hijab - the muslim headscarf in france - page 1
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symbols - page 1
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turkey and the eu - page 1
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beige - page 1
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I the first bulletin, I spoke about hijab – the muslim headscarf – as a symbol, a symbol of what being ambiguous. We are surrounded by symbols all the time, and it’s good to try to understand what they mean.
Words are symbols – you can wear the hijab if you want, but you can’t wear the word “hijab”. If the hijab is a symbol, then the word hijab is also a symbol. I translated it as headscarf, but headscarf is also a symbol, and it is not a symbol of the same thing. We can only communicate through symbols, but in order to understand what The Other is saying, we have to look through the symbols to the context, culture, language, history, which is behind them. So if we want to understand someone who isn’t the same as us, we have to take the time and the risk of a relationship. A symbol can be a window on to this other life, or a wall between two lives.
We live in a world in which we see symbols which don’t mean anything. It often seems that the slogans of adverts or of political parties are symbols without depth, windows onto nothing. So it seems ... but rather it could be that their meaning is something hidden, dishonest, something aimed at the heart rather than at the mind. Watch out, or you might become a slave of symbols you don’t understand – in a democracy, for example, you have to take the trouble to think seriously about the implications of a program; a symbol can be a window onto a real opportunity, or a wall between dreams and reality.