Le foulard islamique

Secular government is great and all.

But if you enforce it by banning all expression of religion, you aren’t being secular, you have merely converted “Secularism” into a religion.

The insensitivity of this rule really astonishes me. No Christian denomination, AFAIK, requires its adherents to wear large crosses (banned). But Orthodox Jewish men are required to wear skullcaps (also banned). So, at least in this case, the proposed rule has a massively discriminatory impact on Orthodox Jews who want to attend public schools. I can’t speak to the impact on Islamic women but the case I do know about does not fill me with confidence.

In other words, this really is a big “va te foutre”* to people who do not share the most widely held religion. The disadvantage that it places on Catholics, as opposed to Muslims and Jews, is so tiny that it barely even qualifies as promoting secularism.

*My French is embarrassing, and I may have got that wrong.

You raise an interesting issue — why the misuse of teh term ‘veiled’. You see it in English-Language press occasionally as well. The word veiled seems to mean: Any covering worn by a muslim women for religious purposes.

Why is the newspeak finding favour? Especially when both English and French have perfectly acceptable terms that accuratley describe the covering (headscarf, foulard).

If this continues, we’ll soon have to be talking about veiled veiled women and unveiled veiled women.

I don’t uderstand the problem with headscarves or skullcaps. Surely the whole point of secularism is that religion should not be imposed, not to suppress all religiosity.

On the other hand I think I might think differently on a ban on the burqa in schools. I know some academics who would simply refuse to teach someone in a burqa and have some sympathy with that view.

I’m not quite sure what principle, if any, supports this though.

>I don’t uderstand the problem with headscarves or skullcaps. Surely
>the whole point of secularism is that religion should not be imposed,
>not to suppress all religiosity.

Maybe, maybe not. As it is though talking about secularism and
religion merely distorts the fact that the law is merely a dress
code just as in the US schools we have dress codes too.
In the US public schools have been clamping down on girls who wear too
short shorts and too mini minis a la Britney or Supergirl because
schools consider it to be immodest. Similarly France has decided to
clamp down on girls who are wearing head coverings because they
consider it too modest. In both circumstances it’s just another dress
code.

What is particular amusing is those who argue that
they “have merely converted ‘Secularism’ into a religion.”
Suppose this were true. Surely those girls who dress a la Britney
and Supergirl in really short shorts and really mini minis are
expressing that secular religion. Does that mean that schools can’t
ban them from wearing the too short shorts and too mini minis because
it would violate their secular religion? That would be the obvious
conclusion if one truly believes that it’s wrong to ban the head scarf
because it violates their religious freedom and one believes that one
has converted secularism into a religion.

Well, for all those expressing bafflement at how anyone could possibly object to the head scarf – it’s not just a religion v. secularism issue, it’s also a feminist issue. French feminists (not all of them, but many) are opposed to the scarf because it is a highly visible statement of subordination. It’s no good blinking that fact.

And another aspect that’s being overlooked: a lot of Muslim girls want the ban, because they don’t want to wear the damned scarf, they too see it as a badge of subordination and they want no part of it. If it’s banned, their parents can’t force them to wear it; if it’s not, they can.

This is what always goes wrong with these arguments for respecting other cultures and religions – the people on the side of respect think of the religions and cultures as monolithic, treating the voices of the powerful in those cultures and religions as the voices of the whole cutlure or religion – but that’s totally inaccurate. Just for one thing, Islam doesn’t even admit the possibility of secularism. You’re not allowed to be an atheist Muslim as you can be an atheist Jew. This was part of the background of the Rushdie affair – he simply wasn’t allowed to say that he wasn’t a Muslim. Or rather, he was allowed to say it, but it was not accepted; he was an apostate, and that’s why he had to be punished. Consider the people born Muslim in France who would like to get out if only they could – and then consider the role of secular laws in helping them.

Ophelia — You’Re right, this is a feminist issue. The French government is passing a law restricting what women can wear, and as a result many women will get inferior education and (if the law is extended to state workplaces as Chirac has indicated) French women will find it much more difficult to work outside the home. It’s a misogynist law.

I think you are arguing that misogyny is so pervasive among some Frenchmen (Muslims) that the state must intervene and take corrective action. I could agree with that.

