Entry for October 17, 2006

Secularism
News over the past week has been dominated by the sacking of the muslim teaching assistant who refused to remove her veil in class. By coincidence I've been reading Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion", and I thought this quote from Nehru was interesting -
"We talk about a secular India...Some people think that it means something opposed to religion. That obviously is not correct. What it means is that it is a State which honours all faiths equally and gives them equal opportunities; India has a long history of religious tolerance...In a country like India, which has many faiths and religions, no real nationalism can be built up except on the basis of secularity."
I'm not entirely convinced by the argument that the veil stops the woman doing her job because the fact you can't see her face is a bar on proper communication. I suspect some blind people may be offended by this.
However, it doesn't seem to me to be unreasonable (or disrespectful) to suggest that overt statements of one's religion should be kept out of schools (not just veils, but crucifixes, and statuettes of Apollo too). Otherwise are we not open to some mad free-for-all where pupils and teachers are able to assert rights (and garb) based on personal belief?
For goodness sake, what's wrong with dress code!