From: "Ozgur Budak" <budak-AT-egenet.com.tr>
Subject: Re: [BOU:] l'affaire du foulard
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 14:21:07 +0200



"Lastly I am curious just to know how you Batoul view the fact that no male
in the cultures having the tradition of women covering up and protecting
sacred parts of their bodies would consider veiling their own bodies. Do
men lack sacred parts or precious objects?"

It doesnt sound like a question of curiosity, but rather sarcasm fed by the
epistemological heirarchy of "objective" scientific discourse.

Ozgur




----- Original Message -----
From: Par Engholm <Par.Engholm-AT-soc.uu.se>
To: <bourdieu-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU>
Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 1:50 PM
Subject: RE: [BOU:] l'affaire du foulard


> Salut John!
> Merci pour ta lettre.
> As an old 'leftist' I find it very strange how academic radicals nowadays
> find any comfort or see any hope in islamic fundamentalism as a force
> against the ills of capitalism, or US imperialism. But I think it reflects
> somehow the deep seated defeatism which has spread among former apologets
> for the actually existing socialism. Bourdieu in this sense did go against
> the stream when he became politically more active towards the end of his
life.
>
> So to the question of the foulard. I am not in favour of any ban on the
use
> of any religious symbol, culturally saturated clothes etc. But I think we
> should be careful to see these garments as always 'freely chosen'
(Remember
> the words of Bertrand Russell, cited by Bourdieu as a preamble to Les
> structures sociales del 'economie) 'While economics is about how people
> make choice, sociology is about how they don't have any choice to make.')
> or, worse, to see them as expressions of a discontent with an oppressive
> western pornographied culture treating women as merely sexual objects. Of
> course that may be the case, but I don't think that is the dominant
pattern.
>
> Batoul invokes the right of women to choose and describe the bans against
> the veil in countries such as France and Turkey as 'racist and biased'. I
> think this is not necessarily so. It may rather be a from of misdirected
> solicitude for those women choosing to identify with the garment; the
> legislators having a picture of the veil as being part of a more
> ecompassing structure of oppression against women, with the other extreme
> being so called 'honourable murders'. The intention of the legislators
> would rather be to promote freeedom of choice for the women in question (I
> don't consider the practical aspects of the ban against certain clothes in
> certain occupations).
>
> As Batoul writes, 'i simply felt that my body and hair were precious
> objects that should only be shared with a few individuals who were
> worthy'  and that Muslim women in these countries [France and Turkey] are
> also being suppressed by being prevented from going to school and working
> simply because they exercise their right to cover up and not reveal a
> sacred part of their body.' One of the problems with the use of veils in
> order to protect sacred bodily parts is that ti prevents women from
> participating in mundane activities such as bathing in public places,
> perfroming sports activities etc. I have worked as a gym teacher in upper
> secondary school and this habit affectively blocked these young girls from
> participating in class.
>
> I am not under the impression that I 'know the mind of Muslim women', but
I
> find these practices as deeply problematic and it is all too easy just to
> see the use of these as manifestations of free choices. As sociologists or
> students of Bourdieu we would be wary of such simplistic liberal
> depictions. As is written in the American declaration of independence, men
> are created equal, but it is not written that we are created free. Freedom
> is referred to as one of of the unalienable rights. This is quite an
> important distinction. There is nothing 'natural' about freedom. It has as
> on of its prerequisites the formation of institutions which can secure the
> freedom of the citizens. Again to use an expression of Marx, 'The human
> being is in the most literal sense a Zwon politikon not merely a
gregarious
> animal, but an animal which can individuate itself only in the midst of
> society.'
> (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch01.htm)
> To individuate oneself is not the same thing as expressing any essence,
> other than perhaps s a way of developing the innate capacities,
> potentialites we have for production, both material and mental. the goal
> would be to form a society which would promote this kind of freedom. 'In
> place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class
antagonisms,
> we shall have an association in which the free development of each is the
> condition for the free development of all.' (Marx/Engels, Communist
Manifesto).
> Utopian perhaps, but we would have to question all the presuppostions of
> the 'self-evident' truths and norms which we embrace and to questions the
> traditions we are part of in order to ratinoally scrutinise all things  we
