The Veil and "Secular" societies

[incendiarypixie]

I will be the first to admit that my opinion of the veil or hijab have changed significantly when I lived in Cairo, even more so since I took a class on it.

Its an extremely sensitive issue thats incredibly interesting and very important. France is introducing a ban in schools and Germany is leaning in the same direction. They do so in the name of

Comments

[pixiefish]

i hadn't heard of that happening in germany...can you send me a link or something? i'd heard of the france ban, i mean, that was huge news, but i'd really like to know more about a ban being suggested in germany. it interests me, because religion is an extremely...strange and touchy topic here, due in large part to the fact that organized religion was demonized by both the nazi party during the third reich, and the DDR during the cold war. Very, very few people will admit to being religious at all here in north eastern germany. In the southern states, such as Bavaria, catholicism and christianity is far more...public. Meaning, maybe a third of the people there would say they were christian. These regions have far higher populations of immigrants as well, many of them being turkish muslims and while there are growing racial tensions and a lot of systematic discrimination that prevents immigrants from being able to successfully integrate into german culture (i.e. do well in schools, get good jobs), I hadn't heard anything about the

[pixiefish]

oh i forgot! i HAD heard about it being discussed in the netherlands though! especially since there is so much controversy going on there after the murder of director Theo Van Gogh and the film Submission and Ayaan Hirsi Ali having to go into hiding and step down from parliment, etc. etc.

[incendiarypixie]

I read about the ban in Germany in that same BBC article I linked to above. This is the only thing they said about it

[pixiefish]

thank you! and it doesn't suprise me, as i mentioned before, that this is happening in the south in baden-wuerttemberg, which along with Bavaria and Nordrhein-Westfalia are the "religious" states in germany, and also home to the most immigrants, as opposed to here in Brandenburg (brandenburg is currently more focused on getting the nazis out of parliment. yes, there are nazi's in parliment representing the state i live in. it's like a super battle between the most polarized political groups in existence here in this state..most people are either still SPD, Green, or yeah. nazi...so, they don't want to seem intolerant of the muslims and appear to be supporting the skinheads as a result. kiiiiiiinda terrifying.)

[soul_inside]

Great post! Very interesting read. When I was in Egpyt it was nice that I could talk to some of the women about it- though I think there was a sampling error because I could only talk to women who are educated and exposed to the West since conversation could only be in English.
Both societies are religious, but I do think that Egypt is much more so. In good ways and bad ways.

[incendiarypixie]

I definitely agree that Egyptian society is more religious than American society... I guess I exaggerated it a little bit in my post because so many people tend to think of American society as "secular" when it really isn't. Good point about your "sampling error". I experienced the same thing. Especially in my veil class (probably 10 girls, 8 study abroads, 6 Americans, probably 5 or 6 Muslims, and only one who wore the veil).

So, you did AUC right? How long were you there for? When did you get back?

I'm doing my thesis on study abroad in the Middle East/Egypt. If you're interested I'd love to get your perspective on it. (I'm mostly trying to figure out students motivations for going there in particular).

[soul_inside]

No, I didn't go to AUC. I went to ILI out in Mohandaseen for a month. I didn't want anything formal (or rather, I didn't want to PAY for anything formal