What would Rousseau say?

The French Ambassador’s hair particularly stood out. It looked as if it should have been a wig. If there was a God it would have been a wig. But, alas, that slicked backed mop was firmly implanted in his scalp. That seemed to set the tone for out talk. His argument was that according to scholars the burqa isn’t a religious symbol and was therefore only a repressive and arcane cultural practice. This argument has several flaws. According to Enlightenment ideals, in every person there is a place of sacredness that does not belong to anyone other then that individual. How that person chooses to express that place of sacredness is up to them. Therefore, any state mandate that interferes with the full expression of it is a violation of that person’s rights. According to this belief, religion is not an institution it is a personal choice. The state does not have the right to say what is or is not part of a religion.

The feeling I got from the French diplomat was one of cultural imperialism. All his rhetoric of integration seemed to hold beneath it a belief that to become French one had to not only speak French but conform to French culture. He seemed to imply that one could not fully maintain a foreign culture while still being French. Its interested to compare this stance with the “Welcome to the USA” video wherein diversity was only shown in isolated sections. The message being that while there is diversity in the larger community there is little in individual communities. With both these countries the question hangs in the air: is it possible to maintain ones culture while integrating onto another one, and if not which parts of ones culture should be kept?