VLVL II: "What is Fascism?" (fwd)

[Paul Mackin]

On Wed, 2004-02-18 at 14:29, Ghetta Life wrote:
> >From: "Otto" <ottosell at yahoo.de>
> >
> >The reason is that France is much more secularised since the French 
> >Revolution than (for example) the USA. At France they take the division 
> >between the State and the personal belief quite serious.
> 
> In the US this separation is established by the First Amendment to the 
> Constitution:
> 
> "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or 
> prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"
> 
> But you can see that it specifically would not allow the outlawing of an 
> individaul's practice of personal religious beliefs.  Neither would it allow 
> coercion of individuals to practice any beliefs.  By this measure France has 
> breached the separation of curch & state.
> 


Don't know about breaching anything but the headscarf ban can seem
extreme to Americans. Why would the French be obliged to take these
steps and the U.S. not. To put things a little simplistically, France is
up against a problem the U.S. is less plagued by. The French State under
the guidance of Chirac feels under quite a bit of pressure to guard
against dilution of French culture and loss of national cohesion. This
is what's largely behind the headscarf business. In the U.S. such an
idea or felt need wouldn't make very much sense.   

On the separation of church and state both countries have strong
traditions arising out of the wish to avoid official national religions
such as Catholicism in France and the Anglicanism of Mother Britain. In
France, the state (including the various governments) has tended to be
more anti-religious than is the case in the U.S. The American founding
fathers might have wished it otherwise but early on populist
NON-official religion assumed an important social role in America as a
bulwark against upper class dominance.  This has has a lot to do with
the fact that America appears to be such a religious
country--notwithstanding the equally prominent fact that it's about as
materialistic a place as you can find anywhere.  Popular religion as  a
response to and weapon against privilege hasn't been nearly so important
in France.

Thought I ought throw out these ideas even though they are roughly
stated.