French moves to ban the veil in schools is not an attack on Islam, but rather a crisis of secularism, writes Amr Elchoubaki* Perhaps no other issue has stirred as much controversy both inside and outside France as the recent decision to ban the veil in French public schools. In the heat of the passions this issue has ignited over the conflict between Islam and the West and western racism against Arabs and Muslims, it was easy to lose sight of the political and cultural context in which this ban was promulgated, a context that suggests that the problems at hand pertain more to the nature of, and perhaps a crisis in, French secularism than they do to the fight against Islam. The French model of secularism, as it emerged in 1905, draws a sharp divide between public institutions, such as government organisations and schools, and religion. Accordingly, tax revenues cannot be spent on religious institutions and institutions representing the public, which had freely chosen this socio-political system, cannot display any forms of religious imagery or ritual. Thus, contrary to most other European countries, in French public schools, municipal councils, and parliamentary and governorate buildings there are no crosses, no pictures of Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary, and no prayers or other religious liturgy in the meetings and assemblies held in these establishments. The battle between French secularism and the Catholic church was beset with not a few political and intellectual shocks and upheavals during the first half of the last century. Ultimately, the former trend prevailed leading to the distinctively decisive separation between church and state characteristic of the French system. The 1946 and, later, the 1958 constitutions established secularism as a cornerstone of French democracy and as a fundamental value governing the shape and conduct of public social and political life. A major corollary to this value was the notion of assimilation. Under the French model separate ethnic and religious groupings should be dissolved and accorded less autonomous expression than their counterparts in the Anglo-Saxon world. It is difficult, for example, to find in France exclusively black or Asian churches. Nor does this model look kindly on Muslims wearing traditional clothes on their way to the mosque or in pursuit of their ordinary business in the street. Assimilation, in the sense of identifying with and conforming to French secular values is regarded, firstly, as a means of breaking ethnic seclusion and, secondly, as providing greater opportunities for the members of these communities to make their way up the socio-political ladder. Although the French Revolution's dictum, "liberty, equality and fraternity" may have served as a moral safeguard of this "assimilationist" model, it has not been the magic wand for solving all the problems encountered by foreigners, and specifically Muslims, in France. Marginalisation on grounds of ethnic origin and religious affiliation continues to exist, although on a smaller scale than in other European countries, and many have been victims of racial incidents, a phenomenon that has become so pronounced that President Chirac felt compelled to deplore it explicitly in his speech of 17 December. Perhaps herein resides the dilemma of French secularism. In theory, it is more humane and more committed to equality among citizens than its Anglo-Saxon counterpart, which is more accepting of its ethnic communities' cultural, linguistic and religious expressions -- from moderate to extreme -- and simultaneously less concerned with the phenomenon of ghettoisation and whether this hampers social advancement. Under the Anglo-Saxon model, the decision to remain within a closed community rather than to assimilate is regarded a matter of individual choice rather than a question to be regulated by the state and governmental institutions. In practice, however, in its determination to shape a uniform, homogenised society, French secularism equates assimilation with conformity. Assimilation is understood to mean providing equal opportunity to all citizens and ensuring equality in rights and duties, whereas conformity implies the demand that citizens be moulded to the notion of a uniform lifestyle and subscribe to a single set of "nationalised" cultural convictions. As a result, the French model appears less tolerant than other Western nations of the autonomous cultural expression of its ethnic communities. In addition, in its rigidity, the French secular system has often appeared incapable of accommodating to new realities, both inside France and abroad. To a large extent, this rigidity stems from the tendency to confuse the values of humanitarianism, democracy and civil society with the scriptures of secularism, which has been so sanctified as to require legislation restricting individual liberties which reside at the heart of any democratic order. Indeed, some sectors of the French political elite are actually "happy" when their system of secularism is likened to the secularism safeguarded by the army in Turkey or by the totalitarianism in Tunisia. France's ban on the veil, thus, is more a manifestation of this "secularist fundamentalism" than it is of hostility to "religious fundamentalism", targeting a large segment of French Muslims and angering an even greater segment of popular opinion in Islamic countries. The debate over the