Je vous conseille en particulier la description de la manifestation contre je cite "l'interdiction des symboles d'appartenance religieuse et politiques" (quelle hypocrisie ... ) dans les établissements scolaires devant l'ambassade de France c'est
... d'un côté les integristes les plus réactionnaires avec la plupart des groupes politiques de l'extrême gauche britanique, de l'autre une contre manifestation de quelques militantes et militants féministes d'Iran et d'Irak ! January 8 2004
a écrit :
Jacques Chirac’s Lutte Ouvrière policemen
Sections of the French left, confused by interlocking issues of secularism, women’s rights and freedom of expression, are in disarray over president Jacques Chirac’s plans to scapegoat the oppressed five-million-strong muslim minority.
Incredibly, Lutte Ouvrière, one of France’s two largest Trotskyist groups, has come out in support of rightwing plans to ban the wearing or displaying of “ostensible” religious or political symbols in state schools. This is primarily aimed at the headscarf, or hijab.
However, it is presented as part of a package claiming to defend secularism and the separation of church and state, enacted in 1905 - a claim groups like Lutte Ouvrière seem to have swallowed hook, line and sinker. According to LO, the headscarf should be banned in schools “not only out of respect for secularism, but also, and especially, in defence of women’s rights” (‘Allow women to resist oppression’ Lutte Ouvrière December 19).
Do the comrades really believe that Chirac is dedicated to the promotion of women’s rights - any more than he is a defender of republican secularity? Surely not. Stretching credulity even further, they actually want to claim ‘credit’ for pressurising the establishment into launching its assault on religious and political freedom. The ban on the veil “would undoubtedly not have been possible if teachers had not refused to teach girls wearing the veil, if they had not mobilised to stop it”.
Which “teachers” are they referring to? To their shame, their own members have been in the forefront of a campaign aimed at excluding school students from classes simply because their attire is not to the comrades’ liking. The most notorious case occurred in Aubervilliers, where two sisters, aged 16 and 18, were banned after a long dispute, aggressively promoted by Lutte Ouvrière.
Alma and Lila Lévy suffered months of harassment and discrimination, including a ban on physical education and sport, allegedly “for reasons of hygiene” connected with the hijab they took to wearing a year ago. The school authorities exerted all kinds of pressures, proposing, for example, a ‘compromise’ whereby all teachers would agree to take them if only they would agree to wear the headscarf in such a way as to expose their ears and the roots of their hair!
LO justifies its disgraceful role on the grounds that it is helping young women to free themselves from the male domination, in the family and community, that is symbolised by the hijab, while at the same time striking a blow for secularism. It pretends to believe that every muslim woman who wears the veil is forced to do so and is just waiting for the “help” of ‘teacher knows best’ Lutte Ouvrière members.
The case of the Aubervilliers sisters hardly bears this out. Their mother is a non-practising muslim and their father, Laurent Lévy, is an atheist of Jewish descent. He has made it clear that he does not favour the wearing of the headgear that his daughters have adopted of their own free will, but he has campaigned tirelessly for their right to dress as they choose.
According to Lutte Ouvrière, teachers facing the “problem” of young women like the Lévys, who insist on exercising their individual right to cover their hair, neck and ears, will now be “delighted to have at their disposal a text to support their opposition to the wearing of the veil in school”. The LO writer blithely admits that the proposed law, if passed, “will not by itself end the pressures felt in the family and on the estates by girls”. But it will be a “point of support” for them (and “for their teachers”, of course).
Some support! But Laurent Lévy has an eloquent answer to this philistinism: “The idea that certain teachers could be ‘troubled’ by the sight of my daughters wearing a headscarf could not justify their refusal to teach them. The ‘problem’ is less that of children wearing this garment than of teachers refusing to have them in their class.”
Secularism (which he fully supports) “does not demand the concealment of religious convictions”. In fact what his daughters are suffering, at the hands of oppressive authorities - in cahoots with the ‘revolutionary Marxists’ of Lutte Ouvrière - is purely and simply “discrimination because of their muslim faith”.
Absolutely correct. Only the secularism of fools aims to suppress the right of religious or political expression. On the contrary, the genuine secularism championed by consistent democrats and communists aims to protect citizens from the power of the state to force religion upon them. It aims to empower them, not curtail their right to practise (or not practise) whatever religion they choose.
Genuine secularism bars the official propagation of religion and prohibits acts of religious worship as part of the school curriculum. The teaching of “the fact of religion”, to use the French expression, is perfectly acceptable (although some of our topsy-turvy French comrades, while wholeheartedly backing the Chirac ban, seem to think that the teaching of religion as an academic subject somehow breaches lay principles. Absurdly, Vincent Présumey, writing in the normally sound La Lettre de Liaisons, claims that the exclusion from the ban of the right to wear “discreet”, as opposed to “ostensible”, religious symbols amounts to the back-door “institutionalisation” of religion and the erosion of secularism - December 18).
