> Indonesia has banned public schools from making religious attire compulsory, after the story of a Christian student being pressured to wear a headscarf in class went viral.
A small victory for liberty to offset the setback in Myanmar. The other ASEAN [1] countries have an opportunity to improve liberty as the rest of the world backslides into protectionism and authoritarianism.
Freedom from the demands of religion tends to only really evolve in the context of freedom of religion, at the edges that form where people are practicing different religions that have conflicting access needs.
It’s similar to how accessibility measures get implemented: you need a vocal group that’s disparately affected, and who needs the change in order to function properly, before anyone will bother to change how they do things. You need a “lobby.”
Religious freedom is an accessibility need where “functioning properly” means “being able to adhere to the tenets of their own religious beliefs.” So the friction responsible for change only comes up where you have a “lobby” of people of another religion, where that other religion has a conflicting requirement.
The situation where an individual or group of individuals need to petition another group of individuals, to change the status quo so the first group can function - is broken.
Just a reminder that utilitarianism wrongs the minority group by definition, and is barbaric.
It's a good ruling, but framing it as good news masks the fact that the law is only necessary because intolerance and religious coercion is growing at the social and local level. It was passed in direct response to a videotaped incident.
"Good news" doesn't have to mean "the overall trends are good". Something good can happen among a trend of bad things, and acknowledging the good thing doesn't mean denying the bad things.
This is good news. Indonesia has been on a road to become quite intolerant of other religions over the past years with some very tragic outcomes like lynchings. I have little hope that this is a sign of that process slowing down or halting or even reversing, but a win is a win I guess.
Aceh is especially bad, but it's happening outside of Aceh as well. There's mob violence against Christians and non-Sunni muslims, they imprisoned a Christian governor of Jakarta over "blasphemy", the state pretty much does not hire non-muslims anymore.
You should update/add your information source.
There has been many non moslems, including Christian, become minister or governor or head of city/town all over Indonesia.
Since its independence until now.
In the beginning of current presidential period (2019-2024) there were 5 ministers as a Christian. However last year 1 is replaced due to unpopular take on COVID-19 handling and another 1 is sacked due to corruption on social programs during Jakarta’s lockdown last year.
Even the governor you talked about is now becoming a commissioner for a state owned oil company. Imagine. someone out of jail, a Christian but hold a prestigious position in a state owned oil company.
Points taken. It's not all bad, it's nowhere near the intolerance we see in some other countries. I'm just extra concerned about Indonesia because it used to be a very tolerant country. And it's not just through news about how the government wants to ban 'gay emojis', I have friends who live(d) there and/or have family there and they also tell me about how there are preachers from Saudi Arabia walking around in the kampungs teaching a far stricter version of Islam.
Indonesia's Aceh flogs two men for having sex [1]:
> They were reported by neighbours back in November.
> The two men, aged 27 and 29, winced in pain as they were whipped by robed and masked enforcers who lashed the men on their backs with a rattan stick.
Perhaps "robed" was conflated with "robbed". Appalling nonetheless:
> This is believed to be the third time gay men have been caned in Aceh since Islamic laws outlawing homosexuality were introduced in 2015.
Say what you will, this isn't too different to what ex-gay/re-education that is happening in a lot of western countries is doing to children on the behalf of evangelism/religion, they just don't bother hiding it.
I wonder about the amount of unrecorded cases though, that "3 since 2015" number seems a bit weird, but I'm not 100% knowledged about the social dynamics in Indonesia.
Shunning [1] can be devastating and is used as a powerful alternative to physical punishment in pacifist communities like Anabaptists (e.g. Mennonites and Amish). Shunning is like a chronic disease while caning is acute.
People have the right to decide who they associate with. Communities and organizations have a right to decide who they allow into them.
Shunning is very effective in enforcing community standards and behavior. It is one of the fundamental mechanisms inherent to any and all communities. At your job you can get fired. If you contribute to a dev project you must abide the CoC, and if you're a member of some cult or some community like Amish you have to live by community standards or you can go live by whatever standards you want with people that want to live that way with you. It can be devastating, but it is not wrong.
If you think that conversion therapy is voluntary in most cases, you're delusional.
There's a lot of outside pressure involved and often, you don't really have a chance but to give into that until you can leave your whole family and existing social infrastructure behind.
I think it's pointless to view it as some sort of competition of awfulness, but you should know that the worst of the conversion therapy places were way more evil than this jaunty characterization. Some of them were using their own invented version of "electro shock therapy" that functionally was just torturing kids.
Even the more mild places do things to kids that leads to life long mental health challenges. It shouldn't be trivialized away as all just being a friendly chat among consenting adults.
> this isn't too different to what ex-gay/re-education that is happening in a lot of western countries
Both are illiberal as they punish behavior between consenting adults but extreme corporal punishment is a different level in the spectrum, in my opinion. Singapore is an advanced nation state that canes criminals [1]. One does not have to be for illegal drug trafficking, for instance, to be against caning.
I think it should be a choice given to the convict. Imprisonment, maybe for months or years, or intense pain and life long scaring, but you get to go home at the end of the day and don't spend a significant fraction of your only life in a cell. Depending on the length of the prison sentence, I would opt for the caning.
I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I do believe that imprisonment is less humane than corporal punishment, so long as the corporal punishment does not maim, is in line with the crime, and there are no victimless crimes punished with corporal punishment. So for example, I'd be opposed to the death penalty for drug trafficking as it is in Singapore, or the removal of limbs for theft as it is in SA, or any punishment whatsoever for homosexuality, but putting someone in a cage for 10 years for selling crack, or even for armed robbery, separating them from their children who have to grow up without a parent, putting them into a dangerous environment made entirely up of criminals and having to adapt a perpetually criminal and defensive mindset, to me that is more barbaric than beating someone. It is a difficult thing to reason on but it is important to do so.
As a way to compare societies and their values, it seems to me best to exclude the distant past when everyone was basically unaware of their neighbors, and use something like "since tv in most homes", or better yet, "since internet available to most".
There's far less excuses in today's globalized world to justify cultural relativism.
Do you believe that locking people in a cage for years of their life, separating them from their families, and putting them in an environment where they must be afraid perpetually or hone criminal skills to protect themselves to be humane? Not being hyperbolic, just detailed.
Perhaps not, but this is a classic display of 'whataboutism.' It is entirely possible to have an opinion about the public torture of citizens as punishment without having to weigh in on the morality of incarceration.
Some form of prison is necessary, and it serves three purposes:
- rehabilitation
- deterrence
- protecting society from the criminally inclined
Every society, including the most liberal, have found some type of prison to be necessary. It is not inherently barbaric, and it's the minimally barbaric option when dealing with a murdered for example. Public torture doesn't fulfill all three objectives, especially not the third, and is therefore a non-starter.
Note that this is distinct from claiming support for a specific instance of a prison in a specific country, which may well be barbaric.
