ABSTRACT
Is the Western secular state fair to members of religious minorities, such as Muslims? In this chapter I argue that it can be, provided the demands of secularism are correctly understood. Secularism is the theory that only the non-religious (rather than anti-religious) state can treat citizens – religious and non-religious – with equal respect. One problem with contemporary Western states, however, is that they are still marked by the legacy of Christian establishment and, as a result, the question of how to treat citizens fairly is more complicated than both advocates and critics of secularism recognize. Advocates of strict (or ‘official’) secularism urge Muslims to respect the religious neutrality of the public sphere by ‘privatizing’ their religion. The conception of equality they endorse is one of ideal separation between state and religions. Critics of strict secularism take a more accommodationist position: they recognize that, in practice, Western states do not meet the ideal of secularism, and therefore demand that Islam be recognized on a par with Christianity and other religions. Their conception of equality is one of pragmatic evenhandedness between religious groups. In this chapter I argue that both positions are problematic, because they both suffer from a version of what Cass Sunstein has called ‘status quo neutrality’ (Sunstein 1993), which fails to assess the legitimacy of existing church-state arrangements. I then set out critical republican principles of secular impartiality, which identify a baseline from which practical claims of fairness between members of particular religions (or none) can be evaluated. Lastly, I show how these principles help us respond to a range of Muslim demands for public recognition. The critical republicanism that I defend is an alternative to the positions of the strict secularists (‘official republicans’) and the accommodationists (‘tolerant republicans’), both of which were starkly articulated during the French controversy over the wearing of Muslim religious symbols in state schools and the meaning of laïcité (secularism). My critical republican theory has been elucidated in relation to the French case (I notably argue that opposition to the French ban on religious signs does not imply opposition to the ideals of laïcité themselves). But it has broader applications: it aims to apply the republican ideal of non-domination to the practical treatment of cultural and religious differences in societies with well-established cultural and religious majorities and recently
established immigrant minorities. What matters to critical republicans is that minority members enjoy a status of non-domination in the secular state. Minority religions should be positively recognized by the state only in so far this helps reduce the dominating effects of the religious bias of historically Christian states; and religious believers should be supported by the secular state only in so far as this lessens the unreasonable burdens attached to the exercise of basic religious rights in the non-religious state. But the civic ideals of republicanism are, generally, best pursued through the maintenance of a secular public sphere, as it best embodies the ideal of the non-domination of citizens of all faiths – or none.
