Engaging the Future: Recognizing Difference
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The
way we respond to difference often tests notions of tolerance. While
some differences arouse discomfort, other differences are hardly
noticed at all. Historically religious differences have been
particularly challenging. How to respond best to these differences
remains an open question.
Though France is a country that prides
itself on its strict separation of church and state as well as its
values of liberté, egalité, and fraternité (liberty, equality, and
brotherhood), tensions over diversity have surfaced, partly stemming
from recent immigration, fear of terrorism, and increasingly visible
antisemitism. New York Times writer Elaine Sciolino explains that those
tensions have been exacerbated by a small number of French Muslims who
have called for sex-segregated gym classes and swimming pools for girls
and prayer breaks within the standardized baccalaureate exams at the
end of high school. Some teachers complain that hostility from Muslim
students toward Israel has made it impossible to teach about the
Holocaust. Some Muslim men have refused to allow their wives or
daughters to be treated by male doctors in hospitals.1
In December 2003, a French government
panel on laicite´ (secularity) issued a report on the best way to
maintain the French tradition of secularism in a multicultural,
multireligious society. Among the panel's most controversial proposals
was a recommended ban on religious attire in public schools. The ban
would include Christian crosses (representing the crucifixion of
Jesus), Jewish yamulke (the head covering often worn by traditional
Jewish men), Muslim hijab (the headscarf often worn by traditional
Muslim women), and the Sikh turban (that men use to cover their hair)
as well as the addition of two new national holidays - one Jewish and
the other Muslim. Washington Post correspondent Keith B. Richburg
describes French President Jacques Chirac's response to the panel's
recommendations:
Warning that growing ethnic and religious
divisions threaten to erode France's tradition of equality, President
Jacques Chirac called Wednesday for a law that would ban Muslim
headscarves and all other overt religious symbols from public schools.
"Secularism is not negotiable", Chirac
said in a somber, half-hour speech that was televised nationally. "The
schools will remain secular."
"The Islamic veil, whatever name it is
given, the kippa [the Jewish skullcap] or the cross, if of manifestly
excessive dimensions, don't have a place within the walls of public
schools," Chirac said. Small, discreet signs, such as tiny crosses or
Stars of David, should be allowed, he said.
Leaders across Europe face the question
Chirac was addressing: how to respond as the customs and religious
practices of growing Muslim minorities - there are now roughly 15
million followers of Islam in Western Europe - come into conflict with
those of the Christian-heritage majority.
France, like many countries in Europe,
has a small anti-immigrant political party that has drawn increasing
support from voters with calls to restrict the influx or compel the
newcomers to adopt European ways. Mainstream parties such as Chirac's
have taken as their own some of these policies, drawing support from a
public that often blames the immigrants for rising crime.
Chirac's speech drew criticism from
Muslim groups, which contend that despite government claims that it
treats all faiths equally, the rule is specifically directed against
theirs, now the second-largest religion in France.
Dalil Boubakeur, president of the French
Council of the Muslim Faith and director of the Paris Mosque, the
country's main mosque, warned after the speech that a ban on head
scarves in schools could lead to "a stigmatization of the Muslim
community." According to French media reports, he said that "the law of
our nation is our law" and urged young Muslims to remain calm.
Fouad Alaoui, the secretary general of
the Union of Islamic Organizations in France, criticized what he called
"a secularism that excludes" and said practicing Muslims feared a
desire to reduce their liberties.
The chief rabbi in France, Joseph Sitruk,
said Chirac was "extremely clear about the place of religious belief in
a modern society" and that he was "overall, very satisfied" with the
speech. "I had been worried about a law (specifying) the size of a
kippa (Jewish headcovering) or of a cross," Sitruk said.
On most points, Chirac was following the
advice of a government-appointed panel, which last week recommended the
ban on veils and other religious symbols in public schools.
But Chirac went further Wednesday, saying
that private businesses should be allowed to ban such symbols among
employees "for reasons of security or client contact" and that patients
at public hospitals would not be allowed to refuse treatment from
doctors of the opposite sex. Some French Muslim men reportedly refuse
to allow male doctors to treat their wives.
Chirac rejected the panel's
recommendation that Jewish and Muslim holidays be added to the school
calendar, now laden with Christian holidays that few people celebrate
for religious reasons.
The head scarf debate has been underway
in France for years. Since 1989, French authorities have left it up to
individual schools to decide whether Muslim girls could cover their
heads, and the result has been a patchwork of regulations. Expulsions
have recently accelerated, however, as more girls from Muslim immigrant
families appear to be taking up the veil, or hijab in Arabic.
In France, the government and a majority
of the population fear that Islamic extremism is growing among the
country's Muslim population, variously estimated at between 5 million
and 7 million people. In his speech Wednesday, Chirac warned that
"fanaticism is gaining ground."
A similar controversy is being played out
in classrooms and government offices in other countries across Europe.
The hijab is viewed by many in the majority communities as a backward
symbol of women's oppression, or an extremist attack on secular
institutions. In the Muslim community, people often call it a religious
obligation or a symbol of ethnic identification for Muslim women who
feel alienated in their adopted homelands.
Few countries cherish secularity as much
as France, which broke with the Roman Catholic Church after the French
Revolution and enshrined the separation of church and state in its
constitution in 1905.
While France has long been a country of
immigration - the streets of Paris, Marseille and other large cities
show an increasing Arab and African mix - it has often followed a
policy of aggressive assimilation: Newcomers were welcome as long as
they adopted French language, tradition and culture, and essentially
became French.
Chirac has broad support for the proposed
law, which would have to pass Parliament. A poll published Wednesday in
the newspaper Le Parisien indicated that 69 percent of people surveyed
were in favor of such a ban.