I was making a normative statement, not a descriptive one (although I didn't communicate that effectively).
Those are the three valid purposes that prison should serve, whether or not that happens to be true for a specific instance of a prison system in a specific country.
Well, I disagree that some form of prison is necessary. Like I said earlier somewhere I'm here, my opinion is probably a very unpopular one. I believe that if we can create a set of laws with no victimless crimes (which are also barbaric) then the world would be better with 2 sets of punishments: fines and corporal punishment, so long as no maiming is allowed in corporal punishment. I believe such a system would be much less barbaric than any system based around incarceration, and I believe incarceration is ineffective as a deterrent, and as rehabilitation. As far as protecting society from the criminally inclined, you're basically saying some people must be removed from society, and I would agree on that, though I think not nearly as many as we think go into prison like that, but many more come out like that, and I can think of a more humane way to remove that element from society than locking them away for the rest of their days, if they're truly beyond rehabilitation.
For the small number of people that are truly beyond rehabilitation (say they have some compulsion to keep murdering people because of some problem with their brain), what do you propose if not some sort of confinement (i.e. prison)?
Aceh is different. They were fighting for independence from 1975 onwards. When the Tsunami end of 2004 it aceh the strongest (pretty bad), both sides compromised, allowing aceh to be the only region of Indonesia under sharia law.
What about Kalimantan? I've been to Kota Kinabalu (many years ago) and the social difference compared to Kuala Lumpur was striking. I assumed Kalimantan was socially more similar to its island neighbors. Official laws and social norms do not always align.
Actually I do not know. Kalimantan is the Indonesian part of Borneo, while Kota Kinabalu is on the Malaysian part of Borneo. Generally Malaysia is more conservative than indonesia. Even in KL Muslims are banned from buying alcohol, while in Indonesia that's not generally the case.
Seriously, what's so hard about not being actively intolerant or even violent towards other people based on their sexuality (which shouldn't even affect you anyway)?
Some men are sexually attracted to women, some to other men, some to both and some to neither.
Some women are sexually attracted to men, some to other women, some to both and some to neither.
As long as someone doesn't (sexually) harass you why would any of that matter?
Seriously... some places even have a death penalty for being gay/lesbian/bi. How screwed in the head would someone have to be to believe that was even remotely OK? I'm actually waiting for the day when enough people have had enough of this and other kinds of religious repression and rise up to purge these fanatic theocracies everywhere.
Giving you the benefit of doubt, but what do you mean by 'FY'? I do not think slightly outlining the political situation in a part of the world warrents an insult, or does it?
It is because of all that stuff that this is a huge milestone! Like, that means that the faction there that wants to preserve people's rights has won a pretty significant victory against the faction that wants to whip gay people.
These two groups are highly unlikely to have any overlap.
There is some degree of group attribution error in your comment that is making it hard for you to tease signal out of events. But I suppose whether something is a milestone or not is sort of subjective when you're temporally proximate to the event. So I'll leave off.
The framing is odd though describing it as "forced" instead of simply the school's dress code. Especially when comparing it to a case in Britain a few weeks ago where a girl was threatened [1] with legal action because her skirt was 'too long'. Or how france forces girls to remove their hijabs [2]. One can always find rhetoric to justify one's decision, what I find odd tho is how a group of people will use words like "forced" in one case but will bend over backwards to justify the same forced rulings with more euphemistic language when it's in favor of their own worldview. You'll hear "it's just the law" kind of excuses, while not realizing that their own arguments could easily be used to justify the opposing case as well.
I don’t think you’re putting enough thought into what it means to be forced to do something. Girls in France are forced by their elders to wear the hijab. People around the planet are forced to do things according to a religious code that violently oppresses free will and freedom of expression. France has done the right thing, it has allowed girls to choose, unfortunately this has led to their parents and others who make choices for them to choose instead to force them to adhere to a strict religious code and keep them out of School, and the public. Anything that forces you to adhere to a code by means of force means a lack of free will. Now, you have free will to violate that code, but the consequences of a young woman choosing not to wear the hijab could be life-threatening. That is not free will. That is inhumane terrorism
> Girls in France are forced by their elders to wear the hijab.
That's a vile and bigoted generalization. While that can be sometimes the case, it certainly isn't mostly so. A huge number of girls who are forced to remove their hijab feel oppressed and alienated.
> France has done the right thing, it has allowed girls to choose
No, this is nonfactual. France forces girl to remove their hijabs that's a fact. Your rhetoric is exactly what I was referring to, not only nonfactual but grossly misleading and outright deceptive.
There is nothing 'vile or bigoted' about pointing out that parents frequently force religions on their children. My christian parents sure as shit did, and it was common in other families in my community too. I see no reason to think it would be any less prevalent in Muslim families than in Christian ones.
Atheism should be reserved for 16yo and more. Forcing it on susceptible children minds should be considered child abuse. There is no freedom of religion if indoctrination starts from the earliest and most vulnerable age. This is what's really vile and bigoted here. At least Indonesia's public school system aims to be a neutral ground free from these kind of influences
I don’t think atheism is a religion choice.
Religion is about believing the existence of God, the Creator.
Atheism is about not believing the existence of God.
You choose a religion after you choose you believe in the existence of God.
The flipping is acceptable.
Flipping with religion is totally missing the point though.
- See? Anyone can make unsubstantiated assertions. Ironically it's you who clearly misses the point by not understanding how the flipping exposes your flimsy and biased narrative. Anyone who visited a french school knows for a fact that it's anything but "neutral", rather actively hostile towards religion. Anything you asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.
Well anyway it's nothing but your opinion and not rooted in any objective truth. Society imposes all sorts of teachings or value judgments upon kids, way before "developed minds can make their own choices" - We say that lying is "wrong" even if it's beneficial for you sometimes to lie and not "well let's let the kids decide if they think lying/stealing/cheating is wrong".
Everybody who doesn't live in a cave and learns about religion also quickly learns about critics of religion and thus becomes familiar with the position of atheists and agnostics.
Your take is in no way more special than the usual anti-theistic edgy rhetoric trying to pretend and maintain a false sense of "neutrality". Everyone who thinks that they are right on something will try to influence people towards their own worldview, implicitly or explicitly, hidden or obvious, anyone who claims otherwise is just lying to themselves and to others.
Some people claim that France and its school system are "neutral", but anyone who has visited a french school knows this to be untrue, it's clearly hostile towards, not only religion, but religious people.
> Most people claim that France and its school system are "neutral", but anyone who has visited a french school knows this to be untrue, it's clearly hostile towards, not only religion, but religious people.
As a French who went to french public schools, I take exception to that, as it is totally false and offensive.
France's egalitarian principles, on which public schools operate, respect people of all beliefs,
and history of religions is taught in schools from junior high.
>As a French who went to french public schools, I take exception to that, as it is totally false and offensive.
