the state and atheism
Mark Sandell’s letter (Solidarity 3/87) attacking my article on secularism in France did make a sustained effort at picking holes in my argument, but did little to justify his own position.
While I raised doubts over the possibility of engaging religious workers if we wholeheartedly support the bourgeois state’s effort to impose irreligion on them, Mark simply accuses me of “joining the motley crew of cultural relativists, numbskull ‘anti-imperialists’ and assorted religious bigots in opposing the ban on the veil”. He nowhere answers my charge that a crude ban on religious symbols will make Muslims feel oppressed by “secularism” rather than more enlightened.
In any case, Marxists do not define their politics just by looking at who else does or doesn’t hold the same position as them. The fact that Muslim reactionaries oppose the ban is not necessarily a reason to support it, any more than the fact that Jacques Chirac supports the ban is necessarily a reason to oppose it.
A line which both condemns religion and the enforced wearing of the veil, and says that the bourgeois state has no right to control the boundaries of freedom of expression, is not similar to the position of SWP cultural relativists. While the SWP/Respect project arranges its doctrine around the promulgations of the Muslim Association of Britain etc, real Marxists seek to show religious believers the value in the workers’, women’s and gay rights which their spokespeople oppose.
Mark says I am critical of the PS/UMP’s attempt to impose bourgeois atheism on religious believers. He says that we positively advocate “bourgeois atheist” values, through supporting Einstein’s, Darwin’s and Copernicus’ theories, which undermine religious dogma.
True enough. And I my original article, I clearly used the phrase “bourgeois atheism” to refer to the aim of the Parti Socialiste to “reassert the values of the Republic”, i.e. those of the ruling class, as against those of Islam. This aim is rather less noble than that of defending the discoveries of science — yet through selective quoting out of context, Mark has been able to highlight my apparent hostility to science. If, as my article did not suggest, any Marxists were to refuse to incorporate into their materialist understanding the findings of Darwin for the sake of appeasing Muslims, I would of course be against them.
Yes the bourgeoisie has had a hugely progressive historic role in advancing culture, science and philosophy. But this is no reason to support everything it does against more reactionary ideologies — we have to also look at the consequences of and reaction to any piece of legislation, rather than making the idealist argument that one belief system is better than another.
For example a ban on all religious practice would theoretically advance the “bourgeois struggle against religious rubbish” and “stop the mosque hoisting the veil over [girls] and stopping them learning about sex or doing sport”. Yet to advocate that the state do this would mean ignoring the fact that religious people, including girls who are in fact oppressed by the Islamic faith, would feel repressed and rebel against it. Does Mark contend that all Muslim girls are truly conscious of their oppression? Surely many blindly accept Qu’ranic doctrine. Furthermore, such moves give the state powers of ideological control abhorrent to socialists.
Mark’s claim that “Britain is the least religious country in the world” also contradicts his overriding thesis that the bourgeois state is necessary to combating religion. The death of religion in our country — comrades may note that it is not a secular state — is, as Mark says, the result of “centuries of struggle and a tradition of ideas”, not any attempt by the state to stamp out religion in favour of its own values. Working-class political and economic aims were central to the growth of anti-clericalism and the decline of Catholicism in 19th century Europe, while bourgeois states such as the French Third Republic clung to the Church hierarchy as the defender of class privilege.
The question of the ban on the veil and religious symbols did not simply force Marxists to pick between the morals of the French bourgeoisie and those of the Qu’ran. The socialist approach had to be to stop the French state controlling the parameters of free expression, whilst seeking to engage the faithful in working-class politics so as to free them of the ideology of oppression that is religious dogma.
David Broder
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Reply from Yves Coleman (Ni patrie, ni frontieres)
Dear David,
Personally I was against the last French law against the wearing of religious symbols inside state schools for reasons I won’t explain here. If you are interested, you can find the texts in English on www.mondialisme.org (go to ‘Ni patrie, ni frontières’ and then ‘Texts in English’).
But I’m surprised by your statements about the concrete situation in France.
According to you the French state is trying «to impose irreligion on them» (religious workers) and the SP and UMP are trying «to impose bourgeois atheism on religious believers».
I don’t know where you got these informations from, but they are «surreal», to say the least.
The UMP and SP have never waged the smallest «irreligious» or "atheist" campaign or taken any irreligious measure!
I was in the 60s a Catholic. Where did I get my weekly classes of religion given by a Catholic priest? Inside two «lycées» (state high schools).
If the French state was as « irreligious» as you claim, it could not have been possible. Not to say, I was baptised in this state high school at the age of 12! (I must add it was in central Paris not in the Alsace, which has a specific religious status since Napoleon).
So you are very badly informed if you think that the French state teaches irreligion or atheism to the pupils who study in state schools. If there are almost no more places like «les aumoneries» (chaplaincies) inside state schools it’s not because the French state is irreligious but because France has the lowest percentage of believers in all Europe (4% against 14% in Britain, if I'm not mistaken).
