Charles Taylor ... niqab defender?
Twice in recent days, philosopher Charles Taylor has appeared in the Canadian media as a voice of reason in opposition to Stephen Harper’s anti-niqab machinations and (some say) clumsy remarks about Islam. In that capacity he has made a good deal of sense.
If you’re a politician publicly steeling yourself against radical Islam, he told CBC’s Rosemary Barton, you need to be very sure you’re not alienating the moderate Muslims who are your best natural allies in that war. We need all Canadians to be “of one mind,” he argued, to ensure that vulnerable young people don’t go off the rails. “For that you have to be very careful you don’t stigmatize Islam in general,” he said.
Thus, for example, if you want to limit circumstances in which the niqab can be worn, he argued, you had better “have a really good, pressing reason of public interest. Security is one. Identification is one. ... [But] to go on beyond that and say you can’t wear [a religious symbol] is a restriction on practice of religion. And that’s fundamental to our society.”
It might have behoved CBC and The Canadian Press, which conveyed similar opinions from Mr. Taylor, to note this salient fact: With historian Gérard Bouchard, Mr. Taylor cochaired a report into “reasonable accommodations” in Quebec society that recommended banning the niqab, and indeed all religious symbols, for judges, Crown prosecutors, prison guards and police officers.
“We believe that a majority of Quebecers accept that a uniform prohibition applying to all government employees regardless of the nature of their position is excessive, but want those employees who occupy positions that embody at the highest level the necessary neutrality of the state ... to impose on themselves a form of circumspection concerning the expression of their religious convictions,” Messrs. Bouchard and Taylor wrote.
That was fair enough. The Bouchard-Taylor Commission’s perspective was a secularist one, and if your goal is for the state not just to be secular but to consciously project secularism, then it’s not unreasonable to demand that the keepers and enforcers of state power express nothing religious whilst on the job. Mr. Harper’s argument, on the other hand, isn’t at all about secularism or about religious symbols in general. And while it’s dressed up as principle, “this isn’t how we do things here” — his famous pronouncement on niqabs at citizenship ceremonies — is about as compelling a credo as “orange is the best colour.”
Nor was there anything disreputable about Messrs. Bouchard and Taylor’s undertaking, which was to travel around the province and listen to Quebecers of all stripes v e nt their various cultural angsts, from t he very theor- etically legitimate (there’s a reason people would object to cops wearing niqabs) to the thoroughly bizarre (the mortal threat of unlabelled halal chicken). You can’t sneer such worries away, much as urban elites try. The Bouchard-Taylor report is in the main a sober call for calm and unity, an assurance that Quebec is not reasonably accommodating itself toward theocracy. And while forcing agents of the state to wear a non-religious uniform might run afoul of the Supreme Court — which settled turbanwearing cops a quarter-century ago — it’s not inherently outrageous.
But they must have known, from their observations and their travels, that Quebecers tend to be less resolutely secular than preferentially secular — particularly suspicious of Islam and particularly respectful of ostensibly “cultural” Christianity. Pauline Marois epitomized a very popular version of secularism that leaves in place a crucifix hanging over the speaker’s chair in the National Assembly that was installed in 1936 by noted non-secularist premier Maurice Duplessis. Ms. Marois’ “values charter” at least had the decency to target all religious symbols in the public sector; now Premier Philippe Couillard, channelling Mr. Harper, proposes to ban both giving and receiving public services with a covered face because “certain principles have to be clarified;” because “I think this is a line in the sand for many Quebecers and Canadians.” How convenient that it only affects the world’s least popular religion!
This isn’t Charles Taylor’s fault, needless to say. He merely agreed to former premier Jean Charest’s request to look into the matter, then watched as Mr. Charest did nothing with his findings, leaving those cultural angsts to bubble away and be exploited by cynical politicians. But he might impart a lesson: If you’re going to engage with people’s cultural insecurities, you have to actually do something about them. You can indulge them, as Mr. Couillard promises to do, and hope for the best; or you can try to reason them away.
Of course, leaving those insecurities alone more or less entirely worked out rather well for Canadian politics for a very long time. That’s a pretty good option, too.
If you’re going to engage with people’s cultural insecurities, you have to actually do something about them