SECULARISM: LIBERALISM’S ACHILLES HEEL AT
THE ‘END OF HISTORY’
Ploutarchos Evlogimenos ‡
In his 1989 article and in a book in 1992, Fukuyama indicated that we
have reached the end of history. Written in the euphoric time which saw the
retreat and fall of communism, and thus signalling the end to the Cold War,
Fukuyama’s thesis claimed the “unabashed victory of economic and political
liberalism”1 and that “the ideal of liberal democracy could not be improved
on.”2 Fascism and communism (liberalism’s two beaten opponents) may not
yet be six feet under, but it would be hard to make the case they are not at
least terminally ill. With the latter out of the way Fukuyama suggests two
other possible rivals; religion and nationalism.3 However, they are both
dismissed as assailable by the liberal project.
Several criticisms and even outright refutations of Fukuyama’s thesis have
appeared ever since the 1989 article was published, many expanding on the
potential of religion and nationalism as rivals to liberalism. My discussion will
also challenge the ‘end of history’ by considering one of the aforementioned
rivals: religion. My aim is not to relentlessly criticize or refute Fukuyama’s
claim, but add a mark of caution to the general debate concerning the global
spread of liberalism and liberal democracies. My contention is that religion
must not be underestimated as it has the potential to rock the roots of
liberalism. Fukuyama’s argument will be used as a starting and reference point
‡
M.Sc. candidate (International Public Policy), School of Public Policy, University College
London (expected November 2005). Contact with questions/comments:
ploutoe@yahoo.co.uk.
1
Francis Fukuyama, “The End of History?” The National Interest, no. 16, summer, (1989),
p. 3.
2
Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (London: Penguin Books, 1992),
p. ix.
3
Fukuyama, The End of History, p.14.
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© 2005 by The School of Public Policy, University College London, London, United Kingdom. All rights reserved.
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for my discussion. I will argue that the secular, a pillar for modern liberalism,
can be an inherently intolerant principle thus compromising the whole liberal
democracy project. This contradiction leaves the promises of liberalism and
specifically liberal democracy exposed to an internal identity crisis but also
external criticism. To illustrate my discussion I will use the case of French
secularism and the possible challenge posed to it by French-Muslims. I will
start my discussion by defining liberalism. I will then outline Fukuyama’s
thesis and consider some problems facing the global spread of liberalism. I will
then move on to the French secularism illustration, first introducing a
definition and discussion on secularism and its roots. If we are at the end of
history, one would expect the prevailing and universal ideology to be free of
contradiction. I label my discussion as a caution because even though I indicate
a contradiction in liberalism which may hinder it global assurgency, I do not
believe that it is an irreconcilable one.
Generally liberalism is based on the primacy of an individual’s freedom to
develop one’s self and cultivate their capacities. Liberalism also comes to be
associated with toleration, be it of religious, political, gender or racial concerns
etc. Liberalism also bears definitional connections to societies which are
organised around a free market. Fukuyama identifies political liberalism as “the
rule of law that recognises certain individual rights,” which he classes into the
three general groups of civil rights, religious rights, and political rights.4 He
defines liberal democracy, the form of government which will prevail at the
end of history, as “the doctrine of individual freedom and popular
sovereignty.”5 It must be noted that when trying to define liberalism one is
confronted with the array of variations and meanings attached to it. For the
purposes of my discourse it is not necessary to explore all of these; the above
summary will suffice.
Inspired by the eminent collapse of communism in 1989, Fukuyama’s
version of the ‘end of history’ - indicating an end to ideology not of events –
stops at liberalism and the universalization of that notion. Following Hegel
and, to some extent, Plato’s notion of thymos (spirit and desire) he states that
the progression of history was not predominantly situated in material forces
(as in Marxism) but in “in the realm of human consciousness.”6 Material or
economic interpretations of history are deficient as man is not simply an
economic animal.7 The claim is that all ideologies which have challenged
liberalism have failed: nationalism and fascism (e.g. Nazi Germany),
communism (Soviet bloc) and religion (at least in the predominantly secular
West) have failed to take precedence over liberal values. However, the end of
Fukuyama’s article on the end of history (1989) and his book (1992) leave the
Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man, p.43
Ibid. p.42
6
Fukuyama, The End of History, p.5.
