Laicite Research Articles

The French Debate over On the Jewish Question: From an Anachronistic Trial to the Crisis of Secularism

Abstract This article analyses the debate over an ‘antisemitic Marx’ in the French context. Since the republication of On the Jewish Question in the aftermath of the Six-Day War, the French intellectual field has seen continuous conflict between supporters of this ‘thesis’ (Mishari, Kaplan, Birnbaum) and their detractors, who are sometimes militant (J. Aron, Bensaïd) and sometimes academic (De Fontenay, Traverso), including those involved in the Grande édition Marx et Engels (Clochec). First, the article examines at length the French debate which spans over 50 years. Second, building on the insights garnered from this debate, it tackles the limits of materialist criticism of religious views. In light of the contemporary crisis of secularism in France, this problem forces Marxist and critical thinkers (Tosel, Meziane) to reassess the issue of religious minorities and their ‘assimilation’ to the ‘national majority’.

Comparative Study of Essential Religious Practices under Secularism in India, France, and the USA

This paper compares and contrasts the idea of fundamental religious practices under secularism in France, India, and the US, examining how each nation strikes a balance between religious liberty and official impartiality. A positive secularism approach exists in India, where the state interacts with religion to guarantee equality while courts decide what "essential religious practices" are worthy of constitutional protection. France adheres to a more rigorous form of secularism called laïcité, which emphasizes a clear separation between religion and state, frequently limiting religious expression in the sake of maintaining governmental neutrality, particularly with regard to Islam. Under the First Amendment, the United States employs a separationist approach that guarantees both the free exercise of religion and its non-establishment. However, there are obstacles in balancing religious liberty with public policy and anti-discrimination laws. The study comes to the conclusion that although all three nations strive to maintain secularism, there are differences in how different historical, cultural, and legal settings are interpreted, making it difficult to accommodate religious practices.

Narrating Diasporic Religion and Postsecular Identity in Tahar Ben Jelloun’s A Palace in the Old Village

Inspired by Western secular literary tradition, many diasporic writers in the Maghreb in general and in Morocco in particular did not include religious or spiritual themes in their literary works, as compared to the valorized ones of race, class and gender. Much of Maghrebian fiction, primarily written by immigrant writers of Islamic background who adopt secular perspectives that are often critical of Islam, has depicted religion, especially Islam, in negative terms. Tahar Ben Jelloun is one of those writers who are criticized for being self-orientalizing authors who ‘prostitute’ their works to their Western audience. But, Tahar Ben Jelloun is misunderstood by the majority of his readers. In this article, using postsecularism and secular spirituality as analytical tools, I will explore the postsecular identity and diasporic religion in Tahar Ben Jelloun’s A Palace in the Old Village. Reading the novel from a postsecular perspective and more specifically from a secular spiritual perspective, I will show that Tahar Ben Jelloun is neither self-orientalizing Islam nor celebrating French secularism. Instead, he is upholding postsecular values and diasporic consciousness by negotiating instances of extremism and communalism that mark the failures of both organized religion and Eurocentric secularism. Indeed, Ben Jelloun presents Islam as faith, as a spiritual practice; a diasporic religiosity which is not associated with any political doctrine or organization.

Secularism as an Anti-Religious Conspiracy: Salafi Challenges to French laïcité

Regarding organizational power, Salafism in France is a minority of dispersed groups emerging on the periphery of the Muslim French space. However, it can be regarded as a discursive force that has influenced significantly French discussions about Islam. Specifically, one of the most contentious positions in French political and intellectual discourse at the moment is Salafi vehement rejection of laïcité as a conspiracy against religion in general and Islam in particular. This article provides a close reading of three Salafi and neo-traditionalist discourses on secularism written by well-known theologians and intellectuals associated with this school of thought: Youssef Hindi, Kareem El Hidjaazi, and Aïssam Aït-Yahya. Investigative in nature, our aim is to comprehend the fundamental criticisms of French secularism and the rhetorical devices these Salafi and neo-traditionalist discourses have been using for the past ten years.

