Glossary :
CPN: Conseil politique national (National Political Council)
Département: name of the chief territorial administrative division in France (an identification number is attached to each of them).
NPA: Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (New Anticapitalist Party)
QP: Quartiers populaires (working class or popular aeras/disctricts)
CQP13: NPA committee working in the “Quartiers populaires” of the Bouches-du-Rhônes (départment 13)
84 or CQP84: NPA committee working in the “Quartiers populaires” of the Vaucluse (départment 84)
Three viewpoints
These three viewpoints (“tribunes”) have been published in Tout est à nous, the weely paper of the NPA. n°78, November 18, 2010)
Platform “religion, feminism, secularism”
presented by those who support the motion presented by Anne, Cathy, Galia, Guillaume, Ingrid (CPN)
In this debate, it seems to us that the NPA must clarify a series of elements :
1. We are faced with a context marked by a racist offensive, targetting in particular Muslims but also
Roms, and an antifeminist offensive. This context makes our obligation to unify the oppressed and
exploited around a programme very concrete. This means there is the constant need to deal concretely
with all oppressions without treating them on a hierarchical basis. The articulation of different
oppressions is a difficult challenge, but we cannot give up that effort. It means in particular that we do
not ally with the government in the name of feminism nor with religious fundamentalists in the name of
antiracism.
2. We do not define ourselves in relation to religion, we put god in the “out-field” while at the same time
not practising any self-censorship as far as our criticism of religion is concerned and fighting againt the
religious authorities and the reactionary ideas that religions put forward.
3. This choice is contradictory with the fact of ourselves putting religion to the forefront and making it an
axis of political intervention as the comrades from the Comité Populaire of Avignon sometimes did. The
NPA must affirm the unity of class beyond « community » differences.
4. We do not refer to secularism as a heritage of the 3rd Republic, but as a combat: it is a fight that is
more than ever relevant, and an integral part of our programme and our project.
5. We understand that wearing the Islamic scarf can relate to very diverse individual motivations.
Certainly, within the framework of the stigmatization of Muslims, which is expressed with violence,
certain Muslims wish to affirm publicly their religion. But we have an opinion on the symbol used in
these concrete cases: we consider that a religious sign that symbolizes and proclaims the oppression of
women is not a good choice. The Islamic scarf has a general, broadly recognized meaning, the meaning
that it is given by those who make wearing it an obligation within Islam (and in the other monotheistic
religions before Islam), associating with it social practices that we combat. The veil is located in the long
patriarchal tradition of the majority of the religions, which sought to control women’s body and sexuality,
to assign them a specific and subordinated role in society, a tradition that is today being revived. This
conception is contradictory with our feminist and democratic project.
6. The contradiction relating to wearing the Islamic scarf is not in itself an obstacle to joining the NPA.
Many other contradictions exist, which are less visible but no less real. Since the NPA has a well-known
public standpoint, they do not pose an insurmountable problem.
7. On the other hand, things are different in the field of public representation because it is the whole of the
party that is then in the position of having to assume the contradictions. The NPA cannot be represented
by this symbol, the Islamic headscarf, nor by any other open religious sign, whatever the religion.
To discuss, decide and bring together,
_ by Fadela (CQP13), Marga (CQP13 and CPN), Nico (CQP13), Samy (CPN)
Five motions that we deposed obtained a majority at the last CPN. It is legitimate that those who feel it is
possible to do so submit overall resolutions to the vote. Let the party decide. However, we estimate that
the party is too divided for a strong majority to emerge. We thus wish that as well as these basic votes,
that the NPA give, in the most united possible way, the indications on the main questions.
Two of these motions relate to the fact of knowing if our party can admit supporters of particular
beliefs (religious for example), and give a positive response. They affirm an unlimited right of criticism (thusincluding of religions) and give a total definition of secularism which should meet with broad
agreement.
Another of these motions, largely approved at the time of this vote, relates to the fight against racism and
anti-semitism, weapons which the dominant classes use more than ever in the development of the current
crisis of capitalism and which extends to State racism. It condemns the brutal attacks against Roms and
the growing role of the stigmatization of Muslims and Islamophobia.