Last time I checked the french people couldn't care less about something being 'offensive' or not, since it's covered by freedom of speech, that's why they constantly harass minorities by mocking them, their religion and prophets, all in the name of freedom of speech. Forcing girls to remove their hijab is evidence that it's your narrative that is biased and false. Justifying that discrimination is just further evidence of the internalized islamophobia, which has grown to such a degree that you don't even register blatant discrimination as such.
>France's egalitarian principles
Yea those 'egalitarian principles' that somehow only protect the secular elite, while minorities, using their religion against them, are constantly mocked and bullied in the media and discriminated against in targeted unfair laws - banning the hijab. Those 'egalitarian principles' have to manifest themselves in reality, but they didn't, up till now, they have only proven to be a charade.
You're understanding of french values and society, especially of Laïcité [1], couldn't be farther from the trust.
Most french people take strongly to "Liberté Égalité Fraternité", and painting the whole country as hostile to minorities is extremely ignorant.
It is totally false to say that french freedom of speech permits to "constantly harass minorities by mocking them".
In fact our freedom of expression expressely forbids incitement to hatred. From wikipedia [2] :
"Press Law of 1881 criminalizes incitement to racial discrimination, hatred, or violence on the basis of one's origin or membership in an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group.A criminal code provision deems it an offense to engage in similar conduct via private communication"
However, satyre of ideas/symbols like religions and prophets is not the same thing as mocking people, and is an integral part of what we call laïcité.
You are missing the point that people, in their individuality as human beings, deserve respect but abstract concepts do not.
>You're understanding of french values and society, especially of Laïcité [1], couldn't be farther from the trust.
My understanding of the french values is based on evidence, on the things I see and experience and based on the account of french citizens, reports and documented events throughout history.
> Most french people take strongly to "Liberté Égalité Fraternité", and painting the whole country as hostile to minorities is extremely ignorant.
Nothing but lip service, the evidence and daily realities paint a different picture. Again, you are just making assertions without substantiating them, name calling isn't making an argument. And yes, french society as I and many others have experienced is hostile to minorities and patronising on top of that. So you are the one who is extremely ignorant and have the audacity to project your own ignorance on others.
>It is totally false to say that french freedom of speech permits to "constantly harass minorities by mocking them".
Good, because I didn't say that it does permit it, I said that you do it under the guise of freedom of speech, totally different, among other bogus excuses.
>However, satyre of ideas/symbols like religions and prophets is not the same thing as mocking people, and is an integral part of what we call laïcité.
Spare me the hair splitting, insulting and mocking people's integral part of their identity is insulting them too.
Furthermore there were cases when Charlie Hebdo Journalist was fired for being 'anti-semitic', while similar attacks on muslims were/are tolerated. There is clear cut islamophobia in french society and unfair application of laws regarding them. Don't insult people's intelligence with your weak vapid justifications.
> You are missing the point that people, in their individuality as human beings, deserve respect but abstract concepts do not.
No, you are missing the point, the amount of harassment under the guise of 'satire' with which secular elites constantly bully and harass minorities is what made french society so polarised and toxic to begin with:
"What the Charlie Hebdo caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad achieved was "not satire," and what they provoked was not "ideas," Finkelstein said.
Satire is when one directs it either at oneself, causes his or her people to think twice about what they are doing and saying, or directs it at people who have power and privilege, he said.
"But when somebody is down and out, desperate, destitute, when you mock them, when you mock a homeless person, that is not satire," Finkelstein said.
"That is, I give you the word, sadism. There’s a very big difference between satire and sadism. Charlie Hebdo is sadism. It’s not satire"
The "desperate and despised people" of today are Muslims, he said, considering the number of Muslim countries racked by death and destruction as in the case of Syria, Iraq, Gaza, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen.
"So, two despairing and desperate young men act out their despair and desperation against this political pornography no different than Der Stürmer, who in the midst of all of this death and destruction decide its somehow noble to degrade, demean, humiliate and insult the people. I’m sorry, maybe it is very politically incorrect. I have no sympathy for [the staff of Charlie Hebdo]. Should they have been killed? Of course not. But of course, Streicher shouldn’t have been hung. I don’t hear that from many people," said Finkelstein.
Streicher was among those who stood trial on charges at Nürnberg, following World War II. He was hung for those cartoons.
Finkelstein said some might argue that they have the right to mock even desperate and destitute people, and they probably have this right, he said, "But you also have the right to say 'I don’t want to put it in my magazine ... When you put it in, you are taking responsibility for it."
> Spare me the hair splitting, insulting and mocking people's integral part of their identity is insulting them too
This is flirting with integrism.
If religion was really an integral part of people's identity, apostasy would not be a thing. This is telling that it's cause of death penalty for religious extremists.
It almost feels like you're being misunderstanding and misquoting on purpose.
Genuinely voluntary apostasy, punished by death, happens. And it's clearly 'not succumbing to social pressure' to do it in countries that criminalize it and punish it by death.[1]
And then you replace 'integral part of your identity' by merely 'part of your identity', however that's the important word you're omitting.
When I was younger I liked some styles of music and felt them part of my identity too. Some used to mock and critisize them, and now that my tastes changed, I can see why.
However, particular musical genres were never an integral part of my identity the same way people are gay or not, or have a particular ethnical background.
Attributing some special powers to a class of mere opinions is wrong, misguided and often used as a tool of oppression.[2]
>It almost feels like you're being misunderstanding and misquoting on purpose.
Says the guy who responds to a fraction of the arguments and makes absurd arguments expecting to be taken seriously.
>Genuinely voluntary apostasy, punished by death, happens. And it's clearly 'not succumbing to social pressure' to do it in countries that criminalize it and punish it by death.[1]
What the hell are you even on about? You make 0 sense. You were talking about apostasy and I merely explained that it's nothing out of the ordinary that people can succumb to social pressure and change their identity, this was very specific in the context of french society. So spare me your islamophobic rants.
>And then you replace 'integral part of your identity' by merely 'part of your identity', however that's the important word you're omitting.
So? You clearly don't understand the english language very well. Integral merely means "important, essential..." and leaving it out doesn't change the essence of the statement.
Keep hairsplitting tho.
>However, particular musical genres were never an integral part of my identity the same way people are gay or not, or have a particular ethnical background.
Terrible comparison. A taste in music is not the same thing as a religion which encompasses almost every aspect of your life.
Again, terrible terrible comparison.
>Attributing some special powers to a class of mere opinions is wrong, misguided and often used as a tool of oppression.
Yea, you just perfectly described France's abuse and misuse of 'satire' and 'free speech' to discriminate against minorities.
France has its own blasphemy laws, although they don't label them as such, they are functionally and consequentially, the exact same. Not to mention what secular France has done in its colonial past, murdering and torturing millions of Algerians and Africans for resisting occupation and opposing secularism. Learn your own history and present before you try to lecture others.
You are the one pretending not to understand English.