Religious Secularism: Muslim Perception and the Effects of France and Belgium's Niqab and Burqa Prohibition

This article examines how the Muslim community perceives religious secularism in France and Belgium. Second, to explore the negative and positive impacts of the niqab and burqa ban policy on the perception of the Muslim community in France and Belgium. This article uses a descriptive qualitative research method (Field Research) with a participatory approach. Namely, the researcher conducted direct observations in France (Cannes, Marseille, and Dunkerque) and Belgium (Saint-Nicolas and Bouge) on 19-26 February 2022. The data collection techniques in this article are primary data and secondary data. Preliminary data includes field observations, interviews, and documentation. Meanwhile, secondary data includes books, scientific articles, and popular articles still relevant to this research. Then, the researcher conducted semi-structured interviews with informants or sources, namely Muslim women in Belgium and France. Furthermore, the documentation technique uses a theoretical reference source referring to Stephen P. Robbins' version of perception theory. The findings in this article are the perceptions of the Muslim community, which has been known above. The views of the Muslim community in France and Belgium towards religious secularism in terms of the prohibition of wearing the Niqab and Burqa vary greatly. These very varied views or perceptions are influenced by the principles, experiences, knowledge, attitudes, social conditions, surrounding environment, and personalities of those (Muslim communities) who live in France and Belgium. The negative impacts are more dominant, and this may worsen the social and economic conditions of Muslim communities.

Spiritual but Not Religious? French Muslim Discourses on Spirituality

This article explores the possibility of a spiritual Islam in the West as a viable alternative to traditionalist and political Islam. It looks at the capabilities and limitations of two French Muslim voices, Abdennour Bidar and Éric Geoffroy, who are the most vocal Muslim intellectuals in favor of spiritual Islam in France. A careful examination of their writings reveals that post-modernism, French secularism, and religious freedom all support the spread of spiritual Islam. However, because of its elitism, overemphasis on individualism, and lack of formal religious institutions for knowledge and practice, spiritual Islam struggles. Overall, spiritual Islam flourishes in a secular society, but it is too intellectual to truly oppose political and conservative Islam.

A confiscated trajectory of secularism: revisiting the critical case of Turkey

ABSTRACT One mark of the rising research field of secularism and religion is that the field itself moved from area studies towards mainstream social science. This move can be traced through the increasing significance of Turkey. Turkey’s AKP was presented as a liberal and moderate challenge to radical Kemalist secularism in Turkish Studies, then analytical pillars of research in comparative politics and political theory relied on this presentation. After AKP’s authoritarian turn, how can we reflect on its past narration as liberal and moderate? As opposed to the thesis of rupture between the early and the late AKP, this article develops the thesis of confiscation. First, I resituate Kemalist secularism vis-à-vis French secularism with comparative history. I argue that institutionally it’s a limited, not a radical, secularism. Then, I examine gradual institutional changes during the AKP with statistics, court decisions, legislation and parliamentary discussions, and demonstrate that limited Kemalist secular institutions ease the way for AKP’s will to religionize society and the state. My analysis tackles a central thesis in the literature: secular institutions can make reasonable accommodations of religion without losing their own core. I show that in Turkey, accommodations of religion turn into confiscation of secular institutions.

Doing secularism: commemorating the national day of laïcité in French schools

ABSTRACT After the terrorist attacks of January 2015, laïcité – the particular French version of secularism – has been at the centre of government efforts to reaffirm republican values and strengthen national cohesion. One of the most emblematic measures in this quest was the decision to have state schools celebrate a national day of laïcité. This article seeks to understand how French secularism has been performed during these commemorations. It draws from the assumption that secularism does not only consist of rules on church-state relations and on how religion may or may not manifest itself in the public sphere, but also of representations and routinised practices of secularity. Through an online analysis of nearly 150 school activities organised between 2015 and 2020 across France, this article shows how laïcité remains an indeterminate construct. Commemorations typically take the form of tree-planting ceremonies, re-enacting rituals, and visual or performing arts projects. In many cases, laïcité is diluted in civil religious rituals to the point that it sometimes becomes an empty signifier of patriotism. Other projects, however, reinterpret laïcité as a condition for multicultural citizenship and, in doing so, propose counter-narratives to the notion that multiple identities pose a threat to the Republic.

The Principle of Secularism, a Precious Asset of the Republic and the Basis for Freedom and Citizenship

To put it into perspective, the principal of secularism in France must be positioned at the intersection of three cardinal pillars: freedom, citizenship and what has founded them historically and what embodies them: the Republic. These three closely intertwined pillars where each supports the other, allows individuals and the national community to flourish, move forward, build, and develop. If one of them breaks down, the whole edifice is destabilized and with it freedoms, including the freedom of worship.

Rethinking The Electric Guitar as an Augmented Instrument

The research analyzes the main electronic and digital ensembles for electric guitar in the last decades. Through this, the sense of augmentation of the instru- ment is deepened, with special emphasis on its integration with the computer. A first section of the research is the interpretation of a series of case studies using Ableton Live software with MAX/MSP, together with a MIDI controller that homogenizes and allows performing the case studies selected for the the- sis: Electric Counterpoint (Steve Reich 1987), La cite des saules (Dufourt 1997), Trash TV Trance (Romitelli 2002) and Not I (Prins 2007). A second section is the development of an augmentation proposal for e-guitar that consists of a separation in the hands-feet interface to be able to control effects, volumetric balances and samples and loops. Finally, a reflection is articulated around the augmentation in the electric guitar and its relationship with the concepts of post digital, Smart instruments, modular flexibility and obsolescence.