If the state intervened with a mass anti-misogyny education programme. Or increased the ability for women to have access to shelters or free legal advice — actions that increased, not diminished the choices available to women — I’d be applauding.

But this law singles out women and restricts their choices, while doing nothing about misogyny pervarsive among men. It is inspired by the same type of thinking that leads to mandatory headcovering in other countries: limit women’s choice to give them more freedom. Call it Le Taliban. I’m not buying it.

P.S. Amartya Sen has excellent things to say about the tensions and dissent within cultures in chapter 10 of Development as Freedom, and also in an article he wrote for The New Republic in 1997, which I just (yesterday) linked to in B&W’s Flashback section. I recommend it.

Human Rights and Asian Values

Islam doesn’t even admit the possibility of secularism. You’re not allowed to be an atheist Muslim as you can be an atheist Jew.

how does islam “admit” anything? and who “allows” atheist jews? and you may wish to read up on atheist muslim who had rather a formative influence on european thought.

…

It’s a misogynist law.

Indeed, and the bit about girls not being able to choose women doctors is even better evidence… i mean, there may not be white women who wear hejab but there are certainly white women who choose women ob/gyns!

” The law restricts women who want to wear the scarf, but it also restricts men who want to force women to wear it when they don’t want to. ” Actually it also restricts women who want to force women to wear it when they don’t want to.

This is about state *schools*, so I think the proper term for the individual wearing the headscarf may be “girl”. What about the parents’ right to pass on their culture to their children? So long as they are not physically harming the child, they would seem to have the right to.

Finally, since no one has mentioned it, a major reason Chirac has gone ahead with this, is that he believes that not banning headscarves will play into the hands of the National Front. I find the logic appalling – unless the state mistreats Muslims some now, the National Front will become stronger and Muslims would suffer even more down the road – but there you have it.

“As drapetomaniac points out, in a scenario such as that, the worst case is that the girl has to wear the scarf until she’s 18 and then she can move on.”

Boy – that’s awfully easy. So feeling degraded and oppressed for at least six years is no big deal?

Agency, of course, is a complicated matter. Opinions don’t just spring out of nowhere; they are influenced, formed, shaped, and even coerced. Sure, in one sense Muslim women can ‘freely’ choose to wear a scarf or a burqa, just as Chinese women could freely choose to mutilate their feet. But it’s noticeable how seldom non-Muslim women freely decide to wear headscarves (of the enveloping type in question) and how seldom women anywhere now freely decide to mutilate their feet.

Boy – that’s awfully easy. So feeling degraded and oppressed for at least six years is no big deal?

Blah. I responded to that point already above, which you’ve ignored.

But is the government in the business of legislating so that people don’t feel degraded?
Because if so, many, many Muslims, male and female (look at the al-Mujahabah’s blog) *do* find Chirac’s law degrading to them, esp. since it is calculated to flip off Muslims and thus draw off support from Le Pen.

I love how the tender concern for the degradation of people of color can also be worn as an electoral sop to racist whites. Vulgar Spivak explains rather a lot of what goes on in the world.

I posted at the same time drapetomaniac was posting; she said what I was trying to say about what “the government is in the business of legislating” much better than I did.

Yeah, I take your point, Rosalind. It’s not that I’m cheerfully without reservations in favor of the banning – I have a lot of reservations. But I think a good many of the responses here are too cheerful on the other side – are leaving too much out.

“But I think a good many responses here are too cheerful on the other side…”

Well, in the United States there’s no ban. Do you think that’s creating a real problem here? (I mean that question sincerely.) I guess there are cultural differences between the United States and France that might explain the reasons for the ban there, but I can’t help feeling it’s going to create more problems for France down the road, in the ways various people have brought up in this thread.

“Beaucoup de musulmans sont choqués” par ces manifestations, a ajouté Mme Lepetit.

Many Muslims are shocked by these demonstrations, added Mme Lepetit, ‘porte parole’ (word carrier, I love that phrase, so much nicer than spokesperson) for the Socialist party.

This wasn’t a problem in the past, right? Or was it. I don’t know. Have Muslim girls always worn scarves in school? Or did it start with the rise in fundamentalism. It’s my impression that the latter is the case, but I’m not sure. If it is the case, part of the picture here is that the scarf is at least as much a political gesture as it is a religious one. One could argue that in that case it’s all the more in need of protection – or one could think it’s not a freedom of religion question but just a dress code.

