LAI ̈CITE ́negotiation, as signs of an integration that preserved the agency of the migrants them-
selves, now Touraine had concluded that the girls and organizations defending the scarf
were proposing, in the same bargain, an undesirablecommunautarisme.^17 According to
this reasoning, the scarf has become the sign of a segregationistcommunautarisme,orof
‘‘political Islam,’’ which is frequently used as a synonym. It is no longer seen as an aspect
of a possibly private Islamic belief, and options less dependent on the public-private
divide are not taken into account.
One might ask a few questions here about diagnosis and treatment. If we are con-
cerned with violence perpetrated against women in the name of specific religious claims,
should our answer take the form of a general prohibition of ‘‘conspicuous religious signs’’
at school? Why not concentrate on providing Islamic women with as many possibilities
for participation in the larger society as possible, instead of putting this participation at
risk when they wear a headscarf?^18 Why not concentrate on issues of ghettoization, eco-
nomic exclusion, and the incapacity of the educational system to deliver inclusion for
everyone? Why is the idea of political religion, or, more generally, ofcommunautarisme,
perceived as so problematic that even its harmless symbols, like scarves and kippas, must
be prohibited?^19
Here, I think we must refer back to the cultural meaning oflaı ̈cite ́, which not only
problematizes a duty to belong, but all kinds of belonging to ‘‘communities’’ smaller than
the nation, which are perceived as competing with citizenship and therefore as problem-
atic, as traditionalist, and something that should be overcome. The committee sometimes
forgot that its primary concern was thedevoir d’appartenanceof the oppressed girls and
squarely returned to a concern with the appearance of religion in public places. This is
apparent, for example, when the report states that the headscarf affairs have symbolized
the ‘‘delicate questions’’ posed by the wish to realize ‘‘la conciliation entre liberte ́de
conscience et exigences de la neutralite ́du service public [the reconciliation of the free-
dom of conscience with the demands of the neutrality of the public sphere].’’ The com-
mittee’s slippage into the old problematic might explain why, if theproblemis girls being
forced to wear the signs of belonging to a separate community, thesolutionis thought to
lie in the prohibition of headscarves in schools.
The heritage of oldlaı ̈cite ́’s problematically abstract distinction between freedom and
belonging becomes more apparent when we analyze in detail the Stasi committee’s general
normative standpoint on the desirable relation betweenlaı ̈cite ́andcommunautarisme.We
have already noted that the committee distances itself from the classical Republican politi-
cal philosophical tradition, which defended the unity of the social body and perceived
difference as ‘‘threatening.’’^20 Yet the report is reluctant actively to endorse diversity. It
deploys passive constructions or indefinite pronouns like ‘‘certains [some people]’’:
Aujourd’hui la diversite ́est parfois pre ́sente ́e sous un jour positif; le respect des droits
culturels est revendique ́par certains qui les conside`rent comme un aspect essentiel dePAGE 483483.................16224$ CH24 10-13-06 12:36:36 PS