Political secularism in South Africa is shaping into a tense contest between the relative ambitions of state and religious actors.
L'archevêque de Canterbury Justin Welby place la couronne de Saint Édouard sur la tête du roi Charles III de Grande-Bretagne lors de la cérémonie de couronnement à l'intérieur de l'abbaye de Westminster, dans le centre de Londres, le 6 mai 2023.
Victoria Jones/AFP
On several counts, England is now on its way to becoming a secularist society. Nevertheless, there remain cultural differences that prevent it from embracing the French principle of “laïcité”.
Residents watch French air force jets fly over a Paris suburb during the Bastille Day military parade on July 14, 2023.
AP Photo/Youcef Bounab
Catholicism, ‘Frenchness’ and secularism are often conflated in French culture, a scholar writes, while non-Christian traditions are viewed with suspicion.
Strasbourg officials are within their right to allow public funds to be used to build what may be the largest mosque in Europe. But that hasn’t stopped the backlash
French Prime Minister Jean Castex attends a homage to teacher Samuel Paty, at a school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, France, November 2 2020.
EPA-EFE/THOMAS COEX / POOL MAXPPP OUT
School reforms pushed by French President Emmanuel Macron are aimed at pushing Muslim students into public schools. An expert explains why this may be the wrong approach.
Protestors march in Paris following one of the recent attacks.
EPA
Why are Emmanuel Macron’s reform plans so controversial and why are people protesting about freedom after another spate of violent attacks?
An homage to Samuel Paty, a teacher murdered after showing caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed from the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, Oct. 18, 2020.
Adnan Farzat/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Macron wants to ‘build an Islam in France that can be compatible with the Enlightenment.’ But that goal assumes France is compatible with Islam, says a Muslim scholar of religion and politics.
People hold up signs as they march during a demonstration in Montreal, April 7, 2019, in opposition to the Quebec government’s newly tabled Bill 21.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes
The proposed secular law (Bill 21) in the province of Québec appears to be directed primarily against Montreal and Québec City, and reflects a fear of strangers in Québec’s more homogeneous regions.
Quebec Premier François Legault stands in front of the crucifix in the provincial legislature where he announced the religious symbol will be removed. Québec is both the most homogeneous province from a religious point of view and the most detached from its religious culture.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jacques Boissinot
Many Canadians are puzzled by Québec’s law banning some civil servants from wearing religious symbols. A Québec sociologist explains the law is rooted in the province’s troubled history with religion.
The Seine and Notre Dame, physically and spiritually the heart of Paris.
Iakov Kalinin via Shutterstock
Researchers have put together a toolkit for countering Islamophobia.
Coalition Avenir Québec leader François Legault on the campaign trail last September before the election that saw his party form a majority government.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz
The Québec government’s push to ban the hijab is ‘sexularism’ and also basic nationalism – one that pits an ‘us’ against ‘them,’ where the ‘them’ represent multiple threats to the nation.
Professor Richard Dawkins next to a bus displaying an atheist message in 2009.
Anthony Devlin/PA Archive/PA Images
While Islamophobic acts in Paris mainly take place in public institutions, in London they’re mainly on the street or on public transport.
‘I am a migrant’ solidarity signs were displayed during the European Parliament debate on immigration and asylum in the Strasbourg plenary.
European Parliament/flickr
Fraternity is one of the three pillars of the French Republic, but social solidarity is fraying as citizens are criminalised for acting on their beliefs in the human rights of asylum seekers.
While France and the US both guarantee individual religious freedom, the two nations’ approach to religion in the public sphere and the separation between church and state are profoundly different.
Police at the scene of the attack.
EPA/Andre Pichette