The fact that apostasy is possible and exists, in France or elsewhere, is precisely the proof that religion is not 'essential' (to use your own prefered word) to a person's identity. I'll let you look up what "essential" means, it's perfect in this context.
That makes religion far more similar to musical taste (ever heard of Rock'n Roll as a way of life?) than to ethnicity.
By the way, accusing people who criticise the barbary of blasphemy & anti-apostasy laws of islamophobia is a cheap move but quite typical.
>The fact that apostasy is possible and exists, in France or elsewhere, is precisely the proof that religion is not 'essential'
Straw man. No one denied that apostasy is possible and exists. The claim was that for some religion can be an integral part of their identity and it's also possible that people can change their identities for various reasons including societal pressure, the desire to fit in or any other reason. That doesn't change the fact that religion is an integral part of some people's identity.
>That makes religion far more similar to musical taste (ever heard of Rock'n Roll as a way of life?) than to ethnicity.
Religion is a set of rules and guidelines to live by, so that comparison is moot, but keep pushing absurd arguments to justify your rubbish takes.
Anyway, you ignore and distort arguments beyond recognition and keep babbling utter nonsense.
You are a lost cause, so we are done here, have fun debating yourself.
By the way, distracting people who criticise the barbary of the french abuse of satire & free speech laws with blasphemy laws is a cheap move but quite typical.
If it is possible, by a simple intellectual process, to make the choice to renounce religion, it can then not possibly be integral or essential to your identity. That's completely antinomic. You either don't understand those words (and funnily accuses me of misusing English), or are being dishonest.
But I realized you're most likely just a troll. My bad.
Chances are, you're even just a secondary account of jedimind, seeing how you apparently have a habit of intervening at his rescue on other discussions, use the same pattern of purposefully missing the point, name calling and parroting the person you are responding to instead of being relevant.
It is telling though to see how you kept avoiding the concept that by apostasy I was referring to the honest personal choice of people renouncing their religion for intellectual honesty (someday they believe then, maybe after self debating the absurdity of the idea, they don't anymore), but you kept insisting instead that it must be because someone or something forces them to. It really shows how narrow minded you must be.
Keep to your fascist trolling if that pleases you, your moral values are not on the right side of history.
Blasphemy laws and similar barbaric values have been successfully fought and repealed in France (that you seem to despise so much) and other countries, they will eventually be everywhere else too.
>If it is possible, by a simple intellectual process, to make the choice to renounce religion, it can then not possibly be integral or essential to your identity. That's completely antinomic. You either don't understand those words (and funnily accuses me of misusing English), or are being dishonest.
By a simple InTeLlEcTuAl pRoCeSs, again, since you lack basic reading comprehension skills, for some people religion is an integral part of their identity, that's not even up to debate. Something can be an integral part of your identity and still change for various reasons, nothing of that will change the fact that it is an integral part of some people's identity. Your embarrassing attempts to defend your absurd claim is just pure comedy.
>But I realized you're most likely just a troll. My bad.
Says the guy who desperately clings to 1 of the many arguments that were made ignoring all others and is not even able to make sense on that front. Embarrassing.
>It is telling though to see how you kept avoiding the concept that by apostasy I was referring to the honest personal choice of people renouncing their religion for intellectual honesty (someday they believe then, maybe after self debating the absurdity of the idea, they don't anymore), but you kept insisting instead that it must be because someone or something forces them to. It really shows how narrow minded you must be.
You are heavily misquoting and distorting yet again.
I said that apostasy can occur for various reasons many times, yet you make this completely bizarre and far fetched case just to inflate your terribly false argument.
>Keep to your fascist trolling if that pleases you, your moral values are not on the right side of history.
Says the guy who defends french fascism and persecution of minorities based on fake french values, which only serve the secular elite. The barbary of french colonialism continues, after murdering millions of Algerians and Africans and force their secularism on them, now they try to intellectualise their oppression. France even betrayed the jews and cooperated with the Nazis, delivered them to be murdered, so don't ever talk about being on the right side of history, you never were and never will be.
>Blasphemy laws and similar barbaric values have been successfully fought and repealed in France (that you seem to despise so much) and other countries, they will eventually be everywhere else too.
Nope, wrong. France and its barbaric values are still present in its own blasphemy laws which prohibits denigrating the french flag among other deceptions to not respect its own values, thus violating free speech, but everyone already knows that france has only fake free speech, protecting the rich secular people, but not minorities.
> France has done the right thing, it has allowed girls to choose
France bans face veils in public. How is banning one of the two choices allowing them to choose? You don't respond to people being forced to do one thing by forcing them to do the opposite thing. It's also completely patronizing to just assume that women only wear the hijab just because "their elders force them to". I know plenty of people who choose to wear it of their own volition.
The different with current action from the Indonesian minister of education is the school is not allowed to ‘force’ the students to wear religion dressing but also the schools are not allowed to ban the students who want to use it.
In France it is still not allowed even though it is the student decision.
I imagine this is because we are dealing with a people who feel that they are morally superior than the rest of the world due to worldly advantage and dominance.
Whether or not this school was correct in their dress code [1] is shadowed by the immediate conclusion for many that “Islam = Bad, oppressive, unfair, archaic” the moment that it ceases to be just an “internal, private belief for some” and becomes an external way of life that sovereign countries implement in their own territories. This is so even if what a country is implementing is not congruent to the tenants of Islam (see, the flogging of the Homosexuals for example).
Let them (viz. The West) tell it, the sociocultural climate of their localities are in exemplary order.
[1]: I see no issue with private institutions enforcing a dress code that makes the hijab mandatory. Non-muslim students need not attend and even to force them to wear it would obfuscate the intent of the hijab. It is far more than just a cloth that is draped over the head of any woman and its virtue is neglected so long as its wearer is void of virtue herself.
By what logic would a person enroll their child into a private institute that enforces a non-arbitrary code that they disagree with?
I see no problem with a private Catholic school saying “If you’re not Catholic and have an issue with what we enforce here (e.g. dress codes), then you should enroll your children here.” I imagine that’s what they all would say.
If I didn’t make it clear, this applies appropriately to private institutions, meaning “you are enrolling here on your own conscious accord.”
If a person has any issues with how a private academic institute operates, then they are not mandated to attend it.
Furthermore there is a difference between blatant discrimination (“No non-Christians allowed”) vs. "there is a particular culture that is being observed here; we aren’t going to bar anyone from attending this establishment, but it’s illogical to expect us to bend to your will because you are in opposition to what we practice upon you joining."
I remember the first time I went to Indonesia, back around 2005 or so, a work trip to the small island of Batam, a ferry ride from Singapore.
When Indonesian colleagues there met me for the first time, they would almost always ask what religion I practiced, in the same sort of casual way as people in the Western world might ask where you lived. I thought it was a bit weird!
Anyway, I'd always say "no religion", since I don't practice or believe in any gods, afterlife etc - but this was totally incomprehensible! Heads would tilt, and I'd get baffled looks like I was mad - "uh... no, but what god you you follow?". No matter how many times or ways I said it, they just didn't seem to believe me.