It’s complicated.

Have you read Geraldine Brooks’ Nine Parts of Desire? She’s very good on this stuff.

I find it hilarious that you’d pick Geraldine Brooks of all people. I mean, *adjusts expression* Have you read Lila Abu Lughod? She’s very good on this stuff.

The history of the head-covering has varied across region, but the belief amongst some Muslims that it is required by the faith predates modernity and so the rise of fundamentalisms. Of course the rise of fundamentalisms influenced the way the scarf and hijab in general are invoked in certain contexts. And of course, the scarf’s religious and political meanings often overlap or exist independently of one another. For example, it was taken up as a mark of protest of the Shah’s regime in Iran pre-1979 by many women who were not particularly religious and who certainly did not endorse the hard-line dress-code instituted after Khomeini came to power.

Which kind of all goes to my point that non-Muslims should not necessarily assume that they can “read” the scarf according to one particular narrative, especially the narrative wherein Muslim women are subdued and voiceless and need to be saved.

“Stop your sobbing.”

I can’t. I’m so unhappy.

“If you find yourself unable to address these facts, then the bit about Vulgar Spivak goes double.”

Oh go on – don’t be so bashful. Make it quadruple.

“And my tender concern is rather more than that, actually, but that need not detain us.”

Well, see, I only used that stupid phrase because you did. That is to say, I was quoting you, a bit sarcastically. And I wouldn’t dream of detaining you.

Don’t be shy though. Draw on all your resources of scorn and contempt when you talk to me. It’s tremendously persuasive.

“For example, it was taken up as a mark of protest of the Shah’s regime in Iran pre-1979 by many women who were not particularly religious and who certainly did not endorse the hard-line dress-code instituted after Khomeini came to power.”

Yeah…and then some of them were very, very, very sorry afterwards. So, it’s complicated.

Ophelia — I think you’re getting flack because the agenda you are prescribing is the same one proposed by Le Pen’s bigots and, in a different way, the same one proposed by Iran’s Mullahs. So I’d think you’d want to make very clear how your thinking differs from theirs.

You retreat quite often to the phrase ‘it’s complicated’. Readers of this blog are not known for their fear of complicated thinking. Why not elucidate your argument fully. How does co-ercion of Frenchwomen increase their freedom?

As I said earlier, and you seemed to acknowledge, there are many ways to promote women’s freedom. And while wearing a headscarf is a courageous non-conformist act in North America (in my experience), it may not always be like that in France. Sure. There may be co-ercion. Hell, there may be misogyny. But the way to address the issue is not to restrict women’s choices, it is to expand them.

And I’d echo rosalind — you seem to be seeing “subdued and voiceless brown women that need to be saved”, and that’s well-trod ground. As is focusing on women’s behavious when trying to promote/disparage a religion. So you have to be clear, and say more than “its complicated”. Because I don’t think it is.

Cross-post.

Okay, that’s it, I’m sick of this shit. Have it your way. I see tiny little voiceless brown women everywhere and I want to take away their freedom. I adore both Le Pen and the Iranian Mullahs. Fine.

Chris —

I completely agree that the contending arguments seem to be driven by lack-of-evidence anecdotal assertions. Initially I was all too willing to jump into the debate, but I’ve now attempted a cautious withdrawal, specifically due to my own ignorance.

It’s hard to get a straight fact concerning any of the possible consequences or areas of effect to be covered by the ban. My question on how the ban is applicable to hospitals has been completely ignored, though I tend to think it’s one of the more important indicators of whether the ban is nefarious or not. Here’s what Jacob Levy had to say over at Volokh:

Another major item on the “laicite” agenda is hospital care. The proposed law insists that no accommodation be made to those who are religiously scrupulous of being examined by doctors of the opposite sex.

But I have a hard time seeing how this will apply to practical situations: woman A asks a male doctor to find a female doctor to perform an examination, does the male doctor reply:

(1) It’s me or nothing.
(2) Let me try to find a female doctor.

Examining two, let’s decide how the situation would proceed if no capable female doctor were to be found: if there is no female doctor, can a really uptight/conservative/orthodox female Muslim ask for a referral? I’m completely ignorant of the French medical system, and my French is functional only for scanning headlines.

