Secularism’s laïcité doctrine functions as a weapon against Muslims

Evidence

The Hijab Ban was not enough. The French commitment to laïcité, that long-contested concept that commits the state to secularism in public life, was no longer an idea open to debate but a bludgeon used to injure. A weapon, manipulated and maneuvered in the direction of Muslims in France, in the same way that police guns and maces and batons were wielded against those African and Arab and Amazigh youth in the streets of Parisian banlieues. This time, the blows were legal and more lethal. They were inflicted within public schools “where citizens are shaped and made,” and for Muslim students, assimilated or othered. — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 710

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains laïcité in passing as the contested secularism concept repurposed against Muslims.