A person who tries to determine what is and is not part of a given religion is called a theologian. A government whose membership and laws reflect the will of theologians is called a theocracy. Lawmakers in Turkey, France, and Iran have decided that a woman’s covering her hair in public is part of a religion, Islam. France, Turkey and Iran, ruled by theocrats, are theocracies in the purest sense.
The nature of a government is not determined by the laws it produces, but by the methodologies it uses to arrive at legislation. Iran, France, and Turkey enact different hijab laws, but they use the same theocratic methodology to do so in each case. In Iran, clerics read religious texts and arrive at the conclusion that the hijab is a part of Islam and on this basis mandate it in the public sphere. In France, lawmakers read the speeches of Muslim clerics and decide that the hijab is a part of Islam; and they then go on to ban it in their public schools.
It is rather amusing to see French and Turkish lawmakers fail so miserably to see a near truism; that secular governments cannot, by their very nature, peddle in religious jurisprudence. Of course, the proper way to fight against asinine French laws is to turn them on their heads. Religious leaders in France should start declaring random items to be religious mandates. eg: “Our scholars have determined that all believers must wear orange on even days and khaki on odd days. We thank all believers who comply with this ruling in public schools as a symbol of their faith.” I wonder how long it would take for Parisian theocracts to place guards at school-house gates ready to turn away the unsuspecting khaki clad acolyte in the holy name of laicite…
God bless the truly secular American system, where the government is mandated with no higher task than to protect my right to dress, pray, and live as I please with no regard to my religious affiliation or lack thereof. What curious times, where French theocrats rule over a mostly secular society and America’s real secular democrats rule over a predominantly religious one. On Friday, I will attend a Muslim service on Capitol Hill, an act unthinkable for Muslims in Turkey. Curious indeed.
Watch as Spanish film-maker Xavi Sala exposes the tortured logic of Spanish pseudo-secularism:
