{"id":747,"date":"2011-01-14T16:47:27","date_gmt":"2011-01-14T16:47:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/2011\/01\/14\/samad-ramoly-12\/"},"modified":"2020-04-22T15:29:13","modified_gmt":"2020-04-22T11:29:13","slug":"samad-ramoly-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/samad-ramoly-12\/","title":{"rendered":"Are our cosmopolitan wires cracking"},"content":{"rendered":"

under the strain of toxic and exotic values?<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

By Samad Ramoly<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Is there such thing as \u201cvaleurs universelles\u201d? Should we not rather try to identify values we share and strive to live and breathe them with no supremacist and proselytistic zeal whatsoever? <\/strong>Est-ce que les valeurs proclam\u00e9es par la \u201cr\u00e9publique\u201d fran\u00e7aise sont effectivement plus citoyennes que celles v\u00e9cues dans la \u201cmonarchie\u201d su\u00e9doise par exemple? <\/strong><\/em>Should policies be \u201cblind\u201d or \u201cneutral\u201d? Should the institutionalisation of religion be singled out for fomenting the <\/strong>nu-bann<\/strong><\/em> and <\/strong>bann-l\u00e0<\/strong><\/em> divide? Or is it rather its instrumentalisation? <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The following insights may help shed light on what is merely lunacy and what is truly inspirational…<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

La vraie division du monde n’est pas entre Orient et Occident, entre Nord et Sud, mais entre les cons et pas cons.<\/span>
\n— Marjane Satrapi, auteur de bande dessin\u00e9e <\/em>The ability to think critically; to transcend local loyalties and to approach world problems as \u201ca citizen of the world\u201d; and, finally, to empathise make or break democracy.<\/span><\/p>\n

— Martha Nussbaum, philosophe<\/em>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Je dirai que c’est la coh\u00e9rence de la pens\u00e9e complexe qui contient la diversit\u00e9 et permet de la comprendre. J’adh\u00e8re \u00e0 ce qui peut \u00eatre dit sur la diversit\u00e9 des psychologies, des h\u00e9ritages culturels. Cependant, la diversit\u00e9 doit \u00eatre pens\u00e9e en se fondant sur la coh\u00e9rence et la compr\u00e9hension.<\/span><\/p>\n

— Edgar Morin, philosophe<\/em>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTolerance\u201d is not only a question of enacting and applying laws; it must be practiced in everyday life. Tolerance means that believers of one faith, of a different faith and non-believers must mutually concede one another the right to those convictions, practices and ways of living that they themselves reject. This concession must be supported by a shared basis of mutual recognition from which repugnant dissonances can be overcome. This recognition should not be confused with an appreciation of an alien culture and way of living, or of rejected convictions and practices.<\/span><\/p>\n

— Jurgen Habermas, philosophe<\/em>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The \u201ctoleration\u201d that was the watchword of the Enlightenment philosophers is not enough, thinker Tariq Ramadan argues. Toleration literally means \u201cto suffer\u201d or \u201cto endure\u201d the presence of others and implies a relationship of domination; the powerful are requested \u201cto moderate their strength and to limit their ability to do harm\u201d. But such grudging acceptance is detrimental to both the person who tolerates and the one whose presence is merely endured. What is required is respect, based on a relationship of equality. Tolerance can \u201creduce the other to a mere presence\u201d but \u201crespect opens up to us the complexity of his being\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

— Karen Armstrong, \u00e9crivain<\/em>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Too many countries still cling to the hope that once societies democratize, modernize, and develop economically, then ethnic politics will disappear. So far as I can tell, there is no evidence for believing this, and much evidence to the contrary. Some of the deepest values of liberal democracy \u2013 including foundational commitments to individual freedom, political equality and human rights \u2013 operate to support and sustain ethnic politics. We need to acknowledge this and to prepare for it when thinking about the sort of democratic society we wish to build.<\/span><\/p>\n

— Will Kymlicka, philosophe<\/em>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Nous avons besoin d’un nouveau mod\u00e8le de soci\u00e9t\u00e9 o\u00f9 les diff\u00e9rences religieuses ou culturelles sont mises en avant et o\u00f9 elles sont reconnues et valoris\u00e9es. C’est tr\u00e8s sain ces diff\u00e9rences, il ne faut pas les diaboliser. Nous sommes certes diff\u00e9rents mais la construction de notre mauricianisme ne se fera pas en dehors de nos diff\u00e9rences mais \u00e0 partir de ces diff\u00e9rences.<\/span><\/p>\n

— Jonathan Ravat, \u00e9tudiant chercheur<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Le mod\u00e8le r\u00e9publicain fran\u00e7ais postule que les citoyens fran\u00e7ais poss\u00e8dent tous la m\u00eame identit\u00e9 culturelle. En fait, c\u2019est m\u00eame la seule identit\u00e9 acceptable.<\/span><\/p>\n