7
Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man, p. xvi.
4
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future open; not to a new ideology but to the reoccurrence of an old one. The
thymos and megalo-thymia which characterise and drive man find temporal
appeasement in liberal societies.8 The stark acknowledgment at the end of
both his article and book (more so in the latter case) is that further ideological
revolution, generated from the inability of liberalism to constantly satisfy
everyone will always provide the setting for someone “to go back and restart
history.”9
Fukuyama’s attempt to present us with end of history and the
“universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human
government,”10 invokes the debates on globalization, specifically those centred
on the discourse of a ‘global culture.’ Is it possible to claim singularity in
‘culture?’ As Antony Smith points out, it is not.11 Despite the defined and
regular patterns of interconnectedness and global exchange entailed by
globalization, it is not possible to claim more than the existence of a trend
towards the existence of some features that are shared nevertheless by many
different cultures. An interconnected world may facilitate and normalize the
exchange of cultural influences yet “cultural traditions do not derive from or
descend upon, mute and passive populations on whose tabula rasa they
inscribe themselves.”12 It follows that liberalism (a Western construct) may be
resisted by some as being foreign to their culture. To enforce it on those
would contradict liberalism itself and tend towards a 19th century European
imperialist drive, a point which Fukuyama recognizes.13
To Fukuyama’s admittance liberalism is vulnerable to thymos14 due to
gaps in liberalism’s ability to satisfy certain desires. One of these desires is that
for recognition, which can be satisfied by religion and nationalism.15
Recognition leads to the matter of the Other. This Other does not denote a
sophisticated academic or ideologically laden term. It signifies alternative and
difference. In the parlance of the anthropology discipline, the Other is what
defines the ‘us VS them’ division.16 To declare the undisputed end of history
arguably the Other must be decisively dealt with and the aforementioned
division ubiquitously resolved. Dealing with the Other does not mean
eliminating it. In terms of religion and thymos it would imply creating
religious ’iso-thymia;’ an appeasement of human spirit which religion evokes.
Ibid. p. 329.
Ibid. p. 334.
10
Fukuyama, The End of History, p. 4.
11
Anthony D. Smith, “Towards a Global Culture”, in The Global Transformations Reader,
(eds.) D. Held & A. McGrew (Padstow : Polity Press 2000), p. 245.
12
Ibid. p. 45.
13
C.f. Fukuyama, The End of History, p.16.
14
Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man, p. 334.
15
Ibid. p. 238.
16
C.f. Clifford Geertz, Local Knowledge, (London, Fontana Press1983).
8
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Fukuyama implies that liberalism finds appeasement of religion in secularism;
(although he does not explicitly use that term):
modern liberalism itself was historically a consequence of religious
based societies which failing to agree on the nature of the good life,
could not provide even the minimal preconditions of peace and
stability.17
Secularism must deliver the promise of religious iso-thymia every time if
liberalism is to become a truly global ideal. Secularism is generally taken to
express the attitude that religion should have no place in civil affairs.18 Modern
secularism is liberal democracy’s attempt to make citizenship to one’s state the
primary principle of identity: it is “an enactment by which a political medium
(representation of citizenship) redefines and transcends particular and
differentiating practices of the self that are articulated through class, gender,
and religion.”19 However, by denoting the existence of these “practices” the
secular becomes a notion defined by its opposition to something. Furthermore,
by trying to create an identity by asserting the primacy of one principle of
identity (e.g. citizenship) over the rest (e.g. religion) “secularism arrogates to
itself the right to define the role of religion in politics,” thus closing up the
political space and acting like a faith intolerant of other faiths.20
Historically secularization originates from the West as an “interpretive
paradigm which allows us to discuss and comprehend the interrelated themes
of social and religious change,” within the region in respect to Christianity.21
The Peace of Westphalia introduced the principles of territorial sovereignty,
established the independence of states and gave strength to the concept of
sovereign states, thus overthrowing the notions of a universal religious
authority acting as final arbiter of Christendom. Then the argument can be
that secularism is the teleological development of Christianity’s role in the
public sphere; “secularization, in other words, remains situated within the
broader Christian context.”22” Fukuyama concedes liberal democracy emerged
first in the Christian West and that the universalism of democratic rights can
be seen “in many ways as a secular form of Christian universalism.”23 In this
Fukuyama, The End of History, p. 14.
