The Muslim tension in France has reached a new level. Praying in the streets has been banned in Paris, and it may be extended to the rest of the country. After reading several news articles, I learned that thousands of Muslims have been blocking the streets with their prayer mats on Fridays – apparently because there are not enough mosques – and the secular French have had enough of the weekly obstruction to their public roads. “The street is for driving in, not praying,” the French interior minister Claude Guéant said. This is only five months after France became the first European nation to ban the burqa, partly because the full covering undermined the French ideals of openness and equality.
It is well-known that the Muslim population is growing rapidly in Europe, due partially to the declining birth rate among Europeans and the very large birth rate among the growing Muslim immigrants. France is said to have the largest Muslim population, numbered at five or six million, and it’s fascinating to watch the unfolding tension between them and the sophisticated, secular French state.
American conservatives have taken deserving mockery for paranoia about Sharia law coming to the United States when there does not seem to be evidence for it. But Islamophobia among American conservatives tends to come from a belief that Muslims view Christians as infidels and want to kill them and/or force them to live by their totalitarian rules. Some even view the Muslim rise in Europe and around the world as a concerted conspiracy to slowly exert power within democracy and ultimately overthrow it. My economic beliefs lead me to wonder if many Muslims are simply immigrating because they want more freedoms and a higher living standard than that offered by the dictatorial rulers of Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, where (for instance) women are forbidden from driving. If so, I suspect that democracy and prosperity are more likely to soften their religious fervor than to inspire them to revolution – but of course I could be wrong.
So it’s fascinating to me that in my corner of the woods, opposition to Muslim influence comes from a religious perspective, while the French are revealing the same opposition from a secular perspective. The Muslims in France are not interfering with the ability of Christians or Jews to practice their own religions; they are interfering with the regular French secular way of life, like being able to see people’s faces in public or being able to drive through the street without running into a mass of prostrate people.
From what I understand, the French don’t really care one way or the other about Islam, or any other religion, for that matter. I thought of the story of Daniel when I first saw the headline about Paris banning “public prayer,” but this is not a story of a society restricting a religious practice because they dislike the practicers. It’s a story of a society restricting practices that are beginning to impose negative externalities on the public goods of their society. It’s the effects of Islam that are beginning to intrude upon their public life, and France is the first country to experience – and react to – these effects in a strong manner. But those effects are caused by Muslim practices, and the Muslims in France must view these acts as an assault on their religion, while the secular French must be becoming more and more wary of Islam. The tension is rising. The burqa ban was the first spark, and the public street prayer ban will not be the last. It will be interesting to watch.