I was told by another person that my entire thought process was incorrect, and that the ban concerned only serious-condition emergency cases, where a doctor would be able to treat a patient regardless of religious affiliation or scruples. This infers, however, that they currently do not treat emergency cases with religious scruples, which I find preposterous.

But I have no knowledge of the psychological or theological motivations of any French Muslim women. It seems these arguments are for purely entertainment purposes, and can’t currently approach a concrete conclusion.

One thing that bothers me about this debate is just how much of it draws on assertion and on anecdotes told by people who have an agenda.

My opinion on the subject would be the same if all girls had the hejab imposed on their parents.

That said, it is my understanding that while some girls do have it imposed, a rather greater amount would like to wear and have parents who refuse to let them. Either way though, I don’t think that wearing hejab in class constitutes a grave enough restriction on children’s rights that the state should interfere, especially since it is only a restriction on wearing it in school and so does not really address the imposition tout court. The number of girls in question is in any case quite small, less than a 100 from what I read, and other less coercive means are preferable. The political context and the consequentialist argument (viz Somali/FGM/ENgland) strengthens my view.

“atheist muslim who had rather a formative influence on european thought.”

I ran this through Google and the first link that came up was:

” the medieval Arab historian-philosopher Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406),”

I realize you might be referencing someone very obvious and it will occur to me soon, but as yet I’m just guessing. Kahlil Gibran? One of the great mathematicians?

I can’t beleive I missed this thread. A great topic. Since others were suggesting reading, I’ll suggest what I think is one of the more thoughtful essays around on the subject: “Eastern Veiling, Western Freedom?” by Nancy Hirschman (Review of Politics, 1997, also in her 2002 book The Subject of Liberty: Toward a Feminist Theory of Freedom. We spent a couple of weeks on this topic in a seminar I taught on political theory and multiculturalism and a good portion of the students found this essay particularly persuasive. We began with Okin’s rather famous essay on the topic, which gathered a great deal of support at first, but students became less and less persuaded by her position the more we read and thought about the issue.

Two quick points, knowing full well that most participants likely aren’t reading anymore, or are through with the discussion.

Ophelia took offence at the comment about Chirac, le Pen and the racists. I can certainly understand why, but the political context here is something feminists considering supporting this law need to consider. At what point, and under what circumstance do you make a deal with the devil. Politics is no place for those who aren’t willing to get their hands dirty, of course, but there are times when those who are promoting an idealistic position. When I think of feminists making this compromise, I can’t help but be reminded of the Makah whaling controversy around these parts a few years ago. Some of my animal rights friends found themselves allied with local conservative politicians who barely bothered to disguise their racism and had been fighting tribal sovereignty for years. If these people are also committed to anti-racism, as I am quite most of them do claim to be, this is a serious problem. Here’s a guideline when to work with those whose positions you find abhorrent: when the initiative in question doesn’t work against your values in a fundamental way. To explain: as an atheist socialist, I would consider forming a political alliance with Christian conservatives in a fight for more support and relief for the homeless, which they might support for biblical reasons. However, before I made that commitment, I’d ask myself the question–is this group using this issue to further a political project (anti-gay rights, etc) that I abhor? If the answer is yes, I’d have to seriously rethink my willingness to enter into that alliance.

Speaking of strategic considerations, I suspect that veil wearing often should be thought of in this regard. There is a fourth potential reason to be added to Chris’ list—that don’t feel compelled for any religious or political reasons, nor are they actively compelled by patriarchal figures. They just do it because it’s easier than not, and the fight against headscarves is not one they are particularly interested in fighting.

Someone who was responding to Okin (Honig, maybe? can’t remember) wrote about some women from muslim cultures who were focusing on careers rather than families. These women were not interested in headscarves for any religious or principled reason, but they started wearing them anyway, in order to get men to take them seriously in the workplace. They considered a ban on headscarves in the workplace to be potentially damaging to their careers.

These women are appropriating a patriarchal artifact in an effort to combat patriarchy in another way. A ban on headscarves in the workplace would be tantamount to sending the following message to these feminists: “You are no longer permitted to make your own decision about which battles are more important than others in the struggle against patriarchy.” I submit that when one group of predominantly white feminists sends this message to, amongst other people, predominantly non-white feminists, we’ve got a problem, and we shouldn’t need Spivak to help us see that.

