French Secularism

[Archer 007]

Originally posted by nihilistic


I think this statement is probably better suited to describe the following quotation:

Thats exactly what is happening though. I dont think anyone should get a government stage to push their religion onto others, including athiest. Athiests biggest dodge is that they claim they are not a religion. It is since it is a belief, a worship of science and beleaving it can solve all of society ails.

 

[Eklektikos]

Originally posted by archer_007


Athiests biggest dodge is that they claim they are not a religion. It is since it is a belief, a worship of science and beleaving it can solve all of society ails.

Wrong.

 

[nihilistic]

Originally posted by archer_007
It is since it is a belief, a worship of science

I do not worship science, and certainly not in the capacity that religious people worship their respective god(s).

Originally posted by archer_007
and beleaving it can solve all of society ails.

I never said that. I believe what I see, and I believe one of the fundamental assumptions of science: that whatever happens here and now can happen there tomorrow if the conditions are replicated. Even though I consider this a very, very basic and reasonable assumption, I am still not hard-wired to it: i.e.: if it were proven wrong, I will throw it away without a second thought. That is one of the fundamental difference between science and religion: when proven to be mistaken, science will admit that it is wrong and will change -- religion(s) cannot afford to do that. In others words, science does not have the burden of being "holy".

EDITED: Spelling

 

[Kinniken]

Originally posted by archer_007


Thats exactly what is happening though. I dont think anyone should get a government stage to push their religion onto others, including athiest. Athiests biggest dodge is that they claim they are not a religion. It is since it is a belief, a worship of science and beleaving it can solve all of society ails.

Except that atheism is considered a religion for the purpose of this law. Wearing a T-Shirt with "God is dead" written on it is just as forbidden as wearing a veil.
And as Akka has repeated throughout this thread, religious symbols in schools have been forbidden in France for a century now, and religious freedom has not been reduced as a result.
Forbidding religious or atheist symbols is not the same as forbidding religion, or even a first step toward it. And though the Catholic church opposes the law's proposal, most French catholics are in favor.

 

[yaroslav]

Yep, I don't believe that in France religions are going to be persecuted. IMHO secularism and republicanism work very well in France (a thing I'm a little envious of )

 

[Archer 007]

Originally posted by Kinniken


Except that atheism is considered a religion for the purpose of this law. Wearing a T-Shirt with "God is dead" written on it is just as forbidden as wearing a veil.
And as Akka has repeated throughout this thread, religious symbols in schools have been forbidden in France for a century now, and religious freedom has not been reduced as a result.
Forbidding religious or atheist symbols is not the same as forbidding religion, or even a first step toward it. And though the Catholic church opposes the law's proposal, most French catholics are in favor.

Individuals should be free to wear religious symbol. No one is saying have a state church and such, just that people have the freedom of religion. Is that so complex?

 

[Kinniken]

Originally posted by archer_007


Individuals should be free to wear religious symbol. No one is saying have a state church and such, just that people have the freedom of religion. Is that so complex?

Being "free to wear religious symbol" everywhere and having freedom of religion are two different things. We definitely have the later in France, we restrict the former for governments employees and in school in France. No contradiction.
Wether we should do so is debatable, but more because it risks angering the muslim community than because it is somehow a prelude to forbidding religion. And yes, the whole issue of how to balance secularity and religious freedom is complex, especially when tied, as is the case here, with an other very complex issue: how to best integrate Muslim immigrants.

BTW, though this has been barely discussed here, the proposal to make a Jewish and a Muslim religious celebrations public holidays in school is what is sparking the fiercest debates in France. While it would be a very powerful gesture, it is true that it would go down rather badly with public opinions at a time where the government is going to suppress a christian public holiday for economic reasons. I would personally be in favor of making it an holiday for children of the relevant religion, but not for everyone.

 

[Marla_Singer]

Originally posted by Kinniken

BTW, though this has been barely discussed here, the proposal to make a Jewish and a Muslim religious celebrations public holidays in school is what is sparking the fiercest debates in France. While it would be a very powerful gesture, it is true that it would go down rather badly with public opinions at a time where the government is going to suppress a christian public holiday for economic reasons. I would personally be in favor of making it an holiday for children of the relevant religion, but not for everyone.

