Abstract
This paper discusses the Swiss minaret ban as a threat to equal citizenship rather than a threat to freedom of religion. The main argument of the paper is that cultural differences can threaten the fair value of equal political participation rights as well as socio-economic ones. These differences are morally troubling despite legitimate emphasis on the need for a shared (political) culture. To ensure that the state treats its citizens as equals with regard to cultural differences requires a form of liberal neutrality which consists of two elements. Equal citizenship requires, first, justificatory neutrality in deciding which matters are legitimate concerns for legislation. It requires also—as a second safeguard—institutional arrangements which ensure that in the process of implementing justificatory neutral decisions the interests of all affected citizens receive a fair hearing. This means that the factors which tend to undermine the equal standing of citizens in society should be counteracted.
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Notes
One might claim that the way Islam is currently practiced in Switzerland is the response to limits to freedom of religion and as such problematic from the point of view of freedom of religion. While this might be true this does not translate into the claim that the new Minaret ban worsens the situation given that it makes little difference as to how Islam is currently practised in Switzerland.
The theory of liberal neutrality underlying this paper is developed in (Zellentin 2012). This paper applies it to the particular case of Swiss minarets to illustrate the relevance of different forms of dealing with cultural difference for the equal standing of citizens.
In this I follow Rawls who first expressed the idea of such a range property of moral and rational competency in A Theory of Justice and claimed there that the grave injustice involved in falsely denying someone the status of full member gives good reason to rather err on the other side (Rawls 1999, p. 443). For an analysis on the difference between the range properties ‘moral personhood’ used in A Theory of Justice and ‘competent citizen’ in Political Liberalism see (Zellentin 2012, pp. 74–80).
This is where Rawls’s distinction between cooperation and coordination is crucial. It is obviously true that coordination can be improved by putting people in charge who have a knack for management. But social cooperation is different: (a) It ‘is guided by publicly recognized rules and procedures that those cooperating accept and regard as properly regulating their conduct,’ (b) It ‘involves the idea of fair terms of cooperation,’ c) It ‘requires the idea of each participant’s advantage, or good’ (Rawls 1996, p. 16).
The message sent by the ban—or any policy—naturally depends on the surrounding context: in Switzerland the proposal leading to the ban was proposed by explicitly anti-Islam and anti-immigration parties and advertised by disparaging slogans and cartoons. In other contexts, such a policy—motivated maybe by reasons of tourism—would not send the same message undermining the equal standing of citizens. One might still argue that the freedom to decorate one’s houses of worship as one sees appropriate is more important than appealing to the tastes of tourists, but this would be a debate different from the one at stake where we worry about the fair value of equal political rights. I thank the anonymous reviewer for this point.
This section draws rely heavily on the theory developed in (Zellentin 2012), see in particular Chapter 6.5 ‘Formal versus Fair Political Participation.’
As I discuss in (Zellentin 2012, p. 126) the term ‘culture’ is very vague and my usage of the idea of ‘cultural differences’ is similarly vague: by this I refer to all differences that result from people’s different ways of life. Cultural differences thus refer both to cultural traits shared by larger groups and to those shared by smaller subgroups and they refer both to the background cultures against which we make our individual choices and to the results of those choices themselves. The main idea is that all forms of negative stereotyping on the basis of cultural differences can make a difference to people’s standing in society and thus matter in terms of treating them as equals.
I am grateful to the reviewers for pointing out that one could argue that the minaret ban is a symptom of the fact that a majority of Swiss voters thinks that Muslims should have no influence in shaping the Swiss public sphere rather than a message. If understood this way the minaret ban does not make the situation worse than it already is. However, as I will argue below, the official nature of the ban does make the situation worse since it sends a double message. It reassures the voters that they are legitimate in restricting political influence for Muslim citizens and it tells Muslim citizens that their input is unwelcome thereby questioning their standing and self-respect as free and equal citizens.
This view, however, presupposes that there is something special about places of worship, which gives this claim extra weight. We usually consider it less obvious that the interest to decorate one’s own house trumps the neighbours’ interest not to see a purple and green concrete block decorated with neon coloured erotic scenes.
Neither the headscarf nor the minaret as such are symbols for particular and problematic understandings of Islam by themselves. The headscarf is often linked to understandings of modesty foreign to modern liberal thought, however, some Muslim women wear it to assert their Muslim identity against societal pressures to assimilate (see Shadid and van Koningsveld 2005). In the case of minarets the link to problematic understandings of Islam is one established mainly by right-wing propaganda which portraits minarets in a way reminiscent of missiles See, for example, the wikipedia article on the minaret controversy in Switzerland under http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minaret_controversy_in_Switzerland (accessed 09.07.2012).
The case might be different when a symbol has a very exact, particular and problematic meaning in the cultural context. The reasons for allowing headscarves thus might be insufficient to argue for lifting the prohibition of displaying swastikas.
While the minaret case is fairly unproblematic in this respect there are hard cases for this argument relating, for example, to the public display of offensive, deeply shocking or severely indecent material.
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Acknowledgments
Since the theory of neutrality underlying this paper is based on my book ‘Liberal Neutrality’ I owe thanks to all those inspiring and criticising me in the process of writing it. Particular thanks go to the following people for detailed feedback to this application of my theory on the example of Minarets: the blind reviewer for Res Publica, Clare Heyward, Zoltan Miklosi, Andres Moles, Pranay Sanklecha, Ronald Tinnevelt and the audiences at the CEU Workshop ‘Democracy and Legitimacy: Dealing with Extremism’ 2010 and the ECPR Panel on ‘Democracy and Integration’ 2011.
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Zellentin, A. Freedom, Equality, Minarets. Res Publica 20, 45–63 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11158-013-9224-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11158-013-9224-8