Someone later explained that in Indonesia you legally had to tell the government what religion you followed, and "none" was not an option.
>Someone later explained that in Indonesia you legally had to tell the government what religion you followed, and "none" was not an option.
That is correct, furthermore, the government only acknowledges 6 religions, although I heard that they started acknowledging some folks religion recently.
It's an interesting contrast to here in the US where you're assumed Christian, and certain sects actively try to force everyone (including other Christians) to live by their specific beliefs. I'd take confusion at not following any god over anger at not following a specific version of one.
That’s really not been my experience. I don’t think I have had a religious conversation or even a question outside my immediate family in the last decade. The US is a huge country and you will experience vastly different things in different areas.
I didn’t experience anything like the grandparent post even in places with higher proportions of religious people in the US. I even attended catholic and Lutheran schools as a kid, and no one cared about my religion (or lack of).
A number of people at my small company refer to their church or make other casual statements that affirm their participation of religion. I have no real problem with this (I'm atheist). However, a guy who does some work for the owner and is remote from somewhere in the center of the country recently posted some very hardcore and, in my opinion, inappropriate statements in our company Slack.
He was responding to someone announcing that their family member tested positive for C19. He came with this, "The Lord blah blah and He will save with His grace yadda yadda." I consider that pretty far over the line of good taste at the workplace, even if well intentioned. Especially given that there are people on staff whose religious beliefs are unknown to me, but who come from parts of the world where Christianity is not dominant.
It doesn't bother me if a person says they'll pray for someone's recovery, for example. But the way he displayed an assumption of the superiority of his religion to others really rubbed me the wrong way. Luckily, there's no overlap in our roles and therefore no need to interact. I can just ignore him and pretend that didn't just happen.
I don't know where you're from, but referencing a prayer in response to hearing that someone was infected with a dangerous disease isn't "far over the line of good taste." To those who are religious, it's core to their identity, and their prayer doesn't affect you at all unless you're religious, then it would be seen as very supportive.
> referencing a prayer in response to hearing that someone was infected with a dangerous disease isn't "far over the line of good taste."
I don't know if you deliberately misconstrued my words or not. I specifically said this:
> It doesn't bother me if a person says they'll pray for someone's recovery, for example.
What I found "over the line of good taste at the workplace" was this sort of statement:
> "The Lord blah blah and He will save with His grace yadda yadda."
"I'll pray," is non-specific. Getting into the details of one's religion ("God is male, in fact He's Jesus") bothers me. Maybe God is female. Maybe God has another name. Getting specific invalidates the beliefs of others.
And, once again, I am atheist. I don't believe in a supernatural creator. I just don't appreciate the assumption that one's superstitions are more correct than others.
It’s not a religious belief being expressed that’s at issue. People don’t want to hear specifics about your beliefs any more than they want to hear about your sex life, personal fetishes, or bowl movements.
I'm truly sorry that hearing a prayer is equal to hearing of someone's shit to you. When you hear it, please understand that it's merely a show of support by them. Their culture probably doesn't think it's unkempt for such a personal display to be made to another person.
This is true. One of my in-laws' neighbor practice a religion not included in the official list of recognized religions, so he just register himself as a muslim instead. Ultimately, this field doesn't really matter though in day to day life, and might be removed entirely in the future.
> Someone later explained that in Indonesia you legally had to tell the government what religion you followed, and "none" was not an option.
While Indonesia is not a muslim country, believe in God is actually included in its foundational philosophy, and thus hammered into your head as part of your education since primary school. You can believe any god, but not believing any god is definitely strange here and many people would have trouble accepting that.
This has absolutely nothing to do with hacking and Indonesian school uniform regulations hardly count as "intellectually gratifying".
Even if I wanted to learn more about school uniforms in a country I've never been to, whose language and culture I know nothing about, why the hell would I read about it coming from the state media of a another country I've never been to, whose journalists also know nothing about the language, culture, and political situation there?
It's not "news" at all. Have you ever been to Indonesia? Do you speak Indonesian? Have you even interacted with any Indonesians? Have ever read a book in Indonesian? Neither you or I have any contextual information to qualify this as good or bad news. We sure as hell shouldn't trust the BBC of all people to give us that contextual information either.
The only reason people on HN care is because it's framed as a part of some weird culture/religious war. This constant projection of values on people you know nothing about is a waste time at best.
Culture doesn’t enjoy a special force field against criticism and scrutiny. And humanity transcends geography. Women the world over are entitled to respect and truly equal rights, not mere lip service. FWIW:
> Culture doesn’t enjoy a special force field against criticism and scrutiny.
Never said it did. I'm simply not interested in hearing uninformed "criticism" from someone who knows absolutely nothing about what they're criticizing, made with ulterior motives.
Are we allowed to force kids to a curriculum? If you say "yes", then what is wrong with forcing kids to a dress code? Why is force ok in one sense and not in another?
you've presumed that forcing kids to a dress code is horrible. it isn't horrible. it's just that you (seem to not) value modesty in dress, which they do.
The problem is this was done is a public school, funded by taxpayer money. Although most of its population are muslim, Indonesia is not an islamic country (except Aceh, which is a special region with its own laws and autonomous government), so the public schools must accommodate every religion recognized by the country (there are 6 of them). If it's happening in a private school (e.g. islamic boarding schools or catholic schools), no one would bat an eye.
I'd like to recommend this book: The Jakarta Method[0].
Essentially, the US aided in the dismantling of a free democratic society in favor of a coup and a military dictatorship. Examples of the same being done in other countries are also provided. This was in service of obtaining natural resources.
Disclaimer: It's politics are very left of center.
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[ 13.9 ms ] story [ 3168 ms ] threadA small victory for liberty to offset the setback in Myanmar. The other ASEAN [1] countries have an opportunity to improve liberty as the rest of the world backslides into protectionism and authoritarianism.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASEAN
It’s similar to how accessibility measures get implemented: you need a vocal group that’s disparately affected, and who needs the change in order to function properly, before anyone will bother to change how they do things. You need a “lobby.”
Religious freedom is an accessibility need where “functioning properly” means “being able to adhere to the tenets of their own religious beliefs.” So the friction responsible for change only comes up where you have a “lobby” of people of another religion, where that other religion has a conflicting requirement.
Just a reminder that utilitarianism wrongs the minority group by definition, and is barbaric.
A win is a win but this isn’t a huge milestone IMHO.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/indonesia-bans...
> They were reported by neighbours back in November.
> The two men, aged 27 and 29, winced in pain as they were whipped by robed and masked enforcers who lashed the men on their backs with a rattan stick.
