Counterpunch, April 30, 2007
Racaille, Religion and Repression
The Three Rs of "Sarko the American"
By DIANA JOHNSTONE
A related area in which Sarkozy is more American than French is religion.
Here the difference is profound, rooted in
history. France is a nation that survived bloody
religious wars between Catholics and Protestants,
followed by Catholic reaction, followed by the
enlightenment and social revolution. The result
of a complex history has been to liberate both
politics and--more profoundly--morality from
attachment to religious belief. The United States
offers space to all sorts of religious beliefs
and practices. In contrast, France offers large,
respectable space to people with no religious
belief whatever. The major role accorded
philosophy in the school system helps to separate
moral and ethical considerations from religious tenets and enticements.
Sarkozy "the Hungarian-American" seems to
understand none of this. Notably, he is foreign
to any intellectual rigor, either for or against
religion. He is in favor of religion not because
it is true, but because it is useful especially
for the underprivileged. In fact, it is not
religion he favors, but a vague " religiosity"
without intellectual foundations.
For Sarkozy, oblivious to theological
complexities, "religion" boils down to "hope for
survival after death", the "hope to have, after
dying, a perspective of self-realization in
eternity". By calling for "recognition of a
universal right to hope", he transforms belief in
life after death into a sort of "human right".
(See Nicolas Sarkozy, La République, les
religions, l'espérance, Le Cerf, Paris, 2006.)
It is a right French people have not been
clamoring for. A 1992 poll showed that 62 per
cent of French did not belief in an afterlife.
This includes a good number of professed Christians.
But Sarkozy believes such a belief is good for
people. Or to be more precise, he suggests that
hope in an afterlife is good for people who don't
have much to hope for in this one: "Throughout
France, and above all in the banlieues where all
sorts of despair are concentrated, it is
altogether preferable that young people can have
spiritual hope rather than to have in their
heads, as sole 'religions', violence, drugs and money."
Parenthetical remark: Sarkozy has also said that
in a "meritocracy", " merit" must be rewarded by
a lot of money, "otherwise, what's the point?"
Apparently, he can scarcely conceive of any
motivation for doing a good job other than money.
In his own milieu, that is. But for youth in the
banlieues, a "religion of money" might lead to
activities such as drug dealing. For them, it is
better to place their hopes in an afterlife.
And any afterlife will do. He sees this "hope" as
the common denominator of all religions, at least
the monotheistic ones, and dismisses the details
separating them. He recommends a religious
education of young people stressing "the
convergence of religious messages" around the
"spiritual fact: there exists a life after death,
a sole and unique God, a meaning to history, a
possibility of redemption, a natural morality
common to all civilisations with reference to an absolute".
Not averse to contradiction, Sarkozy also plays
up to his conservative Catholic constituency by
declaring his unflagging devotion to France's
"2000 years of Christian heritage".
As Interior Minister, Sarkozy promoted the
institutionalization of Islam in France with the
establishment of the French Council of the Muslim
religion. Islam is now the second largest
religion in France and requires recognition. But
beyond that, Sarkozy clearly wants a
watered-down, luke-warm Islam to provide the
banlieues with moral policing. He seems quite
unaware of the risks inherent in implicitly
turning social problems over to religious
institutions--risks of dividing society along
ethnic-religious lines and undermining the
rationalist values which alone are able to offer
a solid common ground to a diverse society.
"Pie in the sky when we die" seems to be the
carrot of Sarkozy's "carrot and stick" approach
to the social problems of ethnically mixed, depressed neighborhoods.
full: http://www.counterpunch.org/johnstone04302007.html
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