In fact what the ban will do, far from promoting secularism, is, in the words of Lévy, “call into question the necessary coming together of traditions and cultures in school, and strengthen communitarianism”. Already around one eighth of school students are educated in private schools - 95% of them run by the catholic church. In such institutions, which are generously subsidised by the ‘secular’ French state, backward religious practices are allowed to run riot. No doubt the minority of strictly observant muslims, not to mention the islamic ‘communitarian’ fundamentalists, will be only too pleased to be able to attract more recruits - driven into their arms by the likes of the ultra-economistic Lutte Ouvrière!
Another left grouping which - more understandably, perhaps - has backed what it believes to be a blow against islamism is the Organisation of Women's Freedom in Iraq (set up by the Worker-communist Party of Iraq). Having experienced at first hand the oppressive, anti-women practices of islamists in the Middle East, the comrades have actually written to French prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin to express their “great enthusiasm and pleasure” at the proposed ban on the headscarf:
“Imposing the veil on female children … is the first violation of children’s rights. We are aware that this false debate is not about the rights of girls to choose their clothes; rather it is about child abuse and part of a political agenda to spread and consolidate political islam in the world today” (December 25).
With enemies like these, islamic fundamentalists need no friends. The Chirac ban, and the support it has received from both right and left, plays into their hands. It will be used as proof of an unholy alliance aimed at suppressing islamic practices and the muslim religion itself.
It is of course true that the headscarf is often a symbol of women’s oppression. But women and girls must be won to willingly embrace their own emancipation - which means the right to wear or not wear items of dress that have repressive origins. They must be won to see that the wearing of the hijab is a right, not a duty - and the exercise of rights can be declined as well as taken up.
It is the duty of communists, while standing four-square for genuine secularism and the complete separation of church and state, to champion the democratic right of believers to practise their religion, which includes the right to publicly display religious symbols.
One of the most heartening aspects of this whole affair is the willingness of youth to act in solidarity with those whose rights are denied. It seems that the final straw that led to the exclusion of the Lévy sisters was their participation in a spontaneous demonstration of support by fellow students last year.
Those students were determined to make a stand against the oppressive authorities and the Chirac ban - ably enforced by his Lutte Ouvrière policemen.
Peter Manson
January 15 2004
a écrit :
Letters
French ban
In reply to your request to respond to Peter Manson’s article, let us say first that the general tone of this piece is gratuitously insulting, while its title is intentionally so (‘Jacques Chirac’s Lutte Ouvrière policemen’ Weekly Worker January 8).
No amount of polemics between revolutionaries can justify insults in our book. In view of our past relations, which were reasonably fraternal, we want to believe this to be a slip. But we expect a formal confirmation from you on this particular point.
The many factual mistakes in Peter Manson’s article and the flimsy knowledge of basic social realities on which he bases his abstract reasoning would make a reply far too long to write at a time when we have more important tasks to attend, such as the preparation of three election campaigns on top of our usual organisational work.
So the best thing we can suggest to meet your request is that you translate some of the articles that we have written on this issue (all are available on our internet site:http://www.lutte-ouvriere. org). Then, at least, your readers will be able to judge for themselves rather than being presented with Peter’s own preconceived ideas.
The articles published on the following dates are indicative, but cover more or less the various aspects of the problem and the reasons behind the militant stand we made on this issue (as communists, not as “teachers”, as Peter puts it so naively): September 26 2003; October 10 2003; October 24 2003; December 19 2003.
François Rouleau
Lutte Ouvrière
Scandalous
I agree 100% with your analysis of the scandalous position of Lutte Ouvrière on islamic headscarves. I would add that leading teaching members of the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire voted for the exclusion of the Lévy sisters from their school.
Having defended girls wearing the headscarf at the time of the first attack on them (the ‘Bayrou circular’ of 1994), may I draw your attention to a number of articles in French on this question, now reproduced on our website (http://www.le-militant.org). You will also find there an ‘Open letter to the brothers and sisters of Lutte Ouvrière’.
Raymond Debord
Militant, Paris
No thanks
We thank you for your invitation to speak at your January 18 forum. However, we regret to have to turn it down for political reasons concerning both the subject and format of this event.
Your forum is entitled: ‘Headscarves, secularism and the battle of democracy’. One would have assumed, therefore, that it would be devoted to the attitude that revolutionaries should have towards religion in general and the revival of muslim fundamentalism in Britain in particular - which would be fair enough. However, the blurb contained in the invitation focuses on a totally different issue - namely Chirac’s legislation to ban ostensible religious symbols (not “political” so far, contrary to what you write, although this may well change one of these days) in French state schools and what the left’s attitude to this should be.
