Define religious freedom

That’s a rather elastic term in a pluralistic society, which always comes up around this time of year in the war over Christmas.

But the Europeans are in the fray over religious freedom with some of their Muslim population, and it’s forcing a new definition of tolerance, believe it or not.

This columnist takes up the issue of the post just below on Muslims and the right, or not, to be effectively hidden in public.

Two recent events in Britain pertaining to head scarves has once again revived the debate, not so much on how women ought to clothe themselves, but on the reluctance of sections of Islamic society to weave themselves into the fabric of modern, secular democracies. The comments of Jack Straw, the Leader of the House of Commons, that the veil is “a visible statement of separation and difference” has resulted in the expected rumpus and strangely coincided with the suspension of Aishah Azmi, a Muslim woman teacher from a West Yorkshire school, for insisting on wearing the veil while teaching primary school students.

The columnist sees the head scarf debate as a growing problem.

This controversy has implications for all democracies and more so for India, the world’s largest democracy and the nation with the world’s second-largest Muslim population.

Interestingly, he writes from and publishes in India. But he’s looking at Europe, for the moment.

Controversies surrounding the hijab and niqab are nothing new to Europe. Several nations in that continent have been grappling with this issue for many years now. Two years ago, France prohibited students attending state-run schools from wearing it. In Germany, beginning with the southern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, several states have banned teachers from wearing head scarves. In Italy, its parliament passed an anti-terrorist law last year which said that it was unlawful to hide one’s features in public and this included the wearing of the burqa.

As expected, some of these cases have been appealed. But the European Convention of Human Rights, which does guarantee religious freedom “in worship, teaching, practice and observance,” also puts limits around that freedom.

It says, “Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs shall be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, or health or morals, or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.”
 
The keywords here are “democratic society”, “public order” and “protection of the rights and freedoms of others”.

And the key to law and order is who gets to define them.