Heiner Meulemann, “Enforced Secularisation – Spontaneous Revival?” European
Sociological Review, Vol. 20, no. 1, February (2004), p. 47.
19
Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity, (Stratford, Stratford
University Press, 2003), p.5 – emphasis added.
20
Elizabeth S. Hurd, “The Political Authority of Secularism in International Relations,
European Journal of International Relations,” vol.10(2), (2004), p. 237 and 256.
21
Stephen J. Hunt, Religion in Western Society, (Basingstok: Pelgarve, 2002), p. 15.
22
Hurd, The Political Authority of Secularism in International Relations, p. 241.
23
Francis Fukuyama, History Is Still Going Our Way: Liberal democracy will inevitably
prevail, Friday, 5th October 2001:
http://chnm.gmu.edu/ematters/issue6/911exhibit/emails/fukuyama_wsj.htm.
17
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regard, liberalism is rooted in a secular tradition which defines and establishes
itself in respect to a Christian morality. The suggestion is that the secular in
this case separates the role of Christianity from civil affairs; “secularism is a
unique Western achievement (and) it follows that (…) those who are not
Western cannot be secular.”24 Secularism is designed to confine the Christian
element. Liberalism is the post-Christian Church de facto organizing order of
society, but although it may keep the Christian Church authority away from
civil affairs it does not necessarily do the same for the Christian Ethic.25 Then,
how does secularism, and consequently liberalism, fare in regards to other
religions? To investigate this I will use the case of French secularism and
French-Muslims. I will mainly do this through a discussion using the ‘headscarf
affair’26 as it can be seen as epitomizing the challenges and discourses Islam
poses to French secularism and liberalism.27
In France the notion of secularism is tantamount to laicite, a constitutional
definition describing the neutrality of the state towards religious and other
convictions, in order to build a state for all. In terms of the French state this
dates back to 1905 when a law separating church and state was passed by the
French parliament, Terminating Napoleon’s Concordant of 1801 with the
Vatican. “In the French Republic, religion cannot, must not be a political
project… It [is] necessary to preserve the national principle of secularity separating religion and state.”28
The following literature review aims to highlight aspects of the headscarf
affair in France, revealing the clashes of Islam and secularism. By this I want to
demonstrate a certain intolerance inherent in secularism and how this may
obstruct the universalization of liberalism. Emmanuel Terray finds the debate
on secularism and the hijab (headscarf) underscored by matters of immigrants’
cultural integration and gender concerns.29 His findings are a result of a critical
study of Bernard Stasi’s report Laicite et Republique. The report was ordered
by a Presidential Commission in July 2003 (headed by Stasi in his capacity of
Hurd, “The Political Authority of Secularism in International Relations,” p. 251.
C.f. Madeleine Bunting, “Secularism gone mad: Chirac's determination to ban Muslim
headscarves from schools will cause years of confrontation,” The Guardian, Thursday 18th
December 2003: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1109242,00.html, Hurd,
“The Political Authority of Secularism in International Relations,” p. 248, Max Weber, The
Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, in Political Writings, (Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, 1994).
