Religious Discrimination and Religious Governance Across Secular and Islamic Countries: France and Indonesia as Limiting Cases

Abstract

In this article, the author explores resemblances and overlaps of very different regimes of religious governance, the secular and the religious, in the ways they address religious discrimination. The author defines religious discrimination broadly and considers the possible solutions available to those (usually) democratic states that respond to complaints of discrimination. The author considers two limit cases: Indonesia, which bases its Islamic judicial system on scripture; and France, which proclaims that it does not recognize or support any religion. The author argues that although these two countries begin at opposite ideological positions with respect to the state’s relationship to religion, in fact they adopt policy positions that share several features, including granting formal privileges to recognized religions and maintaining the state’s legal superiority to scripture as the source of law. The author argues, not that this overlap is to be expected in all cases, even of democratic societies responsive to discrimination claims, but that we ought to pursue further comparative research into its scope.

Keywords

Islam religion discrimination laïcité France Indonesia

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Baubérot, J. ( 2000). Histoire de la laïcité française [History of French laïcité]. Paris: PUF.

Bowen, J.R. ( 2003). Islam, law and equality in Indonesia: An anthropology of public reasoning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bowen, J.R. ( 2007). Why the French don’t like headscarves. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Boyer, A. ( 2005). Comment l’État laïque connaît-il les religions? [How does the secular state know religions?]. Archives de sciences sociales des religions, 129, 37-50.

Dupret, B. ( 2000). Au nom de quel droit. Répertoires juridiques et références religieuses dans la société égyptienne musulmane contemporaine [In the name of which law. Juridical repertoires and religious references in contemporary Egyptian Muslim society]. Paris: LGDG/ CEDEJ.

Esposito, J.L. , & Delong-Bas, N.J. (2002). Women in Muslim family law (2nd ed.). Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.

Hasan, Z. , Sridharan, R. , & Sudarshan, R. (Eds.). (2002). India’s living constitution: Ideas, practices, controversies. Delhi, India: Permanent Black.

Kymlicka, W. ( 1995a). Multicultural citizenship. Oxford : Oxford University Press.

Kymlicka, W. (Ed.). (1995b). The rights of minority cultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

10.

Machelon, J.-P. ( 2006). Les relations des cultes avec les pouvoirs publics [Relations of religious groups to public powers] (Report, Commission de Réflexion Juridique sur les Relations des Cultes avec les Pouvoirs Publics, Ministère de l’intérieur et de l’aménagement du territoire) . Paris: La Documentation Française .

11.

Minow, M. ( 1990). Making all the difference. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

12.

Sevaistre, V. ( 2004, February). Le Conseil français du culte musulman en 2003: genèse et enjeux [The French Council of the Muslim Faith in 2003: Genesis and key issues]. Paper presented at the conference "L’État et les cultes en France," Aix-en-Provence , France.

13.

Sullivan, W.F. ( 2005). The impossibility of religious freedom. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

14.

Walzer, M. ( 1997). On toleration. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

15.

Willaume, J.P. ( 2005). 1905 et la pratique d’une laïcité de la reconnaissance sociale des religions [1905 and the practice of a laïcité of social acknowledgment of religions]. Archives de sciences sociales des religions, 129, 67-81.