Comment & Debate
Christina Duval. “Banning the hijab. Against the ban, for secular education”. Workers Power. Feb 2004 – “Rumy is wrong to trivialise the effect a ban would have on reinforcing the hold of Islam amongst some sections of the Muslim community. Young Muslim women have already begun to don the headscarf as a sign of defiance against this attack on their religion and culture. The fight to empower young Muslim women to challenge their oppression becomes obscured in such a context.”
Shada Islam. “Headscarf Ban Misses the Point”. YaleGlobal. January 30th, 2004 – “Even more dangerously, it also threatens to aggravate post-September 11 Islamophobic sentiments in Europe. With regional and European Parliament elections set for this spring in most EU states, there are fears that the debate could further spur the popularity of Europe’s unashamedly Islamophobic and xenophobic far-right parties. In particular, Jean-Marie Le Pen’s Front National in France is seeking to consolidate the gains it made in the 2002 presidential election.”