Transgresija materije

Post-pandemic, France is promoting new ways of inhabiting domestic space by learning from COVID. However, certain models have emerged from a slower transformation. We examine how do-it-yourself (DIY) work may indicate paradigm changes in French society. This essay describes the characteristics and changes in DIY across time in France based on the momentum created by social sciences in the 1970s. It explains how DIY is able to generate changes in people's behaviour and thus offers possible new models for economy and production. However, to play a role in both twenty-first century housing and the contemporary city, action taken on the matter must be spatially legitimised. Therefore, the historical role of homo faber and his workshop in constructing la cite is discussed. Workshops allow the transgression of current material culture led by the ideas of abundance and accumulation. Thus, DIY is viewed as a way of being in the world that allows the construction of new economic and productive models during an era of ecological transition.

Secularity and Science: What Scientists around the World Really Think about Religion

Secularity and Science: What Scientists around the World Really Think about Religion

Paradoxes and limitations in enacting Jewish-Muslim dialogue in contemporary France: case studies of interreligious and intercultural dialogue initiatives

ABSTRACT This article examines the extent to which Jewish-Muslim inter-religious/cultural dialogue initiatives in France are negatively affected by the dominant paradigm of republican universalism and state secularism in France. It focuses on the relations between, on the one hand, the Institut du Monde Arabe (IMA) and the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire du Judaïsme (mahJ) and, on the other hand, Beit Haverim and Homosexuels musulmans de France (HM2F) to highlight the key challenges such initiatives face. In addition, this article suggests that the ineffectiveness of some contemporary interreligious initiatives in France results from both the inherent difficulty in navigating the republican universalist framework and the failure of such initiatives to acknowledge, mediate, and challenge the historical and contemporary role of the state in shaping the relations between Jews and Muslims.

From Diversity Ideologies to the Expression of Stereotypes: Insights Into the Cognitive Regulation of Prejudice Within the Cultural-Ecological Context of French Laïcité.

This theoretical paper examines the context-sensitivity of the impact of cultural norms on prejudice regulation. Granting the importance of understanding intergroup dynamics in cultural-ecological contexts, we focus on the peculiarities of the French diversity approach. Indeed, the major cultural norm, the Laïcité (i.e., French secularism) is declined today in two main variants: The Historic Laïcité, a longstanding egalitarian norm coexisting with its amended form: The New Laïcité, an assimilationist norm. In fact, these co-encapsulated Laïcité variants constitute a fruitful ground to cast light on the processes underlying prejudice regulation. Indeed, it is documented that the assimilationist New Laïcité is linked to higher levels of prejudice as compared to the egalitarian Historic Laïcité. To this day, research mainly explored interindividual determinants of Laïcité endorsements and specified how these endorsements shape prejudice. Crucially, this “indirect-endorsement path” does not account for the more straightforward causal relationship between Laïcité and prejudice. Moreover, recent experimental evidence suggests that the normative salience of both Laïcité norms shape intergroup attitudes beyond personal endorsement. Therefore, in this contribution, we complement previous work by investigating the possible socio-cognitive processes driving this “direct-contextual path.” In doing so, we seek to bridge the gap of causality by investigating how the Laïcité norms can set the stage for specific regulatory strategies. Our reasoning derives from an application of the Justification-Suppression Model bolstered by classical work on mental control, modern racism and diversity ideology. From this, we sketch out the operative functioning of two distinct regulation processes: (a) one that prevents prejudicial attitudes but which can have unexpected consequences on stereotyping within the Historic Laïcité context (i.e., suppression) and (b) one that helps realize prejudice within the New Laïcité context (i.e., justification). From this analysis, we discuss the consequences for intergroup relations within and beyond the French context. In particular, we outline the importance of an adequate framing of egalitarian ideologies so that they achieve their goal to foster harmonious intergroup relations.

