Veiled in the final.docx
The debate over the legal ban on headscarves in educational institutions in Turkey and France brings into relief the contours of the nexus between the State, the law and religion. It is significant that it is the classroom that has emerged as the battleground between the sacred and the secular, the public and the private and the individual and the collective. India, another officially secular state, has not imposed a ban on head covering in educational institutions, but it has not been untouched by similar issues. The discourse on the veil proves to be trickier when one acknowledges the challenges posed by the contradiction between the rise of fundamentalist Islam and increasingly intricate global connections and networks. The second part of the paper will lay the groundwork by providing a background of the headscarf debate in the three countries. The third part of the paper will be devoted to a comparative analysis between the convergences and divergences in the nature of the secular in the three countries. In this context, it becomes important to examine how collective norms are formed and sustained, how they are rationalized, and how they are affected by economic, political, historical, social and legal changes. The researcher will conduct the examination of such norms within the collective conscience framework offered by Durkheim and the legal rationalization framework offered by Weber.The fourth part of the paper will address the issue of the classroom as a public space, and look at how the education systems of the countries react to the demands imposed by liberalism and democracy. Such an evaluation will lead us to a defence of the freedom of religious expression in the classroom. Conceptually and contextually, the researcher’s endeavour will locate the debate in a sociology of law perspective. As a consequence, the focus will be on the emergence and impact of different legal norms, and the societal concerns that shape them. The lack of reliable empirical data has served to limit the analysis to mostly theoretical considerations. Also, here it becomes necessary to mention that the frameworks of the classical sociologists are far more nuanced than they are presented to be in this paper. The researcher has taken the liberty to simplify the models for the sake of conceptual clarity and to apply them to the contemporary debate with respect to the headscarf.
Content
NATIONAL LAW SCHOOL OF INDIA UNIVERSITY
Sociology II- Project
VEILED IN THE CLASSROOM: HEADSCARVES, EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS AND SECULARISM IN INDIA, TURKEY AND FRANCE
Submitted on April 16, 2012
(With a 6-day extension)
Ghanashyam Devanand Id no. 1887. First year, B.A. LL.B. (Hons.)
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 3 Background ..................................................................................................................................... 5 The secularization of society and the nature of the secular—A Durkheimian and Weberian perspective ...................................................................................................................................... 7 The dilemma of the modern secular state: The Durkheimian view ................................................ 8 The classroom as public space—towards reconciliation of religious expression in educational institutions ..................................................................................................................................... 11 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 14 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................. 16
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INTRODUCTION
The debate over the legal ban on headscarves1 in educational institutions in Turkey and France brings into relief the contours of the nexus between the State, the law and religion. It is significant that it is the classroom that has emerged as the battleground between the sacred and the secular, the public and the private and the individual and the collective. India, another officially secular state, has not imposed a ban on head covering in educational institutions, but it has not been untouched by similar issues. The discourse on the veil proves to be trickier when one acknowledges the challenges posed by the contradiction between the rise of fundamentalist Islam and increasingly intricate global connections and networks. The second part of the paper will lay the groundwork by providing a background of the headscarf debate in the three countries. The third part of the paper will be devoted to a comparative analysis between the convergences and divergences in the nature of the secular in the three countries. In this context, it becomes important to examine how collective norms are formed and sustained, how they are rationalized, and how they are affected by economic, political, historical, social and legal changes. The researcher will conduct the examination of such norms within the collective conscience framework offered by Durkheim and the legal rationalization framework offered by Weber. The fourth part of the paper will address the issue of the classroom as a public space, and look at how the education systems of the countries react to the demands imposed by liberalism and democracy. Such an evaluation will lead us to a defence of the freedom of religious expression in the classroom.
1
The term headscarf and veil has been used interchangeably throughout the paper. In Turkey and France, the
debate is over the headscarf or hijab—a piece of clothing that covers the top of a woman‟s head and her hair. On the other hand, in India, Muslim women generally wear a face-veil, though the use of only the hijab is not unpopular. The hijab and the face-veil both come to symbolize the religious identity of a Muslim woman, and it is in this context that the terms have been used throughout this paper.
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Conceptually and contextually, the researcher‟s endeavour will locate the debate in a sociology of law perspective. As a consequence, the focus will be on the emergence and impact of different legal norms, and the societal concerns that shape them. The lack of reliable empirical data has served to limit the analysis to mostly theoretical considerations. Also, here it becomes necessary to mention that the frameworks of the classical sociologists are far more nuanced than they are presented to be in this paper. The researcher has taken the liberty to simplify the models for the sake of conceptual clarity and to apply them to the contemporary debate with respect to the headscarf.
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BACKGROUND
In the fall of 1989, three North African immigrant women were suspended from a French secondary school after they insisted on wearing headscarves in class. The refusal to remove the headscarves was seen as a threat to the French national policy of secularism in schools. 2 The incident gained widespread publicity in the media, and excited responses both in favour of and against the school authorities. In 1993, a similar incident took place in Nantua.3 The Ministry of Education responded by issuing several circulars that emphasized the importance of resolving the conflicts on a case-to-case basis.4 This arrangement proved to be administratively and legally treacherous, leaving great scope for arbitrariness. Acting on the recommendation of a commission set up to explore all complex issues relating to secularism, the French Parliament passed a law banning the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols in French public schools in 2004.5 The Muslim hijab was formally banned under this law. Efforts were made to present the law as neutral and not being specifically aimed at Muslims.6 Turkey has been a secular state ever since its inception. The Turkish Constitution of 1924 and the reforms of Kemal Ataturk established Turkey as a secular state, despite its Islamic majority.7 The ban was applied to not only educational institutions but it covered all those women working in state premises, including law courts and the legislatures. The headscarf controversy came into the public limelight once again when the Turkish Parliament passed an amendment to the Constitution in February 2008 which allowed women to wear the headscarf in universities.8 But in a final twist to the tale, the Turkish Constitutional Court annulled the amendment, ruling that
2
Wiles, Ellen. Headscarves, Human Rights, and Harmonious Multicultural Society: Implications of the French Ban for Interpretations of Equality. 30 August 2007. http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118502892/abstract (accessed May 23, 2010). 3 Moruzzi, Norma Claire. “A Problem with Headscarves: Contemporary Complexities of Political and Social Identity.” Political Theory 22, no. 4 (November 1994): 653 -672. 4 Id. 5 Supra note 2. 6 Judge, Harry. “The Muslim Headscarf and French Schools.” American Journal of Education 111, no. 1 (November 2004): 1-24. 7 Yilmaz, Ihsan. “Non-Recognition of Post-Modern Turkish Socio-Legal Reality and the Predicament of Women.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 30, no. 1 (May 2003): 25-41. 8 The Islamic veil across Europe. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5414098.stm (accessed May 18, 2010).
