Moderate Secularism and Multiculturalism

The value of ‘moderate secularism’

In relation to the first part of the first criticism, namely the generality of the distinction, I do not really see much of a complaint here. Firstly, it may be the case that distinguishing between states on the basis of ‘moderate secularism’ and ‘radical secularism’ works at a very general level and there is much variety within each category but that does not mean that the distinction serves no purpose. To distinguish between, say, welfare state democracies and non-welfare state democracies may make a point – empirically and as part of a normative argument – about the importance of collective welfare even though welfare state democracies may take different forms. As a matter of fact, I note that moderate and radical secular states may take quite different forms and I illustrate this by discussing the US, Britain and France (Modood, 2007, pp. 72–76) and, more briefly, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany (Modood and Kastoryano, 2006, pp. 175–176). In any case, a purpose of my distinction is to demonstrate that, contrary to a widely held view, contemporary Muslim (and other minority) claims for accommodation in Western Europe are not counter to the values and practices of those polities.

Lægaard grants that ‘the fact of moderate secularism provides grounds for rejecting the common argument from secularism against multiculturalism’ (2008, p. 162). I actually think my conceptualisation of moderate secularism has more mileage than this. It is not just a rebuttal of a simplistic radical secularism but offers something new in thinking about secularism. In an important political theory discussion, Rajeev Bhargava, who is a moderate secularist within my meaning of the term, argues that the best versions of Western secularism are the American and the French. He argues that the Americans have given primacy to religious liberty and the French to equality of citizenship, but in their differing ways they have come up with the best thinking on secularism that the West has to offer (and so now need to learn from the more advanced thinking that Indian practice has to offer). ‘These are the liberal and republican conceptions of secularism. Since these are the most dominant and defensible western versions of secularism, I shall put them together and henceforth designate them as the mainstream conception of secularism’ (Bhargava, 2006, reproduced in 2008, p. 93). This is precisely what I am opposing empirically and normatively: these are not, or not the only, dominant Western versions, and nor are they the most defensible. Britain, and indeed most of Western, especially North-Western, Europe, where France is the exception not the rule, has more evolutionary, moderate approaches. These have several important features to do with a more pragmatic politics; with a sense of history, tradition and identity; and, most importantly, there is an accommodative character which is an essential feature of some historical and contemporary secularisms in practice. Some political theorists and radical secularists have a strong tendency to abstract that out when talking about models and principles of secularism. If this tendency can be countered, British and other European experience ceases to be an inferior, nonmainstream instance of secularism but becomes mainstream and politically and normatively significant, if not superior to other versions.

Accommodative or moderate secularism, no less than liberal and republican secularism, can be justified in liberal, egalitarian, democratic terms, and in relation to a conception of citizenship. Yet it has developed a historical practice in which, explicitly or implicitly, organised religion is treated as a public good. This can take the form of an input into a legislative forum, such as the House of Lords, on moral and welfare issues; of being a social partner to the state in the delivery of education, health and care services; of building social capital; or of churches belonging to ‘the people’. So even those who do not attend them, or even sign up to their doctrines, feel that they have a right to use them for weddings and funerals. All this is part of the meaning of what secularism means in most West European countries and it is quite clear that it is often lost in the models of secularism deployed by some normative theorists and public intellectuals. This is clearer today partly because of the development of our thinking in relation to the challenge of multicultural equality and the accommodation of Muslims, which highlights the limitations of the privatisation conception of liberal equality, and which sharpens the distinction between moderate/inclusive secularism and radical/ideological secularism. I have in my work expressly related the accommodative spirit of moderate secularism to the contemporary demands of multiculturalism. So I do not see my pointing to all this as some form of normative abstinence but as a determination of what is normatively at stake. I would contrast my approach with those who are concerned with genealogically exposing how secularism is not as neutral as it claims to be between religions but actively and coercively shapes religious subjectivities as it differentiates between acceptable and unacceptable religious norms, yet who abjure from making normative claims of their own (Asad, 2003; Mahmood, 2006). Unlike them I am most concerned to evaluate between different versions of secularism on the basis of studying real-world secularisms.

