If i understand you, killing hundreds of civilians, some of them muslims, with plane or bombings, or guns, is a mere act of war …
I feel that the goodwin point is being reached and i give up.
https://www.npr.org/2020/11/29/939896945/scores-killed-in-massacre-of-farmers-in-nigeria
What about killing over a million iraqis?
Secularism has surged again in the political debate in France.
As we exchanged about a commission financed by the catholic church has found how pedophilia has affected French catholic church for 70 years and the lack of reaction of the church.
Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, archbishop of Reims in eastern France and chairman of the conference of French bishops, made his comments following this report, saying that the secret of confession is above French law, but that the French law protects it.
In fact, his declaration was seen as very ill timed for many reasons.
First, for years, right wingers and conservative Catholics criticize Muslims for preferring the divine law to the law of the state And, the archbishop seems to claim same things for Catholics
Second, in fact the French law protects the secret of confession and a priest who knows a pedophilia case by confession is entitled not to report it. But if he does, French law exonerates him of any wrong doing.
Third , the research has shown that in most cases, the cases of pedophilia known by church and not reported had not been detected during confession.
My personal opinion is that:
the state law is stronger that the religious law
the state law should exclude the secret of confession in some cases, pedophilia among them
[French Catholic Church inquiry finds 216,000 paedophilia cases since 1950]
Highlight what you want to quote and hit Reply
The little pencil is the edit command.
Subtract 215 years from that.
It was an answer to this:
Yes, this is the usual response from Europeans whenever Islamists strike but it seems to be tough talk and nothing more. >
In History, French army has intervened in Africa many times. The first French establishment in Senegal was in 1659 !
But that’s far from the topic about French secularism. A pity there is no place here for Historical threads.
Laïcité is its own worst enemy. Brittle. Muslim women being legally persecuted for what they wear at the sea side. A Muslim woman in Bordeaux I recall, being granted citizenship and being publicly abused by the mayor for not being able to shake hands with him.
What is secularism?
It is the separation of church and state, no more no less.
The French state does not recognize or funds any religion and protects religious freedom. But the religions must respect the secular laws.
Everyone is free to practice one’s religion, but state and civil service must stay neutral and are not allowed to display signs or symbols of faith.
Secularism was thought in France during the Age of Enlightenment and fought for during the XIXth century to protect the state from the Catholic Church. The separation was implemented by a law in 1905, supported by the Jews and the no Catholic Christians. The fight was harsh and a break was created between church and state. The rift was healed during WWI.
The law of 1905 is a law protecting freedom and that’s why the extremists cannot live with it, such as it is.
Nowadays, in France, the situation is very difficult for many reasons. I will explain some of them.
In the past, secularism was supported by the left and is still in part. But the right and the ultra-right use the word as a tool against Islam. More, at the same time, they support Catholicism, in ways which violate secularism, for instance setting Christmas cribs in public buildings where any had never been seen since a very long time.
Many left leaning people have renounced secularism as a western, imperialistic, discriminating value. That’s pure madness when, for instance Lebanese people fight for it in a multi-confessional country.
Extremist religious people, Islamists, and I use the word Islamists, not Muslims, but also Ultra-right Catholics and others fight secularism and fight to implement the respect of their values. When the same sex wedding was allowed in France, there were demonstrations uniting them, denouncing the homosexual danger and asking the homosexual be burnt.
Hundreds of thousands of Muslims respect secularism and obey the laws, but a minority acts.
Islamists fight to implement the sharia in some districts and try to control them, becoming the only legitimate authorities. For instance, there was in a district of a north French town a public multimedia center, managed by the township, with books and activities. Everyone was welcome, and every one worked beside everyone independently from age sex or religion.
In fact Ultra-right Catholics and Islamists prepare a war and are trying to recruit people, using the propaganda of the other side to recruit.
There were riots, organized by Islamists, under the pretext that some staff members were homosexual and were contaminating the children. The mayor came to exchange and had to flee. The center was closed, staff members’ safety being compromised.
In hospitals, they asked for a strict sex separation, asking that only men care for men and only women care for women. It was denied but the matter is constant. In schools, teachers who teach natural science and history are insulted and so, children opposing the religious text to the teaching and accusing the teacher of lying.
Now about the incidents cited by martin-peter-clarke.
“Muslim women being legally persecuted for what they wear at the sea side.”
That’s not secularism, that’s racism and stupidity.
“A Muslim woman in Bordeaux I recall, being granted citizenship and being publicly abused by the mayor for not being able to shake hands with him.”
I would not have abused the woman but I would not have been happy. For the mayor to shake hands with her was to welcome her as a French citizen, and she rejected this welcome.