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the ban was against the founding principles of the constitution. The decision of the court cannot be appealed.9 The Preamble of the Indian Constitution declares it to be secular. Currently, there is no law in India banning the veil in educational institutions. Yet, there has been considerable debate about the female head-dress even in India. Reports of a female Muslim student being barred from wearing a scarf to a Kerala CBSE school have emerged as recently as in the first week of May.10 The report of the Sachar Committee, which looked into the social, economic and educational status of Muslims in India, records that the sight of the burqa and the hijab often sparks off discrimination against Muslim women.11
9
Court annuls Turkish scarf reform . 5 June 2008. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7438348.stm (accessed May 18, 2010). 10 Punnekat, Achyuth. Student barred from wearing burqa in school. 5 May 2010. http://ibnlive.in.com/news/student-barred-from-wearing-burqa-in-school/114622-3.html (accessed May 18, 2010). 11 Prime Minister's High Level Committee for Preparation of Report on Social, Economic and Educational Status of the Muslim Community of India, Social, Economic and Educational Status of Muslims in India (New Delhi: Government of India, 2006) at 12.
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THE SECULARIZATION OF SOCIETY AND THE NATURE OF THE SECULAR—A DURKHEIMIAN AND WEBERIAN PERSPECTIVE
Sommerville noted that treating secularization as a decline of religion is hardly meaningful. Secularization means different things when used in different contexts. Sommerville‟s distinction of „secularization of society‟ and „secularization of the population‟ is of concern to us. „Secularization of society‟ does not imply that members of a society are characterized b y a neglect of religious habits or convictions. That would be „secularization of the population.‟ The „secularization of society‟ would mean that the rules under which such a society operates are recognized as being of a different character from the religious beliefs held by the population. We can say that these differentiations will “necessarily entail some loss of religion's power or authority, since it must share authority with the other institutions resulting from this differentiation”.12 Applying these definitions, the separation of the State and the Church will be seen as „secularization of society‟ but not necessarily as the „secularization of the population.‟ Then, the State has more control over the „secularization of society‟ rather than the „secularization of the population‟. Law emerges as an instrument that the State uses to secularize society. It would be interesting to note the extent to which laws designed to secularize society, such as the French law banning ostentatious religious symbols in schools, affect the „secularization of the population.‟ The researcher thinks that they do not make too much of an impact on the „secularization of the population‟. For instance, Muslims in France will not reject their religious obligations and values as a result of such a law. In Turkey, it has been observed that “the place and influence of Islam in social life have not changed a great deal” despite the adamant secularization ideology of the State.13 In fact, the degree of „secularization of society‟ may be inversely related to the degree of „secularization of the population‟. Admittedly, this can only be verified by empirical studies of the religious beliefs of the population. The lack of such reliable empirical research is one of the limitations that this paper faces.
12
Sommerville, C. John. “Secular Society/Religious Population: Our Tacit Rules for Using the Term 'Secularization'.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 37, no. 2 (June 1998): 249-253. 13 Supra note 7
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THE DILEMMA OF THE MODERN SECULAR STATE: THE DURKHEIMIAN VIEW
Durkheim‟s analysis of the collective conscience formed the basis for his theory on social solidarity. In primitive societies, religion was the expression of the collective conscience. In modern societies, however, the division of labour created complications. The splitting of allegiances meant that religion could no longer be the sole guarantor of social solidarity. Modern societies saw the growth of a separate national consciousness. The state‟s ability to construct an emotional attachment to the national heritage provides the framework for the moral authority of law and a sound secular morality, seen as the condition of national health. Durkheim implies that for the citizens of the state to accept this secular morality, the state should “ensure representation of a national past that glorifies abstract values, not values of particular groups”.14 Durkheim was well aware of the contradiction of the modern state. For him, the value of the individual was at the centre of the modern collective conscience. Nevertheless, he believed that demands for individual liberty cannot justify attempts to undermine national unity and solidarity.15 It is this contradiction that is at the heart of the debate over the headscarf. The social, political, economic, legal culture of a nation is intricately tied to the construction of a national identity. For instance, to be French is to bear a firm commitment to liberté, égalité, fraternité (liberty, equality, fraternity).16 The Turkish sense of national identity is deeply rooted in Kemalism, or the
principles of Kemal Ataturk, founding father of the Turkish nation. The Kemalist Republic constructed national identity by imposing the Turkish language, and “creating a new culture cut off from its Muslim roots”.17 In India, the question of national identity is much more complex. The existence of a plurality of religions, cultures and languages and the fact the India is still a young nation reduces the scope for common denominators. This takes us to the question of the nature of the secular in each of the three countries, and how it has impacted the norms relating to veils.
14 15
Misztal, Barbara. “Durkheim on Collective Memory.” Journal of Classical Sociology 3, no. 2 (2003): 125 -143. Id 16 For a discussion on the unique nature of French identity, see (Judge 2004) 17 Rouleau, Eric. “Turkey: Beyond Atatürk.” Foreign Policy, no. 103 (Summer 1996): 70 -87. Ruet, Joël. “Veiled in France.” Economic and Political Weekly 39, no. 17 (April 2004): 1664-1665.
