Yes, I did misspeak. You’re right that Americans, with their history of racial strife between whites and blacks, view diversity in the context of race, and in fact make everything about race. (Witness the status of “Hispanic” as a quasi-racial category that only makes any sense in the US.)
I guess what I had in mind may be more of a Canadian thing, though I know it also exists in the US. I’ll give you an example to illustrate what I mean. Last summer, I saw on television an ad by the Ontario government to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Canadian federation (which was last year). The ad was to showcase the pride Canadians have in their diversity, so it featured a young immigrant family being accepted by their new community. And to show that it was an immigrant family and that they contributed to “diversity” without having to say anything, they of course had it be a Muslim family with the daughter wearing a veil. The sentiment was clear, but I found an issue with equating “Muslim” with “veil” and also “immigrant from a Muslim country who’s from a Muslim tradition” with “believer in Islam”. I thought, what if the girl decides, growing up, to stop wearing the veil? Or what if she stops believing in God altogether? Will she be robbing Canada of its diversity?
I guess what I don’t like is making religion be a proxy for race or ethnicity. I guess this may be due to my being a Quebecer: as I said earlier, we’re an officially Catholic people, that isn’t Catholic. We uncouple religion and ethnicity, while it seems to be the norm in North America to view religion, especially minority religion, as an unchangeable ethnic characteristic. (TimeWinder for example compared being Muslim to being gay.) And to bring the issue back to the issue at hand, this is why I don’t especially oppose French-type secularism. I don’t view it as an attempt to keep France pure and white and Catholic while pretending to be progressive. I think it’s genuinely meant to be progressive. Being Algerian doesn’t mean you’re Muslim, and even being an Algerian Muslim doesn’t mean you oppose French values of secularism and equality and cannot become part of the French nation.
When the dominant religion does not call for public manifestation of faith, banning the public manifestations of faith by those minority religions or sects that do require it necessarily bolsters the position of the dominant religion, even if carried out nominally in the name of secularism.
And those who think religious belief is easily mutable might consider how difficult it would be for them to make a significant change to their own belief system.
The man’s been Prime Minister for two and a half years. His father was Prime Minister for 15, and was Catholic, too. I’m not sure that not knowing such a commonly reported fact is an “assumption.”
Ethno-states are a horrible relic of the same period which brought us forced eugenics and, ultimately, death camps, both based on the idea of “improving the bloodline” in that ethnic sense. They’re associated with people like William Pierce and Louis Farrakhan for a reason: It’s a racist philosophy which attracts racists, and those losers, living and dead, are some of the best-known racists of our era.
Ethnicity in that genetic sense is a lie. Ethnicity in the cultural sense is less of a lie, but still a dishonest reason to keep someone out, because cultures are never pure, and the only old culture is a dead one.
Swtizerland rejected a woman’s citizenship request because she complained to the neighbors about cowbells. She was deemed not adequately Swiss by her village, or maybe just excessively annoying. (Citizenship decisions are made locally, not federally, in Switzerland.)
She seems to have been granted a passport by her canton, though, after months of legal struggle, which is to say, she will soon become a Swiss citizen.
Why do you think secularism and freedom of religion are mutually exclusive? France does, in fact, practice both. Freedom of Religion was guaranteed in the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and the 1905 Law on the Separation of the Churches and the State, the same document that outlined and confirmed the secularism in France.
This also affects Jews, at least Orthodox Jews, many of whom do not shake hands with the opposite sex. So did their rules against religious headwear, and burqinis. Everything they do against Muslims usually also impacts the Orthodox. But practically, this is likely to have little impact as most Jews aren’t looking for French citizenship–in fact, Jews have been fleeing France in record numbers for the last several years. They have seen this movie before.
Ethno-states aren’t a relic, they are what has existed in the Old World since the Sumerians. If you want to shuffle everything up over there, fine. Let’s move 20 million Chinese to Saudi Arabia and another 20 million Germans to Kenya. Kenya becomes a majority white country and Saudi Arabia, housing Islam’s holiest shrines, becomes a majority Buddhist country. I’m sure that’s completely okay.
I know dozens Roma women from the former Yugoslavia who have become French citizens all without having to touch their hands or otherwise be physically violated by male French officials or having the deal with a male official trying to coerce them into physical touching. What happened in the article was blatant discrimination against the woman because she was Muslim.
Not only that, there’s a French colleague that I hang out with online. He admits to being highly germ phobic (of course, he does have a kid with cystic fibrosis) who doesn’t let anyone touch him. To the best of my knowledge he has never had any problems with his stance either.
In some political ridings (especially in rural areas) more than 95% of inhabitants identify as being Catholic.
People may not go to church weekly, but they still go: just look at the madness when it comes to Reveillon.
That said, the secularity push isn’t really… it’s a push for Catho-secularity, wherein all all the catholic holidays, place names, and catholic symbols in government are maintained but whitewashed as being “heritage” symbols.
Those most in favour of this catho-secularity are drawing on France’s constitution, where state secularity overrules freedom of religion, but forgetting that the Canadian charter – and predating that, Quebec’s charter – have freedom of religion as a primary right.
I agree with the French in this case. France has a culture, they have a right to maintain it, and citizenship through natutrlisation is a privelege. The woman showed that she did not fully embrace French values. There are hundreds of other countries where she could try and become a citizen. Many of them happily oppress women and she might feel more at home in one of them.
