Europe has long held itself to be the cradle of liberal-democratic values. In the long period of peace, prosperity and integration that the continent has enjoyed, many Europeans seem to have forgotten the costliness of bigotry. Their governments are now beginning to embrace a new form of discrimination that curtails religious freedoms.

One of the major accomplishments of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, was the abolition of the caliphate, the institution that made the sultan the leader of all Muslims. Atatürk wanted to remodel the country as a secular European nation-state and worked hard to separate religion and state: he banned traditional Islamic clothing, including the headscarf, from all government institutions and the educational system. Much like Peter I in Russia, he made public servants shed another prominent symbol of Islam by shaving their beards. Atatürk felt that the only way to remove religion from government was to institutionalise anti-religion. As a constitutional duty, the army was to safeguard the secular character of the state, a provision that the European Union demanded abolished as a precondition for beginning accession talks with Turkey. Indeed, remnants of the Kemalist period of nation building throughout the legal system still thwart the country on its way to EU membership, like the penal provisions under which Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk was indicted for ‘insulting Turkishness’.

The old saying goes that if the mountain will not come to Mohammed, he will go to the mountain. On that legendary occasion, the prophet reportedly thanked God for not bringing the mountain to him lest he be overwhelmed. While the civil rights guarantees in Turkey remain a murky area, European governments have moved unequivocally to bring their legislation closer to the Turkish republican ‘aquis’ of curtailing religious freedoms. That is, the mountain is demonstrating a surprising willingness to come to Mohammed, with potentially disastrous consequences. In many countries on the Old Continent, radical nationalists have increased their political clout riding on the wave of electoral disillusionment with the catch-all political parties of the 1990s, with globalisation, the Fifth Enlargement, and the euro. Sensing the threat for their cosy political sinecures, many of the abovementioned ‘centrist’ and ‘moderate’ catch-all parties have begun to push measures against civil liberties, citing the dangers of radical Islam.

In recent years, some German states have moved to ban religious dress from the schooling system, a policy unopposed by the country’s Constitutional Court. Ordinances against the wearing of facial coverings – which traditional Islam prescribes for women – have taken effect in some parts of Italy and Belgium. In Austria, Poland and Slovakia, renegade nationalists or Catholic religious conservatives with overtly anti-immigration views have been swept into government. During the

banlieue riots in France, the presidential hopeful of the ruling Gaullist party and interior minister Nicolas Sarcozy voiced poorly-covered xenophobic views on the country’s Muslim immigrant communities. But two more recent events taking place at the opposite fringes of the continent make the trend particularly disturbing.

In Bulgaria, which becomes a member of the EU on 1 January 2007, the government and academia jointly opposed the wearing of headscarves in the country’s universities. According to Bulgarian news site Mediapool, the issue emerged as 110 female students from neighbouring Turkey wanted to enroll in the prestigious University of Plovdiv if they would be allowed to wear their Islamic headscarves. The hefty tuition fees they would have to pay would be more than welcome for Bulgaria’s impoverished universities. After a short hesitation, however, university authorities, including those of other higher-educational institutions, and the government declared themselves against granting the students’ request. Academicians and the Ministry of Education and Science cited constitutional provisions guaranteeing the secular character of the educational system, none of which, however, explicitly prohibit religious dress. No one thought about the constitutional provision that protects free religious expression. The education minister even demonstrated eagerness to initiate legislation that would codify the ban.

This reaction of prominent public officials is highly atypical – and very shameful – for Bulgaria. Throughout its history, the country has been a safe haven for those persecuted for their religious beliefs or ethnic origin (like Jews and Armenians), a view deeply embedded in national mythology. In the Middle Ages, the country largely maintained a tolerant course even as it had to ward off the military expansion of Islam – first in the Caucasus and later on the Balkans. While Catholic westerners organized pogroms against their Jews and butchered one another in religious wars, Muslim tradesmen were welcome in Orthodox Bulgaria. Additionally, one of Bulgaria’s last emperors was of Jewish origin. Even after the five centuries of Islamic Ottoman rule, the iconic national revolutionary and ideologue Vasil Levski dreamt of ‘a pure and holy republic’ with guaranteed civil liberties for all, including the sizeable Turkish population. Standing up to those ideals, during the Second World War Bulgaria refused to deport its Jewish citizens to German concentration camps and, with the collapse of communism in early 1990 Bulgarians took to the streets in opposition of the communist-orchestrated expulsion of ethnic Turks. The growing radicalisation of such a relatively tolerant society hardly bodes well for the rest of Europe.

At the opposite edge of the EU, in Britain, which has been a much better established paragon of civil liberties, former foreign secretary and Labour bigwig Jack Straw recently came out with the idea of banning headscarves altogether. Mr. Straw expressed in the media a belief that Muslim veils increase ethnic alienation and distrust among different religious communities. The BBC reported that this view was subsequently endorsed by the Tory opposition in parliament. The remarks amount to calling on Muslim women to censor their religious beliefs. Meanwhile, the Labour minister of local government and community cohesion said that a teaching assistant, who had been suspended for wearing a full veil at her job, should be fired. These disturbing events took place as British Muslims have come under increasing pressure from the government in the aftermath of the London Underground bombings. With the enactment of hawkish antiterrorist laws in 2001 and 2005, police have been raiding various religious buildings and complaints about discrimination against Muslims have increased. Amongst these growing social tensions, in 2005 police officers shot dead an innocent Brazilian man in a tube train on suspicion that he was a suicide terrorist carrying explosives inside his clothing.

That incident is a vivid illustration of what is to become of a Europe where public authorities endorse ethnic oppression and xenophobia. On the other hand, the British and the Bulgarian officials who supported the curtailment of the right of religious expression are in fact aiding the proponents of radical Islam. Indeed, governments have both the right and the duty to regulate public education and determine certain criteria whereto teachers must adhere, including any restrictions on clothing. But the imposition of restrictions on pupils’ clothing in public schools is not only unjustified, but also counterproductive to the security goals the authorities are purportedly trying to achieve. Throughout the continent, education is mostly compulsory up to a certain age, so imposing school uniforms that violate certain religious norms amounts to direct and forceful assimilation. While free and mandatory education is undoubtedly one of the most important achievements of European liberalism, the unwarranted restriction of religious expression goes against what ‘Europeanness’ stands for. The restrictions mean Muslim students are more likely to remain uneducated – i.e. poor and not integrated – or to be sent to religious schools at home or abroad teaching radical versions of Islam. To most Muslim women, the veil is not simply a religious symbol, but also a mark of personal dignity and freedom – values which democratic societies should strive to protect.

Be first to comment this article

Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.

Powered by AkoComment Tweaked Special Edition v.1.4.6
AkoComment © Copyright 2004 by Arthur Konze - www.mamboportal.com
All right reserved

---

Related Items:

• Abe Statement on “Comfort Women”
• Israeli Expansion is a Barrier to Peace
• South Korea: Will a New President be Enough?
• Violence and Democratic Consolidation in Iraq