Utah's going DOWN btw

Stayed up all night cranking out an essay on hegemony, contradictory-consciousness, and some religious and cultural syncretism. John R. Bowen's Why the French Don't Like Headscarves: Islam, the State, and Public Space has had some real gems and gold nuggets to saved, copied, perhaps laminated.

An interview between he and three North African immigrants living in France:

Of the three women, Fariba had talked most frequently with non-Muslims about her own dress. People often asked her why she wore a voile.

Once I asked them: ‘why do you ask that question? Do I ask you why you wear that sweater or those jeans? Why is it I and not you who has to justify my choice?’ They said, ‘well, but jeans are not a religious sign.’ I said: I do not wear it to make evident my religious leanings. If I could wear the voile while hiding it I would do it. Because in religion it is clear that you should do things for God and not for people. It is not to show my affiliation with other people but my affiliation to God. Why does it bother others? That is their problem. They have ideas somewhere that are not the same as mine.

All three women objected to efforts by others to attach objective meanings to the voile.

Souad: The voile is in the heart; faith is in the heart.

Fariba: Yes, faith is in the heart, but I am against the idea that the voile is religious sign, or a sign of religious excellence; it not because I wear the voile that I am a better Muslim than
Maryam or a worst Muslim. It is a personal choice that I take on. And the connotations that is had—‘submissive woman,’ ‘terrorist,’—that is their problem.

Souad: You get the impression that only women with voiles are oppressed in this world. When there are women who die from conjugal violence every day they are not necessarily in veils, but no one talks to them, people only talk about veiled women in certain countries who are struck, burned, but not about others who experience discrimination. The voile is now the symbol of oppression in the world.

Maryam: On the television, it is as if there are only two Muslim countries in the world, Afghanistan and Iran.

Pg. 78-79


Check it OUT.
Kobe's promised us a season til June... I think I might have to stay in Los Angeles to further collect even more great front pages of the LA Times Sports section. Ha.
Like today's "A Victory Full of Value"... thoughts?