Even quite sober academics speak of “a contemporary crisis of secularism,” claiming that “today, political secularisms are in crisis in almost every corner of the globe.” Olivier Roy, in an analysis focused on France, writes of “The Crisis of the Secular State,” and Rajeev Bhargava of the “crisis of secular states in Europe.” Yet this is quite a misleading view of what is happening in Western Europe.
Posts Tagged ‘European Union’
August 24th, 2011
Is there a crisis of secularism in Western Europe?
posted by Tariq Modood
August 18th, 2011
Religious freedom in the EU
posted by Jessica PolebaumThis July 11-12, a small interdisciplinary group scholars convened in Venice for the first in a series of workshops organized by Peter Danchin, Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, Saba Mahmood, and Winifred Fallers Sullivan in conjunction with the Politics of Religious Freedom project.
June 25th, 2010
Spain moves to ban burqa
posted by Aaron WeinsteinIn the most recent European attempt to prevent radical Islam’s spread, Spain’s Senate voted this past Wednesday in favor of prohibiting Muslim women from donning the burqa—the traditional Islamic veil which covers a woman’s entire body except her eyes. New York Times columnist Raphael Minder suggests that the country’s sudden—and, some would say, unexpected—decision to follow fellow EU members like France and Belgium, was precipitated by upcoming regional elections in Catalonia later this year, in which immigration and Islam are two politically charged and contested issues.
June 22nd, 2010
Letter from Istanbul
posted by Hikmet KocamanerI have come to Turkey at a time when discussions of a “shift in the axis” of Turkey’s foreign policy have reached their peak. The term “axis shift” was coined by some members of the mainstream Turkish media a couple of years ago to imply that Turkey was moving away from the secular West toward the Muslim Middle East. This term has been revived recently after the flotilla incident with Israel, Turkey’s “no” vote to UN Security Council’s sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program, and the 2nd Turkish-Arab Economic Forum.
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