If you were well informed you would know that Catholic churches are maintained by the municipalities and that several mosques are indirectly financed by SP or UMP municipalities (through tax advantages, gift of a piece of land or building, etc.)
If you were well informed you would know that pupils can express their religious ideas inside state schools, but not their teachers who are obliged to be as neutral as possible! And I can guarantee you that neutral does not mean irreligious or atheist - I can check it everyday with my own son’s classbooks, class notes, homework, etc!
If you were well informed you would know that the hijab is not an Islamic prescription (i.e. the word hijab does not appear in the Quran) and that there is a debate about its wearing among Muslim «scientists».
Contrary to what you think the debate is open, not closed among Muslims about the hijab.
So why should atheists or socialists support the most reactionary and antisecular interpreters of the Quran? A mystery to me.
The French Council for the Muslim Cult finally accepted the ban saying it was not anti-Islamic, and Sarkozy went even as far as consulting a top «Muslim scientist» in Al-Azar university in Egypt who said it was not un-Islamic not to wear the hijab inside French state schools.
So unless you are more «Islamic» than all these guys (which I doubt) I don’t really understand your point about the ban on religious symbols and its anti-Islamic character.
Now if you want to argue that Catholics, Protestants or Jews have in fact more rights and more state support than Muslims in France, that’s another story, which could be discussed in detail and with more concrete and convincing arguments.
Nevertheless, I’m personally in favour of reducing the rights of all religious believers in the public space (I’m against state financed Catholic, Protestant, Jewish or Muslim schools, religious institutions, etc.; I think the French state should give back to the Catholic Church its churches and ask Catholics to maintain these buildings, not all tax payers, I'm against religious classes inside state schools, etc.).
But I’m afraid you have got very biased or false information about the irreligion or atheism of the SP, the UMP (main rightwing party) and French state. If you were to write such things on a French website or in a French newspaper everybody would laugh – apart, maybe, from some lunatics of the Catholic minority of the National Front who claim that the French state and media are in the hands of a bunch of hidden commies and atheists!
If you were living in France you would know that all politicians go to religious services (including Jewish services, as occurred after the assassination of Ilan Halimi), that most of them have religious funerals (including Mitterrand, De Gaulle, etc., former presidents of the French state).
You would know that French state television finances (that means us, tax payers) religious programmes. You would know that all sorts of priests, rabbis, religious intellectuals and theologians are always being interviewed on state radio and TV and never criticised for their religious beliefs.
So I don’t know where you got this exotic idea that the French state or the French main bourgeois parties are irreligious.
To my knowledge there is only one militant atheist in the whole of the French mainstream media and he is not invited to write or speak every week!
I would say rather that the French SP and UMP violate everyday the basic principles of secularism: separation between the state and religious cults, separation between the private sphere and the public sphere.
And if you read the French language I can only advise you to read Sarkozy’s last book about his (Catholic) beliefs and the necessity of religion (all religions) to educate French citizens. I remind you that Sarkozy is both minister of the interior and general secretary of what you call the «irreligious» and atheist UMP. And his book did not provoke any row, on the contrary, in the UMP. He wants the training of imams to be financed by the French state and he wants more classes about religion inside state schools.
Does that fit with the irreligious and atheist image of the French state and bourgeois parties you have got from some mysterious sources of information?
I doubt it very much.
I think we could have a more fruitful discussion about the hijab ban (I repeat, I was against the new law) and more generally about the positive and negative aspects of bourgeois atheism if we started from some basic concrete and truthful facts instead of giving credit to fantasies and rumours (1).
Yves Coleman (Ni patrie, ni frontières)
(1) There were similar absurd rumours in all sorts of Anglo-Saxon newspapers, websites, socialist or not, after the recent November 2005 suburbs revolt, claiming that the state-financed housing estates in the suburbs («banlieues») were mainly constructed for the immigrants and the non-whites in the 1950s and 1960s. I even saw one article saying that these buildings were built to hide the non-whites! A total invention.
Perceptions of the PS
I was of course not claiming that the French state is particularly advanced in terms of its 'atheism', and, as you say, Catholicism is hardly a rare trait of leading political figures. My phraseing, above all the inclusion of the UMP, was perhaps inaccurate.
But in any case, what I was attacking (as in my original article, http://www.workersliberty.org/node/view/5500) was the specific case of a Parti Socialiste meeting I went to, where the people on the panel talked of the need to "reassert the values of the Republic" or to emphasise "rationalism" as opposed to religious dogma.
In the case of the specific justifications made for the ban on the veil at the 14 december PS meeting at the Assemblée Nationale, the basic point made by several who spoke was that religion and religious belief were themselves to be combated. For example, a woman called Laure Caille made a comparison between taking off the veil and having a narrow vision opened up... in the context of a speech on getting girls to stop wearing the veil and to embrace the Republic, this appeared to just be emphasising the values of the PS as opposed to those of Islam. This is only partly progressive.
