Public Holidays and Equality for Muslims in Western Europe

Abstract

This article focuses on the question of what kind of approach should the liberal state take regarding religion and public holidays in multicultural societies of Western Europe. At present, these laws deny the equal status to citizens of different religious backgrounds. There are privileges that the laws bestow on citizens with Christian backgrounds, putting Muslim members in a disadvantaged position. As a result, the liberal character of the law is violated. The article analyzes how such circumstances can be avoided by fully implementing liberal neutrality where the government and its institutions—the basic structures—go along in a strictly procedural way and are separated from ideas about the good life, as proclaimed and practiced by diverse society subcultures in society. From the Western European cases, we draw conclusions on how liberal neutrality should be applied within the laws on public holidays in multicultural societies.

Notes

1 Arash Abizadeh, “Liberal Nationalist Versus Postnational Social Integration”, Nations and Nationalism, Vol. 10, No. 3, 2004, p. 232.

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3 Kis Janos, “Beyond the National State”, Social Research, Vol. 63, No. 1, 1996, pp. 224–225.

4 Ibid., p. 237.

5 Bader Veit, Secularism or Democracy? Associational Governance of Religious Diversity, Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam Press, 2007, p. 181.

6 Maghrebis, known in medieval times as Moors, are the native inhabitants of the Maghreb, the region of northwestern Africa and Spain. The term Moor is derived from Mauri, the Roman name for the Berbers of Mauretania, land of the Moors, the Roman name for Maghreb.

7 Aristide R. Zolberg and Long Litt Woon, “Why Islam Is Like Spanish: Cultural Incorporation in Europe and the United States”, Politics & Society, Vol. 27, No. 1, 1999, pp. 5–38, p. 17.

8 Pew Research Center, The Future of the Global Muslim Population—Europe (Excluding However Turkey and Including Siberian Russia), Pew Research Center, January 2011.

9 M. Maussen, The Governance of Islam in Europe: A State of Art Report, Amsterdam: IMESCO Working Paper No. 16, p. 4; S. Hunter, “Europe's Muslim Minority: The Challenge of Integration”, Orient II, 2007, pp. 15–22, p. 16.

10 Meer Nasar and Tariq Modood, “Beyond ‘Methodological Islamism’? A Thematic Discussion of Muslim Minorities in Europe”, Advances in Applied Sociology, Vol. 3, No. 7, 2013, pp. 307–313, p. 307.

11 Pew Research Center, Future of the Global Muslim Population, op. cit.

12 Ibid.

13 Veit, Secularism or Democracy?, op. cit., p. 54.

14 Ibid.

15 Leni Franken, Liberal Neutrality and State Support for Religion. A Political-Philosophical Analysis, Zürich: Springer, 2016.

16 Ibid, emphasis in the original.

17 Veit, Secularism or Democracy?, op. cit., p. 226.

18 Fleur de Beaufort and Patrick van Schie, eds., Separation of Church and State in Europe, London: European Liberal Forum, 2012; Gerhard Robbers, ed., State and Church in the European Union, Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2008.

19 Rhys H. Williams, “Religion and Multiculturalism: A Web of Legal, Institutional, and Cultural Connections”, The Sociological Quarterly, Vol. 56, 2015, p. 610.

20 David Levering Lewis, God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570–1215, New York: Norton, 2008.

21 Nancy Foner and Richard Alba, “Immigrant Religion in the U.S. and Western Europe: Bridge or Barrier to Inclusion?” International Migration Review, Vol. 42, No. 2, 2008, pp. 360–392.

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23 Veit, Secularism or Democracy?, op. cit., p. 133.

24 Honneth Axel, The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts, trans. Joel Anderson, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995.

25 Nancy Fraser and A. Honneth, Redistribution or Recognition? A Political-Philosophical Exchange, London: Verso, 2003, p. 32.

26 Nancy Fraser, “Recognition Without Ethics?”, in The Culture of Toleration in Diverse Societies, ed. Catriona McKinnon and Dario Castiglione, Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2003, p. 93f, emphasis in the original.

27 W. Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 115.

28 H. Brighouse, “Against Nationalism”, in Rethinking Nationalism, ed. J. Couture, K. Nielsen, and M. Seymour, Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 1999, p. 377.

29 Brian Barry, Culture & Equality, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001, pp. 29, 278.

30 Joseph Carens, Culture, Citizenship, and Community: A Contextual Exploration of Justice as Evenhandedness, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

31 Rogers Brubaker, “Language, Religion, and the Politics of Difference”, Nations and Nationalism, Vol. 19, No. 1, 2013, p. 16.

32 Franken, Liberal Neutrality and State Support for Religion, op. cit, emphasis in the original.

33 Ibid.

34 Barry, Culture & Equality, op. cit.