Lægaard seems to accept my characterisation of British secularism, and Western European secularism more generally, as moderate secularism, but argues that it offers no grounds for accepting a positive normative ideal (Lægaard, 2008, p. 162). I hope I have already shown why I think this fact–value distinction is too simplistic. It is crucial how we characterise what we think are the facts, in particular in relation to the norms embodied in the facts, and the normative uses of the facts, including comparative evaluations. I would go further and say that ‘the facts’, the status quo, have some normative claim upon us when it comes to practical politics, for they are the norms that we need to understand, engage with and adapt to the extent and over a time period that we think is practical. The norms of existing arrangements are only one set of considerations and not decisive but they are not irrelevant to the question of justification. Of course the arrangements that exist in our own polity may need to be adjusted or replaced by something else in the light of new circumstances or certain normative considerations but we must avoid unnecessary interference, harm and destruction and must be mindful of unintended consequences.

Lægaard points out that the same institutional arrangements may be interpreted very differently (the conclusions that Prime Minister Rasmussen draws compared to mine) but the possibility of such disagreement does not mean that the existing set of arrangements is normatively silent and so is incapable of intimating appropriate reform. Nevertheless I accept Lægaard's point that the concept of multicultural equality has to be invoked in order for me to justify my politics in relation to the reform I advocate; I never suggested otherwise and he does not claim that I did.

Multicultural equality

Just as Lægaard does not question my empirical analysis, he does not challenge any of my normative claims. His critique is that I leave my conception of equality and its justification unclear. In particular I do not specify the criteria by which to measure when equality has been achieved, and I do not justify why the concept of equality has to be sensitive to group difference.

Although Lægaard does not note this, I appeal to two concepts of equality, equality of dignity and equality of respect (Modood, 2008, pp. 51–58). While I see the former as essential to equality between individuals and to non-discrimination, like many multiculturalists I argue that it needs to be extended or supplemented to cover cases where we need to attend to group differences (cf. Carens, 2000; Taylor, 1994; Young, 1990). I do not discuss the former much, seeing the latter as the distinctive feature of multicultural equality, expanding or adding a new dimension of equality to liberal democratic rights and equalities (rather than displacing them). Lægaard is quite right in suggesting that in arguing for multicultural equality I am not arguing for identical outcomes. In drawing on equal respect I am working with a concept that is not based on measuring outcomes but on weighing claims. The argument is that we should treat the identity and related claims of minorities and marginalised groups with as respectful a concern as the majority expects for itself. But in balancing all such claims with each other the equality lies in the treatment, in including the marginalised into the circle of ‘privilege’, not in distributing identical outcomes. Lægaard asks, then, ‘how one determines which extensions of specific institutional compromises to Muslims amount to increases in equality, and when equality has been achieved so that no further accommodation is required’ (2008, p. 163). One important way in which this has been conceptualised is by Joseph Carens, who argues that the standard conception of justice ‘requires a hands off approach to culture and identity’ for the state shows respect for the equality and freedom of individuals by not ‘supporting or opposing any particular identity or culture’ (Carens, 2000, p. 8). Sometimes we have to work with another conception of justice and take an even-handed approach to claims of culture and identity and ‘we may sometimes come closer to equality by adopting practices of differentiated citizenship than by insisting on identical formal rights’ (Carens, 2000, p. 8). One example of weighing claims that might lead to differential outcomes which might be compatible with multicultural equality is the question of whether Sunday should enjoy a special status as a national rest day enshrined in law. Formal equality requires either that no religion should be privileged in this way or perhaps all should. Even-handedness on the other hand might take numbers into account and ‘the role of a given religion in the history of a country’, among other considerations (Carens, 2000, p. 12; cf. Bader, 2007, pp. 86–89). Similarly, I would argue that it is quite possible in a country like Britain to treat the claims of all religions in accordance with multicultural equality without having to abolish the established status of the Church of England, given that it has come to be a very ‘weak’ form of establishment and the Church has come to play a positive ecumenical and multi-faith role (Modood, 1997; Parekh, 2000, pp. 257–261). Some other relevant considerations are nicely captured by John Madeley in his characterisation of an important strand in contemporary antidisestablishmentarianism:

