear or choose not to wear burqas are as varied as the cultures from whence they come.

This law is a very bad quick-fix to an enormous issue concerning women’s rights within religion. And many women and men in France are retaliating against this law with satygraha and nonviolent protest. Backed by investors with cash to spare, these women are continuing to wear their religious garments regardless of the fines and arrests many have and are facing.

And most especially, they who are creating these laws have very little true undertanding of the Islamic faith. Furthermore, the kind of oppression and objectification women face more often on a universal scale is manifested in the expectations of being thin, great at sex, aesthetically hot, and maternal. As Martha Nussbaum[i] so eloquently explained in her article from the New York Times,

“… the more glaring flaw in the argument is that society is suffused with symbols of male supremacy that treat women as objects.  Sex magazines, nude photos, tight jeans — all of these products, arguably, treat women as objects, as do so many aspects of our media culture.  And what about the “degrading prison” of plastic surgery?  Every time I undress in the locker room of my gym, I see women bearing the scars of liposuction, tummy tucks, breast implants.  Isn’t much of this done in order to conform to a male norm of female beauty that casts women as sex objects? Proponents of the burqa ban do not propose to ban all these objectifying practices.  Indeed, they often participate in them.  And banning all such practices on a basis of equality would be an intolerable invasion of liberty.  Once again, then, the opponents of the burqa are utterly inconsistent, betraying a fear of the different that is discriminatory and unworthy of a liberal democracy.  The way to deal with sexism, in this case as in all, is by persuasion and example, not by removing liberty. [bold added]”

 So not only do these impositions from the government claim to be for liberation, they also prolong religious intolerance and are rooted in fear. The ban of the burqa is in no way an effort to combat objectifying women. It’s a lashing out against a group of people in France who represent a misunderstood minority. This fear-based law not only creates a false sense of unity, but one that instills fear of difference and uniquity among its people.

And as for the safety aspect of the law, Professor Nussbaum outlines quite articulately why demanding one’s face to be uncovered all the time is highly unpractical:

“…these arguments… are applied inconsistently.  It gets very cold in Chicago – as, indeed, in many parts of Europe.  Along the streets we walk, hats pulled down over ears and brows, scarves wound tightly around noses and mouths.  No problem of either transparency or security is thought to exist, nor are we forbidden to enter public buildings so insulated.  Moreover, many beloved and trusted professionals cover their faces all year round: surgeons, dentists, (American) football players, skiers and skaters. What inspires fear and mistrust in Europe, clearly, is not covering per se, but Muslim covering.”

And besides, the actual population of women who wear the full burqa is a minimal 2000. While the Muslim population is far greater, the entire crisis began over one law oppressing an extreme minority in the country.

These laws are completely unjustified and grounded in fear. I am infuriated by the French government's actions and think the laws should be removed, and immediately. They are not fighting for women's rights or to promote religious tolerance; in fact, in their actions they are doing quite the opposite. Under this façade no liberty can be achieved for any person of faith or atheist. 

If you are curious as to my main sources for this post (or if you would like to read more on the issue) here are some excellent materials for reading:

Noopur Tiwari's "Satygraha against burqa ban in France"

Carl Packman (of the Though Cowards Flinch blog)'s "Some Considerations of the Burqa Ban in France" 

And of course, the NY Times article by Martha Nussbaum.  

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[i] Who, I might add, is Mount Holyoke College’s commencement speaker this year. 

current jam: "pictures at an exhibition: the great gate of kiev" mussorgsky-stokowski

best thing in my life right now: wool socks

days until departure: 52

thoughts in my head: ends and means

Clearly, this Religion paper has been kicking my thoughts into a spirals and circles. Fortunately for me, the paper is due tomorrow, so I'll finally have to put the writing aside and focus on other things. But I doubt I'll ever stop wrangling with the concepts we have confronted in this class- but I am happy to sit in the process for a while.


I actually had said Religion class this morning (Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8:30 in the morning, sunshine!) and we listened to one of Dr. Fr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s early speeches. I'm not sure of the title, but it definitely comes from either 1955 or 1956 because he was discussing the importance of pursuing justice by nonviolent means in relation to the fabulous Ms. Rosa Parks. Listening to his words never fails to give me chills and tears (much like watching the Ben Kingsley Gandhi film never ceases to completely enrapture me for the entire three hours of its duration)! 


