In this article I argue that the European Court of Human Rights should strictly adhere to the European Convention on Human Rights and stop allowing certain COE member states to circumvent the convention by asserting that they are honoring their nation "traditions". For example, France's tradition of secularism has been accepted by the court as a justifiable reason for banning the wearing of headscarves by Muslim females attending public schools in France.
Conference Paper “A European 14th Amendment: Pre-empting Prejudicial Local Re...
Hi Alexandra,
Thank you so much for this input. You have given me valuable guidance for the revision of the paper that motivated my question. Indeed, I feel waiting around (NOT working on my revision -- or "procrastination", in a word) has been justified because you have giving me a new, less adversarial slant that I am sure will improve the eventual article. Rather than emphasizing the "ingratiating" aspect, which I sincerely feel has been directed at the staid and pedigreed Western members of the COE like France, Italy and Switzerland (to be contrasted with Eastern and Central European members), I am going to shake off my hostility and approach it from the more generous standpoint of the Court's desire to "uphold the Judeo-Christian heritage" which INADVERTENTLY serves to have a deleterious effect on other religions.
Of course, I will really have to watch myself and hold my tongue because the Jehovah's Witnesses should be embraced under the broad Christian umbrella so are getting the short shrift from the Court's "noble" work. However, I am motivated to switch gears by the fact that at the Conference (in Tartu, Estonia) where I presented this paper, the strongest resistance to my less-diplomatic thesis was offered by Workshop participants from Romania and Poland who appeared to want to "keep the world safe for Catholicism" and from several delegates from Russia who sensed a need to ward off attacks that would "infringe upon the rights" of members of The Russian Orthodox Church (Christian). Of course, the unexpressed need to keep Russia "safe for the Orthodox Christian Church of Russia" explains the arrest and subsequent prosecution of the Pussy Riot punk rock band who staged their demonstration in the most revered Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
In summary, thank you, Alexandra, for steering me down a more diplomatic road so that even if the European Journal targeted for the revision of this paper doesn't accept it, I will have a good chance of getting it accepted someplace. The odds are especially good for getting it published in the U.S. since our Supreme Court thinks the same way as the European Court did in Lautsi v. Italy (2011). It has declared Christmas to be a "secular holiday" and likewise Easter is a National Holiday in the U.S. (See my article on RG, "Not Christian, but Nonetheless Qualified" for more on the inventiveness of SCOTUS when it comes to "secularizing Christianity".)
Gratefully,
Gwen
Gwen knows that I do place value on cultural traditions as well as upon personal rights, including religious freedom of expression and conscience, Also evident is that cultural traditions and freedom can make for bad bed-mates. This is the gravamen. But wherever these fail to get along; where there is substantial friction, accommodations are in order, along with caveats.
Education (K-12 and its equivalents), when public, require to de-stress religion in as many ways as possible and to the greatest extent possible. School kids tend to have knee-jerk reflections of their parents' values, on some sorts of steroids. From personal experience I can report that the mere asking whether there is a god in an eleventh grade classroom is quite sufficient to make a class all but ungovernable.
Nor is my experience unique or current. When German tribes tired of Roman superciliousness and perpetrated raids or full-scale attacks on Roman positions, the first target selected were usually the schools, the same where Romans taught the de-culturalization of natives. Ouch! Nor was that all. Back then it was the nobility, those expected to support and transmit culture, who were educated out from the culture over which they carried stewardship duties.
Greece likewise educated the nobility, and Socrates' chief mistake was not so much what he taught but that he taught it to the sons of the nobility, many of whom were archons and could rig trials and sit on as well as stack juries. Socrates was a glutton for punishment to take these ideas into a school.
In an environment where the object is to prevent this sort of discord, the allowance of any in-your-face religious symbol is an open invitation for problems, and I don;t mean minor problems. The French had grounds for concern far from any ulterior motives regarding the EU or the Court. I do not say that they couldn't have handled the matter more delicately, only that they had a rationale for their ruling.
By the same token, Christian symbols adorning walls are pretty well nigh as bad as scarves. One principle once adopted obviously has to be applied equally and fairly, and it is plainly the case that the EU and the Court are violating really basic stuff here. I hope Gwen and the other commenter can help them resolve the issues.
Charles,
Thank you for this post, which got me back to this question and the fact that I have on my agenda reading Alexandra's Master's Thesis on the headscarf ban during Xmas break -- just two weeks to go and I'll have some time to call my on. It is ironic that you have livened up this question today -- the day I received notification of the acceptance of an additional paper on this topic for presentation at the 21st International Conference of Europeanists which is being held in D.C. in March 2014. My paper will be presented in a session titled, "The Politics of the European Court of Human Rights." I will upload my abstract on RG for the paper, which is entitled "Courting Justice; Flirting with Unity: Moving Beyond the "Margin of Appreciation."
Congrats on the acceptance. Go there and shaken 'em up. I may want to look at Master's thesis myself.
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