veil in public schools dates to more than a decade ago, when some education officials attempted to prevent veiled students from entering their schools on the grounds that their veil is a "religious symbol" and, therefore, prohibited under law from display in public institutions. Further stoking the controversy, some schools went so far as to expel students, even though there was no law specifically banning the veil from schools. It was this ambiguity that prompted the French government to draft a law explicitly prohibiting the wearing of prominent religious clothes and emblems in public schools. The prohibition included the Jewish yarmulke, openly displayed crosses and the veil. Although the law did not specifically target Muslim women, it clearly would never have been promulgated had not some 1,200 veiled students out of a total of 13 million students been deemed such a "threat" to the French secular order that the government felt compelled to draft a bill of law prohibiting the veil and which is to be brought before parliament in the outset of the new year. As President Chirac, whose party has an absolute majority in parliament, declared his support for the bill in his recent speech, it is virtually a foregone conclusion that the bill will be passed. The French position on attire contrasts sharply with its Anglo- Saxon counterpart, which permits without the slightest reservation, the wearing of veils and other such emblems of faith in public schools, whereas France's rigidity on this issue is such that it cannot develop its notion of secularism to accommodate diversity in a manner that does not conflict with its secular values and republican system. It is one thing to have Qur'anic scriptures inscribed on students' desks, for that, like Christian iconography or Jewish scriptures on the walls or windows of the school, would conflict with the concept of a secular public realm as stipulated under French law. It is entirely another thing to permit the individual the freedom to express his personal religious or cultural convictions in a manner that aids rather than hampers his assimilation into French society. Perhaps the failure to perceive this reflects another preconception spread by Western media, which is that the "good citizen" is, by definition, he who lives his public and private life just like other Europeans; he should eat like them, drink like them and shun religious fundamentalism in order to be modern and democratic. However, it is difficult to accept this presumed antithesis between religiosity and modernism. European intellectuals and diplomats who have had any significant experience in Arab and Islamic countries will have come to the realisation that the juxtaposition does not always work, and that many members of those societies may appear to live traditional lifestyles but have modernist attitudes and desire to participate in a productive and contemporary way in various facets of public life in their societies, and that, conversely, many who appear Westernised are, once you scratch the surface, devoid of whatever democratic and modernist values they may have picked up through contact with the West. Yet, this juxtaposition is clearly operative in the case of veiled students in France, who are automatically perceived as a "source of backwardness" and as a symbol of French secularism's failure to achieve assimilation, rather than as evidence of its success. But, here too, the value judgment is misplaced. Many veiled women represent the positive face of Muslims in France, in that for most of them the veil was a conscious, voluntary choice rather than an obligation under law or blind conformity to fashion, as is frequently the case in most Islamic societies. Moreover, not only are they acting in accordance to sincere religious conviction, many of these are keener to be responsible citizens, more eager to be involved in the development of their society, than many other Arabs and Muslims who, in spite of their "Frenchified" appearances, are unwilling to face the challenges of education or competition, who slide into lives of excess and delinquency, and who then blame their misfortunes on racism and discrimination. All the more is the pity that the French media has declared war on veiled schoolgirls rather than on the true failures in the immigrant communities in the country. It is especially regretful that, in linking the veil to Muslim extremism and terrorism and in holding these girls accountable for such aberrations in Islamic societies as the Taliban and Bin Laden's Al-Qa'eda, the French media is contributing to instilling a climate of fear in a normally open French society. The vehemence of this attack is all the more surprising as schoolgirls who have chosen to wear the veil number no more than 1,200. One would think that their continued presence in French public schools would be considered evidence of the strength and vitality of French secularism. This system is far more secure than some French politicians claim and still capable of delivering its humanitarian message to the world and becoming Europe's answer to the American model. All that is needed is a little more flexibility in defining the concept of secularism so as to ensure that religious freedoms are accorded as much respect as the laws, principles and values of democracy and civic society. * The writer is an analyst at the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies .
