Marieme Helie Lucas was born and raised in Algeria, but she was forced to flee into exile after the rise of extremist Islamic politics in her country. Recently, Shuddhashar had an opportunity to interview her in-depth and engage in a lively conversation.
Marieme Helie Lucas is an Algerian sociologist. She was born in Algeria in 1939 but was forced into exile after the rise of extremist Islamists in her country. Throughout the world, Marieme Helie Lucas is well-known as an activist for women’s liberation and human rights. She is the founder of the organizations “Women Living Under Muslim Laws” (1984) and “Secularism is a Women’s Issues” (2004). Marieme Helie Lucas’s reflections on secularism, Islamism, religious fundamentalism, feminism, and democracy have sparked significant interest, debate, and controversy. Drawing on her unique personal and intellectual background in both Algeria and France, she offers incisive critiques of the religious, social, and political biases that shape the Arab world and the broader Muslim context, opening provocative ways to think about politics, religion, and secularism. Guided by her free-thinking and feminist commitments, Helie Lucas remains a vocal opponent of religious and state oppressions wherever repressive religious forces arise. Marieme Helie Lucas is a close friend and inspiration of Shuddhashar, a platform for free-thought and free intellect, and we believe her opinions and observations will foster meaningful consideration and dialogue. A portion of this interview was accepted in written form and published in 2018. In 2024, Shuddhashar had the opportunity to accept an oral interview. With her approval, both interviews have been newly edited and published here as a combined interview. All opinions expressed in the interview are her own. -Shuddhashar FreeVoice
Interview in 2018:
Shuddhashar: We would like to hear about your personal struggles coming from a conservative society.
Marieme Helie Lucas: I come from a very progressive family in a conservative country and time. And I know many progressive women and men from Muslim countries or backgrounds who could say just the same. So, I never had to struggle for my own personal freedom; it was gifted to me from childhood. It was clear from the start that I would get the best possible education, that boys and girls should be equal, that women should earn their living and be economically independent, etc.
My mother and her sister (my maternal aunt), who raised me together, were feminists, and my maternal grandmother was a feminist too. Of course, this meant different types of struggles for different generations. My grandmother, a brilliant student, was taken out of school against her will and despite her pleading when she was 12 (school was compulsory under French colonial rule till that age), in order to help raise the youngest child in the family. She later struggled very hard as a young widow with two daughters to complete her education and find a job. She therefore paid for her daughters’ education until the ages of 26 and 27, respectively, i.e., until they achieved professorship. I was still a child when I heard my grandmother say, ‘Women should be economically independent.’ I quote her exact words because it struck me as such a modern way to express herself, while she was born in the early 1880s.
My mother and my aunt waged other struggles for their own personal independence: marriage, divorce for my mother, and celibacy, with a very late (and chosen) marriage for my aunt, as well as citizens’ rights. I benefited from all their previous struggles and gains before starting to wage the new struggles of my time.
In my experience, during my years with the international solidarity network ‘Women Living Under Muslim Laws’ (WLUML), many feminists and progressive women from Muslim contexts had just the same experience of being supported and encouraged by one or both their parents and building on the gains of their progressive ancestors. It is a very encouraging point of view for young parents today to realize that by giving a progressive egalitarian education to their sons and daughters, they can help build resistance in society.
About 40 years ago, while we were doing research on family laws in Muslim contexts ― we could see that family laws are defined, or at the very least colored by religious interpretations ― we came across and collected Muslim marriage contracts passed in Bangladesh a hundred years ago, in which so many progressive provisions were made that guaranteed the rights of the bride: her economic independence, freedom of movement, right to initiate a divorce, rights over children in case of dissolution of the marriage, her own choice of a monogamous marriage, etc.… were stipulated. Undoubtedly, those marriage contracts were among the educated progressive elites of Bangladesh. Nevertheless, it shows that progressive thinking existed.
However, class is not the only criterion when it comes to defending freedom and independence for women: I met many woman-headed families in Algeria whose children, boys and girls, were inculcated with equality and freedom for all, regardless of sex. After a harsh colonization, two World Wars – in which colonial troops were deliberately sent to the front lines and were subsequently decimated – and then the 7 ½ years long liberation struggle that also killed many men in Algeria, the mothers had become heads of the family. They were generally widows (and sometimes divorced) and poor, but they were independent, managed their family financially, and did not allow the extended family to make any decision for themselves or their children.
We have a rich and diverse (progressive, libertarian, atheist, feminist) history that we should reclaim. As part of such a much-needed effort, we in WLUML started collecting stories of women who fought for their rights in Muslim contexts many centuries before us. We should consider them as our inspiring predecessors, our Great Ancestors in feminism.
I think we should now start collecting stories of our Great Ancestors in secularism as well. It is a timely political task, too. We should build on this history, instead of passively swallowing up the unfounded reactionary (and racist) propaganda that pretends that revolutionary ideas, including feminism, are imported from the West. That propaganda only aims at delegitimizing us, and it grants the most reactionary forces in our countries the label of national authenticity.
Shuddhashar: Could you give us an understanding of the politics of the time, both globally and nationally, from when you left Algeria?
Marieme Helie Lucas: I am part of the generation that grew up and became politicized in the late fifties and early sixties, during Algeria’s liberation struggle from French colonization, and throughout the decolonization of Africa. Algeria was the first among African countries colonized by France to initiate a liberation struggle, and the last to be freed, after 7 ½ years of war. After independence, Algiers hosted liberation movements of Southern Africa and the Portuguese colonies. It was an inspiring place to live, offering experiences of self-management and various people’s initiatives in the field of popular culture, for instance.
It did not last long, and the reactionary forces that kept quiet during the struggle for Independence did not take long to raise their heads. For example: improvised self- management in agriculture, a sheer necessity to make sure the country will not starve after the departure of European settlers, was quickly tamed and controlled by the government, becoming state-owned farms or industries; a regressive and repressive family law that severely curtailed women’s rights was passed under the influence of Muslim fundamentalist groups; women were little by little incited to wear traditional veiling, then forced into wearing a totally un-traditional, culturally alien, type of veil, Saudi style; Berber minorities were suppressed and so were their languages, to the benefit of Arabic; etc.… All this paved the way for the religious right to grow, to infiltrate the minds of the people, and finally, in the late 80s to attempt seizing political power and launching a “war against civilians” (as we called it, by opposition to the concept of “civil war”) in the 90s, which made about 200,000 victims.
Shuddhashar: Could you elaborate on your involvement with creating awareness about religious fundamentalism worldwide and especially in Muslim-majority nations?
Marieme Helie Lucas: The network Women Living Under Muslim Laws was not designed to create awareness in the West but to link up, support, enhance, and reinforce women’s organizations in Muslim contexts. It is only recently, with the fundamentalist ideological offensive spreading in ‘the West,’ that one had to address this issue and raise awareness globally in writings and activism. Women in Muslim contexts do not need to be ‘made aware’ of religious fundamentalism; they suffer from it every day. In all our countries, we were told: “That’s what Islam says, it is like this because Islam says so…” in order to justify the oppression of women. A simple comparison between two neighboring countries in North Africa (both are Maliki) showed that the laws in Tunisia granted women many rights that were denied in Algeria. For instance, Tunisia banned polygyny and repudiation, Algeria allowed both; Tunisia granted reproductive rights that Algeria denied, etc… However, both countries stated that their laws were in total conformity with Islam. This is what we found everywhere in the so-called ‘Muslim world’.
We extended the comparison to countries in the Middle East, Africa, South of the Sahara, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the former USSR Central Asia Republics, etc. The first step we took as an international network was an “exchange program” to expose women from one Muslim context to a very different culture ― albeit also ‘Muslim’. Women from countries where FGM [female genital mutilation] was practiced (in the name of Islam) were sent to countries where it was unheard of (and vice versa); women from countries where they had to veil went to countries where it was not compulsory and little done (and vice versa); etc… When they went back to their countries, they had seen so much diversity of behavior, practices, and ways of life within Muslim contexts that they were well equipped to challenge reactionary forces who pretended: ‘this is Islam’. In our first international planning meeting, we stated: ‘Our realities range from being strictly closeted, given in marriage as a child, etc, to enjoying freedom of movement, being politicians, Head of State, etc’ (Aramon Plan of Action, WLUML, 1986).
Our second step was to compare supposedly ‘Muslim’ family laws throughout Africa and Asia, pointing out the wide discrepancies in terms of space and rights for women: it ranges from having no rights to enjoying equal rights within the family. These laws were therefore obviously man-made, shaped by cultural norms at least as much as by religious interpretations and by the local political manipulations of religion. We undertook to compare these laws nationally, regionally, and internationally, and the reports were disseminated locally. An international handbook, designed to serve the needs of women’s rights activists, came out of this research (Knowing Our Rights, WLUML). Through the production and wide dissemination of such new knowledge, we increased women’s groups’ range of areas of struggle; they provided each other with news tools and exchanged strategies. Ideas, concepts, and analyses that were novel and unheard of in the late 1980s, when we established the WLUML network, are now widely adopted by women’s organizations in Muslim contexts worldwide.
Shuddhashar: You are aware of the situation surrounding the killings of bloggers and writers in Bangladesh. You have also visited the country. You have done research on Bangladesh and the wider Indian Subcontinent. How would you analyze the present situation there?
Marieme Helie Lucas: What happens in Bangladesh is similar to what happens in most so-called Muslim countries worldwide, where the religious right has been growing steadily over the past decades. Our governments have been making unholy alliances with the extreme right forces in order to tame progressive protests. They have chosen their camp, and now they – and we – pay the price. They pay the price because the Frankenstein monster they have nurtured will not be satisfied with crumbs of power; it wants to rule in their place and eliminate them politically. We pay the price because the people’s organizations have been decimated by our undemocratic governments, and there are no more political forces on the left that have the capacity to stand up to the religious extreme right. In our countries, unions and parties of the left have been banned, their leaders and activists jailed or killed, in total indifference from progressive forces worldwide. There is no one left to face the Frankenstein who escaped its masters.
Let’s take one step further and look at the rise of extreme right forces worldwide. In recent years, so many countries have seen the rise to political power of extremist right-wing nationalist forces, be it in India with the Hindu right, in Sri Lanka or Myanmar with the Buddhist religious right, or in Europe with the more traditional extreme right xenophobic political parties, not to speak of the election of Trump in the USA. We live in times when, globally, we witness a terrible political backlash. It is essential to look at the rise of Muslim fundamentalism within this global context, as the particular form that extreme right takes in our countries. It is important not to define them as religious movements (which they are not – they display a remarkable ignorance in religious matters and an equally remarkable indifference to debating interpretations of religion), but as political movements of an extreme right nature.
It is interesting to compare the ideological similarities between Nazism/Fascism and Muslim fundamentalism. They share, for instance, the following characteristics: Both believe in the superiority of either their ‘race’ or their creed. Both ground this superiority in a mythified past: be it the Aryan race, the glorious past of Rome, or the Golden Age of Islam. Both state that this superiority grants them the right and duty to physically eliminate the ‘Untermensch’, and curiously, across different times and different locations, these ‘sub-humans’ happen to be similar: Jews, communists, gays, etc., and now also “kufr” (non-believers). Both are pro-capitalists. Both define the place of women in society as ‘the Church (now read the Mosque), the cradle, the kitchen”… It is quite heartbreaking to witness the European Left defend – in the name of anti-imperialism and human rights – the Muslim extreme-right political forces that are currently slaughtering our progressive forces.
Shuddhashar: Blasphemy laws vary depending on the country. What do you think needs to be done in order to create global awareness about this situation?
Marieme Helie Lucas: By ‘global’, I have a feeling you actually mean ‘in the West’, and that bothers me. In India, for instance, Left intellectuals are in total denial of the rise of Muslim fundamentalism, because they rightly think that they need to denounce the Hindu right, which is now in power; but they also believe that the Hindu right is far more dangerous and that it needs to be addressed first. This is, in my view, a strategic error: both need to be denounced. Like many other Left and far-Left people in Europe, they deny that the Muslim extreme right is growing dangerously.
