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The
effects of President Jacques Chirac’s proposal for a law
banning hijab from the country’s public school system have
triggered much public debate on the national scale. It has also
created a lot of justification from France’s non-Muslim
intelligentsia. A key element has been revealed by the debate.
Far from reinforcing “secularism” and banning all religious
signs and symbols, a host of politicians and pundits has vocally
focused on banning hijab.
The
head of the Collège Théodore-Rosset de Montréal-la-Cluse, in
the Ain department, banned a 13-year-old Franco-Moroccan girl
from the junior high school on January 9, 2004 (reported by Reuters-France
and F2 television). The high school emphasized their
decision had been reached in the wake of many months of
negotiating with the girl’s parents. The school’s
authorities requested her to remove the hijab for “security
reasons” for a few specific classes, such as physical
education and Earth sciences. They offered her the option to
wear a regular headscarf instead with only her ears being
exposed. No one from the school specified where the conflict lay
in wearing a hijab while studying Earth sciences…
Debate
Spreads Through Society
The
French political scene is currently devoid of any Muslim officials. |
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On
January 8, 2004, Le Monde and Libération reported
the political establishment to be up in arms about the wording
of the new law. “The conspicuous wearing of religious
symbols” (le port ostensible du symbole religieux) has
sparked a debate on the vague terminology featured in the
law’s central tenet.
In
the meantime, France’s Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, who
has been the key player in the French State’s relation to its
Muslim populations, was visiting China on a semi-official State
visit. So far, he has leaned with satisfaction on the Sheikh of
Al-Azhar’s approval of the right of France’s legal state to
draft the bill on secularism.
As
an outflow of this anti-hijab law, the Sarkozy/Chirac power
struggle has shifted an increment. Two weeks ago Minister
Sarkozy called for “positive discrimination” in favor of
appointing a Muslim prefect (i.e. the highest administrative
official in a French department). The French political scene is
currently devoid of any Muslim officials. After calling Sarkozy
to order, Chirac made an announcement on January 8 in favor of
sponsoring Muslim political officials.
On
January 14, the words turned into action as Aïssa Dermouche,
was appointed Prefect of the Jura department. Head of the Nantes
Business School (École de commerce supérieure),
Dermouche was born to a Franco-Kabylian family. He has since
become part of the French elite of business deciders. Since June
2002, he has been President Chirac’s Chief of Staff.
In
Favor of Secularism, or Against Hijab?
“…hijab
also has a political dimension.”
- French MP |
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Reports
published in Libération on January 8 made the “law on
secularism” increasingly out to be a law against hijab. “One
ought to be clear. The law aims at solving the hijab problem.
That’s because the hijab also has a political dimension,”
explained Hervé Mariton, the UMP (Union de la majorité
politique) MP in the Drome department. The president of the UMP,
Alain Juppé, has made similar assertions. For him, the French
public school system must not only be a place for secularism,
but also for neutrality.
Should
anyone still be under the illusion about the law taking aim at
all religions, i.e. Islam and Judaism alike, as does Alain
Touraine (see below), Mariton’s statement makes the issue
clear.
Bernard
Accoyer, vice-president of the UMP in the National Assembly,
explained: “The bill must keep its balance and allow people
the freedom to carry a small, discreet sign of religious
affiliation.”
By
limiting itself to “conspicuous” signs, the ban explicitly targets
hijab. |
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On
the other hand, the Socialist Party is opposed to extending the
ban to political signs and symbols (as is Che Gueverra
t-shirts). Bruno Le Roux, Socialist MP for the Seine-Saint-Denis
district, feels that by limiting itself to “conspicuous
signs,” the text explicitly takes aim at hijab. In his view,
the term “visible” (visible) would “discriminate
far less” than “conspicuous” (ostensible).
Libération
claims the debate and reticence are essentially irrelevant,
given that the bill’s final wording will be decided by
President Chirac. The house majority will then most likely be
compelled to a partisan vote.
With
a taste of the international repercussions provoked by the bill,
the January 9, 2004 edition of Libération carried a
warning from former Iranian president, Akbar Hachemi
Rafsandjani: “I hope the French government and Chirac himself,
as well as the French parliament, understand that they have
insulted a billion and a half Muslims.”
December
2003
The
December 13, 2003 issue of the weekly Le Point featured
an interview with one of France’s most prominent philosophers,
Marcel Gauchet. He was asked to discuss the country’s high
profile interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy. Professor Gauchet
has written extensively on religion, democracy and secularism.
He supports Sarkozy’s ambitious venture to seek a united voice
for Islam in France. Here’s an excerpt:
“Le
Point: Does Nicolas Sarkozy’s choice to collaborate with
all instances of Islam in France, including its radical wing,
the UOIF, seem convincing to you?