This, in our view, makes no sense whatsoever. Since nobody on the French revolutionary left supports Chirac’s legislation; whose attitude to this legislation are you planning to discuss in this forum? More importantly, we find it rather strange that British revolutionaries should be arguing wisely over the attitude that communists should have towards religion in France, when so many left groups in Britain avoid making a clear stand on such issues for fear of upsetting the liberal prejudices of the petty bourgeoisie!
On the format, one has to make a clear choice, which you have failed to do. You want to discuss the attitude of revolutionaries towards a particular issue. But this attitude can only stem from the aim we pursue: ie, the revolutionary transformation of society. Despite this, some of the speakers you invite do not share this aim. As a result, the panel you selected may be adequate for a student debating society, but not for a serious discussion between revolutionaries.
These are the reasons for our decision not to speak at your forum. We must add that we were all the more surprised by your invitation, as it seems to us that a much more pressing issue is being posed to the British left closer to home: namely the Socialist Workers Party’s drive to build a rainbow alliance which aims to involve elements of political islam. Judging from your paper, you seem to be broadly satisfied with the SWP’s initiative whereas, as you probably know from the November issue of our journal, Class Struggle, we have made a clear stand against it.
We would certainly welcome a serious debate on this issue between our organisations, possibly involving other revolutionaries groups and activists.
Anna Hunt
Workers Fight
a écrit :
Secular support for ban
It must be understand that the proposed ban on religious symbols in French state schools is not just a ban on the muslim hijab, although this has excited the most controversy. It is also a ban on the jewish skullcap and “ostentatious” christian crosses.
It must be understood in the context of French history: in particular the long and bitter struggle for a secular, democratic republic which dates back to the revolution of 1789 and takes in the revolution of 1848 and the Paris Commune of 1871. What the ban does is clarify and strengthen the law of 1905 on the separation of church and state. This was the work of the government of Emile Combes, a doctor, radical and freemason, and the Bloc des Gauches. The Radical Party, later the Radical and Socialist Party, was the most democratic and secular wing of republicanism.
French socialism inherited this tradition. The French Socialist Party of Jean Jaurès stood for social transformation, republican defence and the social republic. It was said that there were two Frances. One was democratic, republican and secularist. The other was religious, reactionary and monarchist.
Freemasonry, long at war with the church hierarchy, was a great influence. Masonic banners flew on the walls of Paris in 1871 and French masonry abandoned the Great Architect of the Universe in favour of atheism.
President Chirac has stated in a new year address: “It is not a matter of refounding or changing the boundaries of secularism. It is simply a matter of France staying true to a balance that has been established over decades and reaffirming a principle with respect but also resolutely.” Perhaps Chirac is taking his clue from Robespierre, who said in 1794 that only the fatherland has a right to educate its children. Chirac, of course, is no Robespierre, let alone a Marat or a sans culottes wearing the red cap of liberty and spiking aristocrats with a pike. But to retain a measure of political credibility he has had to place himself in the French republican tradition.
The ban not only has the support of secularists. Many christians and the Union of Jewish Students (France has the largest Jewish population in Europe) support it. Nor is the muslim world entirely united in its opposition to the ban. Sheik Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi, the grand mufti of the Al Azhar mosque in Cairo and a leading expert on sunni islam, has stated that, while muslim women have a religious obligation to wear the hijab, this applies only in muslim countries; and women who obey French law need not fear divine retribution.
A number of French women of muslim origin have signed a statement supporting the ban and defending the right of 1.7 million muslim French women not to wear the hijab. These include Loubna Meliane, a spokesperson for SOS Racisme; Fadela Amra, a leader of Ni Putes Ni Soumises; the actress Isabelle Adjani; and Chahdott Djavann, author of A bas le voile (Down with the veil).
They argue that the hijab condemns women to intolerable discrimination which denies them freedom and dignity. They demand that Chirac unreservedly supports secularism and equality between the sexes.
The hijab is clearly a symbol of oppression based on the absurd idea that the sight of female hair would lead men into the type of temptation allegedly suffered by the biblical Adam. This supposed temptation has served as the excuse for the oppression of women in all the religions of the book. The skullcap and the cross are also symbols of oppression. The skullcap symbolises the oppression of the Hebrews by the Levite priesthood of Judea. The tribe of Levi got to be priests for slaughtering the worshippers of the golden calf after Moses got back from receiving the law from Yahweh on Mount Horeb. The cross was a Roman instrument of execution on which Yeshua bar Yosif, if he ever existed, was done to death. The only educational value they have is as means to teach people the oppressive nature of religion.
If religion is a private matter, then its proper place is in private - in the home or the place of worship, not in the schools of a secular state. However, religion is not entirely a private matter. It is a question of what role it plays in class society. By promising the masses a reward in a mythical afterlife, religion serves the ruling class by keeping them passive in this life. If they get out of line they are threatened with eternal hellfire and damnation. When the church held power, hellfire was made all too real by the pyres of the inquisition. Women regarded as witches and heretics, atheists included, were condemned. St Paul’s injunction to be of one mind found its realisation in the executions by fire of Mary Tudor.
