The Power of Symbols and Symbols as Power: Secularism and Religion as Guarantors of Cultural Convergence
Susanna Mancini, 30 Cardozo L. Rev. 2629 (2009)
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In the following pages, I will analyze cases decided and laws adopted in various jurisdictions with sharply different models for managing the relationship between the state and religion: Italy, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. I will also consider the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which is invested with the task of striking a balance between unity and diversity in 47 nations with deeply divergent constitutional traditions. Despite the differences among all of these systems, all cases rely more or less explicitly on a dichotomous construction of the relationship between Christianity and Islam, according to which the former–to be sure in a secularized form–is projected as a central component of Western civilization, while the latter is cast as a threatening “other.” Both the imposition of Christian symbols in the public schools as cultural mainstays and the restrictions on the right to wear Islamic symbols in the name of secularism correspond to this logic. Secularized religion and secularism are used in order to exclude the other and protect the culturally homogeneous character of European societies that is perceived–and even explicitly described–as threatened by pluralism and globalization.