Is there an alliance with the devil on only one side? What about the alliance with people who beat up women who refuse to dress the way the mullahs tell them to?

“Madeleine Bunting’s article on French moves to ban headscarves (Secularism gone mad, December 18) made no reference to what is happening in the quartiers sensibles in urban France, where many Muslim girls are pressured into wearing Islamic headdress by their young brothers. Showing their hair or even wearing jeans are seen as signs of western depravity by their menfolk, who abuse and threaten them. Ms Bunting should be aware of the Ni Putes, Ni Soumises movement organised by Samira Bellil and her book about gang rapes of young female Muslims who dare to rebel.”

from the Guardian.

Is there an alliance with the devil on only one side? What about the alliance with people who beat up women who refuse to dress the way the mullahs tell them to?

Yes. Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes, it is only on one side.

If you can’t see how, that’s precisely why I am entirely skeptical of this pseudo-feminist concern. As Ikram said above, we’re perfectly in favor of many other, less coervice state interventions to help Muslim girls be free, ones that are explicitly divorced from racist agendas.

Frankly, Rosalind, Ikram and I have taken far greater pains to distinguish our position(s) from Islamist ones than the white liberals have to distinguish theirs from white racist ones. I’ll leave it to others to work out why. And I look forward to further sociological research on how much commitment French supporters of the ban have for any other concrete steps toward the liberty of women, Muslim or otherwise.

How does anyone on an Internet comment board know who is white and who isn’t?

Well, what a boring discussion this is. Yes or no, up or down, right or wrong, all or nothing. There are no ambiguities, there is nothing at all to be said for the other side, no grey area, no ‘on the one hand but on the other hand,’ just No a thousand times no. Very boring indeed. Also rather truculent. Pity, that.

I think that such feminist issues detract from the fundemental aims of ‘les lois laique’.
I think that enforcing a seperation between religion and state is in principle an idea that could work. However, the manner in which the French government are trying to impose this separation through restricting religous expression is absurd. Think of it this way: the way you express yourself, if you are a religious person, is not seperated between your religous identity and your ‘other’ identity. Your religous beliefs and customs are part of who you are. Therefore restricting what people can wear whether at school or if you are employed by the state and work in the public sector, does not promote this seperation of state from religion. I say this because I think this highlights a religous intolerance that lies at the heart of France’s problems. To make a religous person indistinguishable from a secular person merely means that the prejudices that are present in the French people (Lepen fiasco and the like) cannot surface because they have no target to attack. However, it is this mentality that the French government has to attack not eliminating their target!
As a Jew – I believe that God has instructed me to be aware of his presence at all times. It is because of this fact that i wear a kippah (skullcap). By telling me that i cannot wear such a garment, not only means i have to disobey God, but means that i have to undermine my own beliefs.
Some people will say that it would be possible for me to Join a religous school to avoid such problems. This i find rediculous because that doesn’t separate religoin from the state – it merely means that religous people are not tollerated by the state and are forced into a ghetto like existance – and we all know that such seperations are unhealthy. They are the first step in most ethnic cleansing – seperating the targeted groups.
I am not suggesting that this is the goal of the French government but such intolerance cannot be healthy and should not be tollerated.

The following essy provides context for understanding how Us and french views on religious freedoms are shaped by the history of both countries–well worth reading!

Ant

French Views of Religious Freedom

U.S.-France Analysis, July 2001

Dominique Decherf, Harvard Center for International Affairs,

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France and the United States appear not to see eye to eye on issues of religious freedom. This gap in understanding widened dramatically in 1998, when the US Congress and the Government of France both passed legislation on religious freedom that seemed to embrace opposite goals. In the United States, the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) imposed sanctions on countries around the world that were convicted of violating religious freedom. The new law created a US Commission for International Religious Freedom and appointed an Ambassador-at-large to head an office on international religious freedom at the State Department. In France (on the very next day, by coincidence), the National Assembly recommended the creation of a governmental task-force, the Inter-Ministerial Mission against Sects (MILS), to monitor so-called dangerous cults. In each case, the legislation was approved unanimously. Yet their different goals appeared to conflict. In 1999, US Ambassador Robert Seiple, a Baptist and ex-chairman of the Evangelical development organization World Vision, met with Alain Vivien, the French head of MILS who is also president of a secular development organization called Volunteers for Progress. The two discussed their differences, but failed to reach a common understanding on the goals of the two laws.