So maybe it was just demagogy when she talked of narrow-minded Islam or when Ayrault said they needed to "reassert the values of the Republic" - but the claim, if not the reality, really was that the PS wanted to combat religion.
This was in fact counter-posed to the UMP, portrayed as rolling back secularism and being too soft on religion and those who want state money for religious buildings --- the PS wanted to show a black-and-white situation where the UMP promotes religion and the PS fights for "rationalism".
As for what you say about Sarkozy... I have little doubt that he found it easy to find a "muslim scholar" to say the hijab was unnecessary. But the only important point is that many people do believe it to be fundamental, and do believe they are oppressed when they're told it is a banned symbol. The version of Islam which many believe in is genuinely under attack - so what use is it to bring out some guy who they disagree with anyway to say that Muslims aren't bothered either way?
Hard facts are necessary to take stands
Dear David,
You seem to consider (exactly like Sean Matgamma, in a way, but for an opposite reason) that Islam has been a monolithic bloc for 13 centuries. I know this is the image that al-Quaida’s lunatics or the talibans want to give from islam, but are you really obliged to take what they say of their religion for granted ?
Let’s take a comparison. I suppose you sympathize with the ideas of the AWL. So you know that Stalinism or Pol-potism (if such a « theory » exists) is not the only « version » of marxism. You probably think these currents are the NEGATION of the revolutionary essence of marxism.
Is it a question of a majority vote ? I doubt very much. If all people who consider themselves as « marxists » or communists on this planet had the possibility to vote, I bet you 1,000 pounds, they would vote for a stalinist version of Marxism.
So back to Islam.
As you know, islam is not even a church or a party or a centralised international. Its religious « spokesmen » are not elected by their « communities ». They study in prestigious madrasas and universities (the most famous one being al-Azar, in Egypt, which you seem to ignore given the fact that you think irrelevant in your answer that Sarkozy got the approval of one of its most revered Muslim « scientists »). They discuss and they have different opinions.
As Marxists, what’s the minimum we can do when we discuss about Islam ? First try to read the Quran and some easy books about Muslim religion. I would advise you to read some booklets or tapes by Ramadan, even he is a political ennemy of marxism. His small booklets and tapes are quick to read and to listen to and they’ll give you a first image of islam. But you may find other authors which are easy to read.
Then you should look for those who are the most progressive Muslims, those who respect secularism and democracy, I mean, not the atheists of the WCPI, whose opinions I respect but who negate the importance of religion in their own countries. So their writings are not useful for our specific debate. I can give you a list of authors translated into French, but probably it would be easier in English for you.
Then after this little effort you will discover something you (and Sean Matgamma but for opposite reasons) dont want to see : Islam is not a monolithic bloc, specially on the question of the « scarf » or hijab.
Those who say the hijab is a religious Muslim prescription (as important as praying 5 times a day, going to the Mosk on Fridays, respecting food prohibitions and going once in your life to Mecca – I forgot what’s the fifth one) lie and use the hijab as a political tool.
Then you will discover there are on this planet other Muslims who denounce the political trick behind the hijab.
Are they a majority ? No.
Do we have to support them ? Yes.
Exactly for the same reason I support the Catholics who fought inside the Catholic Church to oblige the pope and catholic hierarchy to finally recognize that the Jews were not in anything responsible for the death of Jesus even if many Catholics (maybe the majority even today) still believe the opposite.
Revolutionaries dont have to follow the prejudices and false creeds of the most backward religious forces. If they are looking for allies in the fight for democracy and secularism (or for other political aims) they must be inspired by the religious forces who have the most progressive views in their area, not by the most reactionary political forces you are siding with.
Then, and at the same time, revolutionaries can and should defend their materialist and atheist conception of the world. But this time, obviously they cant expect to have the support of religious people…
About the French SP
I think you can’t reduce 17 years of public debates, motions, votes, books, demonstrations and discussions inside the SP to ONE meeting you attended ! The official position of the SP is not atheist or antireligious, by no means. The fact that you insist on that only shows either you dont know French reality at all, or that you want to twist it for your political aims. To my knowledge in 17 years of debate on the question of secularism and the hijab I heard only one big shot of the SP (Michel Charasse, former minister of the Economy) express antireligious ideas in marginal TV shows or articles, but in a very moderate way. I have never read or heard any Socialist leader saying he or she was against religion, and wanted to wage any fight against religion.
So please, let’s start a serious discussion with hard facts not with little anecdotes of no political significance in the debate about the law against religious signs. Maybe you went to a meeting infiltrated by the Trotskyist Parti des travailleurs « agents » inside the Socialist Party and you took their maneuvers for a majority view of the SP. A bit like if you think that Marc Dolez who campaigned against the No represented the majority of the Party….
I repeat only the National Front and De Villiers propagate this image of an atheist French political class united against all religions (they add free-masons, communists and sometimes Jews to their imaginary plot against religion).