Socialism is nothing if it is not materialist science. As such it demands an intransigent and unyielding struggle against superstition, obscurantism and idealism of all sorts. This was the struggle waged by British socialists such as Guy Alred, John Gott and FA Ridley and in the USSR by the Society of the Militant Godless who sought to free the minds of the Soviet masses from the feudal ideological grip of orthodox christianity. Anything which weakens the influence of religion in society and the power of the clergy over their flocks is to be welcomed, not opposed on the basis of a spurious libertarianism. Socialism does not mean anyone can do what they like. It means the rule of laws made by the victorious working class in its own interests and those of society as a whole. Those who choose to defy these laws must suffer the consequences.
In 1905, the year the French laws on separation of church and state were being enacted, Rosa Luxemburg wrote in Socialism and the churches: “… from the moment the priests use the pulpit as a means of struggle against the working class, the workers must fight against the enemies of their rights and liberation. For he who defends the exploiters and helps to prolong this present regime of misery is the mortal enemy of the proletariat, whether he be in a cassock or the uniform of the police.” This is a lesson today’s socialists need to take to heart and act upon.
It is the clergy who are the flics and mouches of capitalism, not the comrades of Lutte Ouvrière. To call comrades who fought bravely on the barricades of 1968 “Jacques Chirac’s policemen” is not polemic: it is an insult unworthy of comrade Manson (Weekly Worker January 8).
Society may have progressed beyond the point where it was necessary to strangle priests with the guts of kings. But socialists still have the task of driving gods from the skies and capitalists from the earth. When the hijab, the skullcap and the cross and all symbols of religious oppression are consigned to the flames, and the Sepher Torah - on which judaism, christianity and islam are based - is consigned to the attentions of worms and mice, only then will humanity be happy; only then will it be free.
Terry Liddle
Socialist Secular Association
a écrit :
Two sides of same repression
In response to Peter Manson’s article I would like to add a few comments (‘Jacques Chirac’s Lutte Ouvrière policemen’ Weekly Worker January 8).
I believe that no one calling themselves left can support the ban on islamic or other religious manifestations for the following reasons:
1. We on the left must support political freedoms without any ifs and buts. Freedom is indivisible, even where the act may be contrary to one’s own beliefs. Freedom can only be curtailed where it interferes with the rights and freedoms of others. Clearly the hijab - or cross or skullcap - does not come under this category.
2. While undoubtedly the hijab is often enforced on the girls, banning it in state schools will only help drive the coercers into segregating the girls into private religious schools, which will strengthen the hand of the fundamentalists: that is, these young women will be removed from an environment in which they could become empowered to resist religious coercion.
3. The relinquishing of outdated and inherently oppressive customs is only possible through a conscious process of rejection, which can only come out of an open confrontation. It can not be achieved through some ‘enlightened despotism’, which is precisely what has been enacted in France.
4. The law passed in France is fundamentally analogous to laws passed by repressive ‘islamist’ regimes in Saudi Arabia and Iran which ban the absence of the hijab. Both belong to a totalitarian mentality, where the state knows what is best for the individual - and enforces it with a whip. No wonder the reactionary clerics in Al Azhar university have welcomed the move. It vindicates their own policy of enforcing the hijab. The enforced wearing of the hijab and the enforced ‘de-hijabing’ are two sides of the same reactionary and undemocratic coin.
5. The left fighting for a secular society must fight for the total right of individuals to dress as and how they like. This is a fundamental human right where the boundary of the individual and the state is sharply demarcated.
6. The left must also fight for the right of the individuals to hold, or not to hold, whatever religious beliefs they have, while at the same time relentlessly fighting against all forms of superstition - of which religion is in the forefront.
This is a battle of ideas which is muddied by muddled thinking in response to ‘state knows best’ coercive legislation, one example of which we are seeing in France. We need to resist the totalitarian right by confronting the totalitarian left - even those with good intentions.
Mehdi Kia
co-editor Iran Bulletin-Middle East Forum
a écrit :
Unsure what to think
Alliance for Workers’ Liberty sits on the fence
“Tous ensemble” (all together). French president Jacques Chirac appropriated the slogan of the trade union movement to end his speech about the Stasi commission on the separation of church and state. He has taken to using that slogan.
The commission of 20 ‘wise men’ headed by former minister Bernard Stasi was appointed in July 2003 and reported just before Christmas. Chirac pronounced himself in favour of the commission’s main proposal: to ban the wearing in schools and colleges of conspicuous symbols of religious or political allegiance.
Ostensibly this measure aims at ending confusion about the existing legal situation: currently schools can choose whether they interpret a law of 1905 separating state education from the church to support exclusions of pupils from school who persist in wearing religious symbols. In recent years, this has affected only a handful of young women wearing the muslim headscarf.