“M.
Gauchet: His wager on Islam is not absurd. It fits in with
the continuity of the Interior Ministry’s doctrine, for it’s
an initiative that harks back to Pierre Joxe (Socialist Minister
of the Interior, 1984-1986). Why not search for an alliance with
the moral authority of the Imams, thereby using religion as a
way of dealing with delinquency. As we know—and let’s forget
about being politically correct here – the core of delinquency
is found among the young ‘beurs’ (of North African
origin) living in the low-rent housing projects. But he
doesn’t always use the right mix. After all, Sarkozy needs all
of the privileges granted him by his position to be able to say
that a Muslim official is going to be recruited in the name of
‘positive discrimination.’ It is normal for Chirac to have
called him back to order.”
An
International Perspective: Brazil
Contemporary
Islam in France has become the largest challenge to the
“universalist” ambitions of French rationalism. |
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On
January 11, Brazil’s Folha de S. Paulo (“Mais”
supplement) featured an article in translation by Alain
Touraine. The left-of-center French sociologist, and member of
the board that recommended the French law, spelt out its terms
as part of a reinforcement of secularism. Touraine’s argument,
however, are seated on a series of skillfully exposed
non-sequiturs.
Touraine
argues that secularism arose as a result of the scientific
progress created by the Enlightenment. Meanwhile in the late
20th century, the empowerment of Islam in France as a political
and religious culture would have been enabled by the
philosophical doctrine of “cultural relativism.” The
essential idea behind the latter doctrine is that no culture or
religion can claim superiority over another, for no set of
values is supreme and transcendent to the point of having
universal application. In the heated debates provoked between
Republican standards and cultural relativism, contemporary Islam
in France has become perhaps the single largest challenge to the
“universalist” ambitions of French rationalism.
The
bill put forth by President Chirac is meant to bolster
secularism. The way Touraine explains this makes an unjustified
epistemological leap. He argues that since secularism derives
from scientific rationalism, and that cultural relativism has
asserted anti-scientific statements in the name of respecting
every culture’s truth claims, in its demands for greater
cultural independence in France French Islam would be partaking
in an “irrationalist” challenge to scientific rationalism.
Needless to say, there is no further truth to issuing a claim
such that the expression of Muslim faith in Islam’s teachings
and traditions would be damning science, anymore than there is
to claim that Catholics faithful to Church dogma all follow Pope
John Paul II’s retrograde moral doctrines to the letter.
Science and religions have coexisted more peacefully than many
liberal intellectuals are aware.
Science
and religions have coexisted more peacefully than many liberal
intellectuals are aware. |
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Moreover,
whether secularism has led to feminism and other radical
egalitarian political movements, as Touraine offers as its
greater guarantee for individual freedom, is a matter of chance.
There is no necessary causality, motivation or progression from
one to the other. The thought and behavior of French
Christian/Secular women is hardly a challenge to the fabric of
French patriarchal society—despite the right to wear
mini-skirts and go topless on Riviera beaches. It is true that
French women have entered the higher tiers of universities and
the work force. Despite this, France’s “republican”
political institutions are still solidly held by a patriarchal
majority.
By
shifting the debate to the science vs. obscurantism debate, it
is not the least surprising to find Touraine’s reasoning
itself slide into the obscure. He writes that “the conquests
of scientific knowledge cannot be annulled in the name of a
traditionalism or irrationalism established by terror instead of
convention.” If this sentence does not suggest that Muslims
benefit from terrorism, whereas all Christians and Secularists
abide by the orderly principles of rational debate, I cannot
personally think of a more explicit one.
The
Law in France’s Colonies
France
confronts the problem of applying the law to its “départements
outre-mers,” or in other words, its colonies. Yet in a
number of Indian Ocean colonies, the population is
overwhelmingly Muslim.
The
situation of Islam in some of these French territories makes
enforcement of a text banning hijab a problem. In Reunion, where
35,000 Muslims live, out of a population of 700,000, hijab is
worn in public establishments. There, a school director wears a
turban tolerated by the School board. This department houses the
only private French Muslim school, which is under contract with
the State: the Medersa of Saint-Denis de La Reunion.
In
Mayotte, the situation is even more complex. In this department
community, where the near totality of the population is Muslim,
the prefect names the Cadi, who represents the faith. The Cadis
are the territorial officials applying the law based on
jurisprudence. The new law on secularism that could be applied
in the Indian Ocean may end up shaking up the statutes of the
local law.
Norman
Madarasz is a Canadian philosopher residing in Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil. With a Ph.D. from the University of Paris, he
teaches and writes on international relations, political economy
and philosophy. He is also a regular contributor to Counterpunch
and has published think pieces and philosophical research
extensively. You can reach him at nmphdiol2@yahoo.ca
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