Exactly. Dutch society, then, would still seem to be porous enough that voluntary assimilation into general Dutch culture on the part of minorities is still possible. Or is it? It’s a two-way process, at any rate, on the part of the wider society and the smaller minority both permitting mobility by individual minority members.

Even if they did want to change Dutch culture, so long as assimilation is possible the threat will end up being defused. New England isn’t a French-Canadian ultra-Catholic enclave, after all.

(Come to think of it, there may be a few parallels between Catholic assimilation mid-century and Muslim assimilation now.)

…

Exactly. Catholic positions on gays are hardly more progressive than Muslim positions, after all.

More to the point, the Catholics have tried. They formed political parties with the goal of trying to “change” Dutch culture. As of now the Dutch Muslim community has mostly operated within the current Dutch (political) culture. When people from the Muslim communities in the Netherlands reach positions of any importance they generally oppose the oppression of homosexuals and women in their communities.

And as for the hijab ban - the school system here is not as secular as in France, therefore it won’t be an issue. There is an almost general “ban” on clothing that covers the face.
After some initial discussions I haven’t seen any opposition to this.

Exactly. Catholic positions on gays are hardly more progressive than Muslim positions, after all.

The muslim population consists mostly of Moroccan and Turkish immigrants.

There is no large group of immigrants from Indonesia. There were the Dutch and those related to them, and there were the Molukkers, mostly christian, that came from Indonesia to the Netherlands after WW2 and Indonesia’s independence.

The charge that they want to change Dutch culture is strange. But it may have been one of the more foolish ideas of Mr. Fortuyn.

Based on an entry in your sidebar, it looks as though I will be renewing my subscription to Der Spiegel. It really is an interesting publication. I have found that one can get more international (relative to Germany) news from Der Spiegel, including news from the US, than from any of the so-called “news magazines” published in the US.

But it has to start from somehwere, and the state has a right to try and solve a problem of integration in a *public* environment like state-owned and state-managed schools.

That means understanding also the context of the (forced) use of Islamic headscarf. Those who criticise this law as Taleban-like have completely forgotten it is an imposition by Islamic religious and political authorities, and that young girls (not yet women) have no choice, or are brainwashed into wearing it - and most importantly, behaving according to everything the headscarf means, ie. that a woman is a whore unless she covers herself.

You cannot blame the counter-effect of the ban on the principles that inspired it, either. If this law results in further intransigence of Islamic religious authorities and reinforce and an even bigger political meaning given to the headscarf, then this is only proof of how rigid and mysoginist the Islamic faith is.

Integration starts from the willingness to be integrated. For those who’d rather pay for private schooling and keep forcing their children to submit to an absurd dictate that demeans them as a person, it’s clear there is no willingness at all there. You can’t blame this on others.

I participated in a student exchange with a school in Paris ten years ago. Mostly girls, mostly Islamic, and mostly wearing the veil. I became best friend with the only Muslim girl that didn’t give a damn about the scarf or religion and was constantly trying to escape the control of her rather authoritarian father. The difference was not only in what they wore. It’s the behaviour. The girls who obeyed their parents and dutifully wore the hijab and covered up and acted shily like a “good Muslim girl” should do, were silent, absent, you couldn’t talk to them about the normal things teenagers talk about. They just weren’t there. I felt sorry for them, but couldn’t understand how they could accept their parents dictating everything they did. You could make any possible effort to befriend them, they were nice, really, but they just were on another planet. They separated themselves from the rest of us. They did not object to that whole set of rules (of which the headscarf is only an outer symbol, it’s what goes with it that really counts!) that dictated they should behave in such a way as to remain separated. It’s very disruptive in a class, when you cannot do so many things together, and more than half won’t participate in normal recreational behaviour of their age.

It is complicated, and I agree ideally the state should not ban anything when it is a personal choice. But here, that aspect of personal choice is extremely blurry.

The Islamic veil is a tool used by religious and political authorities precisely to enhance their social control and to declare the special status of Muslims as a state within a state.

It’d be wonderful if this was only about a garment, it’d be wonderful if we could say, so what if a girl is wearing a scarf, it’s not important. But it is, for everything it carries with it, and even if this law might have a worse effect than intended, its principle is right in the context in which it is applied.

Religious symbols today are not just symbols. In France especially. You have to understand that. Even if you don’t agree, at least avoid comparisons with other countries and situations because they’re not correct.