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The nature of the secular in India, France and Turkey: Viewed through the lens of Weber‟s legal rationalization framework Weber theorized that law progressively evolves in the direction of a formally-rational system. Weber‟s concepts of formally- and substantively-rational law provide the analytical framework within which we can examine the nature of secularism in the three nations. The formal/substantive is concerned with the “extent to which legal rules and procedures are generated from within the legal system, as opposed to external criteria such as religious, ethical or political values. The more the disputes are settled by the legal system, the more formal a system is said to be.18 Weber describes the legal systems of continental European countries as formally rational, one in which legal rules are structured by legal factors, and not by traditional or religious values.19 In Turkey and France, the legal systems have been formalized through legal codification. The absence of a uniform civil code in India points towards a legal system that is closer to the notion of substantive rationality. The existence of separate personal laws for different communities in India indicates that the legal sphere is differentiated into sacred and secular law. The categorization of legal systems into formally or substantively rational can help us understand the „secularization of society‟. Consequently, it will enable us to place the headscarf debate in the context of each country. French and Turkish secularism are both grounded in the concept of laïcité. Laïcité is “a principle that allows for the unification of the nation beyond religious, class or other differences”.20 Laïcité is not mere secularism. What differentiates it from Indian secularism is the fact that it does not tolerate religious-inspired political parties, nor positive discrimination based on religion, not to mention a differentiated civil code.21 While the Indian secular tradition celebrates multi-culturism, the French and Turkish brand thinks of it as threatening. Normatively, French and Turkish society “must be an agglomeration of individual and equal citizens and never disintegrate into a patchwork of diverse communities”.22 In Sahin v. Turkey,23 the European Court of Human Rights, while upholding a rule banning headscarves on university campuses, said its decision was justified by the “need to
18
Sterling, Joyce, and Wilbert Moore. “Weber's Analysis of Legal Rationalization: A Critique and Constructive Modification.” Sociological Theory 2, no. 1 (1987): 67 -89. 19 Id. 20 Ivecovic, Rada. “The Veil in France.” Economic and Political Weekly 39, no. 11 (March 2004): 1117-1119. 21 Ruet, Joël. “Veiled in France.” Economic and Political Weekly 39, no. 17 (April 2004): 1664 -1665. 22 Supra note 6. 23 Appl. No. 44774/98, judgment of 8 June 2004.
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ensure the secular nature of the Turkish state, and through this, the very preconditions of democracy and the equality of women in Turkey” .24 The feared dominance of the majority faith and the resurgence of the influence of the community‟s most conservative members may justify restrictions on the manifestation of this faith which may well be unjustifiable in other countries like India, where only a minority adheres to it.25 The justifications for the different norms relating to the veils in the different countries have been presented in this part of the paper. We have seen the role that the law plays in the construction of national identities and in determining the nature of the secular in modern societies. The role of the secularist will be different in different legal cultures. The ban on headscarves in educational institutions discourages pluralism in the public sphere. An Indian secularist will oppose the ban on this ground, while a French secularist will support it. The constant struggles between the public and private, the sacred and the secular, the individual and the collective present themselves as “dialectical dilemmas.”26
24 25
Pedain, Antje. “Do Headsacrves Bite?” The Cambridge Law Journal 63, no. 3 (November 2004): 537 -540. Id. 26 For a discussion on “dialectical dilemmas”, see (Sterling and Moore 1987).
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THE CLASSROOM AS PUBLIC SPACE—TOWARDS
RECONCILIATION OF RELIGIOUS EXPRESSION IN EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS
Ostensibly, the debate over the headscarf is centred on its permissibility in public educational institutions such as schools and universities. In this part, we shall examine the classroom as a battleground between the individual and the collective, and on a broader scale, between political liberalism and the democracy. This debate will be evaluated in the light of the arguments advanced for and against the headscarf ban, and will enable us to move towards a theory of reconciliation of the freedom of religious expression in educational institutions. In Bourdieu‟s theory of the school as a location for social reproduction of the cultural values of the dominant class,27 we can see a marriage of the Foucauldian idea of a “regime of truth”28 and the dilemma of the modern secular state outlined in the preceding part of this paper. Read in this context, the classroom of a public school or university emerges as a potential site for the construction of common, national identities. Societies that are officially secular reflect a commitment to political liberalism. The liberal dimension of political liberalism privileges the private component of the individuals‟ lives, attempting to shield individuals as much as possible from the interference of the government. The democratic component of political liberalism, by contrast, is concerned with the public character of individuals‟ lives, as well as with individuals‟ obligations to preserve the institutions of public life. There is a conflict between the demands placed by education on liberalism and those placed on education by democracy.29 The importance of the school as a public place lies in the fact that our public interests as citizens are quite distinct from our private interests as individuals..30 The French school system, with its republican emphasis on a unified national consciousness eschews pluralism. It promotes a principle of equal exclusion of the private from the public,
27 28 29
The account of Bourdieu‟s sociology of education is taken from (Nash 1990).
Jenkins, Keith. Re-thinking History. London: Routledge, 1991. Levinson, Meira. “Liberalism versus Democracy? Schooling Private Citizens in the Public Square.” British Journal of Political Science 27, no. 3 (July 1997): 333-360. 30 Rajan, Nalini. “French Secularism, Headscarves, and Indian Schoolchildren: Anthropological Concerns of.” Economic and Political Weekly 39, no. 36 (September 2004): 3967-3970.
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rather than a principle of equal accommodation of the private in the public.31 On the other hand, the Indian school system is closer to the British model. The right of minorities to administer their own educational institutions is secured under Article 30 of the Indian Constitution. Parents are encouraged to ensure that their children are educated in a school whose ethos explicitly favours the particular commitments and values held by the family.32 Such a system favours the privatization of the public. In a sense, therefore, “such a system fosters a multicultural national society”.33 Therefore, we see that the public space of the school itself maintains the norms relating to the veil. In France, students are treated solely as public citizens the moment they enter the school gates. In India, a student does not shed his religious identity within the confines of the classroom. In France and Turkey, the defenders of the ban on headscarves speak in the language of public rights. Couched within this discourse is very real concern of the rise of fundamentalist Islam. Feminists argue that the headscarf is a sign of Islamic women‟s total domination by their patriarchy. Headscarves have been viewed as impeding the personal growth and social development of women.34 Some critics view the ban as counter-productive. There are fears that girls would be pushed out of the state system and into private schools, jeopardising integration.35 How does one reconcile oneself to the anti-pluralistic and illiberal model of French and Turkish secularism? Liberal respect for private differences cannot co-exist with the wholesale exclusion of private differences from the public sphere, especially the sphere of public educational institutions. A politically liberal state, something Turkey and France can definitely be said to be, cannot remain indifferent to individual‟s private commitments.36 The „neutrality by exclusion‟, embodied in the Turkish and French laïcité is itself non-neutral, and therefore illiberal. It is impossible to conceive of a norm that is not religiously charged. For instance, if the French
31 32 33
Id.
Supra note 29. Supra note 28. 34 Supra note 29. 35 Anonymous. “Multiculturalism on Trial.” Economic and Political Weekly 39, no. 9 (2004): 861. 36 Supra note 28.
