Tolérance ou laïcité | Rioux
2015/01/17 2 Comments
Christian Rioux of Le Devoir continues his critique of the more open attitudes of Gérard Bouchard and Charles Taylor, and Rioux reiterates his support for a strict form of laïcité:
Au lieu d’instaurer un espace public qui ignore les croyances et proclame non seulement la liberté religieuse, mais de conscience, dans ce type de régime — que l’on pourrait appeler « de tolérance » —, les religions ont progressivement appris à cohabiter. Cette tradition a toujours été dominante au Canada depuis l’Acte de Québec (1774) qui a supprimé l’obligation faite aux catholiques d’abjurer pour obtenir un emploi de l’État. Ici, ce n’est pas le peuple souverain qui instaure un espace laïque où les citoyens sont égaux, mais les religions qui négocient la paix sociale avec le prince. C’est dans cette tradition que s’inscrivent les organisations musulmanes et antiracistes qui réclament aujourd’hui l’interdiction de blasphémer.
Implicitement, c’est aussi dans cette tradition, et non dans celle de la laïcité, que se placent des intellectuels comme Gérard Bouchard et Charles Taylor, pour qui la laïcité se négocie en partie à la pièce. En érigeant en dogme le régime des « accommodements », ils prolongeaient la vieille tradition des « moyenneurs », comme on disait au XVIe siècle, qui pour rétablir la concorde acceptaient de négocier la place des religions minoritaires dans l’espace public. Outre le fait que ce régime exclut évidemment les athées, il accorde aux religions un statut particulier, d’ailleurs reflété par la Constitution canadienne. Contrairement aux autres formes d’idéologies, les religions sont en effet les seules autorisées à négocier de tels aménagements. On n’imagine pas les marxistes réclamer le droit de ne pas insulter Marx.
About Andrew
Multicultural Meanderings 
He makes, I think, several good points. If religions are not to be criticized, then perhaps, agnostics and atheists should require protection & immunity too, or Marxists or Hegelians. If someone claims that non-believers go to hell, then perhaps we should haul that person up before a human rights tribunal or a court. Also, as he points out, we are handing over, as a society, a mediating role to religious ‘leaders’ who thus, in theory, stand between Canadian institutions and their ‘flock’, and who, also, get to decide, largely, what is “sacred” and what is not, what – and who – is to be immune to criticism and who is a legitimate target of criticism. This is a lot of power to outsource in a liberal democratic society, and it is, potentially, quite dangerous. After all the people who claim to represent “God” are a very varied bunch, and they are not immune from temptation or from espousing wicked ideas. Power corrupts, immunity corrupts, we are potentially creating a witches brew. On the other hand, if we are ‘nice’ and afford protection to all sorts of beliefs – I personally don’t think any of these beliefs merit any protection whatsoever because they are not ‘true’ (that is I am a horrendous atheist/agnostic) – then these authorities will also be ‘nice’ and integrate their flocks, isolate and report dangerous radicals, and become nice liberal human rights people like other earlier militant religions – Catholicism and Protestantism – have; this fine result is not, I think, guaranteed, but perhaps, on pragmatic grounds, it is worth trying. There is though the ancillary danger that the religions – they are all in my humble opinion selling the same snake oil – will gang up to restrict women’s rights, the rights of non-religious minorities, and to generally impose a mournful veil of self-censorship, dress codes, and ‘decency’ over society. Censorship and self-censorship are – like stupidity and racism – contagious; they spread. If the Pope, say, were to dictate morality, then we would have little in the way of sex education, homosexuality would be illegal, contraception would be illegal, and abortion would certainly be illegal. Monotheism is not at all an anodyne thing; in the 16th and 17th centuries perhaps 10,000,000 – 15,000,000 people died in religious wars, right now terror reigns in a great arc through Africa and the Middle East to Pakistan and even to the Philippines, all, or mostly, in the name of religion. These are certainly ideas which merit, require, and deserve criticism – and, why not, mockery, and fierce mockery – even mockery in what some call bad taste.
As always, enjoy your engaging in the discussion.
I think there is a risk in your critique of religion that you tend to portray all believers as monolithic rather than having a range of views from relatively secular to fundamentalist. And that religion almost automatically leads to conflict.
Agree that is the case with respect to more fundamentalist and literalist strains, but not sure it is intrinsic to religion itself or more how it is interpreted, used, and linked to ethnic and other tensions.