The cross and the crescent: the improbable dialogue
A study by the Catholic University of Louvain (UCL) attests to this: more than half of those questioned believe that wearing the veil “goes against the grain of modern society”. Nearly one in four do not even tolerate it on public roads. The veil is seen as a sign of submission (by nearly seven out of ten people), as an anti-Western symbol (by 31% of respondents), or even as a provocation (23%). Barely one in five respondents see it as an expression of freedom.
Researchers from the UCL Center for the Psychology of Religion did not stop at this simple statistical observation. They wanted to identify what, in human nature, fueled the aversion to the veil… Two explanatory factors were generally put forward by the experts: diffuse racism (the rejection of others, the fear of difference) and an ideal of autonomy, of individual emancipation (the veil then being perceived as the instrument of the supposed submission of Muslim women).
Surprise: the study shows that the more the people questioned value the values of autonomy and personal emancipation, the more they tend to accept wearing the veil. “Contrary to popular belief, it is therefore mainly racism which largely arouses hostility to the veil,” comments Professor Vassilis Saroglou. But it is not excluded, he adds, that the marked presence of the veil in public space fuels underlying racism. “. In any case, this ambient racism (based less on ethnicity than on contempt for the nature of certain groups) appears clearly, and through two successive independent surveys, as the most determining “predictive” factor of rejection of the veil. Which obviously does not mean that everyone who opposes the wearing of the veil is racist. Other explanatory variables come into play. The interplay of correlations thus allows researchers to draw up the typical psychological profile of the opponent of the veil… He is rather older (the younger one is, the more one accepts the veil), “primary” anticlerical or orthodox religious, convinced of its cultural superiority. Secure, conformist, he values power, success, hedonism. It is politically marked on the right… Conversely, those most tolerant with regard to the veil are characterized by the importance they attach to the autonomy of the individual (freedom, independence, etc.), by their sense of spirituality, their universalist character, a personality open to experience (intellectual curiosity, attraction to art and culture, creativity)…
Vassilis Saroglu, Coralie Buxant and Matthieu Van Pachterbeke deduce from their research a double responsibility: “For the host society, this implies the need for incessant work on the racism that simmers within it… A work of education in difference at school, via the media, etc. For the Muslim community, it is a question of taking into account the suspicious view of a significant segment of society. An ethical, spiritual and pragmatic reflection on a religious practice which must also take into account the perspective of others. “. Many Muslim associative actors immediately subscribe to this perspective of promoting “living together”, recalling, for example, that the Koran in no way imposes the wearing of the veil on Muslim women. Or by encouraging young girls who wear the veil to remove it if the internal regulations of their school prohibit it.
On the other hand, Belgian society is slow to make its promises a reality… Just two years ago, the Intercultural Dialogue Commission refused to take sides in favor of banning the veil at school, noting that “our history, our Constitution, the structure of our educational institutions are not those of France.” The wise people of the Commission had pointed out other priorities: rebalancing the distribution of students, in particular through financial incentives for schools which achieve cultural diversity, or even reducing by half the volume of morality and religion courses, at the end of secondary school, for the benefit of philosophy courses. (Le Soir, 05/26/2007).
Did the UCL pseudo-experts really write such nonsense, or did their words take on a caricatured tone from the pen of a politicized journalist? We know that social science researchers are often militant, but not so blatantly.
70% of Belgians see themselves as racist. It should be remembered, however, that the meaning of this word is extremely vague and its use charged with a polemical function of control, inhibition, and the production of an intellectual orthodoxy. Because what does it mean to be racist? Any wish to stay among yourself, to form a community, can be stigmatized by this expression. However, there is no need to resort to vague concepts of rejection of others (?) or fear of difference (??) to disqualify the desire, in itself healthy and understandable, to associate with one’s own ethnocultural group, in its own country and on its own territory. This attitude is in no way incompatible with the existence of exchanges between cultures which respect and understand each other, each in their own identity, during travel or commercial exchanges for example.
But the article goes further by drawing a Manichean portrait of those who do not accept the wearing of the veil (qualified as conservative, old, primary, etc.) and those who accept it (to whom are attributed wonderful qualities of creativity…) . From these laughable ramblings there is only one interesting thing to learn: the paradox which consists among some in associating the wearing of the Islamic veil with the promotion of individual freedoms. The Islamic veil, like the burkah, has the meaning of veiling the charms of women from the eyes of men. This does not go in the direction of the liberalization of relations between the sexes as it can result from an issue of individual freedoms…
The conclusion of the article is consistent: minorities do everything to integrate into Belgian society; Belgian society does nothing to integrate minorities. It is Belgian society that must adapt to migrants (for what benefit? this is not specified); it is not up to migrants to make the effort of integration…:).
However, the Intercultural Dialogue Commission was right to point out that our tradition is not that of France. The French state does not care about intercultural dialogue, but only about crushing cultural differences under state uniformity. The wearing of the Islamic veil in schools is a problem that the secular French state has with itself, and from which it wanted to get out of by calling it an “ostentatious sign” – a gross pleonasm…