The original law might have been intended to apply only to the providers of education, not its consumers. Of course, the 1905 law and other legislation was passed to separate the state from a catholic church, then very powerful. Chirac claims that the new law is about no privileges for - or, he says, discrimination against - any one religion in a society where there are many faiths and many people of no faith.
Different also from 1905, women and men are equal in the republic. Chirac’s speech hinted - and only hinted, not said explicitly - that the aim of a proposed ban is to help liberate muslim women from restrictions on their dress and movements.
Will the legislation help to forge the harmony that Chirac claimed it is for? That looks unlikely. The proposed law is seen by many - and by most French muslims - as a piece of discriminatory legislation adversely affecting their faith before all the others, and moreover is intended as such.
Why this now? Chirac’s speech was heavy with praise for French republican traditions, and warned darkly but vaguely of tensions created by globalisation and the rise of fundamentalisms throughout the world that are forcing different cultural groups in on themselves. “Communalism is not an option for France,” he said.
He promised at the same time to combat the racism and discrimination, the social deprivation that might (he was vague here too) cause young people of immigrant communities to pooh-pooh the idea of their great common French heritage and the ‘republican pact’.
Does he mean it? Of course he does not! And in his speech there was no acknowledgement of the republic’s less than glorious heritage of oppressing colonies.
Leftwingers in France are divided about the issue of a ban on religious symbols. You will hardly find anyone to defend the idea that the headscarf is somehow liberating for young women. One of the main far-left groups, the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire, has supported the few exclusions of muslim girls from schools for wearing a headscarf where negotiation and compromise have failed. But it opposes the law.
The other main far-left group, Lutte Ouvrière, is more cautious - not supporting the proposed law but saying it could be “a point of support for all those girls who want to resist the sexist pressures they suffer”.
Many groups central to the fight against the headscarf and for the rights of women, especially in muslim communities - groups such as Ni Putes Ni Soumises - support a headscarf ban.
The main federation of teachers’ unions is against. Gerard Aschieri, general secretary of the Fédération Syndicale Unitaire, which organises teachers at all levels, said that such legislation would not get to the bottom of the problem: “It is manifestly a political manoeuvre to show the government doing something. It’s easier to produce a text than carry out a real policy against exclusion and an education policy that carries on the struggle for secularism.”
It is indeed hard to take seriously the government’s claim to be the champions of secularism. This is a government that subsidises the pupils of private, including faith, schools; they receive more public money per head than state school pupils. Will that anomaly be tackled in legislation?
Whatever we think of the possible law, it will be once more one law for the rich and another for the rest. Those are the limits of Chirac’s “tous ensemble”.
Vicki Morris
(from Solidarity January 9)
a écrit :
Counterdemonstration
On January 17, islamists have called for demonstration in London to protest the French government’s decision to introduce a law banning conspicuous religious symbols in state schools and state institutions. They claim this ban is discriminatory, against women’s equal rights, violates women’s and girl’s rights to education and work, restricts religious freedom and is even anti-pluralism and secularism.
All these claims are false and in fact a mockery of the very principles they feign to defend. Ironically, the very islamic movement that is renowned for intimidating, terrorising and violating women and girls and their rights, is using norms that are antithetical to its belief system and practice in order to maintain its repressive laws and clothing on women and girls.
Clearly, religion, religious symbols and religious freedoms are private affairs not the affairs of a state. In fact states are duty-bound to ensure that all religious symbols be abolished from state-run institutions and schools. This is an important aspect of secularism and not vice versa. Also, contrary to claims that it is discriminatory, the ban in fact reverses the discriminatory effects of religion on women and girls. Moreover, maintaining secularism has nothing to do with racism. It is in fact racist to create different laws for religious and islamic communities in the west and obstruct the access of women and girls in particular to the advances of civilised societies. Finally, protecting girls from the veil goes beyond issues relating to secularism and addresses the rights of the child from having religious views and clothing imposed on her by her parents through no choice of her own.
The Organisation of Women’s Liberation-Iran and the Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq are confident that the proposed law by the French government is a step towards establishing a secular society. Secularism is one precondition for a free society and women’s equality. The enforcement of this ban will be a first step towards this though it must be extended to include the banning of religious schools and the prohibition of child veiling. We must not allow religious extremism and political islam to spread the rule of religion in society by means of intimidation, blackmail and threats. Religion must be relegated to a private matter. Religion must be separated from the state and educational system.
We invite all freedom-loving individuals and organisations to join us in counter-demonstrations on the same day in several countries, including England, Germany, Sweden and Norway.
Organisation of Women’s Liberation-Iran
Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq
January 22 2004
a écrit :
Letters
Headscarves
Having heard of Lutte Ouvrière’s position on the wearing of the islamic scarf by schoolgirls, I was not entirely surprised by the facts described in Peter Manson’s article - though I’m grateful to him for bringing out the details of the Lévy sisters’ case, and the nasty implications of supporting Chirac’s legislation (Weekly Worker January 8).
