An article by Ahmet Kuru titled "Secularism, State Policies, and Muslims in Europe: Analyzing French Exceptionalism" recently appeared in Comparative Politics (Volume 41, Number 1 October 2008). It examines the process through which the headscarf was banned at public primary and secondary schools in France. Kuru's article provides interesting insight on how separate domestic issues in France had an impact on forming new coalitions that led the move to ban the headscarf. Kuru begins by asking why it is in France -- not in any other Western European country -- that exceptionally restrictive policies are pursued toward its Muslim citizens.
Kuru dismisses two approaches that offer explanations. First, "State policies are designed by the rulers' calculations of opportunity costs based on their preferences for sustaining political survival, minimizing the cost of ruling, and succeeding in economic development... The second approach points to the impact of opponents of immigrants and Islamophobes on French state policies toward Muslims. This approach, however, has two problems. First, opposition to immigration and Islamophobia are increasing trends in many other Western European countries, such as Britain, Germany, and the Netherlands," the article argues.
After establishing a base for his argument, Kuru offers his explanation, which we believe the best approach to understanding why it is only in France that restrictive policies are pursued toward Muslims. According to Kuru: "French secular institutions and state policies toward religion in general, and toward Islam in particular, are products of ideological struggles. These struggles historically took place between anticlerical and Catholic forces. Currently the policies are shaped by the ideological struggles between the defenders of dominant laïcité de combat (combative secularism) and those of challenging laïcité plurielle (pluralistic secularism)." Combative secularism "aims to exclude religion from the public sphere." He explains: "The French state's restrictive policies toward Muslims is part of its policy toward religion in general. The defenders of an alternative pluralistic secularism, which allows public visibility of religion, have challenged the combative secularist agenda." According to him, the battle between the two focused primarily on education. One of the major supporters of combative secularism has been the Freemasons. The Grand Orient and other divisions of French Freemasonry currently have about 110,000 members. Another defender of combative secularism is the Freethinkers, which is a more philosophical (generally atheistic) organization. For pluralistic secularism, the pioneer was the Ligue de l'enseignement (League of Education). The league is a major union of educators that currently has 2 million members. It declared in 1986 that secularism in France needed a transformation
After examining its historical background, Kuru goes on to suggest that in France the combative secularist ideology has led to a coalition of two old enemies: anti-immigrant, conservative rightists and combative secularist leftists. "It was the coalition of the combative secularists (generally leftists) and opponents of immigrants/Islamophobes (generally rightists) that made the supporters of a ban on headscarves in public schools successful. It seems that this alliance will also be effective in shaping French state policies toward Muslims in the future," he says.
In one part of the article Kuru provides interesting details. "The French state has tried to create an umbrella organization to control these associations. In December 2002 the interior minister of the time, Nicolas Sarkozy, founded the CFCM [French Council of the Muslim Faith]. The French state recognizes the CFCM as a primary coordinator of the construction of mosques, training of imams, appointment of Muslim chaplains, regulation of lamb slaughter for Eid al-Adha, organization of Hajj, etc.," Kuru says. He argues: "The French statesmen's initiations are not the reflections of a pro-Islamic or religion-friendly policy perspective. Instead, their main motive is to take Islam under state control and to assimilate it. Sarkozy has explicitly mentioned that he has aimed to create an ‘islam de France' (Islam of France), rather than 'islam en France’ (Islam in France)."
After providing these details about the French state's involvement in religious affairs, unfortunately, Kuru does not give us details about the reactions of combative secularists and pluralistic secularist groups. For instance, did the combative secularists oppose the idea of state intervention into religious affairs as vehemently as they oppose the headscarf in public schools?
When it comes to Turkey, unlike France, the ruling party and a majority of opposition parties amended an article in the Constitution to lift the ban on the headscarf. However, the Constitutional Court annulled the change. What happened was that the government failed to give confidence to those "combative secularist" circles of Turkish society that the lifting of the ban on the headscarf was a matter of religious freedom, no more, no less. A lesson that can be learned from the French and Turkish experiences is that to deal with hot topics like the headscarf, parties should consider the timing, management, substance and meaning of the debate. The government in Turkey, for instance, failed to manage the process to give confidence to those who are skeptical about the government's policies. In the French case, however, the anti-headscarf camp managed to find a way to ban it in public schools. In neither country was the headscarf issue what the parties exclusively concentrated on. Rather, side issues such as immigration helped those combative secularists form an anti-headscarf coalition in France. In Turkey, it was the fear of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in general that led to the formation of a coalition of secularists and neo-nationalists against the headscarf
*Dr. Emre Uslu is an analyst working with Washington-based think tank the Jamestown Foundation. Önder Aytaç is an associate professor at Gazi University's department of communications and works with the Security Studies Institute in Ankara.
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