In Europe, under the influence of Muslim fundamentalist groups, the resurgence of the crime of ‘blasphemy’ is slowly creeping under new wordings such as ‘hurt religious sentiments.’ Even in France, the birthplace of secularism (in fact, laïcité, as we can discuss later), politicians and media are propagating such dangerous concepts. Although, of course, in Muslim countries, there are more and more attacks on secularists. I think ‘blasphemy’ is coming back everywhere now. Secularists are very aware of the danger, and in the UK, there are actions initiated by the Council of Ex-Muslims of Great Britain to demand from politicians the suppression of its criminalization.
Shuddhashar: What are your thoughts and analyses on the ideological basis behind the movement, including terrorism, to create an Islamic State?
Marieme Helie Lucas: I think I said it already when I pointed out the need to qualify in political terms and not in religious ones, the extreme right political movements working under the guise of religion in our countries. “Terrorism” has an ideological basis that needs to be exposed and combated. (I do not use this terminology, which only points at the ways and means of struggling, not as the aim of the struggle). One cannot hope to defeat the Muslim extreme right without targeting their ideology first. Algerian women have been saying so — in vain, alas ― throughout the 90s when armed Muslim fundamentalists were decimating the population in order to impose an Islamic state in Algeria. To our utter surprise, democrats in Europe were supporting our religious extreme right in the name of democracy, because they were opposing our government. True enough, we had successive undemocratic governments, but who in one’s right mind would dream of exchanging Thatcher for Hitler in the name of democracy! The failure to analyze the rise of extreme-right forces in Muslim majority countries will remain a stain on democratic forces worldwide.
Interview in 2024:
Shuddhashar: Many people are waiting and wondering if you are writing your autobiography, so are you writing that or anything else?
Marieme Helie Lucas: I’m not writing my autobiography. I’m working on a book on Algeria, which is a collection of articles that I wrote over the decades when I was still in Algeria and shortly after leaving. It should have been published already, but I am the one who is late because I have moved a few times, and I wasn’t able to keep track of my articles. I finally managed to retrieve a good number of them, and I hope they show what happened in Algeria in terms of class. Orthodox Marxists point out the fact that there was no national bourgeoisie, which is true. There were very few big Algerian landowners. So, what we have is what Djilas described as the “New class” in ex-Yugoslavia. Essentially, we had the formation of a new class, which was the administration of the new government of liberated Algeria. And these people, although they don’t own the means of production, little by little, made these means of production, which were owned by the state, work to their own benefit as a class. And this is exactly what Djilas describes for ex-Yugoslavia. Looking at my old articles, I see this as a recurrent theme, and I think that will be the overwhelming focus of the book.
Shuddhashar: What is your observation on the latest political situation in Algeria? Additionally, how have the Muslim extreme-right been more successful in spreading their ideology and cultural approach in society at the grassroots level?
Marieme Helie Lucas: Well, I’m not there anymore, but I can tell what happened when I was still there. Muslim fundamentalist groups catered to the needs of the people like they do everywhere: they do the social work that governments fail to do. There’s nothing special about Algeria. Let’s take an example. There was an earthquake on October 10, 1980, in the region of El Asnam in the northern part of Algeria. The city was almost entirely destroyed, and the State Emergencies people reached there only one week later, while the religious groups reached the following day. This has also been described, for his own country – Turkey – in one of the books by the Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk, that, with the relief, which is badly needed, also come some “gifts”. Not just pens and pots and clothes, etc., but the hijab. And then people can’t refuse it because they are being taken care of, and these fundamentalist groups are the only people who take care of them. Little by little, that is how it started. You cannot accept all the other gifts and say, “Oh, this. I don’t want it.” It is obviously the international tactic of fundamentalist groups. It happened in Algeria, and it happened in Turkey. The same tactics were used in South Asia and Pakistan as well. It’s one of their ways. They occupy the area that is left vacant by the state. I remember when they first started in Algeria in the late 60s, early 70s. Independence was in 1962, so it was very, very early, and they were distributing goodies to people in need, like oil, coffee, sugar, basic things…..and the veil.
What I see is the overwhelming, for lack of a better word, “Islamization” of society in Algeria. In the 90s, Islamists tried to take over by force, and there was a huge government repression against them. This, we must acknowledge. So, they have not actually succeeded in coming to power at that time, but they have deeply, deeply transformed society for the worse, in a very reactionary way. Lots of women, now, wear the veil. It was not the case after independence.
