The Politics of the Veil (The Public Square) (Hardcover)

by Joan Wallach Scott (Author)
Key Phrases: law banning headscarves, headscarf law, headscarf controversies, North Africans, United States, National Front (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"A powerful weapon in Islam's arsenal is women's clothing." -- Carla Power, New Statesman

Review
Scott does a good job of conveying the hysteria that surrounded the foulard debate in France...Scott's broad and exhaustive research makes for a bracing account of the debate.
(Laila Lalami The Nation )

Veil-bashing is suddenly socially acceptable among not merely tabloid-reading Little Englanders, but also metropolitan sophisticates...Why should a bit of cloth so threaten the French republic? That is the central question posed by [this] subtle new study...Many French commentators cast the debate about the veil as an issue about Muslims, Islam and integration. Scott, a distinguished historian at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study, shows that it revealed rather more about the French themselves.
(Carla Power New Statesman )

This book will undoubtedly rank as one of the best Anglo-American critical commentaries on the affaire du foulard and the 2004 law banning religious signs in schools...[Scott] succeeds in providing a magisterial demonstration of the power of discourse--of the ways in which abstract ideas, when mediated through a vibrant political culture, can influence collective thinking and practice.
(Cecile Laborde La Vie Des Idees )

The Politics of the Veil is a propitious contribution to the exploration and analysis of the complex meanings and purported meanings of these phenomena that have come to symbolise for Turkey and France the struggle to defend the foundations of their Republic against forces that allegedly undermine all that is glorious and good about these 'singular' or 'exceptional' states.
(Elif Aydyn The Muslim News )

This book is a powerful denunciation of the French government and people whom Scott labels as racist, discriminatory, and intolerant of Muslim immigrants primarily from North Africa. In instituting a ban on the wearing of Muslim headscarves in public schools, the author claims that France has gone too far in its policies of strict secularism and adherence to the values of republicanism in which citizenship is conceived of as an individual matter devoid of ethnic and religious content. . . . [A] fascinating piece of scholarship.
(S. Majstorovic CHOICE )

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (September 17, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691125430
• ISBN-13: 978-0691125435
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #173,986 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Paradoxes of Religion and Secularism, January 7, 2009

By	Kinohi Nishikawa (Durham, NC USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Joan W. Scott's book on the headscarf controversies (*affaires des foulards*) in France over the past two decades is one of the best works of social theory that I have read in recent years. In clear, accessible prose, Scott lays out an incisive analysis of the motivations for and consequences of the headscarf ban in French public schools. Furthermore, although the controversies constitute a relatively recent phenomenon, Scott (a historian by training) does an admirable job of contextualizing the debate by presenting the colonial, religious, and philosophical sources of French national identity. The result is a nuanced and compelling study of contemporary French society and the supposed "threat" posed to it by Muslim immigrants.

The great virtue of this book is its analysis of the paradoxes of religion and secularism that have been revealed by the French government's prohibition of the headscarf (strategically referred to as the more oppressive-sounding "veil" by supporters) in school. In Scott's careful attention to media coverage of the controversies and the political and philosophical discourses of pro-ban figures, she reveals a surprising degree of chauvinism in the political ideals of French universalism; of intolerance in France's lauded defense of "abstract individualism" as the basis for citizenship; and of patriarchal authority in certain French feminists' insistence that any wearing of the "veil" is inherently oppressive and degrading of females. In short, where pro-ban figures (from conservative politicians to feminist intellectuals) rail against the intolerance, "backwardness," and authoritarian nature of global Islam (as symbolized by the "veil"), Scott notes a fearful trend toward "absolutist secularism" and an uncompromisingly hostile stance toward cultural difference (where *intranational* [within France] social, class, and ethnic/racial differences are elided by "clash of civilizations" discourse -- Western secularism pit against global Islam).

On the other hand, opponents of the ban as well as some heardscarf-wearing girls (through quoted testimony) reveal the extent to which the "veil" actually serves a strategic, even empowering, purpose in everyday life: a way for young women to negotiate their gender, spiritual, and political identities in woefully underfunded schools in the poorest sections of major French cities. In other words, in already stigmatizing environments, young women wear headscarves as a means of expressing fidelity to cultural traditions, signaling attachment to their family, and/or asserting individual dignity through spiritual development. In all cases, the headscarf is a symbol of survival and social well-being -- the very things the state claims to protect under its obtuse, heavy-handed ban.

*The Politics of the Veil* does more than outline the French government's hypocrisy in dealing with social and religious minorities. It is a well-written, well-argued case for the need to recognize the interdependence of religion and secularism in Western democracies. I recommend this book highly to scholars and general readers of modern Europe, contemporary politics, and social and cultural theory.