29 December 2003 - Secular Inquisitors

So the French are considering banning “ostentatious religious symbols” in “public places” such as schools and government buildings. What this is motivated by is mainly a desire to ban the headscarf that many Muslim women wear since this is the focus of much of the debate in France.

Well, although the Muslim women who wear the headscarf do it out of religious obedience it is not done as a religious symbol. It is done for the sake of being modest. The same headscarf was worn by Mary the mother of Jesus and can be seen in practically every statue of Mary found all over France in public places. So the first point about the headscarf worn by Muslim women is that it is not an “ostentatious religious symbol” since it is not a religious symbol at all. The same headscarf has historically also been a Christian and Jewish mode of dress. But now Christians in France don’t bother with it anymore and the observant Jews that stick to the letter of their laws about women covering their heads decide to do so with wigs instead!

Muslim women as well as other women in France should first oppose any attempt to ban the headscarf by claiming that they want to wear it to be modest and that it is not a religious symbol. I would love to see a campaign of women in France, both Muslim and non-Muslim to have a day when they wear headscarves to school and to government buildings for the reason that they just want to be extra modest that day.

In fact Islam is a religion which is devoid of symbols. Some people may think the crescent represents Islam but this is much more just a decorative feature on some mosques, it has no sacred value and has no place in many mosques and is almost never found in Muslim homes and I have never met a Muslim who hangs a crescent around his or her neck. Islam is fine if religious symbols are present or absent from public spaces.

Which brings me to the second point: Why ban religious symbols in public spaces simply because they are religious? The attitude seems to be: “We used to be intolerant, but now we cannot tolerate intolerant people”

Even if this perverse reasoning is acceptable, it is simply not true that Islam is intolerant. The history of freedom of religion has a far better record in the Muslim world than in Europe. This is just a classic case of victim becoming perpetrator. The French breed of secularism is a reaction to the abuse that the French people suffered when the prevailing understandings and institutions of Christianity were used as a way to sustain oppression of the people by tyrants. This whole battle between secularists and the various churches has in many people’s minds stigmatised all understandings of Christianity and indeed all religions including Islam. Christianity was forced on people, but Islam prohibits forcing people to adopt a religion. Christianity in France controlled its dogma through a rigid Church hierarchy and was not open to debate. Islam on the other hand has no church hierarchy and the debates are unstoppable despite the best efforts of some. But these differences and many others don’t feature much in the French consciousness. Religion hurt us. We must not allow it to hurt us again.

There are significant differences in the French breed of secularism and that found in the USA. In the USA the emphasis is on freedom to practice any religion whereas in France the emphasis is freedom from being forced into any religion. Both societies were the result of a people who were traumatised by intra Christian power struggles and who sought to free future generations from them. Perhaps this difference may be because the French had to continue living with the abuser in the same house whereas Americans had moved away to a new town.

Secularism is now becoming a religion in its own right, imposing its principles, its dress code and its moral relativism. But there are varieties in this new faith of the faithless. Some are happier to coexist with other religions and some are more like the Dominican Inquisitors, demanding and forcing everyone to adhere to the new religion.

The French should adopt a principle from Islam in their secularist religion:

“No Compulsion in Religion”. (Qur’an 2:256). Freedom of religion is an inalienable God given right – whatever you believe.