Contrary to what many may think, 21st century main fight will not occur between religions, but between two secular ways of looking at the future of our societies. One the one hand, you find the concept of laicity, coined in France’s post-revolution year, resulting from a will to free politics and the state from any religious influence and established in France and some other countries in the early years of the XXth Century; on the other hand, you find “political correctness”, a loose doctrine generated in the USA from 1970s on, trying to give all communities within a society an ‘equal’ status. The two trends are rooted in totally different visions of human society and their confrontation will shape tomorrow’s world to a much larger extent that the overrated “religious factor”.

Religions are a declining force in today’s world
First of all, let’s get rid of the false perception that “religions” are such a key component of tomorrow’s world. We should not be misguided by the noise generated by religious extremists groups all around the world. They are no more the indicator of some religious upsurge in mankind as trotsko-maoist terrorist groups were an indicator of some upcoming global revolution in the 60s / 70s.

On the contrary, in Europe as well as in major parts of Asia or Latin America (the three represent 2/3rd of world population), religions are loosing ground among populations. In the Arab world or in the US, the phenomenon is more complicated to apprehend because of the level of ‘noise’ made by ultra-religious groups. Nevertheless I deeply doubt that there may be more influence of religion now than, let’s say, in early 20th century America or in pre-colonial Arab world. Modernity, colonization, education …. have gone their way also in these regions.

We can reasonably think that there is today a much larger proportion of human beings not affiliated to any religion than any time before in history, including recent history. It does not mean that belief in a God is less spread; it just says that the number of those who believe and link this belief to a specific church or religious organization is rapidly declining. Nothing to rejoice, nor to lament; it is simply a fact.

Laicity and Political Correctness embody two completely different visions of mankind
This being said, let’s move to the core topic of this column: laicity versus political correctness. When I say that each of the two belongs to a completely different vision of mankind, I really mean that. On the one hand, you have a vision which says that religious belief is a private issue whose expression in some crucial collective occasions have to be kept for the individual alone rather than exposed to the whole community; on the other hand, you have a vision stating that everybody is free to demonstrate his/her religious belief when he/she wants and that the others should tolerate it.

In the first case, laicity, the basic idea is that religions, if not kept under some community control via general rules applying to all of them, always end by becoming confrontational in trying to take over the community itself. In the second case, political correctness, there is the deep conviction that human beings can be educated to be tolerant and that all groups will always preserve this tolerance for the sake of the whole community.

Laicity is born from historic experience linked with religious wars, integration of different cultural and religious communities in periods of conflicts and historic upheavals; and it was pushed forward by coalitions of politicians, thinkers, civil society activists, … . Political correctness is child of peaceful post WWII era in wealthy USA, far away from the world’s trauma and pain; its main proponents are academics, intellectuals and minority groups.

Laicity set up rules for imperfect groups and individuals
Laicity calls for an understanding by both groups and individuals that belonging to the community requires to act differently when being together or among oneselves. A community made up of several religious groups has to develop a rule applying to all religious groups that concern their behavior in some key community times/places: education/school, lawmaking/members of parliament, medecine/hospital, … . In those places where the whole community should feel at ease, ease mean that no member of the community should offend the others by expressing too vocally his/her own belief. It relies on the very simple idea that even the most tolerant person can become upset. Society is made of imperfect human beings who have to get along together. Social rules should keep in mind that they do not apply to perfect human beings, capable of having a full command of their impulses and reactions. It says: religious groups too have certain non-religious rules they should obey in the public sphere. Outside, of course, groups and individuals can express and live their religions the way they want. Contrary to what many Americans or Arabs have been told by their media: laicity does not at all prevent Muslim, Jewish or Christian believers to dress up the way they want. But in classrooms, their religious signs should be as discreet as possible.

Political Correctness tries to create a perfect individual in a perfect community
Political correctness calls for an understanding by each group and each individual that it should tolerate all the others’ religious behaviours at any time, in any place. It requires therefore an exceptional degree of tolerance from the whole community itself. All religious groups (and others) are entitled to express themselves the way they feel they should in a politically correct society. And others should accept that because otherwise they will endanger their own ability to act in a similar manner. The only thing the public sphere gets is that it is prevented from being taken over by one particular group. It constantly puts on all individuals the ability to stand the pressures. Therefore political correctness is linked with changes in education and vocabulary in order to try to diffuse the pressure: some words should be banned because ‘too aggressive’, some attitudes should be prohibited because ‘too aggressive’ and in the end some thoughts should be also forbidden because ‘too aggressive’.

As we see, both visions describe two different kinds of human beings and religions. Laicity knows by historic experience that human beings are not perfect, that religions tend to be conflicting and that therefore there is a need for the community to edict laws applying to all religious groups in a similar way and set the community’s interest above the religious rules. Political correctness assumes that human beings can be perfected via education, manipulation of languages and thoughts, and supposes that religious groups do not expect more than living peacefully next to each other provide they can live fully their religion.

These two visions of society will be a major source of conflict in the coming decades. One sets as a prerequisite that, to have a free individual, you need a common body (the state through its democratic bodies) able to defeat any religious subgroup which may be tempted to impose its rule on the whole community; the other one assumes that by human re-engineering one may develop both individuals and groups able to live peacefully next to each other. Though it does not answer a very simple question: who sets the rules for deciding which words, attitudes or thoughts have to be banned?