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Socialist Review Index (1993–1996) | Socialist Review 182 Contents
From Socialist Review, No. 182, January 1995.
Copyright © Socialist Review.
Copied with thanks from the Socialist Review Archive.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
I was astonished to read Jamie Rankin’s letter (December SR) defending the actions of French Tories and Nazis.
It is false to say that French schools are havens against racial and sexual oppression. The values of French imperialism have always been taught in French schools. During the 1980s the national anthem was reintroduced by the so called Socialist government.
Neither is it true, as Jamie Rankin claims, that religion is kept out of schools in France. Catholic pupils have always worn crosses around their necks. This means that to deny Muslims the right to wear religious symbols is simply racist. It is part of a generalised racist offensive by the right.
It is also wrong to say, as Jamie Rankin does, that the veil is no more than a symbol of ‘female submission’. Consider the 14 Muslim women excluded from the Lycée Saint-Exupéry. Recently they led demos against the Tories’ education policy. Other students who fought with them are now defending their right to wear the headscarf. Two demos have taken place which were attacked by the notoriously racist CRS riot police. Would Jamie Rankin have supported the CRS, since the students were rebelling against the supposedly secular education he defends?
The CRS were clearly illustrating what Jamie Rankin has failed to understand: that the French state is the oppressor of Muslims in France. It can never be their liberator. The 14 Muslim women of the Lycée Saint-Exupéry have shown by their fight against Tory policies that their liberation will come through their own struggle, not be imposed on them by the racist state.
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Phil Beardmore |
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