Madam, - I cannot understand why there is such opposition to the wearing of the hijab in schools.
Some people must have very short memories. Not too very long ago the majority of teachers in our Catholic girls' schools wore veils - and not just veils but also wimples and voluminous full-length dresses.
I don't want anyone to tell me: "Oh, but that was different". That garb was worn as a symbol of religious affiliation by certain Catholic women, just as the hijab is worn by certain Muslim women. I don't recall any fuss or furore being stirred up then, which makes me wonder about the agenda of some of today's objectors.
Do I detect a whiff of religious bigotry or xenophobia?
We, the people of Ireland, have more cause than most to tolerate the sincere religious beliefs and practices of others. We must not subscribe to the virulent and dangerous tide of Islamophobia which is being stirred up by sinister elements worldwide.
Tolerance and mutual respect have to be the way forward, so let's cool it and try to act like a civilised and humane society. - Yours, etc,
GEARÓID KILGALLEN, Crosthwaite Park South, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin.
Madam, - Gareth Moss (June 11th) writes : "Islam is as real a religion as Catholicism and it is growing at a greater rate." This is as meaningful as saying: "Chinese Communism is as real a belief as liberalism and is growing at a greater rate."
Both statements may well be true but are impossible to validate, since it is no more possible for a citizen of a Muslim state publicly to repudiate his or her religion (death is the Koranic punishment for "apostasy") than it is for a Chinese citizen to vote for a candidate who is not a member of the ruling party.
The more we pretend to respect practices that reinforce the subject status of women (such as wearing the hijab), the more we betray those people within the Muslim world who privately do not believe in the precepts of increasingly bizarre religious fundamentalists. These dissidents want and need the help of progressive people outside their own closed societies in order to gain the freedoms we take for granted.
How would we now judge the British of the 1960s and 1970s if they had pretended to admire the Ireland of John Charles McQuaid out of some kind of misguided multiculturalism? Would that not have been a betrayal of people like myself who grew up in that environment?
Would we ever have escaped that world if multiculturalism had the same currency back then? In fact, the British rightly ridiculed that society, contributing to its collapse. We should be grateful to them for that kindness.
When we joined the EEC we were forced to drop the marriage bar on working women. If multiculturalists held sway in the Europe of 1973, they would probably have allowed us a special protocol that allowed us to continue the ban out of respect for our "culture", of our "different" view on the place of women. Thankfully, multiculturalism was a just a cloud of fuzzy immature thinking on the horizon way back then.
We have a duty to all in the Muslim community, not just the religiously orthodox. - Yours, etc,
TIM O'HALLORAN, Ferndale Road, Dublin 11.
Madam, — There is no doubt that all individuals are entitled to their own personal beliefs. However, school is generally not a place which encourages individuality; it is a place that promotes conformity.
Most schools have a uniform and many have a strict policy about the wearing of jewellery, colour and style of hair, and so on. Such a policy clearly discourages individual expression. Individual talents and interests are pursued outside of school. Individual religion, including Catholicism, should also be pursued in one's personal time.
In post-modern, multicultural Ireland, the time has come to remove religious teaching from our state education system. - Yours, etc,
SARAH GROARKE, Cloghanboy Crescent, Athlone, Co Westmeath.
A chara, - If we vote No to Lisbon, will Brian Cowen have to wear a hijab, or even a burka, during his next visit to Brussels? - Is mise,
LOMAN Ó LOINGSIGH, Ellensborough Drive, Kiltipper Road, Dublin 24.