Republican universalism
The republican universalism is one of the principles Corollaire S of the republican Idéologie E Frenchwoman according to which the République is an universal value since she preaches universal values.
These universal values , whose principles of Freedom, equality of the individuals within the Republic, and of Fraternity,
- have vocation to be adopted by all human the
- are supposed to apply to all the human ones uniformly.
Evolution
In the name of republican universalism, are rejected, today, the Discrimination S of some natures which they are: Racism, religion, of sex or sexual orientation. But it always was not in the same way.Indeed, the appreciation of republican universalism today is not that of its origins, when the combat against slavery or the right to vote for the women, to take only these examples, did not go from oneself.
Moreover the republican universalism generally induced the Francization, French being regarded by the fathers of the French revolution as the language of freedom.
The Republic was then universalist with the direction which its values were to be essential on all.
Republican universalism and international law
The same principles of liberty and of equality are contained in the various international declarations of the United Nations, against discriminations, declarations which never refer to republican universalism, but, on the other hand, are opened with the cultural and linguistic differences, the protection of the Minorité S.However the French Republic denies the existence of the minorities in France, with the name even of republican universalism, as testify some the reserves constantly issued on this subject, reserves:
- in article 27 of the international Pact relating to the political civil laws and
- and to article 30 of the International convention of the rights of the child):
It is thus noted that the international authorities and universal recommend the protection of the minorities, and that France refuses this protection in the name of its French republican specificity and of a " Universalism " who hardly exceeds his borders.
Republican universalism is thus universal only in France.
Republican Universalism in practice
The origin: The French revolution
Jewish community
At the time of the debate on the emancipation of the Jewish S in 1791, Stanislas of Clermont-Thunder said: “It is necessary all to grant to the Jews like individuals and nothing as nation” (one at the time spoke about Jewish nation like today of community ). This sentence is often quoted like illustration of republican universalism. After the signature of the decree of emancipation of the Jews the Revolution required of the rabbis to lend the revolutionary oath like community. Thus a double practice was established. On a side, the requirement of republican universalism consists in requiring to be detached from its memberships to reach the universal one. In parallel, the majority one does not have a problem since the ambient culture and the work of the institutions adapt to its membership. For example, a catholic has fifty-eight " days; fériés" per annum related to its religion (fifty-two Sundays plus six bank holidays).
The female condition
Question raised by Maxime Foerster in his study on republican Universalism and sexuality: At the time of the French revolution, at the time of the emergence of the republic and principle of the equality of all in front of the law, how can one on a side émanciper the citizens Jewish, Protestant, to free the slaves, which is completely in the logic of republican universalism and at the same time to exclude the women?The introduction of a first threshold of laicization in France, i.e. the French revolution and the Napoleonean centring, does not bring anything in this field, on the contrary. The Revolution granted to the women certain civil laws and to the married women the right to divorce. But the “projections” are “about private, in the family sphere but not in the political arena, as Talleyrand in 1791 justifies it: `If we recognize the same rights to them that to the men, it is necessary to give them the same means of making use of it. If we think that their share must be only domestic happiness and the duties of the interior life, it makes limit them early to fill this destination'” (E. Gaulier, p; 53). On the contrary, the Revolution means “the exheredation of the woman”: “under the Old Mode, the noble women, to the head of strongholds, could return justice and were invested attributes of sovereignty as well as the men; the women of the third-state took part in addition in the assemblies” (O. Bui-Xuan, French public law between universalism and differencialism, Economia, 2004,42).
Colonialism
The law of 1905 and colonies
In its article, Laënnec Hurbon highlights the hesitations of republican universalism when it must apply out of the Metropolitan France: The discrepancy citizen/slave that of French/prone citizen replaces (native), at the time of the abolition of the slavery in the colonies, which carefully avoided making former slaves of the citizens. Curiously indeed - and such is the problem that the republican idea does not cease meeting on its way - colonized take again the place of “subjects” which had been that of the French under the royalty, like if the condition of citizen, implying what is called “the levelling presupposition” was a dangerous mark, subversive against any tendency to establish a republic impériale. The law of 1905 and colonies Paris, French company of history of Overseas (Overseas, 93), 2005,334 p. Laënnec Hurbon (Special issue of the review Overseas).
