Nordicum-Mediterraneum (Mar 2020)
Minority Claims in Multicultural Societies: A comparative study of case law
Abstract
The whole essay consists of eight sections: 1) What is the best way for democracy to deal with multicultural clashes? Firstly, I explore Awad’s adaptation of Habermas’ model of deliberative democracy to the multicultural question. Then, I will try to reject this kind of model, as it is presented by Awad. 2) Two egalitarian theses about justice in immigration will be showed: a) restrictions on immigration should be compensated by development aid; b) such material compensations would further equality of opportunity at a global level. 3) I explain some difficulties in the task of defining minorities the solution to which seems to require an appeal to the liberal value of equal respect, rather than a mere request for recognition of differences. 4) After answering to these questions: “Is religion a public or a private matter? What role can religion play when it comes to the emergence of a European solidarity?”, I will argue that the “Islam problem” could be an indicator of the disparity between liberal and illiberal strands of neo-European secularism. 5) As in 2009 the Swiss voted to ban all future construction of Islamic minarets in their country, this section looks closely at all the issues raised by the minarets ban, inside and outside the E.U. 6) Subsequently, I will analyse what values are at stake in the issues of religious accommodation, and what principles can the main parties – as well the citizens – involved employ in attempting to resolve them. 7) The final section challenges how the role of emotions could lead to suboptimal political outcomes for the parties involved. To a large extent emotions have been instrumental in determining outcomes in the recent and on-going struggle between Greece and Germany as regards to the terms of the Greek bailout. 8) In a brief excursus I reconstruct the relationship between “biopolitics” and liberalism: the aim is to propose the singular analogies with the ideas of “governance” and “Rule of Law” in the liberal tradition, casting a new light on the interpretation offered by Michel Foucault.
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