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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elsewhere who wrote (123530)	1/22/2004 1:41:26 PM
From: Sig	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<<Well, the real question is how to contribute to a society which doesn't disintegrate. The Marseilles fires all over France wouldn't be progress. But how to convey this in the political process? >>> Could look back at America from 1800's on, to see how the immigrants became integrated into society. First the German, Polish,Irish, Chinese etc would tend to stay with their own townsmen ( since they could not speak Enlish and needed to learn who they could trust). Many of the first generation did not learn much English,a Dutch cabinet maker in Holland Michigan could hire his own Dutch speaking workers and get along just fine, for a long time. The schools and the work places provided the integration. The schools did not have to ban wooden shoes or specific clothing (except for decencies) . Usefulness, functionality, and durability decided what garb became used. If one student chose purposely to wear his national garb to class he would find out from classmates what their opinion was, and could find himself very lonely-cut off from sports and friends. But particularily, none of the immigrants, that I knew, came over with the idea that they would run the country or change the laws. Some, like the Quakers, chose to resist integration and stay together but live in peace with the authorities. Most came because they were far better off here than in the Old country and appreciated that. So consider the Muslims in France ......and why they are there. Did they come to work? Did they come to rope off a section of France and make it into an Arabic speaking Muslim territory ? Do they want to start at the top, become international bankers ? Or just sit and enjoy government handouts by doing enough complaining? So if the Immigrants have the wrong attitude, do not like French government rules let them proceed to become legal citizens and then try to change things. But IMO with schools so important, they should if needed, ban those activities that disrupt the education process. In my day, teachers and students had more freedom and fewer rules. Wear a turban to class and some very strange things could happen - rules or no rules. Sig

To: Elsewhere who wrote (123530)	1/22/2004 2:02:46 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Obviously, the intention is not to mistreat the religious people, but to simply make them give up those foolish costumes for their own good. Unfortunately for them, they are too stupid to realize that the state only has their best interests at heart.

To: Elsewhere who wrote (123530)	1/22/2004 3:19:25 PM
From: marcos	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

'LONDON: A Sikh man has been forced to take off his turban in order to enter a Paris government building, appalled British Sikhs have reported, as France prepares to introduce a controversial law banning the Sikh turban, Muslim hijab and Jewish yarmulke.' timesofindia.indiatimes.com Fifteen years ago we had here an intense debate on whether or not sikhs should be permitted to enter the mounties while retaining the turban .... result was it was permitted, and the first sikh became a mountie, turban and all, complete with the little ceremonial knife, in fact they had to design an official mountie turban ... last i heard there were five sikh mounties, might be more now .... Neo and CB are taking a bit of a sniffy norteamericana attitude to this, well actually there was strong opposition to the idea in some quarters, a large slice of mountie veterans among the most vociferous .... to their credit, quite a few army vets stood up and pointed out that sikh regiments had fought beside them with great valour in two world wars and a number of minor ones, and yes they did wear the turbines, and their kirpans were functional models ..... anyway, what ended up as an inclusive policy was by no means automatic or easily achieved ... here's an overview of the story - tribuneindia.com There is in the US an 'English Only' movement to denigrate spanish by decreeing english to be the sole 'official' language, we've had nutjobs here in BC who wanted to ban french, you get these sorts all over, on each issue there may emerge a policy that is taken as representative of national psyche, rightly or wrongly, however you know it will not have been unanimously decided ..... i would encourage the french government to rethink their new policy, though .... as would the girl in the article above, wearing a headscarf in the tricolour-g- .... cheers