Utracone dziedzictwo „pierworodnej córy Kościoła” na przykładzie sfery sacrum dawnej Île de la Cité

Przywołanie obrazu średniowiecznej zabudowy kolebki stolicy Francji stanowi podstawę do namysłu nad charakterem jej utraconego religijnego i kulturowego dziedzictwa nie tylko w wymiarze materialnym, ale i duchowym, oraz nad wymową ideową nieistniejącej już sfery sacrum, w przeszłości zdecydowanie wyróżniającej się spośród świeckiej zabudowy wyspy. Świątynie miały nie tylko znaczenie religijne, lecz także polityczne i propagandowe. Przechowywane w nich święte relikwie, a szczególnie sprowadzona z Konstantynopola na paryską wyspę przez św. Ludwika IX w 1239 roku Korona Cierniowa, podniosły Paryż do rangi nowej ideowej stolicy cesarstwa. Wezwania kościołów upamiętniające pierwszych galijskich świętych wskazywały, jak fundamentalna dla początków chrześcijaństwa we Francji była wyspa. Bogata sfera sacrum podnosiła prestiż miasta, świadcząc zarówno o pobożności, jak i zamożności jego mieszkańców. Strefa sacrum Île de la Cité stanowiła istotę dawnej francuskiej religijności, w której była zakorzeniona cała tradycyjna kultura tego narodu.

Understanding Secularism and National Identity in French Political Discourses

The concept of secularism or laicité is expressed in political discourses in various ways by the French presidential candidates in the 2017 campaign. Both candidates, Emmanuel Macron (EM) and Marine Le Pen (MLP) used specific forms and lingual expressions to explain secularism and national identity, especially those related to ‘Islam’, ‘immigration’ and ‘terrorism’. This study uses critical discourse analysis linked to their parties’ ideologies based on identity, activities, goals, norms, and values. In the discourses presented by EM and MLP, Islam is associated with religion, Muslims, jihad, Islamic fundamentalists, the burqa, and secularism. The results of discourse analysis show that EM’s and MLP’s discourses on secularism and Islam are notably different. MLP views secularism in France as being under threat due to external threats, namely immigrants and in particular Muslim immigrants. In contrast, EM views secularism as a concept to support and protect the identity of the nation and to support and to add to the diversity of French culture and identity. The findings of this research is that French concepts of national identities, which is closely related to secularism, correlates to the ideologies of the respective presidential candidates’ parties. The relationships between the parties’ ideologies, national identities, and discourses investigated in this research can be used as a methodology for political discourses, especially French political discourses.

Rewriting Mythology, Reclaiming History: Christine de Pizan and Eva Gore-Booth on Gendered Performance and Equality

In 1405, the Italian-French poet and prose writer Christine de Pizan completed her most famous work, Le Livre de la Cite des Dames , translated into English as The Book of the City of Ladies (hence...

The Arrogant Eye and the French Prohibitions of the Veil

Evânia Reich presents the argument that the veil laws in France—the banning of the full-face coverings in public and the banning of the headscarf in public schools—are consistent with the emancipatory project of French Laicite. According to this argument, the veils that Muslim women wear are symbols of their oppression, whereas French education seeks to liberate each individual and Laicite serves as a bulwark against the creeping oppressive influence of religion. Unveiling Muslim women, then, is an act of emancipation. In this essay, I argue that the view of French secularism as an emancipatory project to free women of the oppressive mechanism of the veil is an example of what Marilyn Frye calls the “arrogant eye.” In this essay, I offer an alternative approach on the veil following Frye’s notion of the “loving eye.”

Non-Affiliated Believers and Atheists in the Very Secular Uruguay

In recent years, literature in the field of religion has presented attempts to understand and characterize people who define themselves as believers but are not affiliated with any religious institution, along with those who define themselves as non-believers, or “nones”. Several quantitative studies covering this phenomenon in Latin America show clear disparities between the countries of the region. This article draws on a qualitative investigation into the way in which individuals relate to the transcendental, or live as non-believers, in the city of Montevideo, Uruguay. The objective of the article is to know and analyze those who define themselves as religiously unaffiliated. In doing so, the analysis takes into account the cultural framework of Uruguay—a country that moved the religion from the public to the private sphere a century ago, establishing a model similar to French secularism and unique within Latin America.

Constructing Muslims' Identity In France's Public Discourse

Identity is a very complex issue in France, and so is nationalism contentious in French politics. There are many people with an immigrant background in France, because this country one of the most attractive destination country in Europe for immigrants. This study discusses the issues of immigrant background by the case of Muslims living in France. In this sense, this study explores the issue of identity among French Muslims, and the role of public discourse in recognizing religion or culture vis-à-vis identity. The Republican model of citizenship and political ideas of French secularism portray Muslims as ‘unintegrated’ and ‘unfit’. Because their demand for religious freedom contradicts with what is considered as the civil religion of the French nation, laïcité principle. The French public discourse often questions Muslims with immigrant origin [in particular] in national belonging. Therefore, French state and society do not perceive Muslims as French because they believe that practicing Islam or raising such demand contradicts with the values of the French culture and citizenship model, which is in large exclusive and member-conditioning.