> hold as sacred.
>
> Lastly I am curious just to know how you Batoul view the fact that no male
> in the cultures having the tradition of women covering up and protecting
> sacred parts of their bodies would consider veiling their own bodies. Do
> men lack sacred parts or precious objects?
>
> Best regards,
> Pär Engholm
>
>
> At 12:01 2004-01-04, you wrote:
> >Dear Par,
> >
> >You have expressed much more clearly than I the content of my approach.
And
> >as long as people are expressing horror at ideas, let me re-express my
own
> >horror at the idea that Islam is a progressive force against Western
> >imperialism, in this instance specifically, Islamic oppression of women.
> >
> >John
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: owner-bourdieu-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
> >[mailto:owner-bourdieu-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU]On Behalf Of Par
> >Engholm
> >Sent: dimanche 4 janvier 2004 11:26
> >To: bourdieu-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
> >Subject: Re: [BOU:] l'affaire du foulard
> >
> >
> >Ozgur, Patrick and others,
> >There is nothing progressive about any religion, Islam being no
exception.
> >If anyone is 'pseudoprogressive' that would be those who think that 'the
> >veil' would be some battering ram against global capitalism, as Patrick
> >would like to see it. It is too easy to embrace any movement which is
> >'against' the west and to promote to a sublime place within an
> >anticapitalist movement. Of course the usual denunciation of
'eurocentrism'
> >is invoked, and of course Ozgur calls attention to the fact that he has
> >been raised in a predominantly muslim society. Anything resembling
appeals
> >to universalist standards would be condemned as 'an oppressive hangover
of
> >the Enlightenment' or of eurocentism.
> >
> >I deeply regret the present state of leftist politics and 'progressive'
> >ideas. In a sense, Patrick is right when he states that the veil(s), or
> >'Islam today is the only significant social force standing in opposition
to
> >global capitalism' in the sense that the left has abdicated from any
> >sensible standpoint against capitalism so that it has to degenerate into
a
> >new sort of cult of religious oppression as a viable force in this
> >struggle. As Eagleton has commented on the postmodern vogue among left
> >intellectuals: 'Radicals, like anyone else, can come to hug their chains,
> >decorate their prison cells, rearrange the deckchairs on the Titanic and
> >discover freedom in dire necessity.' Likewise, the oppression of women
> >taking the form inter alia of the compulsion to wear the veil, or the
whole
> >appeal to religion as a progressive force would amount to just this; the
> >denial of the autonomy of rational men and women to determine their own
> >course of life.
> >
> >Just to counter any more useless diatribes against any alleged
> >eurocentrism, I would like to state that I am not denying the oppressive
> >character of Christianity, and my position is that I do not respect any
> >religion. They are all false and harmful.
> >
> >As Marx put it 150 years ago:
> >
> >Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress
and
> >also the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the
> >oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the
> >spirit of spiritless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
> >
> >To abolish religion as the illusory happiness of the people is to demand
> >their real happiness. The demand to give up illusions about the existing
> >state of affairs is the demand to give up a state of affairs which needs
> >illusions. The criticism of religion is therefore in embryo the criticism
> >of the vale of tears, the halo of which is religion."
> >(http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm)
> >
> >Best regards,
> >
> >
> >At 20:12 2004-01-03, you wrote:
> > >   sorry for my words guys but I am terrified to see such blatantly
> > >eurocentric and pseudoprogressive attitude in a discussion list on
> >Bourdieu.
> > >I don't know how to start my critcism but since such an attitude is
beyond
> > >my reach, I will not try. Just wanted to express my feelings as someone
> > >raised in a predominantly muslim society.
> > >
> > >Ozgur
> > >---------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >Par Engholm; Par.Engholm-AT-soc.uu.se
> >Uppsala University, Dept. of Sociology
> >Box 821; SE-751 08 Uppsala; SWEDEN
> >Phone: +46 18 471 1180; Fax: +46 18 471 1170
> >Home: Botvidsgatan 14 B; SE-753 27 Uppsala
> >Phone: +46 (0)18 696348; Mobile: +46 709 783546
> >http://www.soc.uu.se/staff/par_e.html
> >
> >
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> -----------------------------------------------------------
> Par Engholm; Par.Engholm-AT-soc.uu.se
> Uppsala University, Dept. of Sociology
> Box 821; SE-751 08 Uppsala; SWEDEN
> Phone: +46 18 471 1180; Fax: +46 18 471 1170
> Home: Botvidsgatan 14 B; SE-753 27 Uppsala
> Phone: +46 (0)18 696348; Mobile: +46 709 783546
> http://www.soc.uu.se/staff/par_e.html
>
>
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