Republican universalism in Algeria
Principles of assimilation posed at the end of the XIXe century, and the way in which IIIe République was organized, aimed at homogenizing the French legal national body: black school handbooks and “hussards”, independence vis-a-vis the monk and with the fight against the Church, setting with the variation of the dialects and the local patois and assertion of an administrative State (and cultural…) centralized. The republican assimilationnism was born. These elements, designed like universal republican principles, are exported in the colonies at this time. This “export” of ideological values accompanies the economic sentence of expansion by French nationalism. The principles of this néo-universalism can all the more apply in Algeria, that this territory is considered, since 1848, like recipient of France.
On a side, a strategy assimilitionnist is advanced which aims to the gathering of all the individuals removed from particularisms, in conformity with the laws and proclaimed principles of the republican equality, citizen. But on another side, a strategy differentialist and segregationist are implemented, based on the idea that there exist men and women different. In fact, “French Algeria” seems slogan, ideological watchword proclaimed by the European minority. Vis-a-vis a posted assimilationnism spreads the application of the differentialism: membership of the Islamic religion being perceived like too far away from “Western civilization”. As for the republican assimilation, it will result in a will of depersonalization. In Algeria, the principles of the Republic are not “comparable”; one finishes by having to lose itself to be able to exist.
Until half of the XXe century, French nationalism will shelter under the masks of the republican universalime. The fights of decolonization of years 1950-1960 tear this “protection”, and reveal this universalism like nationalism. A shock occurs between two nationalisms: a type “universal layman”, and another in “Community, religious” matter (Algerian nationalism). In the war of Algeria, the attitudes are perceived more clearly. Those which hold of the speeches on republican universalism (in particular certain leaders of the French left) reveal to be only simple reproducers of the French nationalism of the 19th century. In the name of the universal one, they manufacture national… the misunderstanding is dissipated definitively at the end of the war of Algeria. The partisans of French Algeria, gathered OAS, recruit themselves exclusively in the rows of the extreme right-hand side, in France.
One attends a transfer of the problems on the metropolitan territory. What existed on the Algerian territory at the time of the colonies is found posed in France, thirty years afterwards. The extreme force of the speeches assimilationnist of holding pure and hard of the Republic has only one aim: to mark the infinite distance which it remains to traverse with the Moslems to melt itself completely in the French company. In other words, the speeches assimiliationnists place “the bar so high” which they show an impossible integration. One finds the strategy of the differentialism implemented in colonial Algeria which consisted in creating delimited spaces (urban…), since the difference was considered to be irreducible.
Immigration Maghrebian, and more particularly Algerian, tests the feeling that this republicanism, very particular, failed in colonial Algeria. What led to separatism (thus with independence and nationalism) is the report of an absence of operation of the Republic (absence of equality citizen) at the time colonial. Fifty years after, of the declared partisans of a false model of the Republic proceed, again, with blows of summations assimilationists. Consequently, several reactions are observable in the mediums resulting from Algerian immigration. The first attitude consists with suspecter a priori any Republic inspired of the Occident to bring “slavery” or the depersonalization. The idea of the Republic is then rejected. This refusal leads to the religious resourcings, on an attraction of the Community values. The second attitude sees in the Republic a system which was used by the nationalists of the colonized countries, to emerge from the colonial mode (reversal of the principles of equality against the colonizer). The two aspects cohabit. They generate a very contradictory perception of the Republic, which is currently particulièment sensitive in the banlieux Frenchwomen. The first saw the catch of French naturalization like a “treason”; the second, very largely majority, tries to reconcile two stories: it rejects a colonial Republic assimiliationnist, and wants the respect of the levelling republican principles which accept the diversity of origin, protect the freedom of the worship. Thus is rebuilt, slowly, the memory of the colonial past.
The current society
Union or standardization?
