France's secularism is not secular
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In Racialization of Muslim Veils, Al-Saji analyzes the public debate leading to the 2004 French law banning ostentatious religious signs in schools. The author also writes about the French colonial attitudes towards women wearing veils in Algeria. The French state’s Islamophobia and obsession with secularism led to the enactment of this law. Most cases in which the law was applied concerned girls wearing the hijab.
I remember being taught about state secularism in class. It was an important aspect of the republican values, and the teacher emphasized it. At the same time, one of my other teachers was always wearing a necklace with a Christian cross on it, and she did not hide it at all. The hypocrisy is very real. We could argue that a necklace is not “ostentatoire” (ostentatious). However, if it is visible, isn’t it non-secular? I’m appalled by the level of hypocrisy France is capable of. Furthermore, focusing on the ‘veil’ as a gender oppression is a strategy to not address the state and society’s systemic racism and sexism.
It is interesting to learn about the colonial origin of this law. Fanon analyzed the French colonial project to unveil Algerian women in his essay ‘Algeria Unveiled.’ Fanon writes about the different veiling practices in Algeria, reminding the reader of the diversity of practices. The homogenization of Muslim women is a tactic of the colonial state to enforce a unified response to this so-called problem. The idea that the veil is a barrier to vision is to assume that the white male’s gaze should be the norm. Veiled Muslim women are perceived as passive and sexually ‘repressed,’ hidden. It is a colonial way of seeing. In the Western colonial culture, women are the object of male desire. Therefore, the veil is an obstacle to desire, creating frustration and aggressiveness. Reading this text made me think of the real intentions behind these laws, ‘protecting’ secularism. The laws prohibiting the burkini on French southern beaches were also passed because the veil would hide women’s bodies from the white colonial male gaze. I am done with France, I really hope Québec will not continue to follow this example.