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INTRODUCTION

are not ‘‘allochthonous’’ but ‘‘vitally constitutive of the nation and its future,’’ and giving
them, ‘‘whoever they may be, a say not just over themselves, but over us’’ (p. 462). Such
a tolerance, Valenta notes, quoting Thomas Scanlon, is necessarily a ‘‘risky matter, a prac-
tice with high stakes’’ (p. 462). Some of the most compelling pages in Valenta’s contribu-
tion deal with Europe’s resistance to a new phase of (its) history, its lack of creativity and
imagination in envisioning a future that would be more than a fortification of its postwar
recovery after its ‘‘bestial implosion half a century ago.’’ Neither the hope of further
secularization or secularism—whether as a bulwark against or an enabler of religious
diversity—nor, to be sure, a simple return to forgotten religious values can fill this void.
If any post-secular thought and political theology of Europe and the West there may be,
we do not yet know what it is.
This analysis sets the stage for the analyses of the doctrine—one is tempted to say the
religion, sacrality, or ‘‘existential belief ’’ (to use Connolly’s term)—oflaı ̈cite ́by Yolande
Jansen and Talal Asad, who from different angles discuss the modern intellectual and
cultural history behind the intricate French debates in the report of the commission
chaired by Bernard Stasi (whose members included public figures and scholars such as
Re ́gis Debray, Alain Touraine, Mohammed Arkoun, and Gilles Kepel), leading up to the
2004 legal ban in state-run schools on headscarfs or, more precisely, on ‘‘conspicuous
religious signs,’’ such as Muslim veils, Jewish yarmulkes, and outsized Christian cruci-
fixes.^151 TheNew York Timesresponded to this measure with an editorial under the pro-
vocative heading ‘‘Secular Fundamentalism,’’ stating its criticism in no uncertain terms,
ones echoed by the State Department, and voicing a difference in sensibilities concerning
free speech and behavior in American and European political cultures, epitomized by the
fact that the European Court of Human Rights, in November 2005, upheld Turkey’s even
more severe—and severely contested—curbing of the headscarf on college campuses and
in state offices, a ban effective since 1986:

Speaking before a gathering that included religious leaders from all major faiths,

[French President] Chirac cast his decision [to support the ban] as a reaffirmation of

France’s commitment to a rigorous separation of church and state. But it is not that

at all. Banning believers from following the discipline of their religion is, in fact,

state-imposed secular fundamentalism. One fallacy is that for a Christian to wear a

cross is not analogous to a Sikh wearing a turban, a Muslim wearing a scarf, or a Jew

wearing a yarmulke. To hang a crucifix around your neck is a personal display of

faith. To observant Muslims, Jews, and Sikhs, however, head coverings are obliga-

tions. Their observance therefore falls under the rubric of freedom of expression and

conscience, not proselytism.^152

The point goes to the heart of FrenchRe ́publicanisme—the belief that ‘‘a universal
citizen, abstracted from social and economic conditions (whether residential, religious, or

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