The role of the woman and the woman’s body is the focus of possible cultural conflicts in Europe. As a philosopher concerned on politics and jurisdiction, your interest must be addressed to this topic involving pluralism, minorities rights and their treatment in Europe.

There are several points, one is about the constitution of identities. In situations of migration and immigration in general, and in the situation of the coexistence of cultures that don’t know each other, that are not familiar one with another, there’s always the issue of preserving the boundaries of identity. The burden of preserving identity seems to fall on the private sphere, because to the immigrant, the one that moves to other cultures, public economy and the form of the law of the state by en large seem to be what we share. Identity becomes particularly under these conditions more and more refocused on the private sphere which places women and the control over women bodies in strategic position.

Issues of identity and gender converge on the woman.

I think identity in general has to do with gender differences issues and the distinction between the boundaries of the male and female sex, but particularly under the conditions of immigration and the mixing of different cultures there is an emphasis on this “private sphere” and that is to say mainly the sphere of women, considered to be what constitutes what we are. That’s why sometimes you see such violent reactions, if the woman in minority culture or immigrant cultures suddenly breaks away, for example in the context of Islam, and wants to join the majority culture. I think that the point is to understand why there is this emphasis on the strategic and existential importance of the position of woman. When individuals from different faiths, languages and culture live together, have to live together, without sharing much in the same civic culture, they look at identity markers that they can interpretate. In this context visual communication becomes centered on things as the symbolism of the foulard, in front of which one will say “here she is, an oppressed Muslim woman”.

Which is not necessarily true. If one looks at the way women are dressed today in Cairo, Rabat, Tunis or especially in the milieu of Istanbul, someone will say we are going backwards, that there is more control over women bodies from the society.

We are dealing with a device. We are dealing with a very strong political movement which is political Islam. This is not the same thing as Islamic fundamentalism or Islamic terrorism; Taliban and al Qaeda are very extreme forms. We are dealing with the resurgence or reemergence of a kind of global political Islam, an identity assertion which is very recent. This is the paradox: the veil appears as a regression only if we assume progress to be teleological and linearly moving towards secularization, then Islam will seem as a step back. What we have to face now is that the secularization hypothesis is wrong, since there is the emergence of multiple modernities and religiosities. In a lot of Muslim countries political Islam is emerging also because they have lost faith in the project of modernity.

What about Turkey?

Turkey is a more complicated case. In many countries as Egypt, probably Tunisia, this kind of modern state building ideology that will give to the state development and prosperity has failed. The result is the emergence of political Islam and the appearance of veiled women, sometimes self-consciously. In Turkey what you have is also a class situation where a new class of Muslim entrepreneurs, a middle class that was always put aside from having power in the state by the Kemalist secular elite, has come back since the Seventies. To some extent in Turkey there’s the emergence of a new Islamic bourgeoisie and this Islamic bourgeoisie wants to assert itself.

Could this be a regression for women?

In many cases it can be. But on the other hand you have to understand that the same father who is saying to her daughter “wear your head” is also a father saying to her to go to the university to become educated. Besides the end of secularization in the West, there are also the emergence of religion and religiosities, the one of political Islam and the failing of modernizing elites.

In Europe there is a complex discussion around the dress code of Muslim women. What is going to be the condition of these women in Europe, a continent with “ Christian roots”? The encounter between the democratic liberal culture and the Catholic and Muslim ones can be filtered through the experience of secularism?

I think we should remember the cultures of the separate nations involved and try to not reduce the overall issue only to religion. Take the case of Italy and Spain. They are both catholic observant countries but Spain went more recently through the experience of Franco fascism and it has created itself in terms of a culture of opposition, especially in the Seventies. Furthermore you find in Spain regional differences and even national differences between Basque, Catalans and so on. As a national culture Spain recognizes plurality including Muslim plurality because of its own national historical experiences as a nation state. Catholicism in Spain assumes a different form right now than it does in Italy. Spain is emerging as one of the most progressive countries as far of the treatment of its minorities.

What is the original marker of the Spanish experience?

Spain recognizes officially its background as a cradle of Judaism, Catholicism and Islam in the Golden Age, in the XIII, XIV and XV centuries. Of course this ended with the Inquisition, but now there is a going back to it. You can’t focus simply at the level or religious tradition, you have to look at the civic traditions, political cultures and political institutions of a state. What is in a country that enables you to create a civic culture of coexistence, what resources do you have? I don’t think religion alone will be sufficient to do this, because religion itself is always interpreted and believed, sought in different ways. A lot of people ignore the distinction between Italy and Spain but this is a good sort of contrary example to reflect upon. I think a country’s ability to absorb larger numbers of immigrants, in this case we are focusing more on Muslims, is very much depending not only from its religion or religious orthodoxy, but is depending a lot more from its political and civic cultures and the degree to which it could interpretate its own history and be open to heterogeneity.

What about the comparison between laicité in France and in Turkey? They both have been a model of pure laicité.

In terms of laicité in Turkey it’s important to realize that laicité here means strong state influence on religion. We think it as the strict separation of the public and the private, like no religious symbols in the public sphere, but this is the simplest definition of laicité. For example, in the Usa, if the Christian community wants to have a cross in the public square for Christmas you will have also a star of David to celebrate Hanukkah and in February you will have a Kwanzaa to celebrate the African new year. This is the American model, First Amendment rights: the state doesn’t intervene in religion, the state does not prohibit it, it does not encourage it but it regulates it. Now in the Turkish and French models theoretically you will not have any of this. You will neither have the cross, the star of David, the Kwanzaa symbol.

France is now proposing a softer model of laicité; President Sarkozy calls it “ laicité positive”. In Turkey the majority is represented by Islam reformism that won the elections. Is a change going to affect these models?

All this transforming is at principles in France. You do have educational religious schools here, but only private; the Jewish or Catholic schools, and now also private Muslims schools. In these countries the big issue is what is the state founding or not founding. In Turkey you have the state educating the religious clerics called Imam that study and sing the Koran. So you have a state education of religious clerics. Turkish laicité means State direction, directoire: the state directs and channels religion. Now a big question in Turkey is whether the laicité is the same for all Turkish citizens not just the Muslim ones. As far for Christian church proprieties in Turkey there is a case in front of the European Court of Human Rights because there is the claim that the way Turkey is interpreting laicité is actually against the way the European convention of human rights – to which Turkey is a member – does. Laicité must be coupled with equal and fair treatment of all religious perspectives but it usually never is. I can’t speak much of the French case but for what I see now there is an attempt to control the religiosity of the immigrant community by building up more councils of migrants to communicate with the state; this has been true for the Jewish communities since Napoleon. They are trying to do the same thing with the Muslim, there’s a Muslim council that deals with the state directly. It’s always a question of control, being the state an institution of domination, one way or another.