— Ezra Suleiman, professeur de science politique<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Only primitive societies that allow no differences of any kind, and dictatorships, which control all aspects of life, are free of parallel societies.<\/span><\/p>\n

— Henryk Broder, journaliste<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Les responsables politiques ont accord\u00e9 une reconnaissance in\u00e9dite aux autorit\u00e9s religieuses, devenues les porte-parole des diff\u00e9rentes communaut\u00e9s. R\u00e9sultat, ces voix se confondent aujourd\u2019hui avec celle du clerg\u00e9. Et l\u2019on assiste \u00e0 un ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne nouveau : le d\u00e9veloppement de la pratique religieuse chez des gens qui n\u2019\u00e9taient pas sp\u00e9cialement pratiquants jusque-l\u00e0. Mais comme on ne cesse de leur r\u00e9p\u00e9ter que c\u2019est leur origine religieuse qui les d\u00e9finit, ils finissent par y croire.<\/span><\/p>\n

— Amartya Sen, professeur d’\u00e9conomie et de philosophie<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In France debates about multiculturalism occur under the overarching canopy of la\u00efcit\u00e9, a term that loosely but inadequately translates into English as \u201csecularism\u201d. With la\u00efcit\u00e9 the state actively expels religious life beyond a border that the state itself has defined by law. La\u00efcit\u00e9 actually fosters religion by making it a separate category. It reinforces religious identities rather than allowing them to dissolve into more diversified social practices.<\/span><\/p>\n

— Malise Ruthven, historien<\/em>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Le mot \u201cr\u00e9publique\u201d n\u2019est-il pas d\u00e9sormais trop contamin\u00e9 par une acception nationaliste, r\u00e9actionnaire, x\u00e9nophobe, raciste? Le \u201ccommunautarisme\u201d, c’est la visibilit\u00e9 de gens dont on voudrait qu’ils soient invisibles. C\u2019est ainsi que, gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 l\u2019usage de \u201cr\u00e9publique\u201d et de \u201ccommunautarisme\u201d, se dessine en creux, l\u2019image d\u2019une nation compos\u00e9e exclusivement de gens d\u2019apparence europ\u00e9enne, quelle que soit leur nationalit\u00e9.<\/span><\/p>\n

— Christine Delphy, sociologue<\/em>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

C’est notre mod\u00e8le culturel-catholique-fran\u00e7ais de l’imaginaire de \u201cLa France \u00c9ternelle\u201d, qui nous a emp\u00each\u00e9s et continue de nous emp\u00eacher de comprendre ce qui se passe ici et de d\u00e9velopper une strat\u00e9gie.<\/span><\/p>\n

— Filip Fanchette, pr\u00eatre<\/em>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A force de rouler les m\u00e9caniques, les intellectuels normalis\u00e9s par l’id\u00e9ologie christiano-la\u00efque \u00e0 la fran\u00e7aise se sont enferm\u00e9s dans une attitude qui \u00e9vacue tout ce qui n’est pas dig\u00e9rable en France.<\/span><\/p>\n

— Pierre Legendre, psychanalyste<\/em>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Aujourd’hui, force est de constater que le r\u00e9publicanisme fran\u00e7ais a fait faillite, car il ne sait pas g\u00e9rer une soci\u00e9t\u00e9 pluriculturelle. Le r\u00e9publicanisme n’a aucune perspective d’avenir; il ne sait pas raconter ce que peut \u00eatre l’avenir.<\/span><\/p>\n

— Jean Baub\u00e9rot, historien<\/em>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Simple notions of \u201cLa\u00efcit\u00e9\u201d, \u00e0 la fran\u00e7aise, which simply tried to marginalize religion, are no longer adequate to our situation. We can no longer have a civil religion \u2013 not one based on God, nor on la\u00efcit\u00e9 and the rights of man, nor, indeed, on any particular view. We live, today, in uncharted territory. We face a challenge that is unprecedented in human history: creation of a powerful political ethic of solidarity self-consciously grounded on the presence and acceptance of very different views.<\/span><\/p>\n

— Charles Taylor, professeur de science politique et de philosophie<\/em>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If racism has been the subtext of the foulard controversy in France, historian Joan Wallach Scott argues, then la\u00efcit\u00e9 was its expression. Those who supported the ban on headscarves argued that la\u00efcit\u00e9 was not simply secularism but a universal notion that was also unique to France. They called it une singularit\u00e9 fran\u00e7aise. Upon closer scrutiny, however, this particular notion seemed to be quite accommodating to Catholics and rather intransigent to others.<\/span><\/p>\n

— Laila Lalami, romanci\u00e8re\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The social and political measures taken by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk were very much influenced by the French la\u00efcit\u00e9, which more than being pluralist and inclusive was monolithic and exclusivist. Turkish elites asserted that religion was an \u201cobstacle to progress\u201d and, therefore, they incorporated the French la\u00efcit\u00e9, rather than the less confrontational Anglo-Saxon secularism, which allowed no role whatsoever for faith in public life.<\/span><\/p>\n