For the French imperialist state to lay down the law on what pupils can wear, and teachers should enforce, and this to be greeted as a step to “freedom”, is surely Orwellian! If Lutte Ouvrière members in the teaching profession are really welcoming and implementing such bans, then calling them Chirac’s “policemen” is no more than fair comment.
But what’s this? Lutte Ouvrière says it has been misrepresented, that the article’s “tone” is “insulting”, and that it is full of “factual mistakes” (Letters, January 15). Well, not taking everything I read in the Weekly Worker as holy writ (!), I’d have been grateful for them putting the record straight. But apparently they ‘have not got time’, because they are preparing for elections. (I hope they will find time to answer questions from voters in the banlieus, or will they leave it to their left partners?) What’s more - it seems their UK franchise, Workers Fight, has not got time either. Rather than take the opportunity to discuss what attitude socialists should take on this issue, Anna Hunt says we should not concern ourselves with events abroad, when the Socialist Workers Party is trying to pursue ties with “political islam”. This is the old discredited game of avoiding a serious issue by pointing at something else.
The issue of what attitude socialists should take to religion and the state is a bit bigger, and rightly interests far more people, than what this or that leftwing group is up to. It concerns us in Britain or Ireland as much as in Israel, France or Iraq. And, believe it or not, we are quite capable of opposing islamic, or any other variety of reaction, without trusting ‘liberation’ to the bourgeois state, or abandoning the defence of minorities and against state repression and racism.
It is ridiculous for the SWP to tail behind the Muslim Association of Britain, even reputedly urging its own members to don the headscarf; but it would be a shame if the defence of minority rights and youngsters like the Lévy sisters was left to religious leaders, who want to use the issue to defend not freedom, but their own authority. For ‘revolutionaries’ to accept, let alone uphold, repressive bans can only hand young muslims (and other communities affected) back to religious leaders - and it also raises suspicions about the left’s own accommodation to prejudices. I imagine a young woman looking in anguish from religious tyranny to state oppression, and asking, ‘Is that all there is?’ Surely socialism must be able to offer an alternative - one of truly human freedom.
We should oppose the French government’s ban and the adoption of sharia law in Iraq. There’s no contradiction there: only consistency. Some women comrades have recalled a past and still valid slogan, ‘Not the church and not the state! Women must decide their fate!’
Charlie Pottins
Authoritarian
In his fire-and-brimstone article supporting Jacques Chirac’s proposed ban on the wearing of “ostentatious” religious symbols, comrade Terry Liddle manifests a disquietingly authoritarian irreligiosity (‘Secular support for ban’ Weekly Worker January 15).
According to Terry, by proposing a state crackdown on what school students are allowed to wear, the current citizen number one, Chirac, is placing himself “in the French republican tradition” - even if, regrettably, he is “no Robespierre”. Inspired by France, it seems, comrade Liddle fervently looks forward to the day when “the hijab, the skullcap and the cross, and all symbols of religious oppression, are consigned to the flames” and all the great religious texts and scriptures are “consigned to the attentions of worms and mice”.
This is not the right approach. Leaving aside the lurking philistinism and reductionist atheology of such comments, comrade Liddle displays a woeful misunderstanding of secularism. Yet from the standpoint of Marxism this is a relatively straightforward issue - at least from the general theoretical-philosophical point of view.
Secularism, for democrats, means the strict separation of church and state - that is, the state and its institutions must not be permitted to promote, privilege or favour any religious faith or doctrine - thus, obviously, any form of religious worship or instruction is prohibited, and school and college buildings are not allowed to display religious symbols, “ostentatious” or otherwise (though it goes without saying that the overall question of religion - its historical origins, cultural significance, etc - will, and indeed must be, rigorously examined and discussed, without fear of censure, pedagogical disapproval or offending ‘multicultural’ sensibilities). However, what the individuals who attend these institutions choose to wear, for whatever reason, is entirely up to them - or should be.
For me this is just ‘classical’ or ‘orthodox’ Marxism - hardly rocket science. But for comrade Liddle, and presumably the comrades from Lutte Ouvrière (and the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire?), it is “spurious libertarianism” and must be combated.
So what is Terry’s non-spurious approach? Well, like any vigilant state bureaucrat, or high priest, Terry knows what is best for you - and what is really, really bad. Hence the hijab, skullcap and cross (sikh turban? buddhist robe?) are “symbols of oppression” - pure and simple. No namby-pamby stuff from Terry about the complexities of human nature, with all its conflicting and overlapping cultural identities and mediations. Comrade Liddle will force you to be free. Therefore, “Anything which weakens the influence of religion in society and the power of the clergy over their flocks is to be welcomed” (my emphasis).