Perhaps "robed" was conflated with "robbed". Appalling nonetheless:
> This is believed to be the third time gay men have been caned in Aceh since Islamic laws outlawing homosexuality were introduced in 2015.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55846699
I wonder about the amount of unrecorded cases though, that "3 since 2015" number seems a bit weird, but I'm not 100% knowledged about the social dynamics in Indonesia.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shunning
Shunning is very effective in enforcing community standards and behavior. It is one of the fundamental mechanisms inherent to any and all communities. At your job you can get fired. If you contribute to a dev project you must abide the CoC, and if you're a member of some cult or some community like Amish you have to live by community standards or you can go live by whatever standards you want with people that want to live that way with you. It can be devastating, but it is not wrong.
There's a lot of outside pressure involved and often, you don't really have a chance but to give into that until you can leave your whole family and existing social infrastructure behind.
It's like
and you're making it sound like Which is total bullshit. Voluntary courses and meetings, my ass.Even the more mild places do things to kids that leads to life long mental health challenges. It shouldn't be trivialized away as all just being a friendly chat among consenting adults.
Both are illiberal as they punish behavior between consenting adults but extreme corporal punishment is a different level in the spectrum, in my opinion. Singapore is an advanced nation state that canes criminals [1]. One does not have to be for illegal drug trafficking, for instance, to be against caning.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_in_Singapore
It's significantly worse, and, besides, conversion "therapy" is not happening in a lot of western countries. Here in western Europe it's unheard of.
Completely untrue.
https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/11/09/conversion-therapy-ban...
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/graham-linehan-trans-ge...
As a way to compare societies and their values, it seems to me best to exclude the distant past when everyone was basically unaware of their neighbors, and use something like "since tv in most homes", or better yet, "since internet available to most".
There's far less excuses in today's globalized world to justify cultural relativism.
I look forward to a rigorous justification from first principles for the moral values of Western secular humanism.
"no public execution > public executions", or
"no street gay flogging > street gay floggings",
need to be rigorously justified from first principle.
> Any society that feels it needs to torture is simply barbarism.
Perhaps not, but this is a classic display of 'whataboutism.' It is entirely possible to have an opinion about the public torture of citizens as punishment without having to weigh in on the morality of incarceration.
- rehabilitation
- deterrence
- protecting society from the criminally inclined
Every society, including the most liberal, have found some type of prison to be necessary. It is not inherently barbaric, and it's the minimally barbaric option when dealing with a murdered for example. Public torture doesn't fulfill all three objectives, especially not the third, and is therefore a non-starter.
Note that this is distinct from claiming support for a specific instance of a prison in a specific country, which may well be barbaric.
This is decidedly not true in the US where prison is about retribution.
Those are the three valid purposes that prison should serve, whether or not that happens to be true for a specific instance of a prison system in a specific country.
Intolerant-and-backwards-savagery law
FTFY.
Seriously, what's so hard about not being actively intolerant or even violent towards other people based on their sexuality (which shouldn't even affect you anyway)?
Some men are sexually attracted to women, some to other men, some to both and some to neither.
Some women are sexually attracted to men, some to other women, some to both and some to neither.
As long as someone doesn't (sexually) harass you why would any of that matter?
Seriously... some places even have a death penalty for being gay/lesbian/bi. How screwed in the head would someone have to be to believe that was even remotely OK? I'm actually waiting for the day when enough people have had enough of this and other kinds of religious repression and rise up to purge these fanatic theocracies everywhere.
The one in Aceh actually contradict Muhammad's (pbuh) example
These two groups are highly unlikely to have any overlap.
There is some degree of group attribution error in your comment that is making it hard for you to tease signal out of events. But I suppose whether something is a milestone or not is sort of subjective when you're temporally proximate to the event. So I'll leave off.
Aceh is maybe Saudi Arabia x2.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jan/12/school-thr...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_scarf_controversy_in_F...
That's a vile and bigoted generalization. While that can be sometimes the case, it certainly isn't mostly so. A huge number of girls who are forced to remove their hijab feel oppressed and alienated.
> France has done the right thing, it has allowed girls to choose
No, this is nonfactual. France forces girl to remove their hijabs that's a fact. Your rhetoric is exactly what I was referring to, not only nonfactual but grossly misleading and outright deceptive.
There is no freedom of religion if indoctrination starts from the earliest and most vulnerable age. This is what's really vile and bigoted here.
At least France's public school system aims to be a neutral ground free from this kind of influences
- See? Anyone can make unsubstantiated assertions. Ironically it's you who clearly misses the point by not understanding how the flipping exposes your flimsy and biased narrative. Anyone who visited a french school knows for a fact that it's anything but "neutral", rather actively hostile towards religion. Anything you asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.
Developped minds should make their own choices once in age to do so, that's the whole point.
Teaching kids agnosticism plus a good dose of Occam's Razor should be good until 16yo.
Everybody who doesn't live in a cave and learns about religion also quickly learns about critics of religion and thus becomes familiar with the position of atheists and agnostics.
Your take is in no way more special than the usual anti-theistic edgy rhetoric trying to pretend and maintain a false sense of "neutrality". Everyone who thinks that they are right on something will try to influence people towards their own worldview, implicitly or explicitly, hidden or obvious, anyone who claims otherwise is just lying to themselves and to others.
Some people claim that France and its school system are "neutral", but anyone who has visited a french school knows this to be untrue, it's clearly hostile towards, not only religion, but religious people.
As a French who went to french public schools, I take exception to that, as it is totally false and offensive.
France's egalitarian principles, on which public schools operate, respect people of all beliefs,
and history of religions is taught in schools from junior high.
Last time I checked the french people couldn't care less about something being 'offensive' or not, since it's covered by freedom of speech, that's why they constantly harass minorities by mocking them, their religion and prophets, all in the name of freedom of speech. Forcing girls to remove their hijab is evidence that it's your narrative that is biased and false. Justifying that discrimination is just further evidence of the internalized islamophobia, which has grown to such a degree that you don't even register blatant discrimination as such.
>France's egalitarian principles
Yea those 'egalitarian principles' that somehow only protect the secular elite, while minorities, using their religion against them, are constantly mocked and bullied in the media and discriminated against in targeted unfair laws - banning the hijab. Those 'egalitarian principles' have to manifest themselves in reality, but they didn't, up till now, they have only proven to be a charade.
Most french people take strongly to "Liberté Égalité Fraternité", and painting the whole country as hostile to minorities is extremely ignorant.
It is totally false to say that french freedom of speech permits to "constantly harass minorities by mocking them".
In fact our freedom of expression expressely forbids incitement to hatred. From wikipedia [2] : "Press Law of 1881 criminalizes incitement to racial discrimination, hatred, or violence on the basis of one's origin or membership in an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group.A criminal code provision deems it an offense to engage in similar conduct via private communication"
However, satyre of ideas/symbols like religions and prophets is not the same thing as mocking people, and is an integral part of what we call laïcité.
You are missing the point that people, in their individuality as human beings, deserve respect but abstract concepts do not.
[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secularism_in_France
[2]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incitement_to_ethnic_or_raci...