About CFCM (French Council of the Muslim Cult)
The CFCM regroups « l’Union des Organisations Islamiques de France, l’Institut Musulman de la Grande Mosquée de Paris, la Fédération Nationale des Musulmans de France, le Comité de Coordination des Musulmans turcs de France, Foi et Pratique, la Grande Mosquée de Saint-Denis la Réunion, la Mosquée de Lyon, la Mosquée Al Islah de Marseille, le Centre Culturel Islamique d’Evry et la Mosquée de Mantes-la-Jolie »
All French Muslim authorities have accepted the ban of the hijab inside public schools and inside public services. Do you really think they would have accepted it if it had been anti-islamic and racist ? They fought, they tried to impose their conception of an « open secularism » and they lost their battle. Good for secularism. Bad for them.
Now they just issued a petition asking Chirac to make a law against blasphemy (which I suppose you will support given what you write). I hope they will be defeated on this one also. If not tomorrow thanks to your ideas ,my journal will be prosecuted and fined for critisizing God…
I dont really understand why do you want to be more « radical » about the hijab than the CFCM. I know what is Ramadan’s objective, what’s the Catholic Church’s aim, etc., on this issue. I dont know yours. What do you want exactly to change in the law, for what aim and to what extent ? It would be interesting to see what concrete steps you project for the future and which political alliances you support in France. Then maybe the discussion could be concrete and we could understand what are the practical consequences of our differences.
About the history of the hijab
Contrary to what islamists says, the hijab has a history. It did not exist in the 7th century, it took various forms and shapes, and colours, it gave way to many debates and these debates are not closed. I suppose you are familiar with the Virgin Mary in Christianism ; if you study this myth you will discover it existed BEFORE Christianism. So even the Virgin Mary has a history (a herstory would say the feminists !).
As materialits, or as rationalists, or simply as people who like to see things in perspective we should say the hijab has a history and not be intimidated by the ignorants who say the opposite.
For example between the 1950s-1960s in Northern Africa and until the beginning of the 1980s, but also for different reasons in Turkey and in Iran (and this much earlier, early 20th century) most women in the big cities of the Muslim world did not wear the hijab. The hijab-prescription appeared after the Iranian revolution, spread first to Muslim countries and then to Western countries. It would be to long to explain why but it does not come from a religious prescription but from a political movement which revived one element of the Muslim and in fact pre-Muslim tradition (for the same reasons female circumcision – a neutral word for a mutilation - is practiced in Africa and presented as Islamic, even it does not appear in the Quran or the Sunna or the hadiths).
And to take my personal example from 1967 to 1981 I spent all my week-ends selling newspapers in working class districts and I can tell you most North-African (potentially Muslim) women did not wear any hijab, or scarf or whatever you name it. Maybe old women like the Portuguese women did, but that was it.
Muslims were living in France already and they did not wear their holy scarf neither in public (in the streets) nor at home.
The hijab (or whatever form of veil or scarf the fundamentalists imposed) was and is the object of the struggle inside Muslim communities.
Can we be neutral in this struggle ? Can we hypocritically say : « Oh we are not Muslims, I’ll let you decide between yourselves Muslims because you know better » ? No.
Because
a) Progressive Muslims or Secular Muslims are asking for help (they are imprisoned, tortured, exiled or killed for their conception of islam, and we are for basic democratic freedoms everywhere)
b) The hijab or any uniform imposed to women is a sign of oppression
c) We are (at least I’m not) not the complices of women’s oppression
Friendly yours
Yves
Yes, hard facts are needed.
Dear Yves,
While you appear to portray my argument as a sort of "foreigner's misunderstanding" of the forces at play in France, I think you need to ask yourself a few questions about the character of a ban on religious symbols.
You clearly feel that the central issue is whether or not we support Muslims who say that other Muslims shouldn't wear the hijab. I of course do not deny that it would be much better for young Muslim women if they were not pressured and forced into wearing the hijab. It marks their oppression, the idea that their husbands or "community leaders" should impose a uniform upon them is abhorrent to progressives. Despite what you infer, I am obviously not an opponent of women's right to decide how they dress.
But if people still believe in the necessity of the veil, even if it is not demanded by the Qu'ran (I have of course not claimed that it is), I find it hard to believe that the state can effectively change their minds with a ban. For there is sometimes also a certain element of "free expression" in wearing the hijab - while we know it is in fact symptomatic of the oppression of women, thousands of women campaigned for the right to keep wearing it. Do you claim that all of these women are truly conscious of their oppression, and are in fact crudely forced to wear it, or do you agree that they sincerely feel it to be a symbol of the faith they believe in?