Many modern thinkers try to solve possible contradiction between union and standardization.In theory, universalism implies the standardization by no means. The diversity of cultural models, that it is of family, property, of Community life, etc is not only legitimate since the intangibility of the rights remains assured, but essential to their effectivity. More largely, the perception of the human rights cannot thus be freed from the contexts historical, economic, social and, synthetically, cultural: the universality is only one form empty and misleading when she claims to abstract herself some. It thus acts more than ever to articulate the private individuals and the universal one, or rather to make its place in the singular… thus associate dialectically, because they are in truth inseparable, cultural pluralism and universalisme.
Jean-Pierre Dubois, public Law professor at the University of Paris XI Assistant general secretary of the FIDH " Right universalization, universalism and culturels"
Communautarisme Vs Défense of the minorities
Commission on secularity
Henri Pena-Ruiz, philosopher and writer defending the values of solidarity, became a specialist in the questions of secularity which it poses like base of the universality. It is for this reason that it was in 2003, one of the twenty members of the commission on the secularity chaired by Bernard Stasi.
Henri Pena-Ruiz class belief in the row of the " options spirituelles" , as well as agnosticism and atheism. He is opposed to the instrumentalisation of the religion, that which leads to the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, and wants to give to secularity all his dimension universalist. In " God and Marianne" , it develops a philosophy of secularity. Marianne not being neither atheistic nor believing, it is the Republic which offers the most freedom to the religious beliefs. But one should not especially concede with the religions the right to contribute to the decisions of a political nature.
Secularity, it is the freedom of conscience related to the equal treatment of that which believes in the sky and that which does not believe in it. The common laws thus draw a public sphere devoted to the only general interest. To make prevail what links on what divides, it is to found a peace authentique.
The laic State, refusing any public privilege with particularisms, does not recognize any religion and does not devote any atheism. It is shown thus open and accessible with all, without discrimination.
Extract of " To dare to reaffirm the laïcité" , by Henri Pena-Ruiz:
Secularity primarily consists in making of the entire people, without privilege nor discrimination, the reference of the political community. This one deserves, consequently, its name of Republic, thing common to all: no obliged creed, no clerical privilege. The clergy of a particular religion is not disputed as much as it is satisfied to manage the things of the faith for those which recognize such a role freely to him.
It is to say that the laic republic does not fear, but calls well rather, the critical spirit. We are with the antipodes of a community which supports solidarity only by fixing the consciences.
Contributions of republican Universalism
The theory of republican Universalism is that the Republic guarantees the equality of all. The State is neutral with respect to social, philosophical or religious influences, while allowing each one to preserve the thoughts which are his. Consequently no specificity can be taken into account in the public laws or payments.
Some hear this notion as a design subjective of nationality, founded on the will freely expressed of a common future and not on criteria of language, of geographical religion or ethnic origins or.
In Republic, all the citizens must enjoy the same rights. This equality is the best guaranteed of their freedom. It implies the spiritual neutrality of the public institutions, thus equipped with an authentic legitimacy. If the laic Republic refuses with any public privilege of the religions or atheism, it is for better promoting what imports with all the men: justice, health, instruction, culture.
If the Republic refuses to take into account the differences, it respects them.
Il thus has there a division between the values common to the whole of the company and which constitute " L" universalism républicain" and specificities of all natures which remain about the private life.
Drifts in the name of Republican Universalism
Like all the ideologies, it involves the risk to deform reality to correspond to its principles and its forms. Thus, certain followers of this ideology extend the field of this universalism until the negation of straight to the difference - some speak about attempt at depersonalization - (see for example Observatoire of the communautarism and Alain Soral), thus denying the existence of minorities such as that of the national minorities in France (this comes from a design of the state based on the principle " A language, people, a nation, a état" - all the situations nonin conformity with this principle are denied even removed).
Criticisms of the concept of Republican Universalism
This design is largely criticized today: The “universal republican” has bad press. In the public life, it is always described besides as “abstract”, which condemns it explicitly or implicitly. It is important thus to include/understand what it was without to caricature it but without to idealize it retrospectively, to analyze what were its virtues but also the bad uses which could be made about it, and the interrogations that he causes aujourd'hui.
- " The universal republican revisité" - Dominique SCHNAPPER
Some enfermement see one in the incapacity to call into question or to reconcevoir the principles of republican Universalism.
