Session Information
Session 5A, Democracy, National Identity and Social Minorities
Papers
Time:
2005-09-08
13:00-14:30
Room:
ENG
Chair:
Elaine Ricard-Fersing
Contribution
The historical call of modern justice, heard first, perhaps, through the words of egalité, fraternité, liberté, seems ineradicably etched on modern consciousness. Indeed, the voice of our modern inheritance at times drowns out those who wish to sing something other than its praise. Such dissonant voices take issue with the colonizing and masculinist undertones of the liberal subject, upon which, not coincidentally, both projects of modern justice and modern education have been based. Both feminist and culturist challenges to liberalism have opened up a considerable debate around the legitimacy of the universal application of freedom and equality as signs of justice. Indeed, what these critiques reveal is that the content (or concretisation) of such "universals," through policies and procedures, carry with them different meanings depending on culture, language, social relations, and gender. Yet, it is not only the exportation of western-style universal values to non-western countries in which the tension is felt, for how universal principles work within western, cosmopolitan societies reveals an equally difficult dilemma: How can minorities receive recognition within the policies of a liberal democratic state, given that those policies are often inflected with the voice of the dominant culture and despite the fact that they may be developed in the name of rights and freedoms? Such a dilemma highlights the enormous space of ambiguity in promoting educational initiatives that embrace a cosmopolitan attitude. Thus what I wish to argue in this paper is that a cosmopolitan attitude cannot simply declare itself just because it appears to be liberal and open to principles of freedom and equality, but must instead recognize the ambiguities posed by the tensions between these principles and the meanings they carry for diverse community members. In order to explore such ambiguity, this paper offers a philosophical analysis of the French ban on religious symbols in schools (passed into law in March 2004) as an extension of the principles of found in the constitutional law of laïcité (or secularism). My aim in examining the ban is to explore how it both manifests the cosmopolitan ideals of justice and yet threatens to undermine a basic right to education for Muslim girls who choose to wear hijab, or headscarf. (It should be noted that in terms of numbers, it is Muslim girls who are overwhelming affected by the ban). Moreover, the law poses questions concerning the interpretation of symbols as identifying markers of religious expression. In particular, I focus on a number of tensions: first, that between the law as an expression of equality and the way in which it inscribes gender differently; secondly, that between the law as an expression of a declared civil freedom and the possible contravention of the right to education as proposed in the UN Declaration, and the right to receive education irrespective of religion; and lastly, that between the law as a liberal declaration of secularist education and the consequent distinctions made between some faith-related symbols as cultural as opposed to religious in character. First building on feminist and cultural critiques of the liberal idea of universalism, this paper then draws on the work of the philosopher Jacques Derrida in order to consider the conditions under which we might hold open the ambiguity of cosmopolitanism through an attention to difference as a condition of freedom and equality. Using the legislation in France as a case study, I hope to clarify some of the problems facing education in light of the liberal ideas of freedom and equality which are currently shaping policies across the EU.
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