Well, I totally disagree with you on that point Kinniken. Just imagine no one works on Christmas except jews and muslims. That's pure and simple discrimination. I like the way it has been shown by the "Stasi Report" (Stasi being the name of the guy who did it, we're not talking about the former DDR secret police ). No. Yom Kippur and Aid al-Kebbir should be off-school days for ALL children just like Easter or Christmas are off-school days for ALL children.

Yom Kippur and Aid al-Kebbir will be off-school days and only off-school days. Which means that if you don't want to work during these days, you must take an "RTT" (days you're free to pick in which you don't work). Moreover, should I remind you that in this report, the 2 new off-school days will be balanced by a school year beginning 2 days earlier.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

France has never been a multi cultural nation and their ideas of personal liberty are different than ours in America. They want France to stay French, they see France changing before theyre eyes and it quite rightly scares the crap out of them. In typical French style, theyre doing all the wrong things to remedy the situation. If France wants to stay French the only solution is to stop immediately all immigration from Muslim nations and expel the ones already living there. I personally dont think they should do that, all Im saying is that thats the only way to keep France French. These laws are reflexive actions born out of fear and are poorly thought out, as anyone with a teaspoon of grey matter can see.

 

[Kinniken]

Marla_Singer: I did not know about the balancing with a school year starting earlier. However I think that the point that it will only be a public holidays for schools does not make much sense: if the kids are home, most parents will have to take the day off. I admit that I am not really decided either way.

Dumb pothead: Just because the French solution is different from the American one does not mean it is wrong or that it will fail! While our integrationist model is indeed strained, in the past it as worked extremely well. There are no hyphen-French, and we had a Jewish Prime Minister quite recently without anyone noticing or caring; compare that with Kennedy's election and you might understand why we are attached to it.
Furthermore, the US's record in integrating minorities is not exactly brilliant either. Just look at the way Black Americans and Latinos underperform White Americans in about every domain and are often relegated in inner-cities slums, who are just as bad as our Cités.
The truth is that most western countries are struggling to cope with more important immigrations than in the past (which I welcome BTW), and that both integrationist and communautarist models are having some problems coping.
Which one will work the best is not yet answered.

 

[Marla_Singer]

France has never been a multi cultural nation

Dumb Pothead. I strongly advise you a trip to Paris. You have such an awful cliché view on France it's really almost disgusting.

France has always been a multi cultural nation. It's been part of its tradition. Paris is a little world on itself... just like London or New York. The main difference between France and the US or the UK is that we consider in France the purpose of a true multi-cultural society is to live together when the US considers it's more to live beside each other.

If I had to choose between the french and the american model, I'll choose without any doubt the french model because it's far more open minded.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

Kinniken and Marla, America is unique in that its a nation created entirely through immigration from a multitude of nations and cultures. We sure arent perfect either and we've also made a great many mistakes, but we have alot more experience with immigration than most European nations do. Correct me if Im wrong but its only recently that Europe (in modern times anyway) had to deal with a large influx of immigration from vastly different races, cultures and religion. To be French has always meant that you are a Frenchman and in addition to sharing certain cultural values with your countrymen it also meant sharing DNA as well. By contrast being American has always been merely a state of mind.
Blacks have always had a rough time in America and probably always will. Hispanics on the other hand are doing to America the same exact thing you fear that the Muslims are doing to France: they are transforming America much more than they are being transformed by it. Where I live, the transformation is already complete. I could very easily speak only Spanish here for the rest of my life and never speak another word of English and my life wouldnt be all that adversely impacted. Thats whats happening in France with the Muslims and its inexorable, the sooner the French learn to adjust to it, the better for all concerned.

Oh no, one of those long posts!

 

[andrewgprv]

The Mexicans are taking back what they lost in the Mexican-American War

 

[Bozo Erectus]

Originally posted by andrewgprv
The Mexicans are taking back what they lost in the Mexican-American War

Absolutely. The losers in the wars of the past 500 years are becoming the victors today through immigration. The Muslims in Europe and the Spanish in North America.

 

[Marla_Singer]

Correct me if Im wrong but its only recently that Europe (in modern times anyway) had to deal with a large influx of immigration from vastly different races, cultures and religion. To be French has always meant that you are a Frenchman and in addition to sharing certain cultural values with your countrymen it also meant sharing DNA as well.

OH MY GOD !!