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school week runs through part of Saturday, and the only full day of rest is Sunday, French Jews would think that the ostensibly „secular‟ school week is religiously defined.37 The debate over headscarves is symptom of a deeper problems facing France. The far more troubling matters of Islamic fundamentalism, integration, gender justice, and social and economic inequalities have been debated on a much smaller scale. The real issues are being ignored “while wondering whether bandanas and beards are religious symbols and when a cross is too big”.38 In Turkey also, like France, the reasons for the ban go deeper than mere secularism and relate to political questions. There is a fear of the possible establishment of an Islamist Republic that would make headscarves mandatory. The European Court of Human Rights has justified its upholding the headscarf ban in a couple of cases by claiming that the prohibition helps maintain public order, one of the legitimate causes for limitations posed on the right to freedom of religion, according to article 9 of the European Convention of Human Rights (Ziegler 2007, 121).39 Does the sporting of a head-covering by Muslim women under religious obligation pose a real threat to public order? Rather, it only creates resentment against militant secularism, which ironically, seeks to construct a common sense of identity among its citizens so as to uphold the democratic tradition of political liberalism. Yilmaz, while noting that the resistance to Turkish positivist law, says that women “suffer because of the State's rigid stand regarding the black-letter law and its unending militantly positivist hope for a culturally homogeneous society.” He goes on to observe that there are limits to legal modernity in the socio-legal sphere where State‟s sovereignty is not absolute and legal pluralism is a fact.40 It is futile to deny the alternative normative orderings in modern, multicultural societies such as India, France and Turkey. Questions such as the right to freedom of religious expression in the classroom cannot be viewed from a solely positivist perspective.
37 38
Supra note 3. Supra note 34. 39 Refer to Bulut v. Turkey, App. No. 18783/91; Sahin v. Turkey, Appl. No. 44774/98, judgment of 8 June 2004.
40
Supra note 7.
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CONCLUSION
In the course of this paper, we have attempted to understand why countries that have legally adopted a secular state model have different norms relating to veils. By applying Durkheim‟s framework of the collective conscience and the Weberian idea of legal rationalization, we have seen that the nature of the secular itself is itself different in the three countries. Law plays an integral role in the construction of national identities and in determining the nature and degree of the „secularization of society‟. But, this is not simply a one-way interaction. The „secularization of society‟ itself shapes the law. This can go some way in explaining why Turkey and France have adopted a uniform civil code. The underscoring of conflicts has been a recurring theme throughout this paper. The researcher has tried to understand the headscarf debate in terms of the tensions between the sacred and the secular, the public and the private, the individual right and the collective right, the liberal and the democratic. We have established that most of these contradictions are not mutually exclusive, but feed off one another. For instance, the dichotomy of liberalism and democracy in the classroom has to be read in terms of the public-private debate. The researcher finds himself at odds with the aggressive secularization of a public space where future citizens of the country spend their most crucial formative years, the classroom. While appreciating the dilemmas of the modern secular state, the researcher feels that the Indian model of „inclusive‟ secularism is preferred to the Turkish and French model of „exclusive‟ secularism, especially in the light of modern, global developments such as the rise of fundamentalist Islam, the growing influence of the human rights discourse and the significance of intricate global networks. The formal interpretation of equality is inappropriate for addressing the inevitable cultural diversity of modern societies. For diversity to thrive, as it must, the law should be based on a substantive interpretation of equality. It should be accompanied by an understating of the meanings of the cultural practices of groups.41 Admittedly, law and policy in this area must be informed by empirical considerations. It might be logistically impossible to gauge what the citizens of a country really want, but it would not be
41
Wiles, Ellen. Headscarves, Human Rights, and Harmonious Multicultural Society: Implications of the French Ban for Interpretations of Equality. 30 August 2007.
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unreasonable to expect the law-makers and policy-planners to perceive general opinion and trends. The classroom should be made the subject of further research, especially in the light of the competing demands posed by the need for a unified national identity and the need to uphold the rights of the individual.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Anonymous. “Multiculturalism on Trial.” Economic and Political Weekly 39, no. 9 (2004): 861. 2. Choose between veil and right to vote, rules SC. 23 January 2010. http://ibnlive.in.com/news/choose-between-veil-and-right-to-vote-rules-sc/1090843.html?from=tn (accessed May 18, 2010). 3. Committee, Prime Minister's High Level. Social, Economic and Educational Status of Muslims in India. New Delhi: Government of India, 2006. 4. Court annuls Turkish scarf reform . 5 June 2008. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7438348.stm (accessed May 18, 2010). 5. Ivecovic, Rada. “The Veil in France.” Economic and Political Weekly 39, no. 11 (March 2004): 1117-1119. 6. Jenkins, Keith. Re-thinking History. London: Routledge, 1991. 7. Judge, Harry. “The Muslim Headscarf and French Schools.” American Journal of Education 111, no. 1 (November 2004): 1-24. 8. Kavakci, Merve. “Headscarf Heresy.” Foreign Policy, no. 142 (May-June 2004): 66-67. 9. Levinson, Meira. “Liberalism versus Democracy? Schooling Private Citizens in the Public Square.” British Journal of Political Science 27, no. 3 (July 1997): 333-360. 10. Misztal, Barbara. “Durkheim on Collective Memory.” Journal of Classical Sociology 3, no. 2 (2003): 125-143. 11. Moruzzi, Norma Claire. “A Problem with Headscarves: Contemporary Complexities of Political and Social Identity.” Political Theory 22, no. 4 (November 1994): 653-672. 12. Nash, Roy. “Bourdieu on Education and Social and Cultural Reproduction.” British Journal of Sociology of Education 11, no. 4 (1990): 431-447.
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13. Pedain, Antje. “Do Headsacrves Bite?” The Cambridge Law Journal 63, no. 3 (November 2004): 537-540. 14. Punnekat, Achyuth. Student barred from wearing burqa in school. 5 May 2010. http://ibnlive.in.com/news/student-barred-from-wearing-burqa-in-school/114622-3.html (accessed May 18, 2010). 15. Rajan, Nalini. “French Secularism, Headscarves, and Indian Schoolchildren: Anthropological Concerns of.” Economic and Political Weekly 39, no. 36 (September 2004): 3967-3970. 16. Rouleau, Eric. “Turkey: Beyond Atatürk.” Foreign Policy, no. 103 (Summer 1996): 7087. 17. Ruet, Joël. “Veiled in France.” Economic and Political Weekly 39, no. 17 (April 2004): 1664-1665. 18. Sommerville, C. John. “Secular Society/Religious Population: Our Tacit Rules for Using the Term 'Secularization'.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 37, no. 2 (June 1998): 249-253. 19. Sterling, Joyce, and Wilbert Moore. “Weber's Analysis of Legal Rationalization: A Critique and Constructive Modification.” Sociological Theory 2, no. 1 (1987): 67-89. 20. The Islamic veil across Europe. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5414098.stm (accessed May 18, 2010). 21. Wiles, Ellen. Headscarves, Human Rights, and Harmonious Multicultural Society: Implications of the French Ban for Interpretations of Equality. 30 August 2007. http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118502892/abstract (accessed May 23, 2010). 22. Yilmaz, Ihsan. “Non-Recognition of Post-Modern Turkish Socio-Legal Reality and the Predicament of Women.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 30, no. 1 (May 2003): 25-41.
