How the War between Ideals and Practices in the West is Exposing Supremacism as the Force behind All Rights Abuses

By Ahmed E. Souaiaia * When school started in France this fall, Muslim children who wished to wear an abaya (for girls) or a qamis (for boys) had to choose between the dress and education. They were compelled to make the difficult choice because the French government banned Islamic attire that offends secularism. France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, defended the ban, stressing that it aims to defend secularism and the principles of the republic, but also went further to connect Islamic dress to terrorism: “We also live in our society with a minority, with people who change the direction of a religion and come to challenge the Republic and secularism… Sometimes the worst happened. We cannot act as if there had been no terrorist attack and there was no Samuel Paty.” This statement is an explicit confirmation that the ban is not an instrument that applies to all to preserve the “neutral space” that secularism allegedly creates. It is a ban that targets a specific social group, Muslims. Moreover, the ban is targeting Muslims, according to Macron, because Islamic practices, including wearing a traditional dress, produces terrorism.  These are the values, the reasoning, and the principles of the “enlightened world” that must be universalized, again, as per Macron’s recent instructions to his diplomatic core.   The right to education that is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was produced by the Western world at the conclusion of the European wars, and that was used thereafter as a political Read more