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NOTES TO PAGES 495–97

English, and Samia Touati for our day spent together in the summer of 2003 and for her comments
on an earlier version of this article.

Talal Asad, Trying to Understand French Secularism

note: I am grateful to a number of friends for comments on various versions of this essay:
Mustapha Alem, Jonathan Boyarin, Marcel Detienne, Baber Johansen, Mahmood Mamdani, Ruth
Mas, Gyan Pandey, Nathaniel Roberts, David Scott, Markha Valenta, and Peter van der Veer. They
should not, of course, be taken as endorsing my views.

1. It is important to keep in mind the distinction between what one thinks a liberal democracy
   shoulddo and what actually happens in liberal democracies. Thus in the most modern liberal
   democracy, the United States, in a number of the constituent states Americans who are convicted
   felons have no right to vote in national elections even after they have served their sentences. This
   situation has many critics in the United States, but no one, to my knowledge, has argued that such
   inequality undermines the integrity and stability of the nation. Perhaps even more striking is the
   disqualification of citizens residing in the District of Columbia (in which the national capital is
   located) from voting for the president.


2. S. Harding and D. Phillips,Contrasting Values in Western Europe, cited in Grace Davie,
   Religion in Modern Europe(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 7.


3. See Henri Tincq, ‘‘Constitution europe ́enne: La De ́faite du ‘parti chre ́tien,’ ’’Le Monde,
   June 28, 2004.


4. ‘‘La laı ̈cite ́garantit atoutes les options spirituelles ou religieuses le cadre le ́gal propice a
   cette expression. Sans nier l’he ́ritage de l’histoire, en particulier du rationalisme grec et du legs
   jude ́o-chre ́tien, elle leur permet de trouver leur place [Secularism guarantees to all spiritual or
   religious options the legal framework favorable to that expression. Without denying the heritage of
   history, in particular of Greek rationalism and of the Judeo-Christian legacy, it allows them to find
   their place]’’ (Laı ̈cite ́et Re ́publique, Commission pre ́side ́e par Bernard Stasi[Paris: La Documentation
   franc ̧aise, 2004], 33).


5. Rodrigo de Zayas, ‘‘Le Pre ́ce ́dent des morisques d’Espagne,’’ inLes Ge ́nocides dans l’histoire,
   Manie`re de voir 76,Le Monde diplomatique, August-September 2004, 7.


6. Ibid., 36.


7. See John Bowen, ‘‘Muslims and Citizens, France’s Headscarf Controversy,’’Boston Review
   (February/March 2004). This is also a useful overview of the controversy.


8. Valuable social research had even been done following the earlier headscarf crisis in 1989.
   In the first book-length study on the headscarf worn by women in France, two sociologists identified
   three classes of women who wear ‘‘the veil’’—older immigrant women, adolescents, and youth
   between sixteen and twenty-five. The latter, they wrote, ‘‘claim the veil sometimes with their par-
   ents’ agreement, sometimes against it.’’ Such young offspring of immigrants are the most integrated
   into French culture and often speak excellent French. The authors went on to state, ‘‘One can
   understand this phenomenon only in the context of a French society undergoing a profound crisis
   in its values and institutions’’ (F. Gaspard and F. Khosrokhavar,Le Foulard et la Re ́publique[Paris:
   La De ́couverte, 1995], 45–46).


9. It is estimated that more than half the inhabitants of French prisons are young Muslims of
   North African origin. (See Nicolas Simon, ‘‘Young, Male and Angry: French Muslims Know Little
   about the Middle East but They Are Taking Out Their Frustration on the Jews,’’Jerusalem Report,
   May 6, 2002.)

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