Earl Evleth

3000 is a moderate turn out for a demonstration. 100-1000
would not be enough, 3000 is so-so 10,000 would have
been more impressive, 50,000 stupendous. The top
is the scale is well above 100,000. 3000 is not enough
to swing the legislative steamroller to passing
an anti-scarf law, which has "march of folly"
aspects to it. This is one battle that would
best have been avoided.

Earl

*****






Thousands Protest in Paris Against Muslim Veil Ban

Sun Dec 21,12:57 PM ET

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PARIS (Reuters) - An estimated 3,000 protesters, including many young women
in Muslim headscarves, demonstrated on Sunday against the French
government's plan to ban overt religious symbols in schools.

The proposal, announced by President Jacques Chirac on Wednesday, has been
welcomed by most local religious leaders but has drawn the ire of Muslims at
home and abroad.

The predominantly Muslim demonstrators brandished French identity cards or
the national flag as they marched through central Paris carrying banners
that read "My veil, my voice" or "Veil, cross, kippa, leave us the choice."
The draft law, which the government hopes to submit to parliament in
February, would ban religious symbols such as headscarves, Jewish skullcaps
and large Christian crosses.

Devout Muslims believe women should cover their hair from the view of men
not related to them. Devout Jewish men wear skullcaps, or kippas, as a sign
of constant reverence to God.

Pupils will still be allowed to wear discreet symbols of faith such as
Islamic pendants, the star of David or crosses.

"In France, everyone is allowed to say what they think. Those who are in
favor of this law have spoken, now it's our turn," said Wouassila, one of
the organizers of the march.

Influential Muslim clerics have urged Muslims to use their political and
economic influence over France to fight the draft law, while Syria's top
cleric called on Chirac on Sunday to reconsider the legislation.

Mufti Ahmad Keftarou urged Chriac in a letter "to reconsider backing this
decision to be in harmony with the great history of France...and its
moderate tradition in allowing co-existence between religions, races and
various nationalities."

Jacques Martin, conservative mayor of Nogent-sur-Marne to the east of Paris,
fueled the controversy this week by ordering couples not to wear any
religious, political or other overt symbols during civil wedding ceremonies.

Anti-racism groups said the measure was legally dubious and would only help
to stir up ill-feeling toward Muslims, but Martin dismissed the polemic as a
"storm in a teacup."

"This letter was written years ago and its purpose is to clarify the rules
both for civil servants and engaged couples," he was quoted as saying on
Sunday by the daily Le Parisien.

(Additional reporting by Miral Fahmy and Inal Ersan)

Nhampton

Interesting. Here is a link to an article in the Washington Post about
it. From this article there seems to be little resistance.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2003Dec19.html

Nancy

Earl Evleth <> wrote in message news:<BC0BCB82.2060C%>...
    > 3000 is a moderate turn out for a demonstration. 100-1000
    > would not be enough, 3000 is so-so 10,000 would have
    > been more impressive, 50,000 stupendous. The top
    > is the scale is well above 100,000. 3000 is not enough
    > to swing the legislative steamroller to passing
    > an anti-scarf law, which has "march of folly"
    > aspects to it. This is one battle that would
    > best have been avoided.
    >
    > Earl

Earl Evleth

On 22/12/03 16:08, in article
, "nhampton"
<> wrote:

    > Interesting. Here is a link to an article in the Washington Post about
    > it. From this article there seems to be little resistance.
    > http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2003Dec19.html
    >
    > Nancy


Good article, balanced and gives an overall good view of a complex
situation.

Just over 50% of the Moslem women are for banning the scarves, they feel
hassled at times. Unfortunately there are a lot of males in their
community talking for them and one does not get this balance.

At the demonstration some of the Moslem women were not
wearing scarves, out of solidarity with the women who do. Yet they
got hit with comments about not being "true Moslems". So there is
some totalitarianism on both sides. There is a woman's organization
"ni putes, ni soumises" which is for banning the scarves. I posted
on the split in their own community on this issue.

With regard to Dominique Moisi, whom I have met, he is a first class
analyst of foreign policy and also American issues. He is also Jewish.
His comments are correct but I don`t think Americans might understand
what he means. The concept of the "state" is not that same in
English.

"In France, the citizens of the republic do not belong to communities, they
belong to the republic," said Dominique Moisi, a political analyst and
commentator. In France, unlike in the United States, he said, "the state
created the nation," and communities -- different regions, different ethnic
groups, the Catholic Church -- were all seen as obstacles to that
centuries-long process of centralizing state power.

The very concept of "nationalism" grew out of the French revolution,
and the "isms" which followed in the 19th century.

France began as what I call a totalitarian democracy. If you read the
history of the revolution, the revolutionaries where ideologically
uni-dimensional. There was only one way, to be otherwise was
to be a counter-revolutionary. The concept grew to being French itself.

Being French is a unifying process, a singularity. The language itself
accomplishes much of this fusion with the others.

Almost never is this process forced and to force it misses the point.
The fusion is automatic. I feel it as a naturalized French "person".

If foreigners are not excluded they will fuse. You can see it with
many of the Beurs, they are French when they open their mouths. Even
their body language is French.

By the way, one off putting aspect of the demonstration were all those
men. They were sort of a "guard". There is the aspect of Islamic
totalitarianism too. All of this is bad social chemistry.

Earl