Given Terry’s opening remarks, we have to assume that “anything” includes the banning of the hijab, etc, by a rightwing and corrupt monarchical French president, which would turn all French teachers into part-time gendarmes whose function is to police the classroom and decide which pupil is wearing “ostentatious” religious clothing/artefacts and which is not - and what happens to those who have the cheek to actually voice “ostentatious” religious beliefs and values? Watch this space.
In this context, it is informative that comrade Liddle singles out the Society (or League) of Militant Godless, founded in April 1925 in the Soviet Union, for special praise - on the grounds, as Terry puts it, that it “sought to free the minds of the Soviet masses from the feudal ideological grip of orthodox christianity”. Oh yes? In his comprehensive study of the League of Militant Godless (or Atheists), Daniel Peris notes that the League ultimately became little more than an ancillary weapon in the broader battle for enforced collectivisation and industrialisation, a bureaucratic channel for the Stalinite dictatorship, with the result that “by the mid-1930s there was, in effect, little that was atheistic in Soviet anti-religion” (D Peris Storming the heavens: the Soviet League of the Militant Godless New York 1998, p115).
Is Terry really serious in looking towards the League of Militant Godless, maybe even the Soviet Union itself, as a ‘secular’ role model for socialists and communists in the 21st century? Or perhaps he would prefer an Enver Hoxha-style atheocracy - which saw the Albanian masses ‘officially’ liberated from the influence of religion. Luckily, comrade Liddle can still avail himself of the opportunity to visit North Korea, where I am sure that there is not a hijab, skullcap or cross in sight and all superstition is surely banished - so the masses there must be happy and free, if we are to follow Terry’s idealised logic.
In his polemics against Bakunin on the peasantry, Marx warned against treating “atheism as dogma”. Unfortunately, comrade Liddle has not heeded this advice - you get the impression that he is a materialist because he is an atheist, not an atheist because he is a materialist.
Means determine ends and ends determine means, as Marx consistently stressed throughout his political life. It can never be said too often: socialism is the winning of the battle for democracy, not how many ‘atheist drives’ you can launch or the passing of anti-democratic pseudo-secular laws.
Eddie Ford
Cornwall
a écrit :
Secularism
Hijab: the protests ...
On Saturday January 17, a bewildering series of political contradictions were played out outside the French embassy in London.
The setting was chosen by the Muslim Association of Britain, which had organised a protest against the proposed French ban on students displaying symbols of religious or political affiliation while at school. Nominally, the ban is designed to defend the principle of secular education, and applies equally to the kipa (or yarmulka or skullcap) worn by jews, the christian cross, and all other ideologically distinguishing clothing. The greatest immediate effect, though, will be felt by the large French muslim population: and the French government seems content that the suppression of the hijab, or veil worn by muslim women, is seen as their main target. President Chirac’s aim is simple populism: gathering support through the demonisation of a minority, and all in the name of freedom.
From 11am, therefore, perhaps 1,000 protestors assembled across the road from the French tricolour. The Communist Party of Great Britain was one of a handful of left groups represented, along with the International Socialist Group, the Socialist Workers Party, and the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty (though the AWL leaflet did not take a position for or against the ban being protested). However, MAB banners dominated, and their speakers and slogans characterised the event.
The justice of the protest seemed to me then, as it does now, clear. Communists are secularists: we believe that no state, bourgeois or socialist, should promote religion or have connections with any church. We consider religious belief a matter for the individual, and defend the right to hold or practise a faith, providing it does not infringe the rights of others.
We also defend the rights of the young, who face particular oppression by both their families and the state. Progression from helpless infancy to adulthood is a classic dialectical process, of quantitative change punctuated by qualitative leaps, but at no point in their lives is a human being without rights. The proper desire to protect the young must not become an excuse for oppression, and indeed the best protection they can acquire is a confidence in their own minds and the ownership of their own lives and bodies. My teenage self, wearing the hammer and sickle on my school uniform and asserting my views against the opposition and catholicism of both my family and my school, bristled at the idea that I would have been forced to remove such a symbol under the French law.
The main speaker was George Galloway. In a short address, he called upon people to oppose the ban, “whatever their religion, whatever their political views”. He made no call on the Labour movement, or even for political organisation through Respect, but simply stood in solidarity with “the muslims of Britain, of France, and around the world”.
However just their nominal cause, there was no question that the methods and aims of the MAB were deeply reactionary. They began by segregating their protestors by sex. I and other CPGB comrades had to argue with male MAB stewards who attempted to prevent us approaching female protestors. Slogans like “protect our modesty” chanted by women covered so completely that only their eyes were visible eloquently testified to a dark and unhealthy attitude to women and femininity. We were there to protest against an undemocratic law, and to talk with individual muslims, but the MAB was afraid.