——————————————————————————–

“If the French are more sensitive to religious cults than are Americans, it is in part because of the historical emphasis that laïcité has placed on the freedom of conscience.”

——————————————————————————–

The paradox is that both countries embrace religious freedom and respect the separation between church and state. Despite different religious histories, France and the United States have both long embraced religious freedom in their constitutional documents. This principle was affirmed almost simultaneously in the two countries—in the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, and in the US Bill of Rights—in 1789. At the end of the Second World War, France and the United States cooperated in drafting the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, which includes religious freedom. Both also embrace the separation of church and state. Separation has existed in France since the 1905 Law of Separation (except in Alsace-Lorraine in eastern France and in French Guyana). Separation in the United States dates to the First Amendment of the US Constitution, ratified in 1791, and to a 1947 decision by the US Supreme Court that extended religious freedom and the disestablishment of religion to individual states.1

Thus, like the United States, the French Republic neither recognizes nor subsidizes any religion (Article 2 of the 1905 law), and it respects all beliefs (Article II of the Constitution of 1958).

Church and State

But from a common starting point, US courts have erected a higher and more impenetrable “wall of separation,” as Justice Hugo Black called it in his 1947 decision, than have their French counterparts. Controversies that are still divisive today within American society, such as religious discussion in public schools after teaching hours and government subsidies to faith-based organizations, have never been weighty political issues in France. Since 1959, the French government pays the salaries of teachers in private schools, most of which are religious, and gives subsidies directly to those schools. Churches, temples and synagogues built in France before 1905 are the property of the state. National and municipal governments maintain these buildings, which are used free-of-charge by the clergy. Religious feasts are official holidays in France. The government organizes religious funerals for victims of disasters and for French Presidents.

These exceptions to a strict separation of church and state in France result in part from the enduring central role of the Catholic Church. Sunday attendance at mass has dropped to about 10 percent of the population in France today, but 80 percent of French citizens are still nominally Roman Catholics. This makes France the sixth largest Catholic country in the world, after Brazil, Mexico, the Philippines, Italy and… the United States. Catholicism was the exclusive state religion of France prior to 1791, and one of the four official religions, together with Lutheranism, Reformism and Judaism (later Islam in Algeria), recognized by the state under the 1801 Napoleonic Concordat up until 1905. The central role of Catholicism has in part dictated the nature of the relationship that the French state maintains with all religious organizations today. The four other main religions in France have, like the Catholic church, been organized at the national level, and the French government is currently discussing with several Islamic groups to achieve a similar national representative body for Islam.

In France, the government regulates religious activities in all of their dimensions—worship, observance, practice, and teaching—in order to protect the rights of others, the public order, health, and morals. This regulatory oversight applies not just to religious organizations, but to any kind of organized group in France. In regulating religious activities, however, the state does not make religious interpretations. It does not define religion, as the state is incompetent in matters of belief. But the state also does not make exceptions to general laws and regulations on religious grounds. US courts may interpret laws more flexibly when a strong religious motivation is at stake—permission to use a hallucinogenic substance in Native American rituals, for example—a policy that has created controversy within the United States over the past decade.2

By contrast, French law is applied without any consideration of religion, race, or wealth. This approach has its roots in the universalist tradition of French democracy and citizenship. Within the public sphere, a French citizen is not defined in terms of particular traits. The law represents the General Will, but it is not simply a combining of private interests. Law is instead an act of public reason to be decided by rational arguments. Thus religious preoccupations enter political debate only if they are supported on rational grounds.

The French Tradition of Laïcité

The traditional conflict between church and state in France, finally resolved by the 1905 law, had focused on the issue of moral authority. The Roman Catholic Church accepted the principle of religious freedom only in 1965, with the Declaration on Human Dignity passed by the Vatican II Council. Until then, under the 1864 Syllabus and the 1870 Papal Infallibility decree, the Vatican required national governments to impose on their people the moral truths taught by the Catholic Church—a requirement that posed problems not only for France but also for the United States. The French term laïcité, translated roughly as secularism, was created to describe the growing opposition to this moral authority held by Catholic priests. Over time, the laïcité movement came to condemn religious coercion as a form of undue religious influence.