But the Communists, Greens and extreme
left oppose it. Several labor unions and the League of Human Rights
also came out against a ban Wednesday. The secretary general of one of
the main teachers' unions called the proposed law "counterproductive."
Many critics argued that a ban would only
further alienate Muslims at a time when the country needs to be talking
about coexistence and diversity.
Valerie Hoffenberg, a French Jewish
activist who advises the American Jewish Committee in France, said a
general ban on overt religious symbols was likely to rile all the major
religious organizations but not address how well France's Muslims fit
in. "Chirac didn't talk enough about the real problem, which is
integration," she said.
In his speech, Chirac called for
"equality of opportunity." He spoke of a renewed "fight against
xenophobia, racism and anti-Semitism." He broached the subject of
racial discrimination -- often taboo in a country that keeps no
official records on race and where U.S.-style affirmative action
policies are considered a sacrilege - and said France must "break the
wall of silence and indifference that surrounds the reality of
discrimination."
But while praising France's diversity, he
also said the country could not choose communalism. "It would go
against our history, our traditions, our culture," the president said.
Through much of his career, Chirac has
courted Muslims, an increasingly large voting group. But he has also
kept his eye on the mainstream population. One popular analysis here is
that Chirac decided that he needed to take a firm line against the veil
and rule out other religious holidays on the school calendar as a way
of preempting the National Front, the main anti-immigrant party, in
regional elections in March.
Among French people who were interviewed
after they watched the speech, views were mixed. "I don't think it is a
good idea to ban the head scarves," said Pauline Marguet, 22, a
student. "It will give the Muslim community here in France the idea
that they are not welcome here, which is not the case."
Another student, Natacha Madaule, 27, was
ambivalent. "I personally do not think people should show which
religion they belong to in school or in government administrations
because it is something that is private," she said. "But given the
current geopolitical context, the law can only worsen the tension in
this country."2
In early February 2004, the French
Parliament passed Chirac's proposals into law. In writing about the
controversy New York Times writer Elaine Sciolino asked, Who would have
thought a piece of cloth could threaten the stability of the French
state? She notes that:
The practices of these new arrivals are
often cast as a challenge to Christianity, but in many ways they
challenge another religion entirely - the unofficial creed of
secularism, which underlies the French conception of government and
dates to 1789 and the French Revolution itself. In contrast to
pluralist societies that try to accept, or even celebrate, cultural
differences among their citizens, the French ideal envisions a uniform,
secularized French identity as the best guarantor of national unity and
the separation of church and state.3
Sciolino notes that while a 1905 French
law mandates a separation of church and state, seven of the eleven
French national holidays celebrate Catholic or Christian events.
Connections
Create a working definition of the words
tolerance and pluralism. If you were to represent the words in images
and symbols, what would they look like? Compare your definitions with
others in your class. What do you notice that is similar in your
understandings? What differences do you find most striking?
Do you think politicians should have a
right to prohibit certain articles of clothing from public schools if
they believe it is for the good of the larger community? Should
religious people have a right to wear whatever the want to school if
they believe that it is a religious obligation? How do you justify your
answers? Where would those rights come from?
The customs and practices of immigrants
are often treated as different in their new countries. What makes
something different? What are the ways individuals, groups and nations
can respond to difference? Harvard University Law Professor Martha
Minow often explores notions of difference using an illustration. She
divides a piece of paper in four parts and draws a bed in one section,
a book in the second, a chair in the third, and a desk in the forth.
She then asks, "Which one of these things is not like the other?" Try
this exercise yourself. How do you decide which items are similar and
which are different? To explore these ideas further you may use the
poem "What Do We Do With a Variation?" by James Berry which is the
first reading in the Facing History and Ourselves resource book Race
and Membership in American History: The Eugenics Movement.
In her article on the controversy
Sciolino notes, "The emphasis on a show of cultural uniformity,
paradoxically, comes at a time when the broader European idea is
evolving toward an acceptance of difference." What are the ways
countries can work to include those that are from outside the
mainstream into their communities?
How did you learn which differences
matter and which do not? Are there differences that should matter to
nations? If so, which ones? According to the reading, which differences
matter to the French panel on secularism and French President Chirac?
What is secularism? How does Chirac
understand the meaning of the word "secularism"? Can the values of
secularism and tolerance co-exist? Is the law discriminatory? Is it
possible to separate religion from state affairs without restricting
the rights of religious people to practice their traditions? If so,
how? Why or why not?
A recent judicial ruling in the United
States stated that it is inappropriate for a federal judge to display
the Ten Commandments in his courtroom. Research the decision. How do
other countries balance the affairs of religion and state?
How does Keith Richberg describe the
dilemma that is facing France for his readers in the Washington Post?
How does Chirac suggest the dilemma be resolved? How did the French
panel on secularism suggest resolving the dilemma? How do Chirac's
proposals differ from those of the panel? Do you believe the
recommendations will help or hinder French society in its desire to
live up to its values of liberty, equality, and brotherhood?
Reports of antisemitism directed at
Jewish students and teachers appears to be on the rise. Some backers of
the new proposals believe that they will help create a climate of
shared values and therefore reduce antisemitic incidents. Do you agree?
Explain your thinking.
Sciolino writes, Some teachers complain
that hostility from Muslim students toward Israel has made it
impossible to teach about the Holocaust. How should teachers and school
administrators respond? Why options are available to them? What actions
are most likely to help and which options are most likely to make the
problem worse?
1. Elaine Sciolino, "France Has a State Religion: Secularism," Week in Review, New York Times, February 8, 2004.
2. Keith B. Richburg, "French President Urges Ban on Headscarves," Washington Post, December 18, 2003, p. 1.
3. Elaine Sciolino, "France Has a State Religion: Secularism," Week in Review, New York Times, February 8, 2004.
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