Headscarves are the hot talking point in French politics again. But on this occasion, we aren’t talking about girls getting kicked out of high school or women getting kicked out of mayors’ offices.
Ilham Moussaïd. Image via Reuters.
No, the latest uproar comes about Ms. Ilham Moussaïd, a candidate from the New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA) in France’s upcoming regional elections who dares to “visually” identify herself as a Muslim and stand for election. Feminists and politicians are up in arms. While not the first candidate with a headscarf, the buzz around Moussaïd’s candidature is something new.
French media is having a field day (“A covered Muslim woman! In a public space!”), and is airing plenty of criticism against Moussaïd. The first criticism: a practicing member of a religion shouldn’t be a candidate for a left-wing party with roots in European socialism– anything else is showing off for the media. A member of the Parti Socialiste admonished the NPA’s leader, Olivier Besancenot, to go “reread Marx.” In the government, spokesperson and Education Minister Luc Chatel accused Besancenot of trying to “make himself interesting” (read: relevant), while the State Secretary for Families Nadine Morano called the candidacy “a media coup against Republican values.”
The second criticism: Moussaïd’s veil is “anti-feminist.” European MEP Jean-Luc Mélenchon says that, “You can’t call yourself a feminist while showing off a sign of submission to the patriarchy.” Government member Fadela Amara (who used to belong to French feminist group Ni Putes Ni Soumises), called the issue serious:
“I say to Olivier Besancenot that what he is doing is very serious because he is banalizing the veil and thus banalizing a tool of oppression of women… the veil, it’s not just ten centimeters of fabric, but the sign of a political plot, the oppression of women and the confiscation of women’s rights.”
Note that Amara does not address Moussaïd directly—only her party leader.
In that vein, the lone dissenting feminist voice in the established media comes from the opinion column in Le Monde and is signed by a series of women (including Karima Delli) connected to the Europe Ecologie, a rival party on the left. Some excerpts:
“In this case, everyone makes the veil say what Moussaïd doesn’t say. What this young lady says seems to barely interest all those who condemn her. In fact, her words do not have the right to belong. She is accused of wanting to say what she [doesn’t say at all].”
The reactions of Moussaïd’s own party provoked this statement from Besancenot:
“Our party welcomes the young, the unemployed, those with precarious employment, employees from all walks of life who see themselves in the ideals of [this] party. Faith is a personal question and would not be an obstacle to participation in our struggle so long as our party’s fundamental landmarks of secularism, feminism and anti-capitalism are sincerely shared.”
However, the NPA isn’t exactly clear on its “headscarf position”—should there even be one?—as one of its speakers, Pierre-François Grond, campaigned for the exclusion of a veiled girl from her high school outside of Paris in 2003. Furthermore, a few days after his original statement supporting Moussaïd, Besancenot was careful to backtrack during a meeting of the party’s national committee: “The headscarf is not only a visible religious symbol, but it is also an instrument of subjugation of women used in various forms and at various times by the three monotheistic religions, even if Ilham does not live it like this.” A colleague on the same list says that Moussaïd’s presence on the list shows that “in these neighborhoods, there are women like her, with or without a veil, who can take part in extreme-left politics. The face of French society has changed, and Ilham is one of the parts of this [new] social mix.”
Indeed, Moussaïd has already come out as pro-choice, and for contraception (among other “feminist” values of the French left). Her party credentials appear flawless—yet it’s the headscarf that everyone seems to be caught on.
Moussaïd’s presentation on the list for the upcoming regional election, while seemingly unremarkable, calls into question the French model of secularism both vis-à-vis the French left as well as in French society as a whole. French “laïcité,” as many scholars have noted, is “exclusive” (secularism means no religion, period). This is in contrast to American-style secularism, “religious freedom,” which is “inclusive” (no religion should be given priority). Both are used as founding myths for their respective societies.
Even the group Ni Putes Ni Soumises said as much, noting that Moussaïd’s candidacy could open the door for a more “open” interpretation of French secularism, which according to the group, is very bad because (echoing the words of their former leader Ms. Amara), the headscarf is a symbol of the “submission of women to men… illegal in the French Republic.”
What does Moussaïd herself say in the middle of all this?
“I am very sad to see eight years of my life reduced to my headscarf, I am very sad to hear that my personal belief is a danger to others while I advocate friendship, respect, tolerance, solidarity and equality for all human beings.”
In a media flurry of opinions, Moussaïd’s says it all.
She sounds freakin’ badass. She’s more than welcomed to move to the United States, Americans would warmly embrace her, unlike the snooty, stuck up, racist French people.
Move out of the dark ages France!
#1: Read up on Liberation Theology and learn to seperate theory from practice. In practice, many liberation movements have incorporated and even been lead by religious beliefs/movements/institutions. I am an atheist and anti-capitalist, yet I don’t use those labels as motivation to accuse all religious people of being capatable with governmental securalism and anti-capitalism, especially when it is at the personal level (and again, even at the institutional level some religions have incorporated Marxian/anti-capitalist beliefs).
