Muslim Scarves

The article “Muslim Schoolgirl Scarves Banned: France in a Furor” (Part A, Nov. 7) points up the importance of freedom of religion as enshrined in our Bills of Rights.

It seems incredible that three teen-age Muslim girls in France can so arouse a whole country over so simple an issue as an article of clothing. Certainly no one talks about banning topless bikinis from the French Riviera but somehow Muslim girls modestly wearing head scarves to public school is an emotional issue. What is at issue, however, is the question of religious freedom. And when it comes to Islam, the French schools and the anti-religious intellectuals are still fighting the Crusades.

While these independent-minded teen-agers would be heralded as a new group of liberated women heroically standing up to a society’s status quo if they were anything but Muslim, that conviction alone seems to be the reason for their expulsion from school.

The issue is not one of an “attempt to convert others to their religion” as the school principal ridiculously insists. According to this logic, priests, nuns, ministers and others should remove their religious clothes and wearing crosses and Jewish stars should be banned, too.

Fortunately, the wife of President Francois Mitterand, the archbishop of Paris and a French rabbi, supporting these girls’ rights, have sided with light against darkness. Bravo for all clear-minded thinkers in a world where irrationality too often prevails.

MAIMOONA M. AHMED

Palos Verdes Estates