July 2011 DOSSIER 30-31 The Struggle for Secularism in Europe and North America Women Living Under Muslim Laws July 2011 DOSSIER 30-31 The Struggle for Secularism in Europe and North America Dossiers: Journal of Women Living Under Muslim Laws The dossiers explore a broad range of discourses, interpretations and strategies of women on issues of feminism, nationalism, internationalism and religion. Women Living Under Muslim Laws The dossiers are an occasional publication of the international solidarity network of Women Living Under Muslim Laws. Conceived as a networking tool, they aim to provide information about lives, struggles and strategies of women living in diverse Muslim communities and countries. Women’s groups may freely reproduce material, however we would appreciate acknowledgements. For those articles previously published in other journals, permission should be sought directly from them. Information contained in the dossiers does not necessarily represent the views and positions of the compilers or of the network Women Living Under Muslim Laws, unless stated. The dossiers are meant to make accessible the broadest possible strands of opinion within varied movements/initiatives promoting greater autonomy of women. The dossiers seek to inform and share different analysis and experiences. WLUML runs a very popular website in English, French and Arabic which is updated regularly with news and views, calls for action and publications. For more information please visit www.wluml.org Regional Coordination Offices are in Senegal (Africa and Middle East) and Pakistan (Asia) and are responsible for coordinating network activities in their respective regions: Africa & Middle East Coordination International Coordination Office Office PO Box 28445, London, N19 5NZ, UK Groupe de Recherche sur les Femmes Email: [email protected] et les Lois au Senegal (GREFELS) Website: www.wluml.org PO BOX 5330, Dakar Fann, Dakar The International Coordination Office Senegal (ICO) facilitates coordination between Email: [email protected] networkers. Website: www.grefels.org Asia Coordination Office Shirkat Gah Women’s Resource Centre WLUML would like to acknowledge and PO Box 5192, Lahore thank the following foundations and Pakistan corporations for their support: HIVOS, Email: [email protected] NORAD, Sigrid Rausing Trust and Swiss Website: www.shirkatgah.org Development Cooperation. © Women Living Under Muslim Laws 2011 Dossier 30–31 was edited by Marieme Hélie-Lucas Reviewed by Fatou Sow Production editing, design and layout by Nandita Dutta, WLUML Publications Officer ii WLUML Dossier 30–31 To Rhonda Copelon Who died in May 2010 Human rights lawyer and women’s rights advocate Virtually alone in the human rights community, she dared to support secular democrat Algerians struggling against a theocratic project of society, while they were being exterminated by fundamentalist armed groups. White, American, Jew, lesbian − she was everything that fundamentalists in our countries teach the youth to hate. However it was she and she alone who, facing being disavowed by her colleagues in human rights organisations, worked relentlessly and took risks in support of victims of fundamentalists; she alone who dared take to court the Islamic Salvation Front and its representative in the US. For her, it was a courageous and very lonely struggle. The Struggle for Secularism in Europe and North America iii The control of capital over bodies, its strong will to reveal their market value, does not at all reduce their control by religious law and the theological will to make them disappear. The ways of oppression are as numerous and inexhaustible as those of god are mysterious. The poor dialectic of main and secondary contradictions, forever revolving, already played too many bad tricks. And the ‘secondary enemy’, too often underestimated, because the fight against the main enemy was claimed to be a priority, sometimes has been deadly. Daniel Bensaïd, ‘La République imaginaire’ (‘The imaginary Republic’), Chapter 2 in Fragments mécréants : Mythes identitaires et république imaginaire (‘Unbelieving fragments: identity myths and imaginary republic’), Paris: Éditions Lignes et Manifestes, 2005 I was shot by my secondary enemy Totally caught into my struggle against the main enemy I was shot by my secondary enemy Not from the back, treacherously, as his main enemies claimed But directly, from the position it had long been occupying And in keeping with his declared intentions that I did not bother about, thinking they were insignificant. Erich Fried, in Cent poèmes sans frontière (‘A hundred poems without borders’), Paris: Christian Bourgeois, 1978 Poem quoted by Daniel Bensaïd iv WLUML Dossier 30–31 Contents vii What is WLUML? 