NOTES TO PAGES 60–68ford: Stanford University Press, 1996), 1–78; and idem,Rogues: Two Essays on Reason, trans. Pascale-
Anne Brault and Michael Naas (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005).
- Jacques Derrida, ‘‘Autoimmunity: Real and Symbolic Suicides,’’ inPhilosophy in a Time
of Terror: Dialogues with Ju ̈rgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida, ed. Giovanna Borradori (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2003), 120. - Ibid., 121.
- Derrida,Rogues, 28.
- For a sobering overview, see Philippe Sands,Lawless World: Making and Breaking Global
Rules(Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 2005). - I am thinking not of U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s laconic ‘‘Stuff happens’’
but of his sophisms relating to the fabricated ‘‘evidence’’ of WMDs (weapons of mass destruction)
in Iraq after the invasion: ‘‘Simply because you do not have evidence that something exists does not
mean that you have evidence that it doesn’t exist.’’ And again, ‘‘Absence of evidence is not the
evidence of absence.... There are thing we know that we know. There are known unknowns; that
is to say there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns.
There are things we do not know we don’t know’’ (cited in Roger Cohen, ‘‘Rumsfeld Is Correct:
The Truth Will Get Out,’’ inThe International Herald Tribune, June 7, 2006). Whether consciously
or unconsciously, Rumsfeld seems to have been quoting Carl Sagan, who identifies this as the fallacy
of ‘‘the appeal to ignorance—the claim that whatever has not been proved false must be true, and
vice versa (e.g.,There is no compelling evidence that UFOs are not visiting the earth, therefore UFOs
exist—and there is intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe.. .). This impatience with ambiguity can
be criticized in the phrase: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence’’ (Sagan,The Demon-
Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark[New York: Ballantine Books, 1996], 213). - Derrida,Rogues, 102.
- Ibid., 101, trans. modified.
- Samuel Weber,Targets of Opportunity: On the Militarization of Thinking(New York:
Fordham University Press, 2005) andTheatricality as Medium(New York: Fordham University
Press, 2004). - Rafael Sa ́nchez, ‘‘Channel-Surfing: Media, Mediumship, and State Authority in the Marı ́a
Lionza Possession Cult (Venezuela),’’ inReligion and Media, ed. de Vries and Weber, 388–434.
151.Laı ̈cite ́et Re ́publique: Rapport de la Commission de re ́flexion sur l’application du principe
de laı ̈cite ́dans la Re ́publique remis au Pre ́sident de la Re ́publique le 11 de ́cembre 2003, Commission
preside ́e par Bernard Stasi(Paris: La Documentation Franc ̧aise, 2004).
152.The New York Times, December 19, 2003. For representative documentation of the whole
affair, see: Jean-Michel Helvig, ed.,La Laı ̈cite ́de ́voile ́e: Quinze anne ́es de de ́bat en quarante ‘‘Re ́bonds’’
(Paris: Libe ́ration, E ́ditions de l’aube, 2004); Pierre Te ́vanian,Le Voile me ́diatique: Un Faux De ́bat:
‘‘L’Affaire du foulard islamique’’(Paris: Raisons d’agir, 2005); Alain Renaut and Alain Touraine,Un
De ́bat sur la laı ̈cite ́(Paris: Stock, 2005); and Olivier Roy,La Laı ̈cite ́face a`l’Islam(Paris: Stock, 2005). - Miche`le Lamont and E ́loi Laurent, ‘‘France Shows Its True Colors,’’ inThe International
Herald Tribune, June 6, 2006. - For further development of this topic, see Yolande Jansen,Stuck in a Revolving Door:
Secularism, Assimilation, and Democratic Pluralism(Amsterdam: Eigen Beheer, 2006). - Talal Asad,Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and
Islam(Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993) andFormations of the Secular: Chris-
tianity, Islam, Modernity(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003).
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