The ban cannot help women oppressed by Islamic dogma (or at least a version of it) - even though the ban of course only directly affected schoolgirls, thousands of women of all ages were moved to protest against what they saw as state oppression of the expression of their faith. Their conflict with the government surely makes them even less likely to be persuaded not to wear the veil - by placing the centre of debate on the hijab between the state's line and the reactionaries' dogma, rather than between progressive and reactionary interpretations of Islam, the government clearly made thousands of women into militant defenders of the veil. By trying to 'liberate from above', the state simply radicalised these women into a more reactionary stance, where they become all the more attached to the hijab which in fact oppresses them. I can't see how the ban could possibly have aided attempts of progressive Muslims to show women that they are oppressed by the hijab - it makes the state appear as the oppressor.
While not the only issue - for I am also against women being forced/tricked into wearing the hijab - it is clear that there is an important free expression question. And supporting a state ban on the hijab in public schools is hardly similar to backing Catholics who say their leaders should clear the Jews of guilt for the death of Jesus - rather than attacking reactionaries by using our better ideas, and disproving the case for wearing the hijab, the ban simply gives the bourgeois state the power to settle the theological debate. Equally, while it'd be better if imams preached that homosexuality was fine, helping to relieve the oppression of gays in Muslim communities, I wouldn't demand that the bourgeois state ban the more popular, more reactionary view from being expressed. The bourgeois state can't be trusted with setting the parameters of free expression - and even if Sarkozy has the consent of "scholars", it's clear that the ban on the veil in schools inhibits the practise of what is seen as the correct version of the doctrine by a number of Muslims.
So yes, I do support the efforts of progressive Muslims who are allies in fighting against the imposition of the veil. I support Anglicans who are against the stigmatisation of gays, and Catholics who oppose anti-semitism in their Church. These battles are important, for many are oppressed by the most reactionary dogmas - but why does the state need to play a role in this? If the hijab is not necessary for Muslim women according to Qu'ranic doctrine, it is better that scholars to say this and try and persuade Muslims of this fact, rather than that the state asks for their approval and then makes a ban which oppresses those who feel that the hijab really is a necessity.
And as for your claim " Now they just issued a petition asking Chirac to make a law against blasphemy (which I suppose you will support given what you write)" --- out of the two of us, I thought I was the one who didn't want to let the bourgeois state control the boundaries of expression ?!
Comradely,
David
"No freedom for the ennemies of freedom"
Dear David,
If I wanted to schematically sum up my point of view I would use this sentence of a famous French revolutionary. The idea that freedom has its limits is a typical « French » political tradition which differenciates « us » from the American and the British conception of bourgeois « freedom ». (Although the American governments violated their socalled liberal principles by forbiding communist organisations for years.)
When the negationnists of the Jewish genocide started their campaign in France, a law was quickly adopted against negationnist, antisemitic and racist propaganda. M. Chomsky, an American anarchist, truthful to his libertarian principles, said that laws should not limit the freedom of speech and defended the right of the negationnists to publish whatever they wanted.
As regards religious sects we have also had the Franco-American conflict about the Church of Scientology which has all the tax advantages of any normal religion in the States, and is considered as a dangerous sect in France, and as such watched by the cops. The American government waged a campaign saying that French laws were antireligious because they are quite severe with religious sects.
And about the hijab, there was the same discussion between the American and French bourgeois ideologues. The American press portrayed the United States as a non racist and tolerant country !
So it’s obvious that there are different national bourgeois traditions concerning the limits of freedom. But dont count on me to fight for the freedom of expression of French Nazis or French Scientologists, only to show that I don’t side with « my » bourgeoisie or « my » state on this matter.
Freedom is not a Holy truth. It depends on historical situations, on the political forces which are concerned, etc. In 1930 or 1931, I would have certainly fought for the ban of the NSDAP rather than for free speech for Adolf Hitler ! (Even if the problem was not mainly a purely legal one, obviously.)
When the AWL organizes a counter-demo against the BNP, the AWL does not respect free speech ! When the AWL defends the Bolshevik Party’s policy after 1917, it does not seem to me that the Bolsheviks were adepts of an unlimited freedom, even for other revolutionary tendencies. The Tcheka did not play games when it attacked anarchist headquarters with machine guns !
So unless one defends a position similar to Chomsky’s ( we will never support any State law in any situation ; only small local communities should democratically decide what is « right « and « wrong », « legal » and « illegal » and no central State should ever have this power), one needs to make some compromises with the realities of bourgeois society (and most anarchists do, because they pay their taxes, stop at red lights, drive on the right side - or on the left…- and often accept to serve in the army when it’s compulsory). The aim being always to extend democratic rights but watching at the same time how these are used by our ennemies .
Even if we hope that one day all States will disappear and humanity will invent rules much more adapted to a full socialist democracy, we have not reached that stage yet. And we must deal with groups, parties, religions, etc. which dont have the same conception of freedom as us and want to eliminate us by all means.
The hijab has nothing to do with free speech or racism
You discuss on the same ground as the political Muslims who want, inside Western imperialist countries, to gain more power for their political and religious aims. You take their rhethoric seriously and you are impressed by their capacity to influence a part of the Muslim population (a small part according to the number of demonstrators). Islamists know very well that they cant impose sharia law right now in Western imperialist countries. So they progress, slowly, by little steps, they use the differences between the different national situations, they play one state against another, etc : the hijab ban in France and now the Mahomet caricatures on a world scale have been excellent political tests for them.
