Suchergebnisse

ABSTRACTThis article focuses on the secularism debate currently taking place in France by examining how this issue impacts the integration of immigrants, particularly Muslim immigrants. Secularism is one of the key values of French Republicanism, but one which has been challenged by the establishment of a settled population of Muslim immigrants in France. The issue has been particularly highlighted by the affaire des foulards (headscarf affair), an ongoing debate over the rights of Muslim girls to wear a headscarf to secular French schools. Discussions of the principle of secularism and of its application have been even more intense in recent months with the publication in December 2003 of a report by the Stasi Commission, a commission set up by President Chirac to investigate the application of the principle of secularism, and by the passage of legislation intended to outlaw the wearing of any "overt" religious insignia in French schools. This article examines these recent developments in the context of the long‐running debate over Muslim women's right to wear a headscarf in French schools. It argues that the current focus on secularism provides evidence of the return of assimilation as a primary objective of public policy (Brubaker, 2001) and the decreasing strength of the movement in favour of the droit à la différence (right to difference). Finally, the paper argues that this has provided important obstacles to the integration of certain groups of immigrants, particularly Muslim immigrants.

This paper argues that secularism as a concept and practice arose from the need in 16th and 17th century Europe to create a neutral space making possible intra- as well as inter-State discourse. This neutral space was from the beginning part of the emerging scientific revolution; it transposed in a different key the dogmatic unicity of the two warring religious denominations. Secular science created the 'sacred/spiritual' as an other-worldly domain totally separate from this-worldly realms of nature and society. By looking at an important festival in coastal Orissa taking place in a so-called 'sacred grove', the paper argues that the category of sacred thus wielded does violence to a different reality where unicity and the sacred/secular dichotomy, among others, are not found. Rather than essentialist categories, local practice conjures a dynamic, shifting, alternating reality, in which no single principle or reality dominates. The paper argues that unicity is lethal to diversity and that secular nation-states have everywhere adopted science as both a strengthening and legitimising tool, thus endangering diversity. Newly emergent religious 'fundamentalisms' negatively mirror the unicity of the secular nation-state, whereas much of local practice retains its diversity-generating ways of life.

MUSTAFA KEMAL--ATATURK--DIED FIFTEEN YEARS AFTER HE ESTABLISHED THE TURKISH REPUBLIC AFTER SHAPING A MODERN COURSE FOR HIS COUNTRY. THE ISSUES OF ATATURK'S VIEWS ON NATION BUILDING AND ISLAM, NOW THE RELIGION OF 98 TO 99 PERCENT OF TURKEY'S POPULATION (JUST A FEW MORE PERCENT THAN IN 1923), AND HOW HIS SUCCESSORS HAVE ATTEMPTED TO BALANCE SECULARISM WITH THE RESURGENCE OF RELIGIOUS CONSCIOUSNESS IS ADDRESSED IN THIS ARTICLE. HOWEVER, BEFORE DISCUSSING THE POLICIES OF ATATURK AND HIS SUCCESSORS, THE ARTICLE ADDRESSES THE PERSONALITY OF ATATURK AND HIS PATH TO POWER, SO AS TO UNDERSTAND HOW THE TURKISH LEADER DEVELOPED HIS IDEAS CONCERNING NATION BUILDING AND ISLAM.