Are Muslims the New Catholics? Europe’s Headscarf Laws in Comparative Historical Perspective

INTRODUCTION A popular movement is sweeping across Europe aimed at restricting public expression of European Muslim identity. (1) Perhaps best known example is 2004 French law banning students, parents, and teachers from wearing hijabs (and other ostentatious religious symbols) in public schools. (2) Meanwhile, several German states have made it illegal for school teachers wear headscarves, and city of Maaseik in Belgium banned wearing of burqa. (3) In 2010 French passed a ban on full-face veils, (4) while laws targeting burqa are under consideration in Belgium, Quebec, and canton of Aargau in Switzerland. (5) Nor is anti-Muslim sentiment limited clothing. In 2006 Denmark enacted citizenship examinations and mandatory declarations make sure prospective immigrants have appropriate (6) Under law prospective immigrants must declare that they understand and that men and women have equal rights and obligations, while agreeing that female circumcision and the use of force contract marriage is illegal in Denmark. (7) The construction of Muslim religious buildings has also come under fire. In 2009 Switzerland passed a referendum banning construction of minarets. (8) Polling data shows that large percentages of population of several European countries either supported Swiss ban or proposed similar bans in their own countries. (9) Finally, Danish newspaper, Jyllands Posten, published twelve cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammed (including one showing a bomb in his turban). (10) The cartoons, which many Muslims found offensive, (11) came on heels of provocative anti-Muslim statements from leading figures in Danish public life, such as culture minister Brian Mikkelsen who spoke of a cultural battle against Muslim immigrants who refused to accept Danish culture and European values. (12) According Flemming Rose, then-editor of Jyllands Posten's culture page, cartoons were a necessary step stand up totalitarian threat of self-censorship posed by radical Muslims and also a way of introducing Muslims Danish tradition of satire. (13) Although this language did not directly single out Muslims as such, in defending cartoons Rose also spoke of high Muslim birth rates, compared Muslims unfavorably Latinos in United States, and accused radical Muslim leaders of engaging in a cult of victimology that ignored relatively high crime rates among immigrant groups. (14) Supporters of anti-Muslim laws and policies often portray them as a necessary defense against an Islamic threat, a threat drawn from a post-1945 Cold War perspective. (15) Muslim religious leaders are branded as fascists and Muslim headscarf becomes a symbol of totalitarianism; those who oppose publishing Mohammed cartoons are decried as appeasers. (16) On one level, this framing makes sense since it reflects historical experience of Europeans over last hundred years. But it also has its problems. For one thing, demands made by Muslims are religious as well as political. Furthermore, equating Islam with Europe's greatest inner demons overstates whatever challenges Muslims may pose European liberalism while making compromise less likely. (17) This Article proposes an alternate frame. What if Muslims--rather than being Soviets or Nazis-in-training--are new Catholics? During second half of nineteenth century, a struggle erupted between Catholics and liberals over schools, civil marriage, and burial (18)--the same issues at center of current debates in Europe. The key event of this struggle was German Kulturkampf (1871-1887), during which Otto von Bismarck, at head of a coalition of German liberals and nationalists, led a campaign separate German Catholics from reactionary influences of Papacy. The means for doing so included restrictions on religious speech, banning Jesuits, state assumption of civil marriage, and requiring new priests swear an oath of loyalty German state. …

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