What do they want ? They want to question the separation between the Churches and the State, to reduce its separation to a minimum. They want Muslims to have their own laws for all sorts of matters (see what happened in Canada : they wanted sharia courts for commercial and family cases), they want Muslims to have their own schools, they want to make their reactionary propaganda without the risk of being prosecuted for racism, antisemiticism, homophobia, sexism, etc. They want to make a closed community and they push Western imperialist countries to adopt their way of thinking. Exactly like the Nation of Islam did not fight the Ku Klux Klan (and in a way welcomed its existence), the most radical political islamists dont mind about the National Front, the BNP or the most racist or sectarian Catholic or Protestant groups. For them a society divided into hostile communities is perfect (see Lebanon). Their agenda is to achieve a maximum ethnic and religious segregation, even if they use the charitable multiculturalist rhethoric. Obviously the best would be for them to convert all the world citizens to Islam but this does not look realistic So the compromise they imagined is to build strong closed, voluntarily segregated, communities.
To do so in France, they have to struggle against some tendencies whic are dangerous for their final aim :
- traditionnally France has a strong secular tradition and in all Europe that’s the country where religious practices and creeds are the weakest : so they have to erase this secularism and as they cant do it openly they claim they are in favour of an « open secularism », of multiculturalism, etc.
- traditionnally France is a country with a lot of mariages between socalled ethnic groups (50 % of North Africans have a French companion as opposed to 7 % of Black men and 2,5 % of Black women who have a relationship outside their community in the US. I wonder what the numbers are in Britain). Obviously there is racism in France but massively, even with prejudices and difficulties, until now working class people mix in discos, in rap groups and in all dimensions of ordinary life. However that’s not the case in the political elites and in the medias which until now are very much under « white » domination.
- So what’s the Islamists agenda ?
a) to put religion as the first element of social identity, to prevent mariages of Muslim French North Africans, Africans or Turks with non Muslim people (or to oblige non Muslim people to convert to Islam)
b) to permanently transform social problems in socalled racial problems. So, for example, they compare the situation of working class suburbs to a colonial situation, forgetting that Franco-French people form the majority of these poor suburbs (86 %). They promote « racial » and « ethnic » hate and denounce interethnic solidarity (for example, each illegal workers coordination is organised on an ethnic basis, a very bad sign of communalism). Sadri Khiari – a sharia-socialist close to the LCR – goes as far as writing that a White antiracist worker is always an exploiter… So imagine what do the islamists say and think in their daily propaganda.
c) to promote laws which prevent any criticism of religion (and of Islam of course), that’s the meaning of the petition of the French Council of the Muslim cult.
d) To promote antisemiticism under the cover of antizionism. And they are helped by the leaders of the Jewish community who are fanatically pro-Israelian (supporting Sharon, etc.) and never react strongly against anti-Arab racism. 2 weeks ago there was a mass campaign against the murder of a young Jewish guy in Paris. An Arab worker was killed last week-end and his cousin wounded, and the Jewish leaders remained silent and did not call to any solidarity, although both cases were racist acts. So islamists can then pretend that « the Jews » control the medias, etc.
e) To use the frustrations of the qualified petty bourgeois whose parents were coming from Africa, North Africa and Turkey, who got university diplomas and cant get qualified jobs in the private or public sectors. Their only solution is to create their own businesses, which they do with success, or to try to climb inside the political parties (the right wing is a bit more open than the SP on this aspect and recently is slowly turning towards a kind of timid affirmative action policy). The islamists try to use all these social frustrations by playing the card of antiracism, the nationalist card (each big Muslim religious organisation or big Mosk is linked to a specific state –Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Saudia Arabia and the Emirates) and the religious card.
They do all this propaganda with nice talks about freedom of speech, tolerance, democracy, antiracism, etc. exactly like the Left or the Far Left.
In such a context, we must be very prudent to separate political and religious questions. Islamists in particular, and in general Muslims, dont separate these questions because of the specific history of Islam and of the theocratic nature of many « Muslim » states today. If we want to progress towards more democracy in this world and towards socialism we have to support the Muslims who recognize that Islam has to make an internal revolution, like Christian religions did, forced by atheist, secular forces and the workers movements. We dont want to go backward but forward.
This split between politics and religion will not happen by capitulating in front of islamists or reactionnary Muslims. This split between the political public sphere and private religious sphere will be painful and difficult.
About the participation of women to the demonstrations against the ban
It’s true that over 3 to 6 million Muslims (there is no official statistics) a few thousand women demonstrated in all France. So what ? Do we base our policy on the fact that people demonstrate in the streets ? Well, in this case we should defend the Hamas, the Muslim Brothers, the FIS and all these islamist groups who are able to mobilize hundreds of thousands of exploited people in the streets to support their religious-totalitarian ideology.
