Last fall, city officials confirmed the image would be removed in the name of secularism following complaints that it was offensive.
Oh?
Please, Montreal City Hall, share with the class what’s offensive about that image.
Any religious representation [on govermental buildings] is offensive to secularism. A cross is just two over lapping lines but it would also be offensive in this context. Although the word offensive is a bit much, I’ll give you that, I can understand why they want it gone.
It is a shame that secularism seems to disproportionately target Muslim women but it’s either a religious symbol or it isn’t.
Edit: Clarified first sentence.
This monument overlooks Montreal.
Any religious representation is offensive to secularism.
No, I don’t agree. Making laws with religious justification is offensive to secularism. A drawing that depicts a person wearing a piece of clothing traditionally associated with a religion is not offensive to secularism.
I think it goes deeper then that. Secularism means complete disconnection of church and state. Having religious symbols on state buildings goes against that. Religious symbols are a form of propaganda in the end.
I would be okay with making an exception for the head scarf. Tbh I don’t really consider it much of a symbol but I understand their reaction to it. I wish we had similar laws where I am, instead my kids get to learn about creationism (I’m just guessing it’s still taught, I don’t actually have kids).
I lived for some time in a Muslim culture country. It was officially secular: about 30% of women wore western clothes, with or without head coverings, others wore a sari (a proportion of the population was Hindu), still others wore the shalwar kameez, some were in hijabs, with or without abaya, some in chadors, or niqabs, some chose the burqa. I wore the hijab because it protected me from the sun. I was part of many discussions: the pious wanted us all in burqa, others had arguments for their choices, and the non-religious demanded I take off my hijab because I was encouraging oppression, yet many of the women I knew who wore hijab were not even remotely religious: it was just their take on their culture.
I don’t care, one way or the other, about religion or the French fixation on anti-clericalism/secularism, but I do care about women making their own choices in a democracy. I am not sure how the francophone fixation on banning religious symbols, whatever the religion, sits with that. I wonder, too, did the almost universally male anti-clericals of the 19th and 20th century ever bother to ask a woman for her opinion?
Not sure where I stand on this issue, but I am leaning towards that it shouldn’t have been removed for being “offensive”.
Anyway, on a slightly related topic, hijab is a pretty complex issue. It is both a symbol of religious freedom, and of religious oppression. In many parts of the world, women are forced to wear it, and in some other parts of the world, women are forbidden from wearing it. Even in places that have more freedom wrt this issue, women might be forced by their families to wear it.
Wtf.
I am quite pleased with this change.
Let’s just say that I have a certain “vision” of Montreal and that the image of the woman that was removed doesn’t fit into this “vision.”