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23. Ziegler, Reuven (Ruvi). “The French “Headscarves Ban”: Intolerance or Necessity?” The John Marshall Law Review 40, no. 2 (2007): 101-129.
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Sociology II- Project
VEILED IN THE CLASSROOM: HEADSCARVES, EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS AND SECULARISM IN INDIA, TURKEY AND FRANCE
Submitted on April 16, 2012
(With a 6-day extension)
Ghanashyam Devanand Id no. 1887. First year, B.A. LL.B. (Hons.)
Page 1 of 18
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 3 Background ..................................................................................................................................... 5 The secularization of society and the nature of the secular—A Durkheimian and Weberian perspective ...................................................................................................................................... 7 The dilemma of the modern secular state: The Durkheimian view ................................................ 8 The classroom as public space—towards reconciliation of religious expression in educational institutions ..................................................................................................................................... 11 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 14 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................. 16
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INTRODUCTION
The debate over the legal ban on headscarves1 in educational institutions in Turkey and France brings into relief the contours of the nexus between the State, the law and religion. It is significant that it is the classroom that has emerged as the battleground between the sacred and the secular, the public and the private and the individual and the collective. India, another officially secular state, has not imposed a ban on head covering in educational institutions, but it has not been untouched by similar issues. The discourse on the veil proves to be trickier when one acknowledges the challenges posed by the contradiction between the rise of fundamentalist Islam and increasingly intricate global connections and networks. The second part of the paper will lay the groundwork by providing a background of the headscarf debate in the three countries. The third part of the paper will be devoted to a comparative analysis between the convergences and divergences in the nature of the secular in the three countries. In this context, it becomes important to examine how collective norms are formed and sustained, how they are rationalized, and how they are affected by economic, political, historical, social and legal changes. The researcher will conduct the examination of such norms within the collective conscience framework offered by Durkheim and the legal rationalization framework offered by Weber. The fourth part of the paper will address the issue of the classroom as a public space, and look at how the education systems of the countries react to the demands imposed by liberalism and democracy. Such an evaluation will lead us to a defence of the freedom of religious expression in the classroom.
1
The term headscarf and veil has been used interchangeably throughout the paper. In Turkey and France, the
debate is over the headscarf or hijab—a piece of clothing that covers the top of a woman‟s head and her hair. On the other hand, in India, Muslim women generally wear a face-veil, though the use of only the hijab is not unpopular. The hijab and the face-veil both come to symbolize the religious identity of a Muslim woman, and it is in this context that the terms have been used throughout this paper.
Page 3 of 18
Conceptually and contextually, the researcher‟s endeavour will locate the debate in a sociology of law perspective. As a consequence, the focus will be on the emergence and impact of different legal norms, and the societal concerns that shape them. The lack of reliable empirical data has served to limit the analysis to mostly theoretical considerations. Also, here it becomes necessary to mention that the frameworks of the classical sociologists are far more nuanced than they are presented to be in this paper. The researcher has taken the liberty to simplify the models for the sake of conceptual clarity and to apply them to the contemporary debate with respect to the headscarf.
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BACKGROUND
In the fall of 1989, three North African immigrant women were suspended from a French secondary school after they insisted on wearing headscarves in class. The refusal to remove the headscarves was seen as a threat to the French national policy of secularism in schools. 2 The incident gained widespread publicity in the media, and excited responses both in favour of and against the school authorities. In 1993, a similar incident took place in Nantua.3 The Ministry of Education responded by issuing several circulars that emphasized the importance of resolving the conflicts on a case-to-case basis.4 This arrangement proved to be administratively and legally treacherous, leaving great scope for arbitrariness. Acting on the recommendation of a commission set up to explore all complex issues relating to secularism, the French Parliament passed a law banning the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols in French public schools in 2004.5 The Muslim hijab was formally banned under this law. Efforts were made to present the law as neutral and not being specifically aimed at Muslims.6 Turkey has been a secular state ever since its inception. The Turkish Constitution of 1924 and the reforms of Kemal Ataturk established Turkey as a secular state, despite its Islamic majority.7 The ban was applied to not only educational institutions but it covered all those women working in state premises, including law courts and the legislatures. The headscarf controversy came into the public limelight once again when the Turkish Parliament passed an amendment to the Constitution in February 2008 which allowed women to wear the headscarf in universities.8 But in a final twist to the tale, the Turkish Constitutional Court annulled the amendment, ruling that
2
Wiles, Ellen. Headscarves, Human Rights, and Harmonious Multicultural Society: Implications of the French Ban for Interpretations of Equality. 30 August 2007. http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118502892/abstract (accessed May 23, 2010). 3 Moruzzi, Norma Claire. “A Problem with Headscarves: Contemporary Complexities of Political and Social Identity.” Political Theory 22, no. 4 (November 1994): 653 -672. 4 Id. 5 Supra note 2. 6 Judge, Harry. “The Muslim Headscarf and French Schools.” American Journal of Education 111, no. 1 (November 2004): 1-24. 7 Yilmaz, Ihsan. “Non-Recognition of Post-Modern Turkish Socio-Legal Reality and the Predicament of Women.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 30, no. 1 (May 2003): 25-41. 8 The Islamic veil across Europe. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5414098.stm (accessed May 18, 2010).