1 Introduction Marieme Hélie-Lucas 7 A Definition of Laïcité/Secularism Marieme Hélie-Lucas France 11 The Law of the Republic Versus the ‘Law of the Brothers’: A story of France’s law banning religious symbols in public Karima Bennoune 43 A South-North Transfer of Political Competence: Women of migrant Muslim descent in France – an overview Marieme Hélie-Lucas 87 Personal Status and Bilateral Agreements: A blow against secularism (laïcité) and the rights of foreigners and citizens of Maghrebian origin in France Lalia Ducos 95 Islamism Against Women Throughout the World Mimouna Hadjam 105 “Democracy isn’t a Supermarket” Chahla Chafiq interviewed by Clara Domingues United Kingdom 109 ‘The Question Asked by Satan’: Doubt, dissent and discrimination in 21st-century Britain Gita Sahgal 127 Cohesion, Multi-Faithism and the Erosion of Secular Spaces in the UK: Implications for the human rights of minority women Pragna Patel 149 Religion is a Private Affair: One law for all Maryam Namazie The Struggle for Secularism in Europe and North America v Contents Ex-Yugoslavia 153 The New Role of the Orthodox Church in Serbia Bojan Aleksov 175 Tendencies of De-secularisation in Serbia and Croatia Staša Zajović and Lino Veljak Canada 183 Introduction of Religious Family Laws in Canada: A case study Alia Hogben 191 Cultural Relativism: Theoretical, political and ideological debates Shahrzad Mojab and Nadeen El-Kassem 211 Secularism in Canada Ariane Brunet interviewed by Marieme Hélie-Lucas 227 Finding the Same Advance of Islamism in Europe and North America as in Algeria Djemila Benhabib United States 233 Obama in Cairo: The religionising of politics Karima Bennoune 237 Secularism Versus Religious Pluralism in the US in the Light of Human Rights and Women’s Rights Rhonda Copelon interviewed by Marieme Hélie-Lucas Our Natural Allies 257 Toward a More ‘Courageous Politics’: Talking about Muslim fundamentalism in the West Karima Bennoune 269 In the Face of Mounting Reactions, Let us Develop Deep Solidarity Regroupement Féminisme & Laïcité Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA) 275 How Fundamentalism and its Values and Programme Have Entered the UN Marieme Hélie-Lucas 283 Contributors 285 Recommended Further Reading vi WLUML Dossier 30–31 What is WLUML? Women Living Under Muslim Laws is an international solidarity network that provides information, support and a collective space for women whose lives are shaped, conditioned or governed by laws and customs said to derive from Islam. For more than two decades WLUML has linked individual women and organisations. It now extends to more than 70 countries ranging from South Africa to Uzbekistan, Senegal to Indonesia and Brazil to France. It links: • Women living in countries or states where Islam is the state religion, secular states with Muslim majorities as well as those from Muslim communities governed by minority religious laws; • Women in secular states where political groups are demanding religious laws; women in migrant Muslim communities in Europe, the Americas and around the world; • Non-Muslim women who may have Muslim laws applied to them directly or through their children; • Women born into Muslim communities/families who are automatically categorised as Muslim but may not define themselves as such, either because they are not believers or because they choose not to identify themselves in religious terms, preferring to prioritise other aspects of their identity such as political ideology, profession, sexual orientation or others. Our name challenges the myth of one, homogenous ‘Muslim world’. This deliberately created myth fails to reflect that: • Laws said to be Muslim vary from one context to another; • The laws that determine our lives are from diverse sources: religious, customary, colonial and secular. We are governed simultaneously by many different laws: laws recognised by the state (codified and uncodified) and informal laws such as customary practices which vary according to the cultural, social and political context. How did WLUML start? WLUML was formed in 1984 in response to three cases in Muslim countries and communities in which women were being denied rights by reference to laws said to be ‘Muslim’ requiring urgent action. Nine women from Algeria, Morocco, Sudan, Iran, Mauritius, Tanzania, Bangladesh and Pakistan came together and formed the Action Committee of Women Living Under Muslim Laws in support of local women’s struggles. This evolved into the present network in 1986. The network is guided by Plans of Action which are reviewed periodically. For more information please see the WLUML website at www.wluml.org The Struggle for Secularism in Europe and North America vii What is WLUML? What are WLUML’s aims and focus? The network aims to strengthen women’s individual and collective struggles for