Motion 3 relates to the question of the Islamic scarf as such. We now know the mass of questions
to discuss on this subject, some of which divide us very deeply, in particular concerning the overall
meaning that wearing the headscarf has or does not have, and on the nature of this potential symbol. Each
comrade will decide. But we are fortunate to have in addition a formulation which was adopted almost
unanimously by the EC last February, and which could again be stated jointly, therefore in a broader way.
It says that “the headscarf is an instrument of women’s submission used in various forms and at various
times by the three monotheistic religions, even if certain women who choose to wear it do not give it this
meaning.”
The most delicate question relates to the representation of the party with visible religious signs. We
are opposed to designating our candidates in the name of a religion. In France today, the choice to put
religion to the forefront is the desired option neither in the country in general nor among immigrants and
their descendants. Nor could such a choice be supported by the NPA, in the popular neighbourhoods or
elsewhere. This is contrary to the analysis advanced by comrades of the 84, who say: “the Islamophobic
form which racism and discrimination against immigrants’ children takes means that the Islamic religion
will be one of the main ways into politics for these sectors. We should be more pleased than worried”.
This analysis partly underlay the campaign for the regional elections in the 84, without any impact on
the populations concerned, which does not surprise us. In addition, we are opposed to a “double statute”
within the NPA and it results from this that all members, even visible believers, can put themselves
forward to be candidates. Our motion indicates that we could accept it for example for a recognised leader
in the fight of illegal immigrants, mass retail, office cleaning, of the social movement in a more general
way. But from the moment that this belief appears publicly, it is essential that no ambiguity remains on
the meaning of the candidature.
Different paths, a common anticapitalist, feminist, antiracist and secular commitment to equal
rights
(Current A Egalité)
After September 11th, 2001, the terrorist “new enemy” was used to legitimise the wars for the control of
oil and to divide the resistance to combined oppressions. The climate which has reigned in France around
(and since) the law of 2004 has been marked by a racist component hiding itself behind hostility to Islam,
but also by the increasing identification of the “visibility” of Islam with a threat to secularism and/or a
betrayal of solidarity with regard to the women resisting the fundamentalist currents wanting to impose
wearing an Islamic headscarf.
Our “current of feeling” expressed on a list “À_Égalité” fought against these tendencies and a unilateral
vision of the world power struggles (and this is a debate which will continue obviously after the
congress): faced with the rise of fundamentalisms, we underlined the internal resistance coming from
believers and criticized atemporal approaches to “religion”, Islam and the Islamic scarf, starting from
an “essential meaning” ignoring the antagonistic contexts and logical approaches in play. Lastly, we
regard as an asset the separation of the State from any power of political interference by the Church and
any clergy. But we challenged any identification of secularism with religion to the private space; from
this point of view, the visibility of the scarf (outside the civil service) is not anti-secular.
In the motions presented to vote at the congress, this interpretation of secularism dominates, and thus
we find ourselves in agreement with it - which obviously leaves many discussions to be held in a more thoroughgoing fashion.
Insofar as there are no currents defending the idea that the NPA must be a party of atheists, the
divergences on the motions presented to the congress concentrate on the way of presenting the Islamic
scarf and on the status of believers in the party.
The amendment that we defend on the first topic is the following: “We denounce [...] all the ideologies
and practices of control by patriarchal, religious or atheistic powers, of women’s vestimentary choices.
The veil has been used in various forms and at various times by the three monotheistic religions as
an instrument of women’s submission and is still imposed today by certain fundamentalist regimes
and currents. In addition, on a personal level, wearing and refusing the veil are complex choices for
each woman concerned, according to the context. One cannot thus indicate a total, unilateral and
univocal meaning of the veil. For our part, in agreement with our conception of secularism, we oppose
systematically both the imposition of the veil and its prohibition.”
It is this underlying interpretation, and the emphasis on agreement on our political programme, that is
the foundation in our eyes of the equal rights : “a militant expressing a religious belief has, like all other
members, the right to propose to represent the party in elections. This candidature which, like all others,
is based on comrade’s involvement in local and social struggles, defends exclusively and completely the
principles (in particular of secularism) and the programme of the NPA ”.
On common programmatic bases, the party has everything to gain by “showing” its diversity as an
element of its coherence and equal rights.