Secularism and freedom
Today is a strange day over here in France. We are hours away from reconfining — a decision President Macron announced last night: call that short notice — and, this morning around 9am, an individual killed 3 people with a knife in and around a catholic church in Nice (that’s in Southern France, where the weather is nice and people — usually — go to the beach). And off it went…
The context of this latest killing is the fact that, for a few weeks now, the country has been up in arms following the murder of a high school teacher who was decapitated — that’s right — for showing caricatures of Prophet Muhammad in his classroom (the same ones a dozen journalists were killed in Paris for back in 2015). While that act, in itself, is obviously criminal and no such things should happen anytime anywhere, the backlash has been somewhat problematic for one central reason: people, all the way up the food chain, willingly or not, have been slowly but surely muddying the waters between what Islam and islamism mean. This morning, the mayor of Nice, a prominent French politician, literally said live on TV that we should now leave peace behind when facing what he calls “islamo-fascism”. And, while he does not talk about the Muslim faith in general here, many people, especially in the far right (which amounts to a lot of people nowadays) bridge the gap between the two. And that’s how you get yourself a religious war…
That same morning, discussing that same topic, journalists kept referring to a concept that has been central to modern French history and culture: secularism. For over a century in law and more so in culture and politics, the separation between church and state has been paramount in our country. And it has resulted in the development of a largely secular society, where the share of religious believers in the overall population is now about the smallest in the world. I am among those who see this as a sign of social progress: in that same time, education has gone way up, wealth has spread, science kept evolving at an incredible pace, social landmarks like abortion or same-sex marriage have become law… We are increasingly living in an advanced society, in no small part because religious ideology (in France’s case, mostly of catholic origin) has given way to knowledge and science. If you don’t agree with that, find me on social media and let’s have a chat: I’ll have time on my hands in the next few weeks.
What this means, however, is not that religion should be banned, or that individual freedoms should be curtailed. Everyone — obviously — has their right to believe in whatever want — or not — so long as said freedom does not impair the freedom of others around them. This is an obvious fact for all reasonable liberal progressives out there, but one that bears repeating once and again to be absolutely clear about what is at stake here. Put simply, I don’t believe in God, but I will protect your right to, if you so wish, as long as your belief does not — negatively — impact on my life and wellbeing. This is where the nuance between secularism and religious freedom may get lost, as some non-believers (including my younger self, frankly) may have a hard time understanding how important it is to let other people enjoy their right to believe the way you enjoy your right not to.
Now, finally, to the point I’m trying to make here: what I found interesting in how those TV journalists were talking about secularism and our French value system was the way they directly implied it guaranteeing individual freedoms in a way other countries don’t (see: United States). And that is where I draw the line: although I do believe that secularism is a stepping stone to our social evolution, it would nevertheless be wrong to claim this equates to us having more freedom than the United States for one. Granted, religion is profoundly linked to many institutions and society at large over there — to a problematic level in my humble opinion. But… individual freedoms, including of faith, are undoubtedly more extensive in the US than they are in France.
Let us take an example I actually wrote about back in 2015, when those journalists were killed for published those very same caricatures. A well known, politically extreme, French comedian publicly reacted to the tragedy by implying that these journalists had gotten what they deserved. This sparked an outcry — and a lawsuit for said comedian. I was among those who found these words offensive, until I stumbled upon a Seth Meyers video discussing the topic which concluded with Meyers saying: “if we locked up everyone who shares extreme views, all our grandparents would be in jail” (I didn’t have the courage to look back for that video: if you find it, do share!). This got me thinking then and concluding that a) Seth Meyers was right and that “comedian” (using the word loosely) had the right to say something however idiotic, b) the American value system was indeed inherently more flexible, as these very words were punishable by law in France, when they were just a controversial opinion in the US.
I guess the conclusion to all this is, as always: read the fine prints. And, whenever anyone tells you that their idea/country is the best (or another idea/country is the worst), there is a higher than average chance that they are grossly misrepresenting the facts. And that the best of anything tends to be a combination of things. And that we will — all — hopefully get there…