Freedom From Forced Freedom

           Free rights: an idea whose meaning is elusive and which is difficult to attain in life. Men have spilled blood, ink, sweat and tears fighting for this virtue for millennia. For the religious, freedom is the ability to practice one’s faith and preach without persecution; for the secular, freedom is the ability to formulate one’s thoughts irrespective to dogmatic teachings; for the hedonist, freedom is to please one’s base self; for minorities, freedom is civil and civic equality; for many women, freedom is reproductive choice and equal pay.  

           Because freedom means different things to different people, I am confused as to how Jean Jacque Rousseau could assert that “These clauses, properly understood, are all reducible to a single one, namely the total alienation of each associate, together with all of his rights, to the entire community” and “Each of us places his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will; and as one we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole”. Under Rousseau’s social contract, the will of the majority is greater than the rights of the individual, which allows for abuse. Unfortunately  Rousseau’s idea that “and since the condition [social contract and freedom] is equal for everyone, no one has an interest in making it burdensome for the others” has not proved true in modern society.

             In Rousseau’s native France, there is a grave infringement of civil rights in the name of liberation. In 2004, the French Parliament passed  the Loi n° 2004-228 du 15 mars 2004 encadrant, en application du principe de laïcité, le port de signes ou de tenues manifestant une appartenance religieuse dans les écoles, collèges et lycées publics, commonly known as the veil  law, which allowed for the banning of outwardly religious items and attire—hijab, largecrosses and Jewish veils—under school administrators’ discretion. Under President Sarkozy, the current French head of state, the French Senatepassed a public ban on the burqa on September 14^th, 2010.  In a French media interview, Sarkozy stated “We do not want in France women that wear integrated veil. We do not want in France that we pray in an ostentatious way in the street” and “ Our compatriots, Muslim, must be able to practice their religion like any other compatriot, Jews, Protestants, and Catholics, but it can only be an Islam of France not Islam in France. This is impossible”. Spain and Belgium have enacted burqa bans of their own and Switzerland banned the building of minarets. 

Photo credit: http://globalvoicesonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/655808-640x480.jpg

               Perhaps more alarming is the banning of veiling in predominantly Muslim countries Turkey, Syria and Tunisia. Turkey, a 99% Muslim country, has followed secular law since the time of Ataturk in the 1920s. Since 1997,  the Turkish government has prohibited hijab in public places--schools, libraries, government buildings--with the notable exception of universities after a 2008 amendment. Tunisia banned hijab from 1981 to 2011, when the Arab Spring caused a change in secular laws. Syria banned the niqab, the facial veil, from July 2010 until the uprising in 2011.

Locally, enforced freedom has been carried out in the form of government surveillance of Muslims. In search of a more "moderate Islam" since 2001, government surveillance under the PATRIOT Act has caused Muslims to self-censor their sermons, stay quiet about foreign policy issues, and be less active in the community. Some men have shaved their beards and some women have put away their hijabs out of fear. As President Bush once said:

However, I am not arguing that forced freedoms are inherently wrong. Had Lincoln not shared Rousseau's belief that freedom may be forced upon others by the general will, he would not have taken the leap of faith necessary to execute the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, which ordered Confederate states to free their  slaves despite their state of war and unwillingness to comply. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 made long strides toward integration despite friction from conservative southern states. The intimidation tactics employed by the US toward Japan in the 1850s led to the opening of Pacific trade routes and modernization for feudal Japan.

Ultimately, freedom is a chameleon: it takes different forms depending on its environment. In today's globalized culture, the idea of enforced freedom is false because the will of the majority is rarely non-burdensome to the minority. In the case of Muslims in the West, the will of the majority leads to the violation of religious obligations and the infringement of the Western ideal of freedom of religion.