EU Court rules Muslim women can be fired for wearing hijab
The European Court of Justice has ruled that hijabi Muslim women can be suspended from their jobs or denied employment if customers or clients of a company take exception to seeing them. The court stated that if employers feel that the presence of women in hijab will undermine the company’s image to customers as “neutral”, the women can be fired if they refuse to remove the hijab. The ruling does not specify the hijab per se, but any conspicuous display of a political, philosophical, or religious belief — “neutral” therefore means having a lack of belief in anything, including, apparently, the values of the Enlightenment.
The hijab, of course, is not a display — it is not like wearing a cross or crucifix — it is a religious practice. A practice which companies in Europe are now free to prohibit Muslim women from following if they feel customers would find it objectionable. This, then, amounts to the European Court of Justice colluding with the Far Right in disappearing Muslim women from the workforce — the ECJ, essentially, is telling Muslim women that their place is in the home. The same, of course, is true throughout Europe — with or without a court ruling. British Muslim women are 71% more likely than non-Muslim women to be unemployed due to workplace discrimination. Ironic, considering the fact that the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights heavily promotes the inclusion of women in the workplace in the Muslim world; where they claim Muslim women are denied opportunities and face discrimination by employers.
This is just another example, as if any were needed, to demonstrate that the West is a pantomime civilization. They know how to pretend, how to articulate ideals and values eloquently; but not how to actualize them. They have never actually been successfully civilized.
Neutrality would mean NOT passing a judgment on an employee’s beliefs, and hiring or firing them exclusively on the basis of their qualifications or the quality of their work — not on their religious practices or the bigotry of their customers or clients. But the West has never genuinely internalized the values they preach elsewhere; and frankly, every time this gets exposed, I am pleased.
Muslims in Europe and globally are not without remedy. The countries in which the EU operates programs for pushing women into the workforce could halt those programs. Muslims in Europe could protest, both in the streets and with their consumer dollars, to let companies know that the buying public will not view discrimination as “neutral”, and so on. Activists have a lot of options. But ultimately, I think we should reconcile ourselves with the reality that the West never truly matured out of the Dark Ages, and adjust our expectations about how Western society will deal with us in the next few decades.
