Secular theocracy
2009 June 22
The CBC reports that “Full-body gowns that are worn by the most conservative Muslim women have no place in France, President Nicolas Sarkozy said Monday.”
A comment like this makes me wonder: if the arguably most secular country in the North Atlantic world is in the business of making religious decisions, is the idea of disestablishment really practically possible?
And if it isn’t, is there really any better model for religion/state relations than the Treaty of Westphalia’s cuius regio, eius religio? (And it should be noted such a philosophy is logically consistent with a democratic state.)
Andrew,
I don’t know if I can explain Sarkozy’s comments, but I would recommend to you the book Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong as a possible source of greater understanding as to why the French President might make such a pronunciation. The book explores the often-overlooked fact that France, despite its proximity to Britain is culturally a very, very different place from what the French call the “Anglo-Saxon” countries (UK, US, Canada, sometimes Germany). The axis on which these differences occur are too many to discuss in a blog comment, but they include concepts of public/private space, acceptable small talk, food, the role of the state, national identity.
What seems germane here is the that the French tend to want to privilege national identity above anything else. France does not even keep official census stats on ethnicity or race – everyone who has a French passport is ostensibly French and nothing else. Now in practice there are obviously racial divisions/tensions, but the official mode of resolving this is to insist that everyone is French, period – sort of the opposite of Canadian multiculturalism. Women in hijabs or burqas – by virtue of having a very different appearance visibly upset this sense of everyone being French first. At least that’s my theory as to why the French government has so much trouble with traditional dress in the past few years.
I have no reason to doubt anything you’re saying, but this seems to imply (to me) that basically French nationalism is a religion, or at least has religious significance. And it should be recognized that part of the prized national identity of the French is their intense secularism. So really, secularism is already a religious phenomenon in France. It seems to be logically necessary to me (as soon as you start to decide what counts as religion and what doesn’t, you’re legislating religion). Canada’s alternative model certainly doesn’t avoid this (consider Ontario’s decision not to allow Shariah law).
I don’t know if it’s quite right to say that French nationalism has religious significance, I would say that French national identity is seen as superseding public religious display. I don’t know if we can draw a distinction here, but it seems that we are talking about the legislating of certain religious practices rather than of religion itself – i.e.: we are not outlawing any religions, people can even join Scientology! There are numerous religious practices that can conceivably run afoul of secular laws – take Rastafarians and drug laws, or Sikhs wanting to wear the kirpan in schools, or the Mennonites(?) who believe they have to beat their children with sticks for discipline purposes.
As a matter of practical observation I think Canada’s approach has worked fairly well in that we tend not to have race riots – something that they can’t say in France. That Sarkozy (and it’s important to remember that all of France is not Sarko) is saying that it’s not permissible to dress a certain way seems a bit silly to me – though somewhat more comprehensible given the French view the state.