At the recent Queens College (NY) conference "Feminism and Multiculturalism: How Do They/We Work Together?", Katha Pollitt talked about human rights and fundamentalists both far from and close to home. Also featured was Manizha Naderi, an incredibly brave player in the movement to teach Afghan women marketable skills and unite them with Westerners through Women for Afghan Women. Jane Kramer followed up her excellent 2004 piece (not online; some passages here) on the French "veil law" prohibiting the display of religious symbols in public schools and its implications for Muslim girls:

The second speaker was Jane Kramer, European correspondent for The New Yorker magazine. She spoke on "The Veil in Europe." Discussing the recent ruling by the French government banning religious dress in public schools, she explained that, according to a 1905 law, when children enter a public school, they are in the hands of the secular state. This law, she said, was passed due to centuries of conflict between Catholics and Protestants. Up until fifteen years ago, Muslim women in France were traditionally unveiled, Kramer said, but following recruitment drives among radical Muslims that began in the 1980s, women and girls were terrorized by men who demanded that they wear the hijab, and schools were attacked. Interviewing Muslim women and girls, Kramer found that many were glad that the state had banned the veil in public schools because this freed them from the coercion of male relatives who were recruits to radical Islam.

In The New Yorker late last year, Jane Kramer had a brilliant piece of literary journalism on France in the wake of Chirac's banning of the veil or hijab in schools. Weaving personal anecdotes with interpretation, it revealed more about the state of the nation, from politics to religion, philosophy and literature, than the Almost French brigade could ever hope for. And Kramer, who has lived in France for decades, rarely mentioned herself.

She must have taken heed of Bridget Jones. Note to self: will not write ludicrously cliched confessional tale of expatriate adventures set in fairytale version of France, populated by bicycle-riding men in berets who chainsmoke Gauloises while munching on baguettes alongside impossibly stylish, simpering, rake-thin femmes francaises.