When one million Catholics demonstrated against a law which was proposing a small reform of the funding of private schools by the State, no revolutionary group supported the Catholics even if they gathered one million people in the streets.
When Catholics demonstrate in front of abortion clinics we dont support them, even if they think abortion is a murder. Even if they feel offended and scandalised. Freedom of abortion does not « respect » religious ideas. It starts from the idea that women’s freedom is more important than respecting religious prejudices .
When African women mutilate their daughters, we dont support them and we dont let people say female mutilation is an opinion like any other, and that mutilation is a question of freedom of thought. We may struggle for symbolic legal punishments against the ignorant women who do these « operations » but we cant compromise further.
Revolutionaries dont think that all opinions are acceptable, whether they are shared by crowds, majorities or minorities.
The day I’ll see political islamists fight for secularism and democratic rights everywhere on this planet I’ll start questioning my analysis of this totalitarian current and of its fake demands. Until then, no blackmail is acceptable from these politico-religious groups.
Friendly yours
Yves
Political freedom is to be taken seriously
"Revolutionaries dont think that all opinions are acceptable, whether they are shared by crowds, majorities or minorities."
Which revolutionaries think this? Freedom of expression is a basic tenet of the democracy socialists fight for - and is not merely the property of groups who we deem to be progressive.
Even worse to let the bourgeois state decide who the "enemies of freedom" are! Allowing the state to suppress even the most reactionary opinions would be to give it the authority to control all freedom of speech - legislation to combat reactionaries is a blow to democracy since it marks a shift towards a society where the state can describe what is acceptable. I cannot think of any past society where a state able to censor some of its opponents did not use its powers also to suppress labour movement, socialist and progressive ideas.
I of course agree that the aims of Islamists are wholly reactionary, and agree with your analysis of their aims. I am not 'soft' on their politics at all - but that does not make it fine for the state to suppress them. The same goes for the far right --- in Britain, a 1936 Public Order act, supported by the Communist Party, allowed the police to prohibit meetings and demonstrations without permission - it was clear to everyone calling for it that the target was Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists. Ever since, above all during the 70s, the act has given police the power to stop leftist demonstrations and shut up revolutionaries. The law banning the hijab in schools is more abstract and, given its secularist goals, is not in itself a threat to the free speech of the Left. But what it does do is say that it is legitimate for the state to determine when, where and which beliefs may be expressed.
This is not similar to what Chomsky says, or comparable the 'driving on the right side of the road' example - the political freedoms revolutionaries need to operate demand that we never let the bourgeoisie determine what opinions are unacceptable. In a revolutionary/counter-revolutionary situation, such as during the Russian Civil War, the greater threat to democracy clearly comes from the opponents of the state - when we do not face such a significant threat from ultra-reactionaries to democratic rights, for example now, I doubt the merit of allowing the state to make a creeping erosion on the limits of free speech. During the Civil War, Bolsheviks wanted to preserve a fledgling socialist state from immediate threats to overthrow it - the French state is making a pointless, probably even counter-productive, move against these Islamists.
And how far must a ban on reactionaries go? All right wing groups have ideas abhorrent to socialists, but do we call for them to be silenced? They never threatened it, but maybe you think Mitterrand and Rocard should have had a go at banning the RPR? Chirac's no friend of democracy or the workers' movement either... Have you not the confidence in our ideas and the poverty of Nazi theory that, at a time that Nazism is a weak political current, you believe that we need the state to shut them up for us? Do you really think that working-class people who vote for the BNP would simply change their minds if Blair banned the BNP? Or is it the case that these people, who have genuine economic and social problems, would feel under attack from "the establishment" and be even more loyal to their far-right opponents of the government?
As if I claim that we should support those women who insist on wearing the hijab because they are demonstrating! It is not a question of agreeing with them because they have had demonstrations, but of observing their reaction to the ban and so analysing the law by looking at its consequences. I already made clear that I do not agree with them that women should wear the hijab - I do not "support them". I merely argued that the fact that the law has mobilised such women to campaign, and provoked them to believe that the state is oppressing them, not their husbands, shows that the ban has been counter-productive. As I said, it focusses their minds on the debate between reactionary muslims and the government rather than between progressive/liberal muslims and more reactionary ones.
"Freedom of abortion does not respect religious ideas" - well, it does not capitulate to religious dogma on the issue. But all this is to say is that Muslims/Catholics etc. opposed to abortion should not be able to veto the freedom of choice for women. Genital mutilation is not an 'opinion' - it is physical assault. It is not 'expression', in just the same way that a Catholic who kills a homosexual is patently committing murder, not just expressing an opinion, and can be tried under murder law. When the state locks up such an offender, they are punishing an illegal, dangerous physical assault, not banning an opinion.
Since Muslim girls can express consent to wearing the hijab (even though we know their freedom of choice is deeply flawed and shallow) it is simply impossible to legislate so that they are not tricked into thinking they want to wear it by the subtle inculcation of reactionary religious dogma. We oppose the wearing of the hijab - but how can it be a crime, given that the state cannot simply deny the sincerity of all Muslim girls' faith?
