Yesterday on the radio I heard a piece about the pending French legislation to ban all religious symbols in public schools, which will ban students (and presumably teachers) from wearing large crosses, yarmulkes, and Muslim headscarves, and most likely Sikh turbans although strictly speaking those are not symbols of the Sikh religion. The Frenchman being interviewed, whose details I now forget except that he was in Normandy, explained that it is a long-standing trait of the French nation-state for the government authority to attempt to create uniformity among its citizens. Also this morning I heard someone else note that the French Revolution was more about freedom from religion than freedom of religion.

You'll forgive me if I prefer the "freedom of" model. I think it understandable that the French went the "freedom from" route initially, because the Catholic church was pretty inextricably intertwined, often corruptly, with the authoritarian government of France of the day. I may be a bit biased coming from a background of Protestantism (likely including some distant Huguenot ancestors), but it seems to me inescapable that Catholicism is an authoritarian religion, Protestantism not so much -- that kind of became the whole point, after all.

This morning I heard a piece on the same program about Liberia and one particular group of Mississippians who moved there in the 1800s, and how many of the freed American slaves who went to Liberia created an aristocracy based on the very plantation system they had escaped, because that was what they knew; they treated the native Africans as second-class citizens because they considered them uncouth heathen savages who needed to be brought up to civilized standards.

So what my brain is making of all these thought-bits mixing together is that people tend to behave as they have learned to behave, as they have experienced life, whether or not they recognize or admit it. France was not at all done with central authority after the Revolution (to put it mildly). They called it by different names, but (on this evidence, anyway -- I should really do more research before making sweeping generalizations) the human desire to make others conform to one's own vision of how they ought to be remains. It exists quite a bit in the USA too, certainly, but luckily the precedents set by the Founders attempted to go in a different direction.

I don't know how much sense I'm making here. I just don't understand the "freedom from" point of view very well, at least to the extent the French are trying to take it, banning symbols from one's own person instead of just from public buildings as we (usually) do. Why? what's the problem? There's no problem. In fact, just causing more problems. Right? Doesn't sound like "freedom" to me at all.

still thinking, as usual.

contents of the purple tricycle are copyright 2004 carrie lynn king unless otherwise noted.