Immigration in France is as old as it is in the US ! "something based on DNA " ??? From where comes such a weird idea ? It sounds really hmm... well.

Since the 18th/19th century, France has always lived massive waves of immigration. European people aren't homogenous, they are totally mixed. Pick any belgian, french, dutch, german, italian and you can find for them ancestors coming from the whole Europe or even farther !

Actually, people coming in France had been germans and dutch, then poles, hungarians and from other Eastern countries, then russians and jews, then spaniards and italians, then asians, caribbeans and portuguese, then arabs and africans. It has never stopped ! Being French has never meant being called "Dupont" or "Durand" ! Statistically, 50% of french people have at least one grand parent born in a foreign country (I'm part of these 50% by the way).

The French litemotive about immigration has always been to consider any newcomer as a full member of the French communauty (cause we consider that whatever are our difference, we all belong to one communauty, the french communauty). Of course, it's an ideal, but it worked very well and the results had always been great. Naturally, at each wave of immigration, they've been some tensions. For example, as weird as it seems, Parisians felt invaded by the brittons and the germans in the middle of the 19th century. Few years later, all tensions disappeared as naturally as they firstly appeared. That's what Kinniken considers as french "integration". It's the system about living together I was talking about.

I'm always amazed to find some american people considering all other people in the world as being necessarily homogenous. That's really surprising. For example, someone didn't believe I could be blond haired because I was french and french are all black haired (lol ! ).

 

[MCdread]

Originally posted by Dumb pothead
To be French has always meant that you are a Frenchman and in addition to sharing certain cultural values with your countrymen it also meant sharing DNA as well. By contrast being American has always been merely a state of mind.

I have to say you're very wrong on that remark. At least since the french revolution, France has been a very multicultural nation, and since the XIX century waves of immigrants have arrived at France, and ir allways was a cultural center to where artists and scientists of all the world have moved to. Many of the famous french of today are descendants of those immigrants and you can see them in every sector of society. Firstly it was the eastern immigration, particulary from Poland and Hungary: Marie Curie was from Poland, Nicolas Sarkozy is descendant of hungarian immigrants. Then it was the italians: Emile Zola, Michel Platini, and Albert Uderzo, for example, are of italian background. Then the spanish and portuguese: Robert Pires is half spanish-half portuguese. There is also the german element very near: Dominic Strauss-Kahn's name seems of obvious origin.
In the arts the list is immense: Picasso, Beckett, Dalí, etc.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

Marla and Mcdread, Im not talking about internal immigration within Europe. As I said in the previous post Im talking here about immigration from different races with vastly differnet cultural values and religous practices.

 

[Marla_Singer]

As I said in the previous post Im talking here about immigration from different races with vastly differnet cultural values and religous practices.

First, France rejects deeply the concept of "different races". We are totally against considering people as "whites", "blacks" or "asians". Firstly, because, there's no good way to define each "classes"... Secondly, because I really don't see where you put indians, arabs, inuits, polynesians or even aborigenes. Human beings aren't dogs.

Secondly, it's still not true. America didn't experience non european immigration sooner than Europe. And as I've already said, I see no reason to consider it as being different.

 

[IceBlaZe]

The French litemotive about immigration has always been to consider any newcomer as a full member of the French communauty (cause we consider that whatever are our difference, we all belong to one communauty, the french communauty). Of course, it's an ideal, but it worked very well and the results had always been great. Naturally, at each wave of immigration, they've been some tensions. For example, as weird as it seems, Parisians felt invaded by the brittons and the germans in the middle of the 19th century. Few years later, all tensions disappeared as naturally as they firstly appeared. That's what Kinniken considers as french "integration". It's the system about living together I was talking about.

Living together... nice.
It's not really an ideal. You seem to ignore the fact that the actions taken by the French government to Frenchiate the entire country under a single identity, a single language and a single culture would today considered VERY undemocratic.

 

[IceBlaZe]

France has always been a multi cultural nation. It's been part of its tradition. Paris is a little world on itself... just like London or New York. The main difference between France and the US or the UK is that we consider in France the purpose of a true multi-cultural society is to live together when the US considers it's more to live beside each other.

France refuses to recognize any culture different than the French culture, any language different than the French language or any ethnicity different than the French ethnicity. It is against It's constitution. You call that a multi-cultural country?