San Domenico di Fiesole: Seminario sul tema “Secularism in Crisis? What Crisis?” (21 febbraio 2013)

Tariq Modood
(University Research Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship University of Bristol)

Secularism in Crisis? What Crisis?

Thursday 21 February 2013 15:00 – 17:00
Seminar Room 2, Badia Fiesolana

Political secularism in W. Europe has been destabilised by the triple contingency of the arrival and settlement of a significant number of Muslims; a multiculturalist sensibility which respects 'difference'; and a moderate secularism, namely that the historical compromises between the state and a church or churches in relation to public recognition and accommodation are still in place to some extent. Radical secularism or laicite seems to be struggling to cope but the dominant version of secularism offers a resource – suitably multiculturalised -for accommodating the new religious plurality of the region. The 'crisis of secularism', then, is really the challenge of multiculturalism.