Canada’s largest Muslim organisation is outraged over a bill introduced by the Quebec government that would ban headscarves for school support staff and students.
“In Quebec, we made the decision that state and the religion are separate,” said Education Minister Bernard Drainville, CBC News reported. “And today, we say the public schools are separate from religion.”
But the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), who are challenging in the Supreme Court the original bill that forbids religious symbols being worn by teachers, say the new bill is another infringement on their rights and unfairly targets hijab-wearing Muslims.
“This renewed attack on the fundamental rights of our community is just one of several recent actions taken by this historically unpopular government to bolster their poll numbers by attacking the rights of Muslim Canadians,” the NCCM said in a social media post.
I heard arguments about it in other spaces that made a lot of sense to me. Like a judge who ought to be able to visibly set their religion aside while exercising their authority, rather than signaling possible conflicts of interest in the very office such would compromise. I think I’m even on board with that reasoning. By that same reasoning, maybe it’s appropriate to also restrict displays of religious affiliation by school staff.
But why students?
That’s blatant cultural suppression and I cannot conceive a remotely coherent justification for it. And why the focus specifically on people showing their faces? Can you imagine if we mandated a certain amount of cleavage? How the fuck is this anybody’s business?
This just has me re-evaluating the cultural protectionism/outgroup suppression I’d previously deemed adequately justified.