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the ban was against the founding principles of the constitution. The decision of the court cannot be appealed.9 The Preamble of the Indian Constitution declares it to be secular. Currently, there is no law in India banning the veil in educational institutions. Yet, there has been considerable debate about the female head-dress even in India. Reports of a female Muslim student being barred from wearing a scarf to a Kerala CBSE school have emerged as recently as in the first week of May.10 The report of the Sachar Committee, which looked into the social, economic and educational status of Muslims in India, records that the sight of the burqa and the hijab often sparks off discrimination against Muslim women.11
9
Court annuls Turkish scarf reform . 5 June 2008. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7438348.stm (accessed May 18, 2010). 10 Punnekat, Achyuth. Student barred from wearing burqa in school. 5 May 2010. http://ibnlive.in.com/news/student-barred-from-wearing-burqa-in-school/114622-3.html (accessed May 18, 2010). 11 Prime Minister's High Level Committee for Preparation of Report on Social, Economic and Educational Status of the Muslim Community of India, Social, Economic and Educational Status of Muslims in India (New Delhi: Government of India, 2006) at 12.
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THE SECULARIZATION OF SOCIETY AND THE NATURE OF THE SECULAR—A DURKHEIMIAN AND WEBERIAN PERSPECTIVE
Sommerville noted that treating secularization as a decline of religion is hardly meaningful. Secularization means different things when used in different contexts. Sommerville‟s distinction of „secularization of society‟ and „secularization of the population‟ is of concern to us. „Secularization of society‟ does not imply that members of a society are characterized b y a neglect of religious habits or convictions. That would be „secularization of the population.‟ The „secularization of society‟ would mean that the rules under which such a society operates are recognized as being of a different character from the religious beliefs held by the population. We can say that these differentiations will “necessarily entail some loss of religion's power or authority, since it must share authority with the other institutions resulting from this differentiation”.12 Applying these definitions, the separation of the State and the Church will be seen as „secularization of society‟ but not necessarily as the „secularization of the population.‟ Then, the State has more control over the „secularization of society‟ rather than the „secularization of the population‟. Law emerges as an instrument that the State uses to secularize society. It would be interesting to note the extent to which laws designed to secularize society, such as the French law banning ostentatious religious symbols in schools, affect the „secularization of the population.‟ The researcher thinks that they do not make too much of an impact on the „secularization of the population‟. For instance, Muslims in France will not reject their religious obligations and values as a result of such a law. In Turkey, it has been observed that “the place and influence of Islam in social life have not changed a great deal” despite the adamant secularization ideology of the State.13 In fact, the degree of „secularization of society‟ may be inversely related to the degree of „secularization of the population‟. Admittedly, this can only be verified by empirical studies of the religious beliefs of the population. The lack of such reliable empirical research is one of the limitations that this paper faces.
12
Sommerville, C. John. “Secular Society/Religious Population: Our Tacit Rules for Using the Term 'Secularization'.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 37, no. 2 (June 1998): 249-253. 13 Supra note 7
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THE DILEMMA OF THE MODERN SECULAR STATE: THE DURKHEIMIAN VIEW
Durkheim‟s analysis of the collective conscience formed the basis for his theory on social solidarity. In primitive societies, religion was the expression of the collective conscience. In modern societies, however, the division of labour created complications. The splitting of allegiances meant that religion could no longer be the sole guarantor of social solidarity. Modern societies saw the growth of a separate national consciousness. The state‟s ability to construct an emotional attachment to the national heritage provides the framework for the moral authority of law and a sound secular morality, seen as the condition of national health. Durkheim implies that for the citizens of the state to accept this secular morality, the state should “ensure representation of a national past that glorifies abstract values, not values of particular groups”.14 Durkheim was well aware of the contradiction of the modern state. For him, the value of the individual was at the centre of the modern collective conscience. Nevertheless, he believed that demands for individual liberty cannot justify attempts to undermine national unity and solidarity.15 It is this contradiction that is at the heart of the debate over the headscarf. The social, political, economic, legal culture of a nation is intricately tied to the construction of a national identity. For instance, to be French is to bear a firm commitment to liberté, égalité, fraternité (liberty, equality, fraternity).16 The Turkish sense of national identity is deeply rooted in Kemalism, or the
principles of Kemal Ataturk, founding father of the Turkish nation. The Kemalist Republic constructed national identity by imposing the Turkish language, and “creating a new culture cut off from its Muslim roots”.17 In India, the question of national identity is much more complex. The existence of a plurality of religions, cultures and languages and the fact the India is still a young nation reduces the scope for common denominators. This takes us to the question of the nature of the secular in each of the three countries, and how it has impacted the norms relating to veils.
14 15
Misztal, Barbara. “Durkheim on Collective Memory.” Journal of Classical Sociology 3, no. 2 (2003): 125 -143. Id 16 For a discussion on the unique nature of French identity, see (Judge 2004) 17 Rouleau, Eric. “Turkey: Beyond Atatürk.” Foreign Policy, no. 103 (Summer 1996): 70 -87. Ruet, Joël. “Veiled in France.” Economic and Political Weekly 39, no. 17 (April 2004): 1664-1665.
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The nature of the secular in India, France and Turkey: Viewed through the lens of Weber‟s legal rationalization framework Weber theorized that law progressively evolves in the direction of a formally-rational system. Weber‟s concepts of formally- and substantively-rational law provide the analytical framework within which we can examine the nature of secularism in the three nations. The formal/substantive is concerned with the “extent to which legal rules and procedures are generated from within the legal system, as opposed to external criteria such as religious, ethical or political values. The more the disputes are settled by the legal system, the more formal a system is said to be.18 Weber describes the legal systems of continental European countries as formally rational, one in which legal rules are structured by legal factors, and not by traditional or religious values.19 In Turkey and France, the legal systems have been formalized through legal codification. The absence of a uniform civil code in India points towards a legal system that is closer to the notion of substantive rationality. The existence of separate personal laws for different communities in India indicates that the legal sphere is differentiated into sacred and secular law. The categorization of legal systems into formally or substantively rational can help us understand the „secularization of society‟. Consequently, it will enable us to place the headscarf debate in the context of each country. French and Turkish secularism are both grounded in the concept of laïcité. Laïcité is “a principle that allows for the unification of the nation beyond religious, class or other differences”.20 Laïcité is not mere secularism. What differentiates it from Indian secularism is the fact that it does not tolerate religious-inspired political parties, nor positive discrimination based on religion, not to mention a differentiated civil code.21 While the Indian secular tradition celebrates multi-culturism, the French and Turkish brand thinks of it as threatening. Normatively, French and Turkish society “must be an agglomeration of individual and equal citizens and never disintegrate into a patchwork of diverse communities”.22 In Sahin v. Turkey,23 the European Court of Human Rights, while upholding a rule banning headscarves on university campuses, said its decision was justified by the “need to
18
Sterling, Joyce, and Wilbert Moore. “Weber's Analysis of Legal Rationalization: A Critique and Constructive Modification.” Sociological Theory 2, no. 1 (1987): 67 -89. 19 Id. 20 Ivecovic, Rada. “The Veil in France.” Economic and Political Weekly 39, no. 11 (March 2004): 1117-1119. 21 Ruet, Joël. “Veiled in France.” Economic and Political Weekly 39, no. 17 (April 2004): 1664 -1665. 22 Supra note 6. 23 Appl. No. 44774/98, judgment of 8 June 2004.