Shuddhashar: What is the conflict or difference between traditional Algerian culture and this Islamization?
Marieme Helie Lucas: In Algeria, many women were not veiled. They were mostly part of the indigenous Berber population. In proportion, there were few Arabs and lots of Berbers, and many Berber women did not veil, traditionally. They are the ones who work on the land and cultivate the crops. They wear colorful dresses. These are the dresses I wear at home, colorful dresses. And they sometimes add a kerchief, which is also very colorful, put in different ways depending on the tribe they belong to. It was interesting for me to note that women switched to the veil in different ways, depending on the region. When country women moved to cities, for instance if they were married to somebody who was promoted as a small civil servant in the administration, and they are posted to the city, then women will start wearing a veil. As an indicator of a class promotion.
But veils are very different and worn in many different ways. In Algiers, it’s all white, a large rectangular piece of white cloth worn with a little fluffy kerchief on the nose with lace. But in Constantine, for instance, the local veil is entirely black and looks much like the present-day Middle Eastern hijab. In the Mzab region, women hide their face with a black veil and look out only with one eye. In the Sahara, the veil is made of thin cloth, often transparent and colorful, loosely worn over the head and on the shoulders.
All this is far from the present-day uniform, which now spreads the world over as “the” way to be a proper Muslim woman.
In Algeria, people were Muslims by tradition. For instance, when I was young, lots of people didn’t fast during Ramadan but would only celebrate the Eïd festivity that marks the end of Ramadan. They would drink alcohol. Still, they described themselves as Muslims.
Things are very different now; people are afraid of being denounced by one another: they hide when they do not fast during Ramzan, from neighbors, from friends, from colleagues, and even from family members. I still remember when a young man confided in me and told me he was hiding from his own mother and was going into the toilets when he wanted to bite into a piece of bread.
Shuddhashar: You have been describing lots of different Islams in the world. Is that right?
Marieme Helie Lucas: Yes, but for me, these extreme right forces are not religious forces. I can describe to you at length what fundamentalists in Algeria have said about religion, which has proved their total ignorance. In the beginning, we were trying to confront them on this terrain. We had progressive interpreters of the Quran coming to confront them, but it was useless. They don’t care. They have their own ideas. They invent lots of things. During the 90s, they invented that women shouldn’t wash, should not clean themselves. Can you imagine? How is this Islamic? They said it was. Public baths (hammams) were closed to women by fundamentalists because they didn’t want women to go out of the house, have a bath and wash themselves once a week, as was traditional.
Shuddhashar: Currently, their political approach is spreading all over the world and many people have become radical Islamists. How do we overcome this situation in the Muslim world?
Marieme Helie Lucas: I don’t think we can right now, because globally you can see the rise of extreme right forces absolutely everywhere ― including in Europe. Muslim fundamentalism, to me, is just the particular form of extreme right political forces that exists our countries. It’s a big error to continue to refer to fundamentalists as religious people. They are not religious. They’re political.
Shuddhashar: In your view, is there any possibility of having a more inclusive society? For example, in Bangladesh, there are many different religious groups (Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, etc.). Is it possible for a nation to foster genuine inclusivity among people of different religious faiths? Is that, in your opinion, a goal worth striving for?
Marieme Helie Lucas: No, I think the solution is secularism (in the sense of “laïcité”, i.e. separation between state and religion), not inclusivity of various and antagonistic “communities” with their non-elected, self-appointed, reactionary, so-called representatives speaking in their name. How could this be considered as democratic? I think it’s important to see people as citizens of a country who can elect their government and their representatives in parliament and vote for laws, while keeping religion as their private personal affair. Religion should not interfere with the government. This is the original definition of secularism as it was conceived of after the French revolution of 1789; a definition that was later, after a long struggle against the opposition of the Catholic Church, inscribed into the law in 1905 and 1906.
This law of laïcité is now denounced the world over by Muslim fundamentalists as “the law against Islam”. This is ridiculous and shows how Muslim fundamentalists and all the lazy journalists who relay their ideas are ignorant of historical facts: there was definitely no migration from Muslim countries to France, neither at the time of 1789 when the concept was adopted by the Revolution, nor even in 1905 when it went into the law. Migration to France of workers from Muslim countries did not start before the end of WWI, and in a small way. It grew after WWII and increased in the 1970s when families were allowed to join the foreign workers settling in France.
