Compromise and surrender of principle: A response to an article by Ram Guha

by Marieme Helie Lucas

sacw.net

28 September 2009

A response to the article by Ramachandra Guha, ’The Beauty of Compromise: an excess of secularism may be as problematic as bigotry’ (in The Telegraph, 26 September 2009)

The information about French secularism, past and present, that one can draw from English speaking media leads to much misunderstanding and biased opinions. On the one hand one cannot blame writers who have no direct access to primary sources and have to rely on secondary ones. On the other hand, the propagation of biased information and thus of erroneous conclusions in the English language serve the interests of Muslim fundamentalists in France, and for that reason alone, it needs to be addressed.

The article by Ramachandra Guha shows bias at several levels: it overlooks the different definitions of secularism, it presents erroneous interpretations as facts, it under-evaluates the rise of Muslim fundamentalism as a political -not a religious- phenomenon and it accepts a cultural definition of women’s rights.

All of these tend to give credibility to the assertions of Muslim fundamentalists that combat French secularism.

Full Text at: http://www.sacw.net/article1150.html