There is nothing in this that necessarily jeopardises equality of respect. Indeed, in approaching the reform of institutions multiculturalists should be particularly sensitive to the ways that the historical and the inherited can be valued in a variety of ways, including giving people a sense of belonging and national identity. This clearly can lead to tensions with institutionalising respect for marginalised minorities. My point is that such a task of weighing conflicting claims cannot be undertaken by reference to an abstract concept of justice and talk of measuring outcomes to determine (in)equality, and so Lægaard is asking for the wrong kind of theoretical-normative specification. ‘Weighing claims’ can however be given specification in processual terms, hence the multiculturalist emphasis on dialogue (or more accurately, multi-logues), and on the demand that those who have been previously excluded should be listened to and that institutional solutions should be a product of multicultural negotiations. This means bringing minorities into appropriate forums and committees and establishing mechanisms for equal consideration of all claims. ‘Multicultural equality’ refers as much to the institutionalisation of these multi-logues, the sharing of decision-making power and the mutual adjustments that result from these interactions as it does to outcomes.

Lægaard also argues that the examples of inequalities I use all concern the damage to individual dignity and self-respect due to individuals' membership of groups that are denigrated or discriminated against. They provide a reason to focus on groups in so far as the causes and corresponding political remedies of inequality involve group-specific differences. But they do not show that the underlying conception of equality supposed to explain why negative conceptions of groups are unacceptable itself needs to be sensitive to group differences (2008, p. 164). His suggestion seems to be that groups and the conditions of their inequality may vary but what we mean by ‘equality’, including what I say about ‘multicultural equality’, does not. I do not follow his point here. The concept of multicultural equality always alerts us to difference – in that sense it is always the same but this hardly fills out the concept. What fills it out are all the differences, all the ways in which difference and inequality are identified and tackled. Each new form of difference and engagement with that form of difference will give the concept of multicultural equality some new content and meaning.

Groups are essential to my conceptualisation of multiculturalism in at least four ways, sometimes as a cause and/or a remedy of an inequality:

Additionally, I argue that multiculturalism is built on an understanding that groups of people can be hurt and cured in different ways and that these ways are not known a priori but are contextually discovered, sometimes through conflict. So the form of these four features can vary from group to group. This is what I mean by applying the concept of equality to groups (yes, groups consist of individuals but that does not mean they are not groups) in a difference-sensitive way. Individual and group are interdependent, yet each of the four features above involves a conception of group and group equality/respect, and so the concept of group difference cannot be analysed away or reduced to aggregations. I suspect Lægaard takes my words in a way they were not meant, for I am not sure what more I can say to show that appropriate concepts of equality need to be sensitive to groups.

Lægaard's way of thinking about political concepts demands that we are able fully to state concepts such as equality in terms of purely logical necessary and sufficient conditions before we are able to evaluate a particular case as one of inequality or not, or before the agents themselves can establish relations of equality between them. For me, on the other hand, we do not have access to independent ideals. Our normative criteria and judgements are developments out of the norms and ideals that we learn about in engaging with real cases and a variety of contexts. We need some knowledge to get started but we do not need a full theory. The theory will emerge in the debates and in addressing the problems but full specification may never be possible and we may have to be satisfied with a dialectical zigzagging: the theory emerges out of the practice, imperfectly, is clarified by some reflection and analysis and is subsequently used to guide practice, including modifying some initial steps, and so on. Hence it is not surprising that the best multicultural political theory is explicitly not a priori but contextualist (e.g., Bader, 2007; Carens, 2000; Parekh, 2000; for comparative discussions see Favell and Modood, 2003; Owen and Tully, 2007).

Finally, Lægaard reads the relevant work of mine as political theory per se. The work is really a hybrid which draws on sociology no less than on political theory to produce a vision of multiculturalism that might make a difference to how we understand some challenges in our polities. The most fundamental normative unjustified presupposition in my concept of moderate secularism is that secularism – of any kind, moderate, radical and so on – is a good thing. This may not bother Lægaard very much but it is the most challenging question and is currently to what I am giving some attention.