In your question about whether we could have a more inclusive society by “including” many different religious groups, you were implicitly using the British definition of secularism as equal tolerance by the state of different religions. This, in my view, breeds communalism, with different “communities” fighting against each other for more privileges than the others. Bangladesh, through British colonization of the sub-continent, inherited this re-definition of the original concept of secularism as laïcité i.e. separation from the state and religions. Obviously, the concept of laïcité was too revolutionary for Britain, where the King or Queen is also the Head of the Anglican Church.
However, at the moment, I do not think there is a possibility for us to make progress on defending laïcité in our own countries. I think we are losing ground, absolutely everywhere I know.
But, as I always say: wherever there are slaves, there are inevitably slave revolts. Those will come, I am convinced of that, but I may not see them in my lifetime.
Shuddhashar: Why do you think the progressive political activists and philosophy are failing to combat Islamic fundamentalists? What is the problem?
Marieme Helie Lucas: The Islamic (and other religious) fundamentalists have money, and the progressives do not. Also, progressives really need to organize. In my country, at least, they are totally dismantled. Of course, there are lots of individuals who are really good people, who are very progressive, etc., but they have not coalesced into a political organization. And it’s unlikely that this will happen soon. Everywhere today, it’s the extreme right forces that are rising ― absolutely everywhere. So, it’s not the best time for us right now.
After our independence in Algeria, everyone was extremely progressive. But this spirit of independence did not last.
Shuddhashar: How do you see the rise of religious fundamentalist demands interacting with secular principles in countries like France or elsewhere?
Marieme Helie Lucas: I can speak about France. France has been witnessing a situation in which organized groups of Muslim fundamentalists, and I insist on Muslims ― not so much other religions ― have been making unreasonable demands on the French government in the name of their religious identity and their religious rights. In France, there are no such thing as specific religious rights; there are citizens’ rights. The Republic, the secular Republic, guarantees in its 1905 law on laïcité article 1 the right to belief and practice for individuals. But article 2 specifies that the Secular Republic as such does not deal with religions does not interfere with them, does not recognize religions’ self-appointed representatives, does not fund religious initiatives, etc… Beliefs, creeds, remain a private affair.
Hence citizens have absolutely no “specific” religious rights as far as the Republic is concerned. But they do have citizens’ rights.
For instance, fundamentalist Muslims in France are asking now for separation between men and women in lots of circumstances. In state hospitals, they want women to be treated only by women doctors. But, if only for practical reasons, the medical situation in France does not allow for this because there is a shortage of medical personnel in public healthcare and hospitals, whether doctors and nurses are men or women. So, people cannot choose who they would want to be taken care of by. The medical system is stretched so much that you wait for hours, even in emergencies, and you wait for days and weeks before you get an appointment if it is not urgent. I just had an example myself. I fell and damaged, very badly, my shoulder. I had an X-Ray, so I know nothing is broken, but for the rest, I don’t know anything because for three to four weeks now, I haven’t been able to have an appointment with a specialist. I’ll have one soon, but that will be five weeks after the accident. That’s the situation of health care in France.
Imagine, in this context, demanding that only female doctors could give treatment or attend to women when they are ill. It’s totally unreasonable. May I remind you that medical treatment in state hospitals is entirely free. It’s not free everywhere in Europe, far from that…
Muslim fundamentalists demand lots of things like this, special days for women in swimming pools, all sorts of other things, more and more unreasonable. We even had a court case in which a couple got married, both of them of Muslim descent from different countries. They got married, and then it so happened that the man said she was not a virgin and thus wanted to end the marriage. By French law, he could divorce on any ground, consensually, and she did not object to that. She said, ‘Okay, we can get divorced without any reason, we just agree to get divorced’, but that’s not what he wanted. He wanted an annulment of the marriage on the grounds that virginity was “an essential condition for the validity of marriage”. And a judge said yes, a French judge agreed to it!! Then the state had to step in: it stated that this was “illegal. You can get divorced anytime; you both agree to it. However, you cannot get an annulment on the grounds that virginity is an essential condition for a valid marriage”. This was obviously an attempt to undermine and deeply modify the French marriage law by introducing into it an anti-women element: virginity for women only, which points to traditions in many Muslim countries.