#2: Stop trying to control the bodies of women, period. Trust women to be able to speak for themselves and determine what is best for them personally. Do not assume that women who make certain decisions are “brainwashed” or ‘don’t know what’s best for them’.
If there is one thing I truly respect about the United States it’s that it would never blatantly discriminate against a person based on their religion. People may do it privately, but it’s not institutionalized as it is in so many European countries. They are crippling their own progress so long as they are limiting who has a voice and who can contribute solely based on something so petty as a headscarf. Give me a break!
very nice article, extremely informative.
The french really need to make up their minds, are they for the empowerment of women or not? first, they want to ban the hijab because it is a symbol of oppression and doesn’t fit with french values of freedom etc. Then, when a woman goes out to excercis the rights that are “within french values” mainly her freedom and desire to contribute to her society, they have a problem with that also. Ms. Moussaid is trying to show the world that you can be feminist and muslim and active in politics all at the same time! what an idea!
Also, Besancenot’s comment that the headscarf is used for oppression of women in different parts of the world even if Ms. Moussaid doesn’t “live it like this” is more than a little ridiculous. Marriage is also used by some men to oppress women in, I would say, every part of the world but does that mean marriage should be banned? of course not! Just because someone breaks the law doesn’t mean the law should not exist.
The French are such close minded imbeciles. First of all their public nudity is oppression not only to women but to men, teaching people that looks are all that matter and that they must show everything to be worth anything. Of course this comes from the people who refer to adultry as an “adventure” They are the true oppressors, forbidding women to worship God and having dignity and respect for their bodies. These are the people who raped all of Africa and they will answer for their oppression of people in the day of judgement
DIMA, I wouldn’t be so quick to generalize an entire nation. I think that many Americans would respond the same way the French have to Moussaid, or rather, the fact that she wears hijab. If Americans are still hung up over our president’s middle name, I highly doubt that they would respond any better to a prominent Muslim woman in politics.
Salaam Alaikum,
DIMA – While I agree Ms Moussaid does sound
totally badass, I’m not sure she’d get a
rapturous reception in the US either.
I’m not sure there are any Western countries
that are ready for a politician in hijab.
Salaams, Thats not true sister there are politicians that are also hijabis ie Salma Yaqoob former vice-chair of Respect party, Dalia Mogahed.
Person says:
February 25, 2010 at 9:06 am
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#2: Stop trying to control the bodies of women, period. Trust women to be able to speak for themselves and determine what is best for them personally. Do not assume that women who make certain decisions are “brainwashed” or ‘don’t know what’s best for them’.
EXACTLY!
this is pathetic. i grow up in a place where we have all races mixing freely and happily with one another. hijabs, turbans, no hijab, modestly dressed, openly dressed. everything. and even have a hijab woman in parliament and managerial positions.
like whatever people. that’s the world. move out from your narrow minds.
“Note that Amara does not address Moussaïd directly—only her party leader.”
heh!
The French are staunch supporters of preserving their “culture” and so they would like most people to be clones of one another – having these people who cover is contradictory for their “liberty for all” value since they read alot from the appearance of an individual (their rampant cosmetic and perfume industry is supportive of this). This isn’t so much about secularisation, but the (continued) subjugation of people from their colonial history.
Sumera, that’s a very shallow reading of French “culture” (your punctuation) — just the thing this blog seeks to challenge. Can you name a “culture” that doesn’t make value judgements about people according to their appearance? Would you even want one to exist?
While the continuum with colonial values is present, it’s notable that this argument is taking place in a far-left party, a sort of successor to the Communist Party which, for good reasons or bad, was the most consistent opponent of colonialism in 20th century France. Some French communists paid with their lives for supporting independence movements.
The Moussaid debate is in many ways representative of a wider debate about how so-called republican values (which the French associate with resistance to tyranny, to Nazi collaboration, and to religious persecution) can accommodate a large number of immigrants (and their descendants) who have not grown up with these values, and are often ambiguous about them, or occasionally overtly hostile. France is more of a religious melting pot than it is given credit for — it has the largest number of Muslims and of Jews in Europe — and for as long as there is conflict in Palestine it will remain anxious about fundamentalist sentiment crossing the Mediterranean. Personally I don’t think the so-called national identity debate launched by the government is a serious attempt to address the issues arising from immigration, globalization, power politics, etc. But at least (like the NPA) it gives a voice to minority groups, who have been all too rarely heard in recent French political debate.
Theres no denying that France leads in the cosmetic, perfume and fashion industry, but my emphasis on “culture” was not limited to the judgements made to appearances, but the “liberty for all” value which they so staunchly hold onto – its the very basis on which the country functions. But “liberty for all” doesn’t mean freedom, it means they decide what liberty looks and feels like – and the the hijaab doesnt fit neatly in this model.