TRIGLAV CIRCLE, OUGNY, FRANCE, 30JUNE/1JULY 2007

The choice of this subject for debate -“secularism, ethics and politics”- and the formulation of the agenda were based on a fact and on three judgments.

The observable fact was the political visibility and importance that religion has assumed in recent decades. Some states, most notably in the Middle-East, have had strong religious features since their creation, but the Iranian revolution of the beginning of the 1970s was a “premiere” in modern history: it was conceived by clerics and it transformed a monarchy into a theocracy. This was an extraordinary event, as modern revolutions, starting with the French revolution of 1789, had been as much, if not more against clericalism than against autocracy. For all the children of the Enlightenment the coming to power of the ayatollahs was a counter-revolution, a reactionary and complete “re-volution.” In the wake of this remarkable event, strong Islamic movements and parties gained prominence in the region and in various parts of the world. And regimes with republican, presidential or monarchist constitutions seen as moderate because they do not take the sharia as the only source of law are challenged by such forces commonly labeled fundamentalist.

This political visibility of religion took a dramatic turn with the events of 11 September 2001 in New-York and Washington. The terrorists were members of an organization with proclaimed religious roots and a majority of them were nationals of a country with strong theocratic structures. Wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq ensued. Other terrorist attacks were perpetrated, notably in Europe and Asia. Several internal conflicts which are plaguing the beginning of the 21st century, most particularly in the Sudan, have religious dimensions, as had the atrocities committed in the former Yugoslavia in the preceding decade. And the never ending conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people is not deprived of religious overtones. There have been also, for example in the Netherlands, assassinations for politico/religious motives of persons involved in public affairs and death-threats are routinely pronounced by religious authorities against individuals accused of having offended religious believers by their writings or their drawings. The riots that took place in the suburbs of Paris in 2006 were commonly seen as primarily involving immigrants from Moslem countries. And the law enacted by the French state to prohibit the wearing of a veil in schools attracted world attention. Meanwhile, in the United States, religious groups with fundamentalist orientations played a significant political role in influencing the agenda and the tone of public debates. Overall, in the last decade, the idea that Islam and the “West” are engaged into a deadly confrontation has gained credence. The so-called clash of civilizations is lived as a clash between a religion, Islam, and a political culture privileging individual liberty.

The first judgment underlying the conception of this meeting was that the Western liberal democracies were having great difficulties in addressing this surge of the religious realm into the political scene. Until a recent past, liberal democracies of Europe had established a comfortable relationship between state and religion. Whether this relationship was framed legally through separation, integration or concordat, and whether the state was a constitutional monarchy or a republic, politics and religion were in two different realms. Quantitatively declining in terms of number of adepts and number of priests – less so, however for Protestant ministers – the traditional Christian religions of Western Europe, more or less reconciled with democracy since the end of the 19th century, had, albeit reluctantly, accepted the autonomy of the political sphere. Even in countries such as Italy, Spain and Ireland, the Catholic Church was no longer in a position to prevent the adoption of new liberal legislation in matters such as divorce or abortion. Europe seemed to have achieved a reasonable understanding of the gospel injunction: “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.”

While still holding, such European understanding of secularism in a context of religious freedom is rendered fragile by at least two developments. First, the relative decline of traditional Christian faiths is paralleled not only by the growing popularity of Oriental religions and philosophies – a trend that only the enemies of religious pluralism might deplore- but also by a surge of sectarian religious organizations providing their adepts with the comfort of a community united by unquestioned certitudes. As these sects often require from their members the “gift” of their assets and are inclined to use manipulative and coercive techniques to secure total obedience from the same members, public authorities of a number of European countries have attempted to control their activities and have sometimes prohibited them. Such actions have been criticized as infringements to freedom of religion and freedom of speech. Democracies are confronted with hard dilemmas when dealing with organizations negating basic liberal values. And a second development, the rapid increase of adepts of the Islamic faith in the countries of Western Europe, represent an even greater challenge for the governments of these countries.