Muslim fundamentalists are constantly, in all areas of life, trying to force France to abandon laïcité [a French concept unfortunately often translated as secularism] and align with secularism as defined by Britain and subsequently adopted by those colonized.
Muslim fundamentalists tried again, for example, with the veil in state schools. It has been one of the rules, since 1905, that schools ruled by the secular state are entirely free and secular. Yet, fundamentalists are trying with all their might to get France to accept that some children should be either veiled or wear a kippah or a big cross. But all this is forbidden and has been so for over a hundred years. You can wear these religious items outside the school, but not inside the school. Outside the schools, nobody will interfere with your beliefs or traditions. But in school, it’s entirely secular.
Muslim fundamentalists also want state schools to forbid biology classes and teach creationism; they demand art classes to be done away with (as forbidden in Islam), and they do not want girls to have gym class… Etc…
Please note that the law allows, does not curtail your individual freedom: for example, the French law gives equal rights to inheritance to men and women, but if, as a devout Muslim woman, you believe that your brother should have a double share of inheritance, you are free to donate part of your share to him.
The French law allows for contraception and abortion, but if, as a devout Catholic woman, you believe your god does now allow for it, you can have as many children as you want (and still benefit from state support to bring them up). Nobody will force you to practice contraception or abortion.
If, as parents, you want your children to receive a religious education, you are free to put them into religious schools; the French state only demands that children benefit from an education, but parents can choose not to use secular state schools.
So you see, they are vehemently trying to change the laws, at least for the presumed “Muslim Community”. Different un-voted laws for different “communities” is an alien concept for France. France only recognizes individual citizens, and, legally, they all have equal rights, whatever their origin, their creed, their social class, etc…
There is this forceful attempt by Muslim fundamentalist political forces to de-secularize (in fact “de-laïcize) France on the basis of identity politics and religious rights.
Shuddhashar: So, religious rights are relevant to identity politics or ethnicity?
Marieme Helie Lucas: Well yes, precisely, they are. Muslim fundamentalists are trying to demolish the French concept of citizenship and of equality between all citizens, which dates back to the French Revolution, to the benefit of the concept of communities. They are forcefully attempting to have separate laws for separate communities, which we can see in Britain. I think there are presently about 300 so-called Sharia courts in Britain. They rule in matters of personal law only: marriage, divorce, alimony, custody of children, etc. So, it’s always to the detriment of women, and that’s why nobody cares. Women.
The concept of “community” raises a major issue: who decides you belong to a “religious community”? Your Muslim name? Your Arabic name? Your place of birth, in a so-called Muslim country? The religion of your family? Is religion considered as a new sort of “race”? Isn’t religion supposed to be a personal individual creed? Does one, should one inherit it?
Are freedom of conscience, freedom of thought, freedom of religion – these universal human rights – not applicable to presumed “Muslims”?
Everywhere I have gone, I have seen small groups demanding secularism, but please remember that because of colonization, secularism/laïcité doesn’t mean the same thing for those who were colonized by Britain and those who were colonized by France. Therefore, it’s a bit difficult for me to make any general statement because we don’t have the same definition: for you and me, and in our countries of origin, the definition of secularism is different. Once we go into detail, then we can understand the differences and build on that, but otherwise, talking about secularism in general doesn’t make sense to me. In Algeria, in Senegal, in France, it means separation between state and religion and individual freedom to believe in whatever gods or goddesses one wants to worship. The European Union really tries to bend France so that they accept their notion of secularism – the state being equally just to various communities. So far, the concept of “community” doesn’t exist in France, but it will happen, if nobody stops the European community from promoting the British re-definition of laïcité. The European courts of human rights have been condemning France again and again, as if they cannot read the French law on laïcité. Many people want secularism to be peace and harmony between different groups, but that is not what secularism/laïcité means to me, nor to the French people.
Shuddhashar: Could you speak more about your last comment on “peace and harmony” and secularism?