The objections made with the principles of republican Universalism are declined according to several axes:
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*L' inequality existing in fact in the company calls into question the principle even of the laws and uniform payments towards the citizens. It is necessary to take into account the plurality and the diversity of the company.
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* Benjamin Stora clearly highlights impostures related to this concept: As for the republican assimilation, it will result in a will of depersonalization. In Algeria, the principles of the Republic are not “comparable”; one finishes by having to lose itself to be able to exist.
- Until half of the XXe century, French nationalism will shelter under the masks of republican universalism. The fights of decolonization of years 1950-1960 tear this “protection”, and reveal this universalism like nationalism. A shock occurs between two nationalisms: a type “universal layman”, and another in “Community, religious” matter (Algerian nationalism).
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* Gilles Manceron, editor association of the review of the League of the human rights, Men and Freedoms, encircles particularly, in " Marianne and colonies" , this “republican paradox” which led to the invention of a “faked universalism” distinguishing the white men civilized from the wild natives. A “counterfeit” which continued until the middle of the XXe century, with a “astonishing continuity”, and which we let us have, today still, well evil to be explained to the pupils of the colleges and colleges. Fault of being removed from this “falsification” that it maintained, our republican speech will continue, affirms Manceron, of being “carrying a fundamental ambiguity”.
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*Conclusion of the test of Maxime Foerster: Republican universalism is an abstract design of the citizenship which consists in saying that the best way of not discriminating a citizen is to define it by disregarding its race, its religion, its political opinions, its sexual orientation, its sex. It is in makes try to obtain, through the citizen, a free vision of electron completion not surdéterminé by characteristics which could the catégoriser.
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*Une critical sociological of the concept of republican universalism is also possible.
Taguieff well also says it when he affirms that “the “drifts denounced communautarists” are always those of a group other than the group of membership of the denouncer. The “communautarist”, it is the different one. ” They is thus you who will determine which are the “facts communautarists”, according to the criteria which will be yours, and in particular when, as a group of citizens carrying the values which you defend, you feel reached (it is not me which says it, but yourselves which speak about “attack”) by the otherness of groups expressing of the memberships which seem to you incompatible with the membership of the French nation.
- See the continuation of the article " The opening of the multiplicité" by rear David Rouz
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*Vu from abroad, the principle of republican Universalism is seen like related with a religion (the expression " Republicanism transcendental" is used) whose central thesis is that the equality removes discriminations. But this equality supposes the abandonment of the characteristics. Thus the Süddeutsche Zeitung advances this comment: … It would be to make wrong to the republicans as Pena-Ruiz to suppose that they do not subscribe in good faith to the idea that the French Republic is a business which is addressed to the universal man and in which all the characteristics must be erased for the community property. On another side, it is also clear that this idea always confuses the universal man and France, and is unaware of the rest of the world pitilessly. Universalism is thus not the solution with the exclusion which strikes the Arabs and the Blacks. By its ethnocentrism disguised in logic of the reason, it is itself the problem.
Current progress of the concept of republican Universalism
Being based on criticisms of republican Universalism, of new reflections propose to integrate the unifying approach and the taking into account of reality in its various forms. The unification seems then more a will of union that like a reducing standardization.
The law on the parity
The reflection on the condition of the woman resulted in calling into question the republican Universalism of the origins due to sexism before the letter.
The current proposals and measurements tend to correct this cultural skew:
I have two proposals to make. The first would consist in replacing, in the French Constitution, the Declaration of 1789 by that of Olympe de Gouges, since it contains all that this Declaration affirms and the basic element of the equality of the kinds adds to it. It would be logical with the introduction of the parity, not? Olympe de Gouges could besides, well better than Evelyne Thomas and tutti quanti, being portraitized and to become the new bust of Marianne.
The second proposal would be that the “Natives of the Republic” or others write a Declaration of the rights while taking as a starting point that by Mrs. de Gouges and by applying it to their situation. It would be beautiful work.
The law on the parity - in spite of the debates - allows, at least symbolically, to call into question the male primacy.