26
This originates in a long debate over headscarves that has divided France since 1989,
when l'affaire du foulard ("the headscarf affair") saw two young Muslim girls expelled from
their school in Creil, near Paris, for wearing headscarves, thus going against the French secular
tradition.
27
Arun Kapil, “On Islam in the West and Muslims in France: Views from the Hexagon,”
Third World Quarterly, vol.18(2), (1997), p. 383.
28
Sentiments of French Government as expressed by Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin –
source: BBC news-online 03/02/04
29
Emmanuel Terray , “Headscarf Hysteria,” New Left Review (26) March/April (2004).
24
25
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Mediator of the Republic) and it is on this reports recommendation that the
National Assembly voted favourably on a religious symbols ban in February
2004. Terray concludes that the effects of the report will be the exclusion and
not - as claimed by the report - the republican and egalitarian inclusion of all
in the French state. The reason for this exclusion is the fact that the French
government underplays the role of the cultural and gender contentions,
covering them with rhetoric of secularism. Antoine Boulange argues that the
French government has misguidedly put “abstract” idea of secularism above
the civil rights of Muslims30. Boulange, writing from a modern-Marxist
perspective, identifies problems of Muslim-immigrant integration and gender
concerns behind the French government’s calls of secularity. His focus is to
demonstrate how this post-9/11 Islamophobia and thus ‘demonization’ of the
French-Muslim population leads to a weakening of the working class in
France.31
Lina Liederman conducts a comparative study of the attitudes towards the
headscarf in the UK and France in her research of pluralism in education in
these two countries.32 Through her study she identifies and compares the
primary issues in each country. Liederman identifies some of the latter as
“women’s issues (and) discrimination.”33 Moreover and similarly to Terray,
Liederman finds that these issues are shrouded by a republican, secular
rhetoric; “the absence of consistent references on (…) race relations in the
French Islamic headscarf debate implies a particular French dislike or
uneasiness with the notion of race.”34 Soysal explores the compatibility of
notions of (Western) European citizenship with organised Islam within
Europe.35 She writes on the hijab case in France in terms of human and
citizenship rights. In brief the argument is that the prevalence of Universal
Human rights has come to somewhat diminish claims to national citizenship
in the European domain. Thus the integration of Islam in Europe, Islam being
a borderless sense of identity, is hard to address simply through the means of
secular rhetoric, without addressing specific issues of culture. All these studies
criticise to some extent France’s strong secular beliefs as counter productive.
Secularism as presented by the French authorities in the hijab affair will have
30
(2004).
Antoine Boulange, “The Hijab, Racism and the State,” International Socialism, Spring
Boulange, “The Hijab, Racism and the State” p. 23.
Lina M. Liederman, “Pluralism in Education: the display of Islamic affiliation in French
and British schools,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, Vol.11, no.1, (2000).
33
Liederman, “Pluralism in Education: the display of Islamic affiliation in French and British
Schools,” p. 109.
34
Liederman, “Pluralism in Education: the display of Islamic affiliation in French and British
schools,” p. 110.
35
Yasemin N. Soysal, “Changing Parameters of Citizenship and Claims-Making: Organised
Islam in European Public Spheres,” Theory and Society Vol. 26/4, (1997).
31
32
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the effect to “ban and exclude36” or oppress Islam in France.37 Such oppression
undermines the liberal notions of toleration and freedom to cultivate one’s full
capacities.
Boulange evokes elements of Huntington’s ‘clash of civilizations’38 which
has generated a perception of Islam as a threat to Western civilisation. In a
post-9/11 world Boulange sees France as acting in a way which exemplifies
Western Islamophobia. Soysal argues that symbols such as the hijab seize
being religious symbols and become means of cultural and political expression.