— Ramin Jahanbegloo, philosophe<\/em>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I must point out that the great killers and ethno-nationalists of our times, strangely enough, have come not from among religious fanatics but from non-believing secular-rationalists or ideologues using religion and ethnicity instrumentally. Adolf Hitler was not religious at all nor was Joseph Stalin. In South Asia, the great theoretician of Hindutva, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, was a secularist who thought it irrational to consider the cow sacred and refused a Hindu funeral to his wife and to himself.<\/span><\/p>\n

— Ashis Nandy, sociologue\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

In contrast with la\u00efcit\u00e9, for example — often described as the most extreme interpretation of western secularism –, the Indian model does not see a wall of separation between politics and faith but, instead, insists on the neutrality of the state towards religion. Indian secularism does not require the state to be irreligious or anti-religious; nor does it ban religion from the public sphere.<\/span><\/p>\n

— Mehdi Hasan, \u00e9ditorialiste<\/em>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

La conception la\u00efque de s\u00e9paration public\/priv\u00e9 n\u2019est qu\u2019un mod\u00e8le d\u2019\u00c9tat-nation parmi d\u2019autres. Pour les syst\u00e8mes de pens\u00e9e de l’Hindouisme ou de l’Islam, cette s\u00e9paration n’a m\u00eame pas lieu d’\u00eatre. Il existe, par exemple, des prescriptions politiques dans les Vedas.<\/span><\/p>\n

— Belall Maudarbux, universitaire<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Lorsqu’on dit que la la\u00efcit\u00e9 est le fait que le religieux doit rester dans le priv\u00e9, on n’est plus dans la d\u00e9finition juridique de la la\u00efcit\u00e9 mais dans la d\u00e9finition id\u00e9ologique.<\/span><\/p>\n

— Olivier Roy, politologue<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

La la\u00efcit\u00e9 est un principe qui devrait s’appliquer aux institutions et non aux citoyens.<\/span><\/p>\n

— C\u00e9cile Laborde, politologue<\/em>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My parents are Indian and proud of it. They have Indian friends whom they meet regularly at weekends, eating Indian food, sometimes in Indian dress and speaking in Hindi. But they have just as many close friends who are white and British. Their next-door neighbours \u2013 the Hallows \u2013 are one of the most wonderful families I have ever met. They created a gap in the fence between the two homes so they could come easily into ours and my parents go into theirs. It is a tiny but perfect example of integration \u2013 and it relies wholly on the fact that every person involved embraces multiculturalism.When I was growing up, people in India used to call me a \u201ccoconut\u201d: brown on the outside and white on the inside. I hope they never do that again.<\/span><\/p>\n

— Anushka Asthana, \u00e9ditorialiste<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n


\n<\/em>Le d\u00e9faut de tous ces programmes d’\u00e9tudes pseudo-universitaires, ce n’est pas qu’ils se concentrent sur telle ou telle minorit\u00e9 sexuelle, ethnique ou g\u00e9ographique, c’est qu’ils encouragent les membres de cette minorit\u00e9 \u00e0 n’\u00e9tudier qu’eux-m\u00eames, ce qui non seulement sape l’objectif m\u00eame d’une \u00e9ducation humaniste mais renforce la mentalit\u00e9 sectaire et les r\u00e9flexes de ghetto\u00efsation qu’ils pr\u00e9tendent \u00e9radiquer.<\/span><\/p>\n

— Tony Judt, historien\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n


\n<\/em>We have crafted a set of very intricate rules, no housing blocks shall have more than a percentage of so many Chinese, so many percent Malays, Indians. All are thoroughly mixed. Willy-nilly, your neighbors are Indians, Malays, etc. You go to the same shopping malls, you go to the same schools, the same playing fields, you go up and down the same lifts. We cannot allow segregation<\/span><\/p>\n

— Lee Kuan Yew, ancien Premier ministre\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n


\n<\/em>Il n’est pas sain pour un \u00eatre humain de passer trop de temps \u00e0 contempler son propre reflet. Ironie du sort, les communaut\u00e9s de gens d’esprit semblable repr\u00e9sentent l’un des plus grands dangers de notre univers mondialis\u00e9 d’aujourd’hui. Et cela se passe partout, chez les lib\u00e9raux et les conservateurs, les agnostiques et les croyants, les riches et les pauvres, en Orient comme en Occident. Nous avons tendance \u00e0 former des groupes, fond\u00e9s sur la similitude, et puis nous produisons des st\u00e9r\u00e9otypes au sujet d’autres groupes de personnes. <\/span><\/p>\n

— Elif Shafak, \u00e9crivain<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

* Published in print edition on 14 January 2011<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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