Perhaps is necessary it from now on to rather seek the unit by diversity than by a factitious homogeneity. It is all the direction of the law on the parity which, beyond the equality in policy which it founds, is given for ambition to promote, by the exemplarity, the place of the women in the company. … If republican universalism and the equality citizen found our engagement of young Socialists, we choose to think this universalism like tension and not contained demagogic, like the horizon of our combat.
We prefer to leave reality.
" For the parité" on the site of " The Gauche" young person;
S.O.S Homophobie
Association S.O.S Homophobie falls under the objective of a tolerant unit to the differences.The objectives of S.O.S homophobie are not to in no case communautarists but lie on the contrary within the scope of republican universalism.
We ask only for the end of exclusion and an equal respect for all the people, whatever of their real or supposed sexual orientation.
- Because homosexuality remains still a reason of discrimination, exclusion, aggression as much as a subject taboo…
- Because various forms of homophobie and their consequences are still insufficiently known…
- Because the educational programs treat still not enough homophobie…
- Because it is not easy for a professor to tackle with the pupils the questions of sexual orientation whereas one touches with the field of the close friend…
- Because to speak to the pupils about the difficulties and of the rights of homosexual by respecting the sensitivities of each one is not an easy act…
CV anonymities
Designs similar to republican universalism
In Turkey: Kémalisme
Mustafa Kemal, “the Father of the Turks” (Atatürk), founder and first president of the Turkish Republic, engaged its country on the way of occidentalization. Pierre-Jean Luizard, historian with the Group of sociology of the religions and secularity (GSRL), reconsiders a secularity which is often source of misunderstandings.
As from 1924, Mustafa Kemal made secularity the principle founder of republican the Turkey news born on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. Did this event put this country on the track of an inescapable bringing together with increasingly secularized Europe? Or, on the contrary, didn't Turkey express, since, a configuration which well more attaches it to the other Moslem countries, where the elites laic or laicizing, which they are denominational and/or soldiers, were always authoritative? The examples of Tunisia de Bourguiba, of the Baath in Iraq and Syria, or of Iran of the shah illustrate it well.
Before Mustafa Kemal, secularity had come to the Young Turks at the beginning of the XXe century by the channel from the freemasons from the Grand Lodge of France de France. But, while being acclimatized to radically different contexts, the ideas are often modified in-depth. For Mustafa Kemal, it was a question of making that Turkey escapes the fate reserved for the unit from a Muslim world then colonized by the European powers: by adopting the values of the winners, it saved his country of the European domination and was essential like interlocutor impossible to circumvent.
If the traumatism of the laic reforms of Atatürk in spite of were very accepted by the population, it is also because a new ethnic identity, Turkish, was promoted, to replace old, Moslem.
However, Turkish secularity is not a secularity of separation: the State keeps a meddlesome control on official Islam and it integrated the essence of the corpus of Islam reformist, was born in reaction with the European domination and became the dominant ideology in the Muslim world. The civil society burst in contrasted spheres: elites and town middle-classes of laic culture increasingly Europeanized on a side, and masses it rural population or of rural origin, attached to a popular Islam and/or reformist of the other. New Moslem, intellectual and economic elites, appeared.
Turkey seems to juxtapose the dynamic contradictory ones, without it being possible to affirm which will override the other. The Turkish army is considered the guarantor of the dogma laic kemalist and they is for this reason that it intervened directly to prevent religious parties, then openly islamist, to gain the elections.
In Syria and Iraq: Baasisme
The Baath ism is an ideology based on progressionism, secularity and the panarabism.Following French republican universalism, Baasisme uses the concept of secularity to alleviate the religious tensions in the countries of the Middle East. However, Baasisme defends a vision of secularity different from French comprehension:
We do not approve atheism and we do not encourage it. We consider it stripped of any authenticity. It is a false, malefic and misleading standpoint, because to live means to believe, and the atheist deludes us when he says a thing and another believes about it… Because it is obvious that it believes in certain things, in certain values. We regard atheism as a pathological symptom, and it is necessary to discover the causes of them to produce remedy there. One should not have recourse to repression, because this one would not make move back atheism, but on the contrary would contribute to its development. But if we discover tired cause atheism, we will be able to make so that it disappears.
