On a recent Channel Four programme investigating Islam's attitude to women, presenter Samira Ahmed, herself a Muslim, professed herself mystified at the fact that younger British Muslim women were choosing to wear the hijab, or traditional headcovering.
For her, it was a cultural rather than religious tradition which could be dispensed with without compromising allegiance to Islam. The young women she interviewed were proud to wear their headscarves. They saw it as a way of expressing independence from what they perceive as the excesses of a western culture which demeans and objectifies women.
Watching Samira's confusion, it was clear that this was a classic example of a generation gap, where the actions of a younger generation bewilder the older. For British Muslim women, the hijab has come to symbolise the conflict not just between the values of Islamic culture versus the West but a conflict between generations of Islamic women.
Like many symbols, the meaning of the hijab depends on the context in which it is worn. In Turkey, women demonstrate on the streets for the right to wear the hijab, which the determinedly secularist government has effectively banned from schools and workplaces. Ironically, by banning it because of fears of Islamic fundamentalism, the government is guilty of transgressing the ideals of democracy. Most of its citizens oppose the ban.
In neighbouring Iran, from the age of nine girls must wear it and must cease playing with little boys. Iran banned the hijab and the chador (the all-enveloping covering which hides everything but the eyes and sometimes even these) when the Shah was in power. The chador then became a symbol of defiance against the imposition of western culture by the Shah.
After his overthrow, under the rule of the ayatollahs, there have been sporadic and brave demonstrations when the chador was burnt in public by women who now resent its imposition. This minority see it as contravening the fundamental equality on which Islam is based.
And then there is France, where the hijab, large crosses and the Jewish skull cap have all been banned from schools. One young woman I know was gobsmacked by this sudden imposition of rigid discipline, so unlike her own experience of a French school.
She had recently been part of an exchange visit to France and had been stunned to discover that pupils smoked in class, and that when teachers wanted to get their attention, they took away their cigarettes.
Everyone knows that no one is likely to be sent home from class in France for the wearing of an ostentatious cross, which might well be rhinestone-studded and hanging from an ear.
No, this measure is aimed at young Muslim women. The French government is claiming that the wearing of religious symbols contravenes the spirit of secularism which all French state schools must uphold. Yet are they contradicting the claims of secularism that it is neutral towards all religions by this decision?
Can you reasonably ban people from wearing something which harms no one and which they consider integral to the practice of their religion? If students wished classes to be scheduled so that they could pray at the appropriate times, that would be quite different. Wearing the hijab interferes with no one.
The situation in France is complicated by failure to integrate Muslims into French society. In many cases, French political decisions have prevented Muslims from doing so, including the denial of citizenship to people who spent their working lives doing the jobs which the French did not want to do. There is a large and growing disaffected underclass among Muslims, and unemployment is rife in urban ghettos.
For some of the men, the wearing of the hijab by the women has become a matter of honour. Some women may be more reluctant. If Muslim men are asserting their authority unjustly over the only part of their lives where they feel they have control, that is, over women and children, successive French governments are to some degree responsible because of their failure to give these men any sense of belonging in French society.
Such reactionary responses are likely to be reinforced by a ban, as angry Muslims withdraw still further into a cultural ghetto.
On the other hand, for many young French Muslim women the hijab is a statement of autonomy, a rejection of western cultural values which devalue women. These women believe that their human rights are being infringed, and cite Article 18 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights which guarantees "the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion . . . to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship or observance." For a significant number of young Muslim women, wearing the hijab comes under the heading of observance of their faith.
The French fear the rise of fundamentalism, but run the risk of secular fundamentalism. It is the fondest illusion cherished by secularists that the banning of religion from influence in the public sphere is somehow fair and balanced.
Secularism is a belief system, too, with doctrines and moral codes. To favour one belief system over all others is a form of fundamentalism, even if that belief system is secularist. The political philosopher Bhikhu Parekh puts it well when he says that no political doctrine can represent the full truth of human life. Liberalism, for example, is "an inspiring political doctrine stressing such great values as human dignity, autonomy, liberty, critical thought and equality".
However, Parekh incisively identifies liberals' sense of moral superiority despite the fact that liberalism consistently "ignores or marginalises such other great values as human solidarity, community, a sense of rootedness, selflessness, deep and self-effacing humility and contentment".
Many of these are religious values, although not exclusively so. Liberals are very chary of religion, to the extent that some of them descend to the level of "Let's be liberal, but let's not get carried away and be liberal about religion".
These are not just abstract philosophical musings. How we deal with difference, including religious difference, will become an ever more urgent question in Ireland. Should all forms of religious expression get a benign exemption on the grounds of tolerance? Certainly not.
However, the wearing of the hijab comes into the category of actions which pose no threat to society and so, rather than being banned, should be welcomed.