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ensure the secular nature of the Turkish state, and through this, the very preconditions of democracy and the equality of women in Turkey” .24 The feared dominance of the majority faith and the resurgence of the influence of the community‟s most conservative members may justify restrictions on the manifestation of this faith which may well be unjustifiable in other countries like India, where only a minority adheres to it.25 The justifications for the different norms relating to the veils in the different countries have been presented in this part of the paper. We have seen the role that the law plays in the construction of national identities and in determining the nature of the secular in modern societies. The role of the secularist will be different in different legal cultures. The ban on headscarves in educational institutions discourages pluralism in the public sphere. An Indian secularist will oppose the ban on this ground, while a French secularist will support it. The constant struggles between the public and private, the sacred and the secular, the individual and the collective present themselves as “dialectical dilemmas.”26
24 25
Pedain, Antje. “Do Headsacrves Bite?” The Cambridge Law Journal 63, no. 3 (November 2004): 537 -540. Id. 26 For a discussion on “dialectical dilemmas”, see (Sterling and Moore 1987).
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THE CLASSROOM AS PUBLIC SPACE—TOWARDS
RECONCILIATION OF RELIGIOUS EXPRESSION IN EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS
Ostensibly, the debate over the headscarf is centred on its permissibility in public educational institutions such as schools and universities. In this part, we shall examine the classroom as a battleground between the individual and the collective, and on a broader scale, between political liberalism and the democracy. This debate will be evaluated in the light of the arguments advanced for and against the headscarf ban, and will enable us to move towards a theory of reconciliation of the freedom of religious expression in educational institutions. In Bourdieu‟s theory of the school as a location for social reproduction of the cultural values of the dominant class,27 we can see a marriage of the Foucauldian idea of a “regime of truth”28 and the dilemma of the modern secular state outlined in the preceding part of this paper. Read in this context, the classroom of a public school or university emerges as a potential site for the construction of common, national identities. Societies that are officially secular reflect a commitment to political liberalism. The liberal dimension of political liberalism privileges the private component of the individuals‟ lives, attempting to shield individuals as much as possible from the interference of the government. The democratic component of political liberalism, by contrast, is concerned with the public character of individuals‟ lives, as well as with individuals‟ obligations to preserve the institutions of public life. There is a conflict between the demands placed by education on liberalism and those placed on education by democracy.29 The importance of the school as a public place lies in the fact that our public interests as citizens are quite distinct from our private interests as individuals..30 The French school system, with its republican emphasis on a unified national consciousness eschews pluralism. It promotes a principle of equal exclusion of the private from the public,
27 28 29
The account of Bourdieu‟s sociology of education is taken from (Nash 1990).
Jenkins, Keith. Re-thinking History. London: Routledge, 1991. Levinson, Meira. “Liberalism versus Democracy? Schooling Private Citizens in the Public Square.” British Journal of Political Science 27, no. 3 (July 1997): 333-360. 30 Rajan, Nalini. “French Secularism, Headscarves, and Indian Schoolchildren: Anthropological Concerns of.” Economic and Political Weekly 39, no. 36 (September 2004): 3967-3970.
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rather than a principle of equal accommodation of the private in the public.31 On the other hand, the Indian school system is closer to the British model. The right of minorities to administer their own educational institutions is secured under Article 30 of the Indian Constitution. Parents are encouraged to ensure that their children are educated in a school whose ethos explicitly favours the particular commitments and values held by the family.32 Such a system favours the privatization of the public. In a sense, therefore, “such a system fosters a multicultural national society”.33 Therefore, we see that the public space of the school itself maintains the norms relating to the veil. In France, students are treated solely as public citizens the moment they enter the school gates. In India, a student does not shed his religious identity within the confines of the classroom. In France and Turkey, the defenders of the ban on headscarves speak in the language of public rights. Couched within this discourse is very real concern of the rise of fundamentalist Islam. Feminists argue that the headscarf is a sign of Islamic women‟s total domination by their patriarchy. Headscarves have been viewed as impeding the personal growth and social development of women.34 Some critics view the ban as counter-productive. There are fears that girls would be pushed out of the state system and into private schools, jeopardising integration.35 How does one reconcile oneself to the anti-pluralistic and illiberal model of French and Turkish secularism? Liberal respect for private differences cannot co-exist with the wholesale exclusion of private differences from the public sphere, especially the sphere of public educational institutions. A politically liberal state, something Turkey and France can definitely be said to be, cannot remain indifferent to individual‟s private commitments.36 The „neutrality by exclusion‟, embodied in the Turkish and French laïcité is itself non-neutral, and therefore illiberal. It is impossible to conceive of a norm that is not religiously charged. For instance, if the French
31 32 33
Id.
Supra note 29. Supra note 28. 34 Supra note 29. 35 Anonymous. “Multiculturalism on Trial.” Economic and Political Weekly 39, no. 9 (2004): 861. 36 Supra note 28.
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school week runs through part of Saturday, and the only full day of rest is Sunday, French Jews would think that the ostensibly „secular‟ school week is religiously defined.37 The debate over headscarves is symptom of a deeper problems facing France. The far more troubling matters of Islamic fundamentalism, integration, gender justice, and social and economic inequalities have been debated on a much smaller scale. The real issues are being ignored “while wondering whether bandanas and beards are religious symbols and when a cross is too big”.38 In Turkey also, like France, the reasons for the ban go deeper than mere secularism and relate to political questions. There is a fear of the possible establishment of an Islamist Republic that would make headscarves mandatory. The European Court of Human Rights has justified its upholding the headscarf ban in a couple of cases by claiming that the prohibition helps maintain public order, one of the legitimate causes for limitations posed on the right to freedom of religion, according to article 9 of the European Convention of Human Rights (Ziegler 2007, 121).39 Does the sporting of a head-covering by Muslim women under religious obligation pose a real threat to public order? Rather, it only creates resentment against militant secularism, which ironically, seeks to construct a common sense of identity among its citizens so as to uphold the democratic tradition of political liberalism. Yilmaz, while noting that the resistance to Turkish positivist law, says that women “suffer because of the State's rigid stand regarding the black-letter law and its unending militantly positivist hope for a culturally homogeneous society.” He goes on to observe that there are limits to legal modernity in the socio-legal sphere where State‟s sovereignty is not absolute and legal pluralism is a fact.40 It is futile to deny the alternative normative orderings in modern, multicultural societies such as India, France and Turkey. Questions such as the right to freedom of religious expression in the classroom cannot be viewed from a solely positivist perspective.