My understanding of the french values is based on evidence, on the things I see and experience and based on the account of french citizens, reports and documented events throughout history.
> Most french people take strongly to "Liberté Égalité Fraternité", and painting the whole country as hostile to minorities is extremely ignorant.
Nothing but lip service, the evidence and daily realities paint a different picture. Again, you are just making assertions without substantiating them, name calling isn't making an argument. And yes, french society as I and many others have experienced is hostile to minorities and patronising on top of that. So you are the one who is extremely ignorant and have the audacity to project your own ignorance on others.
>It is totally false to say that french freedom of speech permits to "constantly harass minorities by mocking them".
Good, because I didn't say that it does permit it, I said that you do it under the guise of freedom of speech, totally different, among other bogus excuses.
>However, satyre of ideas/symbols like religions and prophets is not the same thing as mocking people, and is an integral part of what we call laïcité.
Spare me the hair splitting, insulting and mocking people's integral part of their identity is insulting them too. Furthermore there were cases when Charlie Hebdo Journalist was fired for being 'anti-semitic', while similar attacks on muslims were/are tolerated. There is clear cut islamophobia in french society and unfair application of laws regarding them. Don't insult people's intelligence with your weak vapid justifications.
> You are missing the point that people, in their individuality as human beings, deserve respect but abstract concepts do not.
No, you are missing the point, the amount of harassment under the guise of 'satire' with which secular elites constantly bully and harass minorities is what made french society so polarised and toxic to begin with:
"What the Charlie Hebdo caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad achieved was "not satire," and what they provoked was not "ideas," Finkelstein said.
Satire is when one directs it either at oneself, causes his or her people to think twice about what they are doing and saying, or directs it at people who have power and privilege, he said.
"But when somebody is down and out, desperate, destitute, when you mock them, when you mock a homeless person, that is not satire," Finkelstein said.
"That is, I give you the word, sadism. There’s a very big difference between satire and sadism. Charlie Hebdo is sadism. It’s not satire"
The "desperate and despised people" of today are Muslims, he said, considering the number of Muslim countries racked by death and destruction as in the case of Syria, Iraq, Gaza, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen.
"So, two despairing and desperate young men act out their despair and desperation against this political pornography no different than Der Stürmer, who in the midst of all of this death and destruction decide its somehow noble to degrade, demean, humiliate and insult the people. I’m sorry, maybe it is very politically incorrect. I have no sympathy for [the staff of Charlie Hebdo]. Should they have been killed? Of course not. But of course, Streicher shouldn’t have been hung. I don’t hear that from many people," said Finkelstein.
Streicher was among those who stood trial on charges at Nürnberg, following World War II. He was hung for those cartoons.
Finkelstein said some might argue that they have the right to mock even desperate and destitute people, and they probably have this right, he said, "But you also have the right to say 'I don’t want to put it in my magazine ... When you put it in, you are taking responsibility for it."
Finkels...
This is flirting with integrism.
If religion was really an integral part of people's identity, apostasy would not be a thing. This is telling that it's cause of death penalty for religious extremists.
Out of all points made you pick a single one out and make rubbish arguments. You are not worth my time.
Genuinely voluntary apostasy, punished by death, happens. And it's clearly 'not succumbing to social pressure' to do it in countries that criminalize it and punish it by death.[1]
And then you replace 'integral part of your identity' by merely 'part of your identity', however that's the important word you're omitting.
When I was younger I liked some styles of music and felt them part of my identity too. Some used to mock and critisize them, and now that my tastes changed, I can see why.
However, particular musical genres were never an integral part of my identity the same way people are gay or not, or have a particular ethnical background.
Attributing some special powers to a class of mere opinions is wrong, misguided and often used as a tool of oppression.[2]
[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy
[2]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law
Says the guy who responds to a fraction of the arguments and makes absurd arguments expecting to be taken seriously.
>Genuinely voluntary apostasy, punished by death, happens. And it's clearly 'not succumbing to social pressure' to do it in countries that criminalize it and punish it by death.[1]
What the hell are you even on about? You make 0 sense. You were talking about apostasy and I merely explained that it's nothing out of the ordinary that people can succumb to social pressure and change their identity, this was very specific in the context of french society. So spare me your islamophobic rants.
>And then you replace 'integral part of your identity' by merely 'part of your identity', however that's the important word you're omitting.
So? You clearly don't understand the english language very well. Integral merely means "important, essential..." and leaving it out doesn't change the essence of the statement. Keep hairsplitting tho.
>However, particular musical genres were never an integral part of my identity the same way people are gay or not, or have a particular ethnical background.
Terrible comparison. A taste in music is not the same thing as a religion which encompasses almost every aspect of your life. Again, terrible terrible comparison.
>Attributing some special powers to a class of mere opinions is wrong, misguided and often used as a tool of oppression.
Yea, you just perfectly described France's abuse and misuse of 'satire' and 'free speech' to discriminate against minorities. France has its own blasphemy laws, although they don't label them as such, they are functionally and consequentially, the exact same. Not to mention what secular France has done in its colonial past, murdering and torturing millions of Algerians and Africans for resisting occupation and opposing secularism. Learn your own history and present before you try to lecture others.
The fact that apostasy is possible and exists, in France or elsewhere, is precisely the proof that religion is not 'essential' (to use your own prefered word) to a person's identity. I'll let you look up what "essential" means, it's perfect in this context.
That makes religion far more similar to musical taste (ever heard of Rock'n Roll as a way of life?) than to ethnicity.
By the way, accusing people who criticise the barbary of blasphemy & anti-apostasy laws of islamophobia is a cheap move but quite typical.
Straw man. No one denied that apostasy is possible and exists. The claim was that for some religion can be an integral part of their identity and it's also possible that people can change their identities for various reasons including societal pressure, the desire to fit in or any other reason. That doesn't change the fact that religion is an integral part of some people's identity.
>That makes religion far more similar to musical taste (ever heard of Rock'n Roll as a way of life?) than to ethnicity.
Religion is a set of rules and guidelines to live by, so that comparison is moot, but keep pushing absurd arguments to justify your rubbish takes.
Anyway, you ignore and distort arguments beyond recognition and keep babbling utter nonsense. You are a lost cause, so we are done here, have fun debating yourself.
By the way, distracting people who criticise the barbary of the french abuse of satire & free speech laws with blasphemy laws is a cheap move but quite typical.
But I realized you're most likely just a troll. My bad.
Chances are, you're even just a secondary account of jedimind, seeing how you apparently have a habit of intervening at his rescue on other discussions, use the same pattern of purposefully missing the point, name calling and parroting the person you are responding to instead of being relevant.
It is telling though to see how you kept avoiding the concept that by apostasy I was referring to the honest personal choice of people renouncing their religion for intellectual honesty (someday they believe then, maybe after self debating the absurdity of the idea, they don't anymore), but you kept insisting instead that it must be because someone or something forces them to. It really shows how narrow minded you must be.