The hijab is a disgusting sign of oppression, and the women who wear it clearly need to be made conscious of their oppression. The ban cannot effectively do this, or help us to win them round to progressive ideas - for it makes it seem like the government is telling them what to wear, not their (in fact more reactionary) "community leaders".
You dont fight fascism or islamism with the freedom of speech !
You dont want to see that totalitarian parties know how to use democratic rights to better suppress them when they are in power. So should we passively wait that they are in power to protest and refuse to use all means (including legal means) to stop their progression ?
It's totally incoherent to say you are ready to smash down a BNP meeting or demo by physical force and at the same time you are for the freedom of speech for the BNP. Unless your demos are purely symbolic (you know that the cops are going to protect the BNP so in fact you dont really want to stop this BNP meeting or demo) ? Unless you just want to spread a nice symbolic image of an antifascist picket in the medias, and no further action ?
With such reasonings I dont wonder that people feel revolutionaries are a bunch of hypocrits who talk about freedom in theory but act against it in practice.
I'm not an absolute partisan of Freedom, specially for the worst ennemies of freedom like the fascists or the islamists. I think that ennemies of freedom should be contained by legal means (and obviously by militant actions) because of the danger of their ideas. And I know their propaganda is just a way of preparing violent actions against all the workers movement and all human beings.
Your answer about the Bolsheviks shows that you ignore that the anarchists were not the ennemies of the socialist revolution, as you pretend, but the adversaries of the Bolshevik party which crushed the workers committees, the core of the revolution in the working class, and transformed the soviets, territorial organisations, into a bureaucratic machine. So I have some doubts about your attachment (and the AWL's attachment) to Freedom with a capital F if you still feel necessary to justify the way bolsheviks treated their revolutionary opponents during the civil war and afterwards.
Back to the islamists, now.
Look at what the Hamas is saying after its electoral victory: "We are not going to take radical measures, we are going to progressively islamize all Palestinian society respecting democracy." And for that dirty job, they accepted 20% of women on their lists (more than the socalled secular Fatah !).
With the help of part of the women they will progressively and "democratically" crush all women's rights (although Palestine under Israeli occupation is living in such conditions that democratic rights are rather symbolic).
See what happens in Turkey: the "moderate" islamists are progressively erasing the progressive measures taken in the 1920s by the Republic and obliging all women to wear the hijab. Look at what is happening in Egypt, in Irak, in Jordania, etc. Everywhere islamists use democratic rights to later restrict them. So should we passively watch them using democratic rights to crush women's freedoms and all democratic freedoms ?
It's true that many laws can be voted against fascists (we had one voted in France in 1936 against the fascists which was used against the revolutionary Left in 1968 and afterwards). So what ?
Revolutionaries dont believe in the magical power of laws, we think they are the translation of a relation of forces: see what is happening right now in the States. The feminists pushed for free abortion, they won a partial victory, and now the abortion is forbidden in Southern Dakota and soon in Mississippi probably. Fights around laws are permanent. The same with agreements between bosses and workers (collective agreements, etc.).
We are not, in this system, against all laws adopted by the State : we have to fight permanently to enlarge them on paper, and to impose their most progressive application through all sorts of collective pressures. That's how the law against abortion was changed in France. The law was bad, struggles progressively changed it, and tomorrow the law can change once more.
You always talk of the State as if it was a monolithic bloc. Strangely enough, your reasoning is typical ultraliberal: the State is a monster, less power it has, better for society and for the workers movement.
The way the law is enforced depends on the pression of the masses, or at least of militant minorities. See what happened with the action of Jose Bove against one Mcdonalds (a stupid nationalist action from my point of view). His sentence was light only because there was a mass mobilisation.
Last point
You seem to think that the French state started the fight against the hijab. IT'S SIMPLY NOT TRUE. The fight for the hijab started in 1989, 15 YEARS BEFORE THE BAN. Several governmental decisions were taken, specially by the SP, and it's because they were ambiguous that the islamists thought they had the possibility of transforming the law voted in 1905 !
What is at stake is not the ban of 2004 it's the law of 1905. You seem to totally ignore its existence. In all your answers I have not seen one word about this law. Islamists (as well the Catholic Church and all religions) are against this law, or, as they say, to "modernize" and "actualize" it. Are you against this law too ? What measures do you recommend?
Are you are in favour of private religious schools and of free religious propaganda inside public schools ? Under what forms ? And if you have another concrete positive propositions (different from the islamists and from all religious lobbies), please explain them in detail. Maybe you have thought of a more efficient secularism.
Your anti-State rhethoric, until now, only hides your absence of any proposition regarding France as well as Britain.
What about monarchy in England, what about the institutional ties between "your" monarchy and "your" Church, between "your" State and the Church of England ? Should they be maintained, or changed?