If the French are more sensitive to religious cults than are Americans, it is in part because of the historical emphasis that laïcité has placed on the freedom of conscience. Both the 1945 UN Declaration of Human Rights (article 18) and the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) embrace freedom not of religion alone, but of “thought, conscience and religion.” The distinction between these different kinds of freedom is frequently overlooked by Americans, who, for historical reasons, often consider the three synonymous. Americans are used to a plurality of religions. It is estimated that 40 percent of Americans change religion or denomination at least once in their life. Thus for Americans, freedom of choice of religion or belief is the most usual form taken by freedom of conscience.

The French law of 1905, by contrast, never mentions religion. It guarantees in its first article the freedom of conscience, and in that context the freedom of worship (culte, in the French). This emphasis on conscience has historical roots. The French have, since the end of the religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, known only one large majoritarian religion. Either one was within the Catholic Church, or one was a free-thinker outside of it. In the tradition of French laïcité that emerged from this context, freedom of conscience is still understood by the French as a freedom from the moral authority of a single dominant religion.

Religious Freedom and Policy

This difference in emphasis has consequences for the conduct of foreign relations. The French tend to sympathize with the author Salman Rushdie, for example, who is perceived as the free-thinking “Voltaire of Islam.” Americans agree, but also stress the right of any Muslim to be baptized as a Christian. This can lead to a difference of approach in conducting foreign policy. The civil war in the Sudan, for example, tends to be discussed in US public debate as a religious war. US peace mediation efforts have therefore tended to be more intensive, and more focused on the issue of religion. French policy by contrast tends to treat this conflict as a traditional, secular power rivalry. Both causes are legitimate. But both also risk to ignore the real political and social developments—democratization and women’s rights, for example—that are taking place within Muslim states today. In this sense, both the French and the American views tend to overlook the majority of Muslim people who both follow Islam and are also good citizens.

The difference in emphasis also has consequences for domestic policy. In the American tradition, for example, the Islamic faith is fully compatible with religious freedom. But in the French tradition, some aspects of Islam may contradict the governing principle of laïcité. A broad public debate emerged recently in France, for example, on the question of whether Islamic students should be allowed to wear scarves in French public schools. The issue arose because French public schools are considered to be neutral ground, where any religious or political symbolism is prohibited. The practice was eventually permitted, but specifically on the grounds that the scarves were not being used ostentatiously or as a means of proselytising. In general, religious freedom is regarded in France as a human right, but never in isolation from other universal human rights. France therefore objects to a special status for religious freedom over freedom of conscience.

This view of religious freedom helps to explain France’s legislation on “dangerous cults,” passed in its final version by the France’s National Assembly in June 2001. Freedom of association in France is guarranteed under the 1901 Law of Association. The law on “dangerous cults” simply grants the government the right, under judicial review, to dissolve such associations if they violate French law. The French government also retains the right to review decisions granting a special tax status to religious organizations under the 1905 Law of Separation if worship is not their “exclusive activity.” Religious groups pursuing non-worship activities are free to do so under the 1901 provision for associations and they do so with the usual tax exemptions accorded to all associations. These measures reflect the French respect for all religious belief, but not for actions that restrict the freedom of others to believe or not to believe.

In this respect, the French and US governments genuinely differ in their approaches to religion. Their two societies may even differ on the definition of religion itself. But this difference should not hurt French-American relations, nor their defense of human rights in the rest of the world, which each will continue to pursue according to their own view of religious freedom.

Dominique Decherf is currently a research fellow at the Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. He holds a doctorate in law from the Sorbonne and is a senior French diplomat.

i think to interfere in someones food is a great misteke as we cant force anybody to eat on our own choice so sure to interfere in how he or she wears is a much critical problem but to interfere in his religion and the principles of this religion that is totally not accepted and will cause plenty of critical consequences.everyone has the write to wear as the one like mouslim women and girls have the write to wear as their religioun tells them so ofcourse the answer is NO NO NO NO NO DONT PASS THE BAN