At 2pm a march organised by Hizb ut-Tahrir from Marble Arch reached the embassy. This group describes itself explicitly as a political party based on the ideology of islam, and campaigns to abolish democracy and secular society and re-establish the caliphate. Banners carrying the slogan ‘Secularism has failed’ represented the politics being offered to those young muslims the left fails to reach.
In fact, some of our friends and comrades were across the road, staging a counter-demonstration. The Organisation of Women’s Liberation for Iran and the Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq had assembled a small group (including members of the Worker-communist Party of Iraq), of perhaps 50, in what they saw as a defence of secularism.
I crossed the road to speak with them, and talked to Sohaila Sharifi. She was keen to emphasise the true nature of the hijab: “The headscarf is not just an item of clothing; it is a religious and political symbol of the oppression of women. Political islam is already oppressing women in the Middle East, and is now seeking to do so in Europe.”
But, while we opposed political islam, should we not also defend the freedom of young people to make up their own minds? “Even now, you can’t just wear what you want at school. You couldn’t go in dressed, for instance, in a bikini: there have to be rules. We are talking about children: we must protect them from propaganda.” Should this protection extend to banning political symbols, like my old communist badges? “Yes. Or conservative ones, or liberal. Adults can wear what they like, but these things have no place in school.”
The theme of the protection of children was continued at a press conference called by the OFWI later that afternoon. Speaking were Nadia Mahmood and Houzan Mahmoud. I asked if school students should not enjoy the right to dress as they wished. Nadia replied: “Religion is a private matter. We think people should be free to practise their religion. But political islam is not just a religion. France has been a secular state for 100 years and political islam is trying to impose itself against secularism. The French are talking about the schools, but we are not: we are against the veil being imposed on girls anywhere. It stops them living freely. It stops them having a normal life. They are being abused by their families who force them to wear the veil.”
Though the OFWI demonstration had been prompted by that of the MAB, the comrades were keen that the press conference should not be dominated by discussion of the French ban. Houzan acknowledged that the subject was important, but asked us to focus on the question of the imposition of sharia law, and the oppression of women, in Iraq.
They explained that with the complicity of the US occupiers, political islamists had been quick to seize the opportunity afforded by the defeat of Saddam Hussein, and his dictatorial but largely secular regime, to drag the country into fundamentalism. Women were already being denied access to schools and universities if they did not wear the hijab. The rape of women who were either ex-Ba’athists or seen as collaborators with the US occupiers was widespread: male collaborators, said Nadia, rarely faced sanctions. Most dreadfully of all, women raped in this way then faced the danger of being murdered by their own families in ‘honour killings’, as suffering the crime committed against them was taken as a sign of shame.
The brutality of the war being fought for the future of Iraq was never clearer. Secular and democratic forces face a vicious, daily battle with political islam, not only to shape the country in the future, but to defend human rights now. The passion with which Nadia and Houzan spoke was clear and understandable. They were not soft on the occupation, but they believed that by blindly chanting ‘anti-imperialism’ the British left was going soft on political islam. We were warned not to forget that while the islamists might oppose the US and the occupation, they also despised socialists and human freedom. This thought was echoed by a number of other speakers.
It became clear that the attitude of some to the ‘left’ was actually a response to the politics of the Socialist Workers Party. Given the relative size of the SWP within the left, this was perhaps understandable, but only Houzan made the distinction between them and other socialists, saying: “The SWP is a different matter. They are gone, out of control. They are not on the left any more.”
The SWP leadership has certainly been unprincipled in its attempts to accommodate the politics of the MAB, both in the abortive ‘peace and justice’ project, and through Respect. Their call not to treat the rights of women and gays as “shibboleths”, but rather to allow them to be glossed over in order to permit alliance with political islam, warrants the suspicion with which they are now viewed. My own feeling is that the SWP contains many sincere socialists who will also be extremely uncomfortable with their leadership’s opportunist manoeuvres, and with whom we must therefore engage through Respect. But our aim must be criticism, not complicity.
In fact, both the OFWI and the SWP may be falling into the same trap: believing that their enemy’s enemy is their friend.
Rather than being a blow against political islam, the ban on the hijab is a gift to groups like the MAB and Hizb ut-Tahrir, who will organise enthusiastically against it and undoubtedly gather some support in the process. However, even if it has angered some islamist patriarchs, that does not mean we should support it. Freedom is not won through state bans on ideologies we find reactionary, but through struggle and solidarity. The French student who wears her veil because she is forced to by her family does not become free when she removes it because she is forced to by the state - and we stand with her against either compulsion.
But the OFWI is right to point out that the British left, largely through the politics of the SWP and George Galloway, is falling into the same trap. We are enemies of US imperialism, and so are the political islamists. However, that does not make them our friends, and should not lead us into political alliance and compromise with them.
Though we are critical, the OFWI still deserves the support of all socialists for its political opposition to the oppression of women through the imposition of sharia law in Iraq.