37 38
Supra note 3. Supra note 34. 39 Refer to Bulut v. Turkey, App. No. 18783/91; Sahin v. Turkey, Appl. No. 44774/98, judgment of 8 June 2004.
40
Supra note 7.
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CONCLUSION
In the course of this paper, we have attempted to understand why countries that have legally adopted a secular state model have different norms relating to veils. By applying Durkheim‟s framework of the collective conscience and the Weberian idea of legal rationalization, we have seen that the nature of the secular itself is itself different in the three countries. Law plays an integral role in the construction of national identities and in determining the nature and degree of the „secularization of society‟. But, this is not simply a one-way interaction. The „secularization of society‟ itself shapes the law. This can go some way in explaining why Turkey and France have adopted a uniform civil code. The underscoring of conflicts has been a recurring theme throughout this paper. The researcher has tried to understand the headscarf debate in terms of the tensions between the sacred and the secular, the public and the private, the individual right and the collective right, the liberal and the democratic. We have established that most of these contradictions are not mutually exclusive, but feed off one another. For instance, the dichotomy of liberalism and democracy in the classroom has to be read in terms of the public-private debate. The researcher finds himself at odds with the aggressive secularization of a public space where future citizens of the country spend their most crucial formative years, the classroom. While appreciating the dilemmas of the modern secular state, the researcher feels that the Indian model of „inclusive‟ secularism is preferred to the Turkish and French model of „exclusive‟ secularism, especially in the light of modern, global developments such as the rise of fundamentalist Islam, the growing influence of the human rights discourse and the significance of intricate global networks. The formal interpretation of equality is inappropriate for addressing the inevitable cultural diversity of modern societies. For diversity to thrive, as it must, the law should be based on a substantive interpretation of equality. It should be accompanied by an understating of the meanings of the cultural practices of groups.41 Admittedly, law and policy in this area must be informed by empirical considerations. It might be logistically impossible to gauge what the citizens of a country really want, but it would not be
41
Wiles, Ellen. Headscarves, Human Rights, and Harmonious Multicultural Society: Implications of the French Ban for Interpretations of Equality. 30 August 2007.
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unreasonable to expect the law-makers and policy-planners to perceive general opinion and trends. The classroom should be made the subject of further research, especially in the light of the competing demands posed by the need for a unified national identity and the need to uphold the rights of the individual.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Anonymous. “Multiculturalism on Trial.” Economic and Political Weekly 39, no. 9 (2004): 861. 2. Choose between veil and right to vote, rules SC. 23 January 2010. http://ibnlive.in.com/news/choose-between-veil-and-right-to-vote-rules-sc/1090843.html?from=tn (accessed May 18, 2010). 3. Committee, Prime Minister's High Level. Social, Economic and Educational Status of Muslims in India. New Delhi: Government of India, 2006. 4. Court annuls Turkish scarf reform . 5 June 2008. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7438348.stm (accessed May 18, 2010). 5. Ivecovic, Rada. “The Veil in France.” Economic and Political Weekly 39, no. 11 (March 2004): 1117-1119. 6. Jenkins, Keith. Re-thinking History. London: Routledge, 1991. 7. Judge, Harry. “The Muslim Headscarf and French Schools.” American Journal of Education 111, no. 1 (November 2004): 1-24. 8. Kavakci, Merve. “Headscarf Heresy.” Foreign Policy, no. 142 (May-June 2004): 66-67. 9. Levinson, Meira. “Liberalism versus Democracy? Schooling Private Citizens in the Public Square.” British Journal of Political Science 27, no. 3 (July 1997): 333-360. 10. Misztal, Barbara. “Durkheim on Collective Memory.” Journal of Classical Sociology 3, no. 2 (2003): 125-143. 11. Moruzzi, Norma Claire. “A Problem with Headscarves: Contemporary Complexities of Political and Social Identity.” Political Theory 22, no. 4 (November 1994): 653-672. 12. Nash, Roy. “Bourdieu on Education and Social and Cultural Reproduction.” British Journal of Sociology of Education 11, no. 4 (1990): 431-447.
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13. Pedain, Antje. “Do Headsacrves Bite?” The Cambridge Law Journal 63, no. 3 (November 2004): 537-540. 14. Punnekat, Achyuth. Student barred from wearing burqa in school. 5 May 2010. http://ibnlive.in.com/news/student-barred-from-wearing-burqa-in-school/114622-3.html (accessed May 18, 2010). 15. Rajan, Nalini. “French Secularism, Headscarves, and Indian Schoolchildren: Anthropological Concerns of.” Economic and Political Weekly 39, no. 36 (September 2004): 3967-3970. 16. Rouleau, Eric. “Turkey: Beyond Atatürk.” Foreign Policy, no. 103 (Summer 1996): 7087. 17. Ruet, Joël. “Veiled in France.” Economic and Political Weekly 39, no. 17 (April 2004): 1664-1665. 18. Sommerville, C. John. “Secular Society/Religious Population: Our Tacit Rules for Using the Term 'Secularization'.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 37, no. 2 (June 1998): 249-253. 19. Sterling, Joyce, and Wilbert Moore. “Weber's Analysis of Legal Rationalization: A Critique and Constructive Modification.” Sociological Theory 2, no. 1 (1987): 67-89. 20. The Islamic veil across Europe. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5414098.stm (accessed May 18, 2010). 21. Wiles, Ellen. Headscarves, Human Rights, and Harmonious Multicultural Society: Implications of the French Ban for Interpretations of Equality. 30 August 2007. http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118502892/abstract (accessed May 23, 2010). 22. Yilmaz, Ihsan. “Non-Recognition of Post-Modern Turkish Socio-Legal Reality and the Predicament of Women.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 30, no. 1 (May 2003): 25-41.
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23. Ziegler, Reuven (Ruvi). “The French “Headscarves Ban”: Intolerance or Necessity?” The John Marshall Law Review 40, no. 2 (2007): 101-129.
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