Devout Catholics have often chafed under la\u00efcit\u00e9. But having either lived through or studied the Dreyfus era, they understood la\u00efcit\u00e9\u2019s historic logic. Today\u2019s young Muslims have no such folk memory. And history has moved on. In 1905, mass movements\u2014socialism above all\u2014were ready to provide antireligious muscle for the state. Today they are weaker, and they face a different religion, one that does not feature \u201cturn the other cheek\u201d among its precepts.<\/p>\n
Nor does Islam have any hierarchy through which the state\u2019s commands can efficiently resonate. When Combes told the church to close thousands of schools, bishops obliged. La\u00efcit\u00e9 requires such institutional interlocutors. Where France once tore down Catholic institutions, it must now build up Muslim ones. The CFCM is one example. As part of his antifundamentalist push, Mr. Macron has called for more Arabic instruction in schools.<\/p>\n
The French leaders who invented la\u00efcit\u00e9 knew the church. They were often lapsed Catholics themselves. Now when they sing the praises of an \u201cIslam of the Enlightenment,\u201d one wonders whether this is a realistic prospect or a figment of their ideological imaginations. Muslims may prefer the real Islam they have studied and lived to the licensed, accredited Islam of \u201cRepublican values\u201d that Mr. Macron is proposing.<\/p>\n
Every Western country has a version of this problem. All our treasured \u201cvalues\u201d were formulated for a society more uniform and more orderly than today\u2019s. Why do we assume these values will survive diversity? Why does France assume that a system devised to subordinate its historic religion can serve just as well to mediate between its more recent secularism and a (rising) foreign religion? For a long time la\u00efcit\u00e9 has rested less on its own logic than on the forbearance of its citizens. Under conditions of globalization, mass migration and the ethnic and religious recomposition of that citizenry, such forbearance can no longer be assumed.<\/p>\n
Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n "Every Western country has a version of this problem. All our treasured 'values' were formulated for a society more uniform and more orderly than today\u2019s. Why do we assume these values will survive diversity?" https:\/\/t.co\/KRzVvYIeVx<\/a><\/p>\n — Fredric U. Dicker (@fud31) December 4, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n