In the sermon/speech, he spoke of innumerable profound things, but a quote that most resonated with me was: "Moral ends must be achieved by moral means." He spoke this in reference to the necessity of pursuing justice by nonviolent means. 


In this line of thought, a well-met end is not moral if it was not from a well-intentioned inception/action. This is very like Tolstoy, who believed that our actions are either inherently moral or immoral, not determined by consequence. Bonhoeffer, conversely, said that the consequence was what deemed an action to be right or wrong (thus justification for assassinating Hitler). 


So the end, then, MUST be justified by the means?


If after this awful, bloody battle in Libya ends in a new government and a free people, is it tainted? I think yes. But then again, despite Gandhi's tireless efforts in the liberation of India by nonviolent means, Pakistan was still created as an independent nation rank with tension between the Muslim and Hindu communities. Also tainted, but not inherently by the religions involved or lack of effort from millions of people. 


Arrgh, this food for thought is really starting to fill my brain with more than it can chew!


In other news, I will be starting a new blog series either later this afternoon or tomorrow (probably tomorrow). This series of "thoughts in my head" will not cease, but I think it's going to be an occasional theme when I've got more controversial/pondering-worthy material worth posting. In the meantime, I will have some lighter posts that will provide an interesting framework to compare my life here, in the states now, to my life in Uganda this summer. 


ALSO: my radio show goes back on air this Saturday from 10 AM - 12 PM EST! If you'd like, you can listen by going to this website (www.wmhcradio915.org). I will actually be interviewing my Religion professor, John Grayson, about his Top 10 Songs. It's going to be very exciting; he's met Rosa Parks, Archbishop Tutu, and a lot of incredible people (while being one of the most humble and kind people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting). 


Okay, off to wonder about if the universe is shaped like the earth (or just whether I want a chai or not, you know. Life of an eighteen-year-old). 


thanks for coming along on this ride with me, friends.


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current jam: "sons and daughters" the decemberists (favorite album of all time = the crane wife)
best thing in my life right now: sunshine-y weather and the weekend fast approaching!
days until departure: 73

thoughts in my head: can nonviolence exist without violence?

Allow to me begin by thanking all of my new readers/followers for checking out this blog! I know my last post generated a lot of attention from various people (a special thanks to my friend Mary Day Saou whose photography blog you should definitely check out by clicking here!) and consequently, you’re here! So thanks!

 Since my last post I’ve been toiling away on a paper for the aforementioned Religion 238 class. We were asked to critique and explore an ancient text’s approach to violence/non-violence, for which I selected two passages from the Gospel of Matthew from the Christian Testament[1].  While wrestling with a thesis, it occurred to me that the very word nonviolence itself assumes its existence is contingent on violence. The more I thought on this, the more qualms I had with the very word itself; for me, nonviolence is far more pervasive and powerful than violence- so how could this be justified in a word which prefix and composition suggested the very opposite? And then, BAM, I had a thesis. So I’m going to share a chunk of my first draft here:

It would be easy to say that nonviolence is merely the absence of violence, which, considering the prefix of the word nonviolence itself suggests as much, seems to be a logical conclusion. I contend this statement, but in order to explain, we must first define the parameters and meaning of violence itself. Violence is any idea or action that is rooted in hatred; it can be psychological or physical, internal or external. Violence comes from within the individual and therefore can exist within only one person. Since all humanity is capable of violence it exists in all of us, which enables enormous acts of violence like the war in the Gaza Strip to occur.

Nonviolence, conversely, is an idea or action that comes from Love. This Love is powerful, transcendent, and most crucially it cannot exist in the vacuum of one soul. Love comes from the divine, explored in the Christian faith through the embodiment of God in Jesus Christ, and therefore by its very nature must exist between two souls: that of the divine and of the human. Love, like hate, has capacity in every soul and therefore can transform populations and people, toppling governments and creating unity. Love, unlike hatred, however, does this through the method of nonviolence and active resistance that honors and respects the integrity and precious gift that every human being is. Yet Love and hate are not inverses of each other; they are eternally held in tension with one another, for each emotion contains the same amount of power and capacity for change. Each requires the same vested amount of time and energy to commit fully to the depth of the feeling, leaving apathy as the inverse of both Love and hate.

Furthermore, because Love and hate are held in tension with one another we have the ability to dually love and hate, as though there were a magnetic weight strung on a string between two poles, each pulling the magnet towards themselves. We have the choice within this tension, the choice to either act upon Love or to act upon our own bitterness and hatred. What we choose defines who we are and the entire course of our subsequent lives. The Christian texts call upon us to be perfect and to choose Love, just as Christ chose Love for humanity. This command to act and work in the here and now validates our actions here on earth as profoundly consequential. We are, therefore, compelled to choose wisely.

