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Book Notes: Religion and Politics in The European Union: The Secular Canopy by Francois Foret

So much has been written about the relationship between politics and faith in the USA, that the furores around the beliefs of everyone from Obama to Ted Cruz to Trump erupt along well established lines. The place and function of religion in the EU in contrast, remains elusive and has awaited serious research for some time. This is especially the case in terms of the European Parliament (EP), whose religiosity has been explored even less than that of the European Commission.

[1]

François Foret’s Religion and Politics in the European Union: The Secular Canopy is built on groundbreaking research exploring the subtle and complex relationship between these two phenomena amongst Europe’s elites. Foret’s detailed questionnaires and interviews with MEPs, (the “RelEP” survey) is the largest and most comprehensive appraisal of the role of faith/unbelief in the EP; and Foret maps his findings onto the history of the EU, its documents, controversies, external relations, and breaks them down for analysis both by nation and party-grouping.

Foret’s conclusions are detailed and highly nuanced, yet across the areas he addresses (Historical development, Political culture, Elite Recruitment, Elections, Access to the Public Square, Policy, and External Relations), several common themes occur. Most prominent amongst these are that in the context of ongoing secularization, religion persists as a second-order factor, capable of influencing certain debates, but not defining and driving agendas, framing issues or establishing political cleavages.[2] The EP has no direct competence over religious affairs, which like religious identities remain deeply embedded within nation-states, while religious matters come to the fore in the EP only rarely, notably in ethical debates.[3] Foret’s analysis of political socialization in the EP is especially striking however. In his estimation, many MEPs, from Ulster Protestants to Polish Catholics, function effectively within the EP and maintain their personal faith. Perhaps surprisingly, MEPs were reportedly ‘as religious’ as average Europeans, suggesting that faith is neither an obstacle to election nor a pre-requisite for it.[4] What MEPs are able to do with their beliefs is more interesting still, as there is an inherent tension between their faith and their role as functionaries, within an avowedly secular system and culture:

They can either accept the banalization and resorption of their religion into mainstream culture, in the hope of preserving it as part of the common stock of imaginary resources; or they can assume that religious actors and believers are now a minority and claim respect as such, possibly by going to court on occasion, at the risk of reducing their audience to those who share the same beliefs.[5]

This means that while at an ideological level debates rage about referencing the heritage of so-called “Christian Europe” in the EU constitution; in practice it is secular liberalism which defines the rules by which the game is played. Thus: even in directly religious issues such as religious liberty, actors motivated by religious concerns find it “easier to mobilise in defence of human rights using the language of expertise than to proselytise using arguments rooted in values.” [6]

According to Foret, religion is therefore present across European Politics, but exists below the surface, as religious specifics are inimical to the transnational, cross-party, trans-denominational coalition building, on which all achievement in the EP must inevitably depend. As such it acts as a “resilient social constituency”, an “active mnesic trace and set of values”[7], because although Europe is secularising, major religious actors such as The Vatican have gained noted expertise in access and representation, which does not seem to be diminishing in line with the progress of secularization. Politicians can therefore use religious identities to consolidate support or opposition to political measures, to “scandalise” issues with the media, and to communicate with specific constituencies. The language of faith is no longer “an authoritative source”, and “European politics influences religious civil society more than religious civil society influences European politics”[8]; but religion remains a live issue with which Europe must reckon.

It seems clear from Foret’s work that much of Europe would prefer religious issues to remain dormant, welcoming the benefits of cultural-Christianity without having to openly acknowledge their source. Religious identity issues uncomfortably press themselves onto Europe’s agenda through issues such as Turkey’s proposed membership, and the various Islamic cartoon crises culminating in the Charlie Hebdo killings however. Europe then faces a historically unique challenge as it seeks to construct a multi-cultural polity without reference to God: its “secular exceptionalism.”[9] “What does it mean to be a European?” seems to be an unanswered question, one which challenges the viability of progress towards integration.

  

Foret’s book is an important, and defining contribution to an often-neglected field, which promises to be a benchmark study with which all future research will have to reckon. It is meticulously constructed and its’ arguments detailed. If it suffers from any weaknesses they are two-fold. A minor complaint is that sometimes the elegance and profundity of his analysis is cloaked in a complexity of language which will make it inaccessible to all but the most diligent scholars. A more substantial concern is that the foundational study of the book, the RelEP, only managed detailed interactions with 161 MEPs of the 751 in the EP, so all the statistics and conclusions they lead to must be treated with caution, as the sample was self-selecting. Nevertheless, in opening a new chapter in what must be an ongoing research project, it sets a very high standard.

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[1] François Foret, Observatoire des Religions et de la La Laïcité. http://www.o-re-la.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=1116%3Amapping-religion-at-the-european-parliament-some-findings&Itemid=85&lang=fr

[2] Foret, François Religion and Politics in the European Union: The Secular Canopy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015) p81, 4, 199

[3] Ibid., p185

[4] Ibid., p60

[5] Ibid., p11

[6] Ibid., pp198-201, 119, 123, 135

[7] Ibid., p280

[8] Ibid., p133, 201

[9] Ibid., p285

Cambridge University Press: Cambridge (2015)

ISBN: 9781107082717

Hardback £60

Kindle Edition £57

This review first appeared in Solas Magazine, formerly published by www.solas-cpc.org. Reproduced with permission.

Book Notes: The Age of Kali by William Dalrymple

I have yet to read a William Dalrymple which has failed to engage, inspire and educate me; usually about areas in which I am rather ignorant, The Age of Kali, is the latest one to have achieved this, and it consists of a series of essays about different areas of the Indian Subcontinent which he explored in the 1990s - in fact the book is subtitled "Indian Travels and Encounters". Officially Dalrymple's books are divided into his historical works and his travel writing. In practice, while his historical works are very detailed and focused (such as The Return of a King); his travel writing is loaded with historical and cultural analysis. His travel writing is unusual, in that he makes almost no references to himself throughout the book; he's not entirely absent obviously, but his aim is to bring the places, the people, the cultures, customs, sounds, maybe even the smells he encounters into the imagination of the reader. Some travel writers loom large in their narratives - it's all about how they felt, they reacted, they coped or responded to the amazing stimuli of new worlds. Dalrymple on the other hand seems to have mastered the art of getting out of the way, and engaging so vividly with India, that he creates all these reactions within the reader. This might be because Dalrymple, although a Scot, spends at least half his life in India, and so writes neither as a freshly-culture-shocked outsider, nor as an insider for whom everything he experiences is normal; but can actually be something of a window between East and West.

The title, The Age of Kali, is a reference to an ancient Hindu belief of an age in which there would be massive social breakdown and chaos. As so much of what Dalrymple found in India looked like this, and a number of his acquaintances looking at their lives suggested to him that the Age of Kali was upon them.

In the course of his travels, Dalrymple encounters strange cities, temples and rituals, a case of Sati (widow-burning), social breakdown, organised crime, government corruption and wave after wave of extraordinary and fascinating people. Organised by region, as Dalrymple travelled, the book gives the outsider a remarkable insight into the country. A surprise was that he then moved outside India's boundaries, and explored the drug-warfare badlands of the Afghan-Pakistan border; explored with terrifying detail the horrors of the civil-war in Sri-Lanka (with unparallelled access to the Tamil Tigers), in what was perhaps the most vivid and disturbing essay in the book. He then moved onto Pakistan where he spent time on the road with Benazhir Bhutto and her family, followed by a road trip with cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan.

This is not a challenging read, like some of his major historical works; but this is wonderful reading. Insightful, intriguing, expansive and unusual.

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