Around me, I have Muslims men and women. A niece of my wife has converted and wed a Muslim, the companion of my daughter is a Muslim and so. They shake hands of the people of opposite sex and give them “bisous” (traditional light kisses) when the situation calls for it. Some cover their hairs, some don’t.
The matter is that Islamists have a very special idea about women. In fact they see them as inferior, polluting and dangerous. Many ultra-orthodox religious people share these views.
In France, one of our value is that people are equal in rights, independently of their sex, among other characteristics. Islamists negate this idea and this woman negated it. Religion is a pretext to justify Misogyny.
I give an example. If someone create a religion and tells that god has decided that women must not go out from their homes without being cuffed and chained, would religion justify it?
Glad you acknowledge the institutionalized racisme. But you unwittingly perpetuate it. By the brittle intolerance in laïcité. A Muslima CANNOT shake hands with a man, Muslim or not. Except in Leicester, the UK’s first plural city, where, amazingly, in the presence of her husband, a Muslima of Pakistani heritage, offered me her hand. It was an enormous honour. Even some Muslim men won’t shake hands with a non-Muslim. She did not reject his welcome. She rejected his insistent touch. He should have known that.
Et j’aime la France. Vraiment. (I drove across it at 130 mph - over 200 kph - once : )
Islam is not one as Christianity s not one.
In France, many Muslim women shake hands with men.
Just a question : Why should not a Muslim woman shake hand with men ? Why should not a woman appears in public places unveiled ? Why should not a woman mix with men ? I could go on …
The religion is here a pretext and it is not limited to Islam.
The veil was imposed by Hammurabi’s code to free women of nubile age.
In his first letter to Corinthians, Paul says it:
For if a woman does not have her head veiled, she may as well have her hair cut off. But if it is shameful for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, then she should wear a veil. A man, on the other hand, should not cover his head, because he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; nor was man created for woman, but woman for man; for this reason a woman should have a sign of authority on her head, because of the angels. Woman is not independent of man or man of woman in the Lord.
In fact, when a religious man forbids a woman to shake hands with men, it is just a part of her status and for religious extremists, the woman is never enough hidden. And this goes with misogyny. Women pollute men by their mere presence.
Now, culturally, the woman is seen as the protector of the honor of the family. She is never enough pure and modest. And if she strays the only way for the family is to kill her. This sort of crime still exists in many parts of the word.
What i say is not racism, it is sociology. To call the cat a cat a cat is not racism.
Millions of Muslims people don’t share these views of women. And in France, most people Muslims or not, of African origins or not, we don’t. The times are changing.
To be clear, i add that my great grand mother who was not a Muslim would never had went out from her home without a hat. In her times, an hat less woman was a whore. And in the 60th, the priest of the rural church where my parents took me during holidays preached to remind women that they should cover their heads.
What you say is true. But enforcing, in fact forcing oneself in the name of, laïcité on a multiply, intersectionally oppressed minority, as the mayor did to the Muslima, is appalling.
Leicester is one third Muslim and it is not monolithically so. But there are no Shia I’m aware of although there are Ahmadiyya. They are mainly Deobandi Sunni, Kashmiri, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Indian including E. African diaspora but with many Somali, even Saudi and Palestinian. I have met all. One interacts with Muslimas professionally, very mainly in the NHS and pharmacies but also in retail where they are both traditional and totally Anglicized. No non-Muslim would dream of offering their hand to a Muslima. Or even addressing one non-professionally or without deferring to a kinsman. One does not. It would be dishonourable and inappropriate. My Senegalese woman neighbour and I exchange appropriate greetings and she always asks after my wife. I must remember to ask after her husband!
Now we are at the heart of the matter, not specially about secularism, but about universal values vs religious values.
I agreed that the major should have not berated the woman but he was entitled to be shocked.
I give an example :
-A poor white worker who is racist and makes racist propaganda will be condemned by a court in Europa. Same if he sexually assaults a woman.
I would say that to say that he should not be would be racist, implying that he is not able to understand what he is doing.
That’s not only true for secularism : sex equality, secularism, freedom of opinions, even religious ones, and every right proclaimed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 should be respected by every one !!!
[https://www.un.org/en/udhrbook/pdf/udhr_booklet_en_web.pdf]
Incidentally, the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam claims the same basic rights, except those about religious freedom and secularism and the preeminence given to the Sharia over the rights.
There’s no comparison. How could an educated Frenchman be shocked at a Muslima’s reticence?
Because, even wrongly, he understands her refusal ad a rejection of his welcome.
