L'Affaire du Foulard (The Scarf Affair)

Why Do We Educate? Renewing the Conversation

Volumn 1, Issue , 2009, Pages 100-111

  Benhabib, Seyla ^a  

^a YALE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Complex symbolic negotiations; Cultural political conflict; Democratic civic education; Ethno cultural groups; Globalization; L'Affaire du Foulard (the scarf affair); Multiculturalism; Scarf affair tracing events initiated by three Muslim high school students; Solomonic judgment

Indexed keywords

EID: 84889399601     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: 10.1002/9781444307214.ch7     Document Type: Chapter

References (14)

1. J. B. Elshtain, Democracy on Trial (Toronto: Anansi Press, 1993), 114.
2. Benjamin Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld (New York: Times Books, 1995).
3. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1958), 199.
4. François Gaspard and Farhad Khosrokhavar, Le Foulard et la République (Paris:Decouverte, 1995), 11 (my translation).
5. Marianne Brun-Rovet, "A Perspective on the Multiculturalism Debate: L'Affaire Foulard and Laïcité in France, 1989-1999" (on file with the author), 2.
6. Gaspard and Khosrokhavar, Le Foulard et la République, 44-45 (my translation).
7. Ruling of the Conseile d'Etat, November 27, 1989.
8. Le Monde, September 12, 1994, 10.
9. Law 2004-228 banning "conspicuous religious symbols" took effect September 2004. It passed the National Assembly by a vote of 494 for, 36 against, with 31 abstentions. According to the Ministry of Education, in September 2003 1200 girls reported to school wearing headscarves; in September 2004, 70; in September 2005, 12 (Le Monde September 9, 2004, September 30, 2005).
10. A recent publication tries precisely to let the girls speak for themselves. See Veronique Girard and Yves Sintomer, Alma et Lila Levy: Des Filles comme les autres: Au-delà du Foulard (Paris: La Decouverte, 2004).
11. Nilufer Gole, The Forbidden Modern: Civilization and Veiling (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996).
12. Elaine Sciolino, "French Islam Wins Officially Recognized Voice," New York Times, April 14, 2003, A4.
13. Elaine Sciolino, "Paris Journal; Back to the Barricades: Liberty, Equality, Sisterhood," New York Times, August 1, 2003, A4.
14. Michael Walzer, "Liberalism and the Art of Separation," Political Theory 12 (August 1984): 315-30.