# Posted 11:09 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

THAT IS JUST SOOOO FRENCH: In Paris, sophisticates scoff at the United States' delusional faith that armed invasions rather than cross-cultural dialogue can win over the hearts and minds of the Islamic world. In Paris, a blue ribbon panel appointed by President Chirac has just recommended that the French state ban Muslim girls from wearing headscarves in public schools. Also prohibited would be other "conspicuous" example of religious attire, such as Jewish yarmulkes and Christian cross-emblems.

There is something touchingly innocent about the French aspiration to promote tolerance by imposing conformity. Perhaps Tocqueville should have cast a glance homewards as he warned his American hosts about the dangers associated with the tyranny of the majority.

While the average American man-in-the-street could have told M. Chirac that religious repression only promotes resentful backlash, there is a more subtle point that American might not appreciate because they take religious toleration for granted. When I spent a summer in Germany a number of years ago, the papers there were filled with a similar debate about Muslim headscarves and the effort of some school or other to ban them. (Characteristically for German federalism, the headscarf debate arose out of a local ordnance, rather than a central government plan a la francaise.)

As I read more about the debate, one of the most interesting points that came out was how the woman in question who had been asked to remove her headscarf was actually a very progressive Muslim who favored both greater equality for women and greater integration of Islam and secular society. Such beliefs were not at all accidential. After all, who but a progressive Muslim woman would prefer to work in a German institution rather than a Muslim one?

I suspect that in France, a similar trend exists. The girls in public schools who wear headscarves are probably the ones most likely to learn to love and respect French civilization. If taught that French civilization is willing to respect them as well, such women would have tremendous potential to share French ideals with those members of their families and communities who are not so enlightened.

Perhaps it should not come as a surprise that France has a resentful, violent and poorly integrated Muslim immigrant community whereas Muslim immigrants in the United States seem to be thriving no less than Jews, Hindus, or Chinese -- and giving back to their host country.

In other cultural news, the Academie Francaise, the body charged with protecting the French language from Anglo-American pollution, has finally reached the letter 'R' after six decades devoted to producing the definitive French-language dictionary.

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