Marieme Helie Lucas: Lots of people want peace and harmony with all sorts of different people, but they all implicitly recognize that religion is a marker of identity. I don’t. I have been colonized by France. Thank God, if I may say!
No, lots of people want peace and harmony, but very few people reflect on what laïcité should be and what it brings in terms of freedom, including freedom of religion, but definitely in terms of our rights. Our human rights as human beings, as individuals, have been taken away, including by the organization in charge of ensuring those principles are applied. This has been taken away from us, and it’s now been entrusted into the hands of so-called self-appointed representatives of “communities”. I think communalism is on the rise in Europe too. I see it in France, and I hear about it in other European countries, and all this is done in the name of human rights!!! That’s a real nightmare. Citizens’ rights are totally erased for the benefit of community rights. This is the very definition of communalism. In Senegal, there are still people fighting very hard for laïcité. It’s slowly being eroded, but it’s still vivid, like in Morocco and Algeria. But in India, I think the most advanced minds – and secular in the British sense – are trying to get what they call peace and harmony…i.e. fighting Modi Hindu right government. But they don’t have the concept of totally ignoring religion. All the leftists and intellectuals I know in India don’t see how important laïcité is.
If you ask me, “do you believe there’s a God?” I personally would say, “I don’t care. If you think there’s one, it doesn’t disturb me. It’s not my problem”. This is a concept which very few people have now, and France is really losing on this. The political leaders, including those on the left, constantly switch towards peace and harmony between communities. It’s a nightmare!
Shuddhashar: What is your opinion of what the Arab world, politically, will be like in the next ten years?
Marieme Helie Lucas: Currently, I fail to see a country that is not threatened by the extreme right. That includes Europe, that includes everywhere I know in Africa, and in South Asia. The Arab world is no exception. It has authoritarian governments, terrible repression of dissenters, and the most religious extreme right on the rise absolutely everywhere. If you move to India, it’s the Hindu right, and if you went to Venezuela, it’s the Christian right, not to speak of Israel and its Jewish extreme right.
Shuddhashar: In light of all this repression in multiple regions of the world, how can we ensure human rights?
Marieme Helie Lucas: I think we have lost the battle. At least my generation has lost it. Maybe younger people will pick up the flag. People are still fighting. Karima Bennoune has been successful in getting recognition for the terminology of gender Apartheid in the UN. I think that may help us a little bit, but, on the whole, I’m very pessimistic. I mean in the short term, I’m pessimistic, not in the long term. In the long term, there will be other revolts and other movements.
Shuddhashar: What is your current observation about the feminist movement?
Marieme Helie Lucas: I see less and less of a global movement, which was prominent in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. I’ve also seen the failure to recognize the power of movements from Third World countries. We have often been patronized and exoticized by so-called Western feminists, for lack of a better word. Within France, I see less and less solidarity among women; everything is instrumentalized. I have gotten direct reports from women who were in the demonstrations in France after the October 7th attack by Hamas. There were demonstrations in France against the response by Israel, i.e. the war in Gaza, and some Jewish women came and wanted the human rights violations of the women who were killed in the October 7th attack to be acknowledged too. However, they were forced out of the demonstration, which I think is a terrible denial of sisterhood and of human rights in general.
So, I’m not very hopeful about that either. I have seen the bright days of international solidarity, and now I see less and less of them. I see everything become highly politicized and instrumentalized, like all the demonstrations against the war in Gaza right now. I’m 100% against the war in Gaza, but I do not want to march with the Muslim Brotherhood. This is it.
Shuddhashar: What is your next plan?
Marieme Helie Lucas: I don’t have a plan. I’m 85, so I’ll be dying soon. That’s my next plan. Although, my immediate plan, is to finish this book with my old articles on Algeria.
Then I want to write down what I said in Paris at the Celebrating Dissent gathering, and what I said yesterday here in Norway: I want to write it as a political tract to explain why we should fight for laïcité as separation, in the most practical terms. So that’s my immediate plan.
Shuddhashar: Thank you, Marieme.
Marieme Helie Lucas: Thank you, my dear friend.
Image Credit: Nano GoleSorkh, CC BY-SA 3.0
