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Story of the day:
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SCARVES-CEBECI Feb-12-2004 (480 words) xxxi
Muslim student in Rome calls headscarf ban 'unjust, backward'
By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
ROME (CNS) -- Zeynep Cebeci, a student working on her master's degree at Jesuit-run Gregorian University in Rome, said government attempts to prohibit Muslims from wearing headscarves at school are "amazingly unjust, backward and stupid."
Cebeci, a Muslim from Turkey, said she felt the same way in 1998 when the Turkish government banned headscarves in state-funded schools.
She was two weeks away from completing her probation year as a teacher when the school's headmistress gave her an ultimatum: Remove the scarf or resign.
"I went home and shaved my head," she said.
Cebeci said she knows that "in the West hair is not considered sexual like breasts are, but in Islamic cultures it is."
At school the day after she shaved her head, Cebeci said, "the headmistress asked me to put my scarf on; they were afraid the students would follow my example."
Cebeci spoke to Catholic News Service Feb. 10, the day the French National Assembly voted to ban headscarves and other religious symbols from public schools.
Enrolled in the Gregorian's Institute for the Study of Religions and Culture, Cebeci is used to explaining her faith to Christians and learning about Christianity from them.
Wearing a headscarf in public is a matter of faith and of modesty, she said.
"The main reason is because God said so," she said. "Asking me why I do it would be like me asking, 'Why do you (Catholics) use wine and not water for Communion?'"
The Quran says: "Tell women to draw their veils over their shoulders and to not display their finery" in front of men who are not their husbands or close relatives.
Covering one's hair, she said, is one part of the modesty women and men are called to live in Islam.
"Living in the West for the last five years, I know there is an assumption that in Islam, women are oppressed and bear all the responsibility for modesty," Cebeci said. "But I still think hair is very attractive, and I'd feel naked without my scarf.
"What makes me sick -- and this happens in Turkey, too -- is this snobbish attitude that 'we will liberate women' by forcing them to remove their scarves," she said.
"While it is true that most women in traditional Islamic societies are oppressed, it is not the scarf that oppresses them," Cebeci said, and banning the scarf will not give them equality.
She also objected to claims by ban supporters that Muslim women are making a radical political statement by wearing scarves to school in countries where Muslims are a minority.
"Non-Muslims are not in a position to say it is political," she said. "It would be just as absurd as saying not drinking alcohol or not eating pork is a radical Islamic statement. They are part of Muslim practice."
END
Copyright (c) 2004 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method, in whole or in part without the prior written authority of Catholic News Service.
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