Yoshie responded:
Letting mere symbols guide your politics is a bad idea: it can force you to block with conservatives, e.g., Chirac's UMP which was the party that initiated the hijab ban in France; and it can invite an undesirable reaction: in Iran, it was the Shah's heavy-handed attack on hijab that was a factor in building Muslim opposition to him. If a dress code that forces women to wear hijab or anything else is wrong, a dress code that forces women to remove hijab or anything else is also wrong -- that's the ABC of civil liberties.
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Well, we disagree on some matters, Yoshie. Remember, Le Pen was against the ban on the hijab, so there is no universal postion on this issue amongst conservatives. Religiously social conservative types have been trying (with some success) to undermine one of the basic principles of the bourgeois revolution since the late 18th Century: separation of religion from the State. This is a principle I support and would think worthy of carrying over into a socialist society. As for undermining this principle, in Australia, the bourgeois democratic government actually gives out tax dollars to BOTH public and private (religious)schools. I think that's an abomination, just like I think putting "one nation under god" in the "Pledge of Allegiance" in the U.S. is wrong to support and inscribing god(s) all over the money is retrograde.
If religious parents are so hot to have their kids display their devotion to god(s) in school, let them do so in private schools or home schooling, without State sanction or taxation to support it, even if those parents are devotees of the Spaghetti Monster. That's my line in the civil libertarian sand on this issue.
On the issue of blocking with social conservatives--it's a tactical mistake which will lead to strategic disasters like the one in Iran. I was allied with a lot of Iranians who opposed the Shah from the left, but who made the mistake of underestimating the power of politically charged, religiously inspired social conservatism. They're either dead or in exile now. Even conservatives have made that tactical mistake via their Afghan intervention in the 80s.
Respectfully yours, Mike B)
Read "Penguins in Bondage": http://happystiletto.blogspot.com/
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