Keep to your fascist trolling if that pleases you, your moral values are not on the right side of history.
Blasphemy laws and similar barbaric values have been successfully fought and repealed in France (that you seem to despise so much) and other countries, they will eventually be everywhere else too.
By a simple InTeLlEcTuAl pRoCeSs, again, since you lack basic reading comprehension skills, for some people religion is an integral part of their identity, that's not even up to debate. Something can be an integral part of your identity and still change for various reasons, nothing of that will change the fact that it is an integral part of some people's identity. Your embarrassing attempts to defend your absurd claim is just pure comedy.
>But I realized you're most likely just a troll. My bad.
Says the guy who desperately clings to 1 of the many arguments that were made ignoring all others and is not even able to make sense on that front. Embarrassing.
>It is telling though to see how you kept avoiding the concept that by apostasy I was referring to the honest personal choice of people renouncing their religion for intellectual honesty (someday they believe then, maybe after self debating the absurdity of the idea, they don't anymore), but you kept insisting instead that it must be because someone or something forces them to. It really shows how narrow minded you must be.
You are heavily misquoting and distorting yet again. I said that apostasy can occur for various reasons many times, yet you make this completely bizarre and far fetched case just to inflate your terribly false argument.
>Keep to your fascist trolling if that pleases you, your moral values are not on the right side of history.
Says the guy who defends french fascism and persecution of minorities based on fake french values, which only serve the secular elite. The barbary of french colonialism continues, after murdering millions of Algerians and Africans and force their secularism on them, now they try to intellectualise their oppression. France even betrayed the jews and cooperated with the Nazis, delivered them to be murdered, so don't ever talk about being on the right side of history, you never were and never will be.
>Blasphemy laws and similar barbaric values have been successfully fought and repealed in France (that you seem to despise so much) and other countries, they will eventually be everywhere else too.
Nope, wrong. France and its barbaric values are still present in its own blasphemy laws which prohibits denigrating the french flag among other deceptions to not respect its own values, thus violating free speech, but everyone already knows that france has only fake free speech, protecting the rich secular people, but not minorities.
France bans face veils in public. How is banning one of the two choices allowing them to choose? You don't respond to people being forced to do one thing by forcing them to do the opposite thing. It's also completely patronizing to just assume that women only wear the hijab just because "their elders force them to". I know plenty of people who choose to wear it of their own volition.
Whether or not this school was correct in their dress code [1] is shadowed by the immediate conclusion for many that “Islam = Bad, oppressive, unfair, archaic” the moment that it ceases to be just an “internal, private belief for some” and becomes an external way of life that sovereign countries implement in their own territories. This is so even if what a country is implementing is not congruent to the tenants of Islam (see, the flogging of the Homosexuals for example).
Let them (viz. The West) tell it, the sociocultural climate of their localities are in exemplary order.
[1]: I see no issue with private institutions enforcing a dress code that makes the hijab mandatory. Non-muslim students need not attend and even to force them to wear it would obfuscate the intent of the hijab. It is far more than just a cloth that is draped over the head of any woman and its virtue is neglected so long as its wearer is void of virtue herself.
hear hear. now imagine the uproar if christians would have said “non christians need not attend” [insert anything].
I see no problem with a private Catholic school saying “If you’re not Catholic and have an issue with what we enforce here (e.g. dress codes), then you should enroll your children here.” I imagine that’s what they all would say.
If I didn’t make it clear, this applies appropriately to private institutions, meaning “you are enrolling here on your own conscious accord.”
If a person has any issues with how a private academic institute operates, then they are not mandated to attend it. Furthermore there is a difference between blatant discrimination (“No non-Christians allowed”) vs. "there is a particular culture that is being observed here; we aren’t going to bar anyone from attending this establishment, but it’s illogical to expect us to bend to your will because you are in opposition to what we practice upon you joining."
When Indonesian colleagues there met me for the first time, they would almost always ask what religion I practiced, in the same sort of casual way as people in the Western world might ask where you lived. I thought it was a bit weird!
Anyway, I'd always say "no religion", since I don't practice or believe in any gods, afterlife etc - but this was totally incomprehensible! Heads would tilt, and I'd get baffled looks like I was mad - "uh... no, but what god you you follow?". No matter how many times or ways I said it, they just didn't seem to believe me.
Someone later explained that in Indonesia you legally had to tell the government what religion you followed, and "none" was not an option.
That is correct, furthermore, the government only acknowledges 6 religions, although I heard that they started acknowledging some folks religion recently.
He was responding to someone announcing that their family member tested positive for C19. He came with this, "The Lord blah blah and He will save with His grace yadda yadda." I consider that pretty far over the line of good taste at the workplace, even if well intentioned. Especially given that there are people on staff whose religious beliefs are unknown to me, but who come from parts of the world where Christianity is not dominant.
It doesn't bother me if a person says they'll pray for someone's recovery, for example. But the way he displayed an assumption of the superiority of his religion to others really rubbed me the wrong way. Luckily, there's no overlap in our roles and therefore no need to interact. I can just ignore him and pretend that didn't just happen.
I don't know if you deliberately misconstrued my words or not. I specifically said this:
> It doesn't bother me if a person says they'll pray for someone's recovery, for example.
What I found "over the line of good taste at the workplace" was this sort of statement:
> "The Lord blah blah and He will save with His grace yadda yadda."
"I'll pray," is non-specific. Getting into the details of one's religion ("God is male, in fact He's Jesus") bothers me. Maybe God is female. Maybe God has another name. Getting specific invalidates the beliefs of others.
And, once again, I am atheist. I don't believe in a supernatural creator. I just don't appreciate the assumption that one's superstitions are more correct than others.
> What religion? Pastafarian
> What God do you follow? FSM
> Someone later explained that in Indonesia you legally had to tell the government what religion you followed, and "none" was not an option.
While Indonesia is not a muslim country, believe in God is actually included in its foundational philosophy, and thus hammered into your head as part of your education since primary school. You can believe any god, but not believing any god is definitely strange here and many people would have trouble accepting that.
Even if I wanted to learn more about school uniforms in a country I've never been to, whose language and culture I know nothing about, why the hell would I read about it coming from the state media of a another country I've never been to, whose journalists also know nothing about the language, culture, and political situation there?
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jan/12/school-thr...
The only reason people on HN care is because it's framed as a part of some weird culture/religious war. This constant projection of values on people you know nothing about is a waste time at best.
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/indon...
Never said it did. I'm simply not interested in hearing uninformed "criticism" from someone who knows absolutely nothing about what they're criticizing, made with ulterior motives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_scarf_controversy_in_F...
Essentially, the US aided in the dismantling of a free democratic society in favor of a coup and a military dictatorship. Examples of the same being done in other countries are also provided. This was in service of obtaining natural resources.
Disclaimer: It's politics are very left of center.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Jakarta-Method-Washingtons-Anticommun...