Nonviolence, which ultimately is a path of Love, is not a passive act but rather a way of life that demands of its followers courage, vigilance, and endurance. To live into what Mahatma Gandhi referred to as our ahimsa means we must undergo the path less trod for the rest of our living days…

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There is another five pages where I explore the duality of Love and hate, so if you want to read more say so in the comments and I’d be happy to share (once I finish editing, of course!).

While writing, I was still pondering Rachel Corrie and her tragic, complex death. Rachel herself was practicing Gandhian nonviolence tactics, but emails with her mother revealed her fundamental doubts about resisting without retaliation:

“I thought a lot about what you said on the phone about Palestinian violence not helping the situation. Sixty thousand workers from Rafah worked in Israel two years ago. Now only 600 can go to Israel for jobs … The count of homes destroyed in Rafah since the beginning of this intifada is up around 600, by and large people with no connection to the resistance but who happen to live along the border. I think it is maybe official now that Rafah is the poorest place in the world … What is left for people? Tell me if you can think of anything. I can't.

If any of us had our lives and welfare completely strangled, lived with children in a shrinking place where we knew, because of previous experience, that soldiers and tanks and bulldozers could come for us at any moment and destroy all the greenhouses that we had been cultivating for however long, and did this while some of us were beaten and held captive with 149 other people for several hours - do you think we might try to use somewhat violent means to protect whatever fragments remained? I think about this especially when I see orchards and greenhouses and fruit trees destroyed - just years of care and cultivation. I think about you and how long it takes to make things grow and what a labour of love it is. I really think, in a similar situation, most people would defend themselves as best they could. I think Uncle Craig would. I think probably Grandma would. I think I would.” (February 27, 2003)

Clearly, Rachel had legitimate reasons to fundamentally question her actions as useful or justified. But while she had these doubts, her death was ultimately an act of nonviolence and Love for the people whose home was about to be destroyed. In the same Von Klemperer article about Dietrich Bonhoeffer(The Terrible Alternative: Christian Martyrdom in the Twentieth Century), Von Klemperer explains that while the situation Bonhoeffer was in was extreme, his actions were also dire. It’s back to that extremity of choice idea: are martyrs so compelling because they are so extreme? In the same email to her mother, Rachel explained that she did not think she was an extremist any longer:

“Anyway, I'm rambling. Just want to write to my Mom and tell her that I'm witnessing this chronic, insidious genocide and I'm really scared, and questioning my fundamental belief in the goodness of human nature. This has to stop. I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop. I don't think it's an extremist thing to do anymore. I still really want to dance around to Pat Benatar and have boyfriends and make comics for my coworkers. But I also want this to stop. Disbelief and horror is what I feel. Disappointment. I am disappointed that this is the base reality of our world and that we, in fact, participate in it. This is not at all what I asked for when I came into this world. This is not at all what the people here asked for when they came into this world. This is not the world you and Dad wanted me to come into when you decided to have me. This is not what I meant when I looked at Capital Lake and said: "This is the wide world and I'm coming to it." I did not mean that I was coming into a world where I could live a comfortable life and possibly, with no effort at all, exist in complete unawareness of my participation in genocide. More big explosions somewhere in the distance outside.”

Rachel, unlike Bonhoeffer, was not planning an assassination as a means of ending the “chronic genocide.” But the odds she faced and the dire situation the people of the Gaza Strip were/are in is horrific. While writing to her mother there were explosions going off! I think she is completely justified in her absolute belief that the whole world needs to focus on stopping genocide.

But where?

I’ve been reading a great deal on Libya lately.  The horrific rape of a country and people is overwhelming. Where does it stop? 

I think it’s too late for nonviolent resistance in Libya. Does that mean I don’t believe in the power of nonviolence/Love/Christ/universal ahimsa? Is all that thesis-thinking proved false in the midst of a war with a tyrant like Qaddafi?

Or is it merely too late- too many wrong decisions, too many violent acts turning in on themselves creating an imploding reality bent on destruction because the voices of active, nonviolent resistance were not listened to? What then?

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current jam: "flume" bon iver

best thing in my life right now: bon iver and my mom.

days until departure: 74

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[1] Matthew 5: 38-48 and 10: 16-34