I affirmed that atheism concerned a false attitude, wanting to say by there that the atheist did not make coincide his acts and his words. The revolt against the religion in Europe east in itself a religion. It takes as a starting point ideals and by human values. In fact, we could compare it to an authentic religious movement. There is not a doubt that this revolt carried in germ a creativity and a spirit of reform which enabled him to upset the companies and the individuals, to lead them to better know and discover trickeries with which one had bernés them so a long time. It delivered them, it released their direction of human and their individuality. Such an attitude is however inadequate. Because the revolution, in the incentive to reject the religion, revealed only half of the problem to them. It is true that, in the actual position of the things, the religion poses problem, and contributes to increase their misery and their constraint; but when the people are really waked up and when they recover their dignity, atheism is not enough for them any more. They will have to take a step moreover. They will find then what they miss: a religion healthy, clear, just, in perfect agreement with its main objectives.
“Our point of view on the Religion - March 1956”.
Tunisian approach of secularity
The Islamic veil is interdict in certain countries with Moslem majority like Tunisia or Turkey.
Design of secularity in Algeria
In the colonies, where French secularity meets Islam, the policy of the Republic is marked by ambiguity. In Algeria, integral part of the Republic until 1962, the law of 1905 envisages the full application of the principles of secularity. But, by the means of derogatory decrees on enforcement of a law taken by the governorship of Algeria, a mode of exception is implemented with a code of the indigénat which maintains the personal status Moslem or Jew. The stating of laic republican principles and their derogatory application on a given territory are revealing of a contradiction specific to the French colonial State. This process prohibits any blooming of Moslem theology in a laic environment.
During colonization, the ulemas claim a laic statute which will enable them to escape control colonial authorities. This is however not taken again at the time of the declaration of independence. Article 2 of the first Algerian constitution stipulated: “Islam is religion of State”.
Opposed to Islamism, holding them of secularity are the partisans of a secular Arabism which imposes on Kabilie a forced Arabisation, source of important tensions.
In the United States: diversity
In the United States, diversity is constitutive of the company. Two advantages: the difference is not only tolerated but is not regarded as natural; more minorities can continue to obtain a treatment tending to the equality in fact.
On the other hand the absence of universalism does not go without problem as this extract of a discussion with Jean Baubérot shows it, honorary president of the School practices high studies and holder of the single pulpit of French higher education devoted to secularity: I would like to start from a paragraph of the World dated October 9th, 2003 all the more significant for me that it recuts some of my discussions with Americans, colleagues professors or defenders of the human rights. It gives an account of a proposal put forth in California to eliminate from the Constitution of the State the ethnic or religious references in the official documents. The immediate reaction of a French is to approve such a decision. However, on the other side of the Atlantic, the proposal was fought by militants of the civic rights. According to them, the disappearance of these references was likely not to more make it possible to take care of the equal rights or chances whatever the ethnic membership. The means of achieving the same goals thus differs radically in France and in the United States. In France, the average employee on the other side of the Atlantic appears or horrible or bad éthiquement, whereas in the United States that tends to be the opposite. My first reflection consists in requiring of me, per hour universalization, per hour when it is very easy to have contacts, why each one camps on its positions in the belief that its manner of seeing the things is universal and why we cannot engage of the more precise discussions. In France, the only fact of speaking about ethnicity appears as already to compose with people who would be very doubtful éthiquement. I hear well that one should not solidify anybody in ethnic characteristics. I well also hear that people can have a clean individuality, remotely of their origins. I would thus say indeed that I do not disavow the French concerns in the field. It does not prevent. City-School-integration Stakes, n° 135, December 2003 DISCUSSION WITH JEAN BAUBÉROT
References
See too
Related articles
- Universalism
- Feminism, when he affirms the equality man-woman
- Homosexualité
- opposite Notions (in the negative direction): Communautarisme, Racism, Discrimination, Sexism
- opposite Concepts (in the positive direction): Cultural diversity, Right of the national minorities
External bond
- a selection of texts on universalism and secularity
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