Word: dounia
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...while these controversies attract attention, there are also efforts to work out solutions to living with religious differences in Europe. Take a recent book by French anthropologists Dounia and Lylia Bouzar, Is There Room for Allah in the Workplace? The book offers legal guidelines on how work-religion conflicts might be examined, as well as practical suggestions on resolving them. "Paradoxically, as the question of the visibility of religious practice crops up regularly in the media, it remains a total haze in the professional world," the book notes. (See pictures of Islam's soft revolution...
...over 350 interviews with employees and managers from dozens of companies, the Bouzars found most bosses have tended to improvise reactions to such demands, producing two contrasting excesses. "Managers have tended to either adopt laxity, reasoning 'We've got to accept their differences and avoid perceptions of Islamophobia,'" says Dounia Bouzar, who has previously written several sociological studies of Muslims in France. "Or [they've] exhibited excessive rigidity by replying, 'We've got to help these people to evolve beyond their archaic beliefs by imposing strict secularity at work...
...problem, Dounia Bouzar says, is that "those are two sides of the same coin that only reinforce divisive stereotypes. Rather than subjective attitudes or sensibilities, pragmatism should prevail in determining whether individual religious observance is compatible with professional objectives." (See pictures of colorful religious festivals...
...firm to clients? Or a devout male staffer refuses to shake hands with or meet with women colleagues? First, the authors stress, bosses should deal no differently with religious demands from Muslim workers than with those from Christian, Jewish or Buddhist staff. "Evaluate Mona as you would Martine," Dounia and Lylia Bouzar write. (Read "Berets and Baguettes? France Rethinks Its Identity...
...this point, no Muslim defenders of the rare French burqa have emerged. Indeed, Dounia Bouzar, a specialist on Muslim affairs, notes that while she and many fellow Muslims opposed the headscarf ban as meddling in private matters of choice, she is relieved at action taken on the burqa. "Imposition of this garment on women is one manner Salafists get individuals to renounce their individuality and submit to the extremist cult thinking that masquerades as Islam - but which is an abomination of it," Bouzar says. "That Salafist influence and activity is spreading, and if it takes political action to prevent their...