Sikander Amani

What was conceived of as institutional secularism suddenly becomes a fantastical obligation of “citizen secularism” — you are to conceal every sign of religious or cultural belonging. The corollary is an almost comical tendency to cling to a mythical concept of national identity

Back in 2003, Donald Rumsfeld
fulminated against the “Old Europe” (the outmoded, oh so passé, Western Europe), which had dared, in a surprising unison, oppose the plain dumb American idea of an invasion of Iraq (Saddam Hussein had tonnes of WMDs, remember?). Like an acned teenager trying to make a girlfriend jealous while wooing another, he went on to praise the New Europe — the snazzy, funky, F-16-buying, invasion-savvy, Eastern Europe.

Paradoxically, “Old Europe” seemed remarkably young then: certain of its human rights principles, firmly grounded in international law, opposed to a Hobbesian perspective on international relations, sensitive to differences, and wary of how an American attack on a mainly Muslim country would be perceived in the light of the injustice against the Palestinians. Okay, okay, Aznar, Berlusconi and Blair were cuddling up to Big Boss Bush, but they were clearly out of step with their times, and their people. How time has passed! Almost seven years later, Old Europe genuinely seems at an advanced stage of Alzheimer’s disease: weak, shaking, toothless, and subject to a severe case of anterograde amnesia: forgetful of its recent past, but looking back nostalgically to a distant, quasi-legendary Golden Age, in which cheese, war and nationhood were clearly defined concepts. But Europe’s inability to weigh in on important international issues, such as the Palestinian problem, and its incapacity to take the lead on planetary questions, as manifested by the Copenhagen debacle in December, would still be a relatively minor (albeit chronic) pathology compared to the inner turmoil we are now witnessing. The political tetanus with which European states deal with the transformations they are undergoing — first and foremost that of their national identities — seems far more ominous.

In this respect, the increasingly stringent and arbitrary anti-immigration measures most European countries have adopted, the nauseating “debate on national identity” initiated by the government in France and its proposed ban on burqas, the repulsively strident anti-immigrant speeches screamed in Italy by the Northern League, the recent Swiss referendum banning minarets, are all signals of a growing malaise. The problem is not as much having to face immigration — of which there has been plentiful in the past — nor the loss of sovereignty — which in the case of EU members they have relinquished willingly — as the perception, this time, that identity and social cohesion are endangered, coupled with a seemingly total inability to reinvent or remodel the concept of citizenship. European nations invented the whole notion of a polyethnic or a multicultural state, where different faiths and conceptions of the good do not impinge on a common concept of justice. One version (the Anglo-Saxon multiculturalist paradigm) encourages peoples of different origins to retain their own cultures, while participating as active and responsible citizens in the polity; French-style secularism relegates cultural practices and religious beliefs, which are strictly one’s own business, to the private sphere. In both cases however, the state and its institutions are supposed to be “colour blind”, i.e. neutral, as far as religions and cultures are concerned; problems are to be resolved by a strict separation of religion and state, and by entrenching each individual’s freedom of religion and of conscience. Universal individual rights are considered enough to accommodate the many different cultures and religions that compose European nations.

Both models have been shaken in recent times; more precisely, a lot of tension has crystallised in Europe around the visibility of Muslim symbols (the veil, the minaret) — rather ironic when one thinks that these countries prided themselves on being blind. This raises many issues. First of all, as has been often noted before, state neutrality is already a form of partiality: de facto, the state privileges one culture, or one religion, through the choice of a national language, or of holidays — it is definitely easier for Christians in Europe to attend Mass on Sundays, than for Jews to practice Sabbath on Saturdays or for Muslims to go to mosques on Fridays. Thus, the professed equality of citizens becomes the cover-up for a discrimination, and an inequality in favour of the majority, or the dominant culture. This does not have to be a problem in itself: “reasonable accommodations” (Charles Taylor) can be made to allow for genuine equality, through a differentiated approach; which one already sees at work, e.g. in affirmative action. What is more worrying is that European nations do not seem to even acknowledge the problem: the remarkable swiftness with which states are proceeding to eliminate visible signs of Islam is but a sign of a sad human tendency to view the (newly designated) “Other” as more noisy, visible or disturbing than “Us”; just as it indicates a lack of willingness to engage in a meaningful dialogue with minorities which, contrary to what is commonly heard, are often long-settled, deep-rooted, and well integrated. What was conceived of as institutional secularism suddenly becomes a fantastical obligation of “citizen secularism” — you are to conceal every sign of religious or cultural belonging.

The corollary is an almost comical tendency to cling to a mythical concept of national identity. True, all national identities are always mythical and essentialised to some extent, and form the basis of “imagined communities” as Benedict Anderson said. But this process reaches truly magical proportions in Europe these days, where all of a sudden “genuine”, “original”, “historical”, “authentic” national values are summoned to the rescue of opportunistic politicians. Hence a flurry of commemorations, which work as confirmations of this revised version of history, and as markers of this magically homogenous identity. While ranting against dogmatic interpretations of religion, Europe is fast becoming dogmatic itself, with its diktats and definitive verdicts on what identity is, on what religions are, on what minarets and veils mean. The problem is that cultures, like identities, be they individual or collective, are not static entities, but are formed dynamically. One could even go so far as to say that once an identity or a culture has fixed, determined contours, it is waning. This is the fallacy of all nationalist conservatisms: they aim at preserving something that never existed. Old Europe is perhaps indeed becoming old, so obsessed about its recreated and over-idealised imaginary past that it seems no longer to have the resources to live in the present.

It does not have to be that way. The concepts of secularism and of multiculturalism do have the necessary resources within themselves to reformulate the notion of citizenship, taking into account the rights of minorities without losing their principled stance on human rights and the separation of religion and state. A rational dialogue with minorities is clearly called for, as is a reflection on what political and social pluralism entails. The current situation is ludicrous, unhealthy, and unfair. Worse, it would prove Rumsfeld right.

The writer is a freelance columnist and can be reached at sikander.amani@gmail.com