In light of the attacks in Paris, head scarves must be allowed in schools

In 2004, when I first heard that France was banning head scarves in schools, I winced. Having moved out to the New York area in June of 2001, I was intimately familiar with the fear invoked by terrorists; the aftermath of an attack so horrific that a simple walk down a city street meant constantly looking up for planes-as-weapons. It took years before the sight of a jet over New York didn't make me shudder. It still gets to me sometimes. I knew instinctively that when France banned

head scarves, they were poking the bear. The civil liberties of those who wear yarmulkes and large Christian crosses, too, would be restricted. Anyone who's spent time in parts of Brooklyn knows how deeply Orthodox Jews value their traditions. Making a Jew remove his skull cap in class is like asking any deeply religious person to leave her beliefs at the door. While it's clear why France enacted this law, it's also clear that it's one reason that the Islamic terrorists are so angry. I've spent a lot of time in the 10th arrondissement section of Paris. I remember particularly, on my last trip there, the kind proprietor of my humble hotel off Rue du Temple telling me, "You need to learn to be more tolerant of others." He was of Middle Eastern descent - in retrospect, most likely Islamic - and with his deep, penetrating stare into my priviledged western White Girl eyes he was sending a message: "We are all in this together. We are equals. Learn to be patient with others." I can't recall, but I think my issues at the hotel over that stay may have had to do with noise (some neighbors came home very late and let the party carryover into the wee hours; the walls were paper thin) or maybe I was just being haughty. I don't know, but that moment changed my life. I haven't had the chance to return to France since Christmas, 2007, when I strolled along the Seine and dined on a chicken sandwich and Chardonnay. A moment of utter peacefulness, I purposely walked the long stretch along the river, stopping at an upscale stationery store that was, surprisingly, open for business that day. It struck me on that trip that Americans who disparaged the French, claiming they were arrogant, had it all wrong. It was not the French, but the Americans, who had/have the attitude. How different were the French when one simply spoke a few words of French? I remember learning to ask for a stamp: "Je voudrais une timbre, s'il vous plait," and seeing the flash of familiarity spill across the listener's face. Wearing the hijab is not a fashion statement; it's a deeply ingrained symbol of a woman's modesty and privacy. Can any of the Christians in the west imagine if we were forced to remove our crosses upon entering classrooms? Don't misconstrue my words: I love France. I love France so much I've long planned to move there in the future, after graduate school in London is complete, after my parents are long gone and I am an old lady. I always thought there would be one place where I could mourn the loss of my parents, along with my brother, and that would be Paris. It's the only place I've ever been where heaven seems to have transported itself right here to Earth. The City of Light is not so named because of the lights on La Tour Eiffel, but because of the Enlightenment. It's now time for the French lawmakers to reverse the 2004 law - not as a sign of weakness or giving in to terrorists, but as a wise acknowledgement of an error, as an olive branch as the world tries a bit harder to understand what divides us and work toward peace and understanding. ... PHOTO: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons: By Officer [Public domain, CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0) or CC BY 3.0 de (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/de/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons Contact the author at www.lauriewiegler.com