Thus their bearers defend them on the grounds of human rights.39 Miriam
Feldblum argues on the grounds of Soysal’s reasoning that there are two levels
to the hijab affair.40 On the grounds that it evokes universal human rights, it is
an attack on the French notion of secularity and also a threat to the French
model of national integration which eschews ethnic related rights. In such a
case secularism creates a politics of exclusion situation. It thus undermines the
project of liberal democracy. “Individuals and groups who dissent from secular
transcendental/temporal delineation are shut out of public deliberation before
it begins;” secularism runs the risk of “shutting down new approaches to
negotiations between religion and politics.”41
The survival of liberalism and its universal spread is only possible if its
baseline, secularism, manages to take a neutral stance, not one of exclusion.
Thus, taking the French example, secularism antagonises the non-Christian,
and undermines liberalism. The secular project should create a basis for the
political which whilst preventing the religious from taking over civil affairs it
should not exclude it as an identity. “Exclusion of something from the political
is the political gesture par excellence.”42 Secularism should define the limits of
the game and liberalism should be the political mediator between the different
identities. In its expansion over the globe liberalism will encounter many
identities, some of which will be contained within the same political space
(e.g. French-Muslims VS other French citizens in France). “Each identity is
fated to contend – in various degrees in multifarious ways – with others it
depends on to enunciate itself; that politics the issue is not if but how.”43
Terray , “Headscarf Hysteria,” p. 127.
Boulange, “The Hijab, Racism and the State,” p.23.
38
See Samuel P. Huntington, “The Clash of Civilisations,” Foreign Affairs v. 72, no.
Summer, (1993) and Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilization and the Decline
Religion, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996).
39
Yasemin N. Soysal, Limits of Citizenship: Migrants and Postnational membership
Europe, (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1994) and Soysal, “Changing Parameters
Citizenship and Claims-Making: Organised Islam in European Public Spheres”.
40
Miriam Feldblum, Reconstructing Citizenship: Politics of Nationality Reform and
Immigration in Contemporary France, (New York, State University of New York Press, 1999)
41
Hurd, “The Political Authority of Secularism in International Relations,” pp.239-241.
42
Slavoj Zizek, The Ticklish Subject, (London, Verso, 1999), p. 82.
43
William E. Connolly, The Augustinian Imperative, (London, Sage Publications, 1993)
36
37
3,
of
in
of
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France and generally European societies are not prone to acknowledging some
legitimate role for religion in public life and in the organization of collective
group identities. “Muslim organized collective identities and their public
representations become a source of anxiety not only because of their religious
otherness as a non-Christian and non-European religion, but more importantly
because of their religiousness itself as the other of European secularity.”44
The liberal democracy project tries to propagate iso-thymia through a
series of institutional arrangements: popular sovereignty, rights separation of
powers and the rule of law.45 As a notion it is not inherently global but it is
rooted in Western Europe and the secularization of Christianity. It therefore
runs the risk of isolating its Other religions (i.e. the ones it defines itself
contrary to), proliferating thymos and exasperating differences. This is
exemplified by the case of the French Muslims. Thus secularism is not always
democratic and neutral.46 A possible way to change this is if secularism
redefines itself thereby incorporating more religions so that it is not solely
situated within a Christian context. Secularism rooted in Christianity provides
the liberal democratic project a false sense of certainty and triumph. This
becomes its Achilles heel, leaving it vulnerable to self-contradiction of its
tolerance and individual freedom ideals. “The two-sided tragedy of liberalism is
that it doesn't know its own limits, and neither does it know its own strength.
If it knew both of these, it would find the self-confidence and humility to
understand and learn from those who challenge it.”47
44
Jose Casanova, The New Religious Pluralism and Democracy, Panel Discussion, George
University, April 21-22, 2005:
http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:LcLz5wOgExsJ:irpp.georgetown.edu/agenda.doc+secular
ism+casanova&hl=en
45
Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man, p.333.
46
Hurd, “The Political Authority of Secularism in International Relations,” p. 240.
47
Bunting, Secularism gone mad: Chirac's determination to ban Muslim headscarves from
schools will cause years of confrontation.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1109242,00.html
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