He is happy for her and for his town that she could get the French nationality and to underline that he gives her his hand, probably smiling. And she rejects his welcome.
I understand that it could have been a cultural misunderstanding.
Now, integrist Muslims are known not to shake women hand and to consider that the women are polluting. For him, her refusal could have been the mark that she shares this view.
Integrism is solely Catholic. Words change I know. He understood wrong. Which he didn’t. He understood fully that her refusal was a rejection of his white male sexual power.
Integrism is solely Catholic: first news ! the puritans were integrist, Islamists who want to implement the sharia are integrist. Biblic literalists who think that the bible is History and perfect dogma and want every one lives according its precepts are integrist.
One may criticize French view view but white male chauvinism is not a factor.
[https://www.quora.com/Is-shaking-hands-with-the-opposite-sex-allowed-in-Islam]
It is not permissible for a man who believes in Allah and His Messenger to put his hand in the hand of a women who is not permissible for him or who is not one of his mahrams. Whoever does that has wronged himself (i.e., sinned).
It was narrated that Ma’qil ibn Yassaar said: the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “For one of you to be stabbed in the head with an iron needle is better for him than that he should touch a woman who is not permissible for Him.*
For a man to shake hands with a non-mahram woman (one to whom he is not related) is haraam and is not permitted at all.
There is no doubt that for a man to touch a non-mahram woman is one of the causes of fitnah (turmoil, temptation), provocation of desire and committing haraam deeds. No one should say that their intention is sound or their heart is clean, because the one who was the purest of heart and the most chaste of all, the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) never touched a non-mahram woman, even when accepting bay’ah (oath of allegiance) from women.
*Some Muslims feel too embarrassed to refuse when a woman offers her hand to them. In addition to mixing with women, some of them claim that they are forced to shake hands with fellow-students and teachers in schools and universities, or with colleagues in the workplace, or in business meetings and so on, but this is not an acceptable excuse.
According to Islam, human sexuality and all of it expressions are meant to serve exclusively one sacred purpose: family life and its essential functions such as reproduction. Therefore Muslim men and women are required to avoid any situation or action that might possibly funnel any of the physical or physiological expressions of their sexuality into areas outside married life. That’s why women are enjoined to cover their body outside home and act modestly to reduce to zero the chance of sexually attracting stranger men during their social interactions. This guarantees marital loyalty and prevents human sexuality to operate in ways other than its fore-mentioned sacred legitimate function.
The reason why this practice seems strange nowadays to most is because of the dominant secular culture of our time. Indeed nowadays the modern man has declined spiritually and morally so low to be not only blind to the sacred foundations of our nature and practical implications thereof, but has even perverted into normalizing and legalizing such obscene practices as nudity, homosexuality and pornography as in the so called Sexual Revolution of the 1970s.
In fact, a woman and a man cannot shake hands in Islam because it would create desire and temptation.
Islam reduces men and women to their sex and to being objects of temptation for the other sex, specially women. In my mind, it is a very reductive view of men and women.
If a white male said that women must cover themselves no to tempt men, he would be justly criticized as a
chauvinistic male pig. Women have other attributes and qualities.
Why to reduce them to sex object, and why to imagine that male cannot see that and only can see them as sex objects?
And please, don’t project your ideas and view of the world, when it is irrelevant, as in this on this situation. This woman had her reasons not to shake hand, but i could safely bet that white male power was fully out from the situation, from both people. I stay polite.
If to offer shake hand to welcome some one in a community is a manifestation of white male power, white males should commit suicide, as i don’t see what social interaction could not be seen as such.
Incidentally, a Muslim male has been condemned by a court, because he refused to shake hand with a woman, a prefect, an official civil servant.
In fact, such a refusal is seen as a symbol of a refusal of sharing the values of the French community, sex equality among them.
The refusal of shaking hands during the welcoming ceremony which is a very symbolic time, is specially shocking. If freshly acquired the French nationality, acquired freshly, can be legally withdrawn. The French Council of State, the highest French administrative court has judged so.
This ceremony has been instituted by the law, ( article 21-28 du Code civil ) , to show the new French people that they are becoming fully French. It is a very symbolic moment and the refusal of shaking hand is seen as refusal of France. In fact, it is seen as an affirmation that, for the woman, religious law prevails over the French state law.
And we are back to secularism.
Do you have links on non-Catholic integrism?
In the UK such brittle behaviour cannot happen. Nobody is forced to shake hands.
What about them? Where is the term integrism used in any of those?
Sin is abuse of power. The mayor sinned.
For me, fundamentalism is another word for integrism, but the ways are the sames.