France decided to resolve the dispute once and for all and earlier this year President Jacques Chirac appointed a 20-member group headed by the national ombudsman. The group's recommendations came out on the second week of December 2003. The main recommendation is that all "conspicuous" signs of religious belief -- specifically Jewish skullcaps, oversized Christian crosses and Islamic headscarves -- be outlawed in state-approved schools. The group upheld a 1989 court ruling that it was not illegal to wear religious symbols in schools but the law forbids "ostentatious" religious signs that "constitute an act of pressure, provocation, proselytism or propaganda". The interpretation of the ruling could vary in respect of the hijab, and though they did not find so earlier, the French authority now supported by the national ombudsman find that the hijab is "provocative". President Chirac has obliged the finding by supporting it.

Is this a racist action? It seems that the law has been interpreted differently so that the ban would not be termed racist. The French authority has carefully termed the action as maintaining a secular society in France is of urgent importance, and the ban on hijab in the state schools is a step towards that. How sincere does this ring to you and me? France has always been upholding secular values and the present government in true republican spirit supports the same. Why then have the authorities decided to pinpoint hijab as a non-secular issue that like Jewish skull-caps and oversized Christian Cross must be banned? The inclusion of the last two in the list may soothe some weak hearted progressives, but these are just cosmetic additions for they had never been practiced by the school children in France.

How then, we should interpret the action of banning the hijab in the French state schools? How does a hijab or a veil or a long Arab style dress (for men) become provocative? What has the word provocative been taken to mean here? Does it mean that these symbolic dresses provoke racist feelings among the non-Muslims? If that is the case, should we then enact a racist law to defeat racism?

Dressing up in a gown like a judge or an academic is tolerable to me because only persons with appropriate qualifications and authoritative approval can practice that. Like the rituals of sadhus and sannyasis who dress in peculiar ways usually covered in dust and mud, the whole dressing up business is sometimes very pretentious and funny to me. I cannot help believing that dress is a cultural issue of a group of people developed from a number of factors related mostly to environment and necessities for performing physical tasks. The uniformity of their dress has nothing to do with other cultural issues like religion. This simplistic analysis is not without being problematic. One major problem is that the 'group of people', sometimes forming even a nation, living in a specific territory are divided in their social roles and acceptance. In other words, their society is often stratified with status asymmetry rather than equality being the norm. Once the social asymmetry is in action, the whole society becomes segmented into sections and/or groups. The division creates marginalised groups or communities because they hold no power in relation to the dominant groups. They tend to occupy second-rate housing, education and health services. They are economically frustrated for many overbearing reasons.

Such situation prevails in almost all nation states, and more so in countries where ethnicity and cultural origins of the people are diverse and out of necessity to preserve the power of the dominant, the already marginalised groups are subjected to unfair and discriminatory treatments.

If such unfair and discriminatory treatments are directed to a group of people because the latter belongs to other race or ethnicity than the dominant group, the treatments may be termed as racist. Such racism may be the outcome of years of subtle propaganda to label certain group of people as inferior, barbarian, uncivilized etc etc. for which unequal treatment to them is 'justified'.

Having said that how do we fit in discriminations by religion or faith of a group of people? Do we call such discriminations racist? Why cannot we leave it to call only discriminatory practice?

The reason for our anxiety to label discriminatory practices against a group as racist is that there are laws against practice of racism in the western European countries; simple social discriminations do not come under the laws of racism. Without going into internationally accepted definition of racism, we can from the viewpoint of common sense see that the French action being directed to a religious group cannot be racist, but overall, since the group affected by the action comprises of a racially distinct group, namely North African and Algerian Muslims, it must be racist. Similar situation prevailed in Britain where action against wearing of turbans by the Sikhs was not considered racist, but they could not ban it because it constituted a cultural factor in that population.

When the people from North Africa and Algeria first started arriving in France as part of drive to fill industrial vacancies in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Muslim women and girls hardly wore any hijab or veil. Why then, in the new millennium after more than three decades of living in the West, they are now resorting to them? It needs an answer, because the five million Muslims in France can become a force of some kind, as the politicians fear.

Some social researchers in France believe that the answer lies in the social situation of the Muslim populations in France. They are marginalised from the very beginning of their arrival and they are carefully excluded from the mainstream activities. Some whose talents and qualifications have brought them fame and position in the French society shun the people of their home countries as illiterate, backward etc etc. Secondly, being marginalised in a dominant French society of European people (irrespective of religious affiliations), they tend to display their identity to each other for support and defend possible racist attacks on them. They did not need such solidarity back home in Algeria. The situation is similar with the Muslims from Turkey in Germany. In Turkey, hijabs etc are banned from seats of learning, but the Turkish Muslim women in Germany wear them as they go out of doors.

On another count, the hijabs and veils bring another funny question. Why do not the men of the North African and Algerian origin in France display some kind of religious identity in schools and elsewhere? The men do wear their traditional dresses at home and in their social gathering, but they do not flout the school uniform rules? Asking or making the young girls by their parents or guardians to wear hijab seems to fall within personal violence and force exerted on womanhood!

This is where the feminists are jumping with another kind of marginalisation by declaring that Muslim parents are supporting the suppression of feminine rights and preparing the girls for a life in subjugation in their male dominant society. Is this really the case?

Looking at the other European countries with sizeable Muslim population, as well as at other non-European countries like Bangladesh, we find that wearing a hijab is being considered by many women as their obligation to fulfil the teachings of Koran so that they are assured of a place in heaven.

We have hardly undertaken a qualitative survey of the situation in all these countries to determine what made them start wearing hijabs and veils after so many years of not wearing them! It may also be that the 11th September incident and earlier perceiving of a war on Islam by the West are also contributing a lot. Men, on the other hand have started to wear Arabic style dresses even in Bangladesh, and they do not necessarily belong to the fundamentalist camps.

The question needs further research not just at the surface, but also at currents and cross currents of politics, economics, faiths, individual choices and sense of rebellion. We do not have the answers as yet, but one thing is certain, the Chirac support of a racist or discriminatory ruling is not so much a social action, but deeply political. We cannot forget the threat from the National Front of Jean-Marie Le Pen who after defeating Jospin was so close to defeating Chirac earlier. If Le Pen came to power, they would have exercised certain extreme right wing measures including harassment of the French Muslims. Banning of the hijabs and veils would not require recommendation of a national committee and involvement of ombudsman. They would simply organise a riot by tearing the hijabs at the school gates. With the French electorate behind them, such action would not bat many eyelids. President Jacques Chirac knows that, and in order to defeat the possible resurgence of Le Pen, he himself is doing in a civilised manner what Le Pen promises to do by force. The French electorate would now vote for Chirac et al once again as they do not need Le Pen for racist policies. So, racism in France has become a necessity to defeat Le Pen's racist and fascist party. Do you think that is fair?

Fazlul Alam, a researcher, is an information system consultant.