In today\u2019s second part of our Summer Reading List, Su\u00e9 Gonz\u00e1les Hauck introduces Lea David\u2019s \u2018The Past Can\u2019t Heal Us\u2019, Dana Schmalz reviews \u00c9tienne Balibar\u2019s \u2018Secularism and Cosmopolitanism\u2019, and Sebastian Spitra provides insights into Daniel Damler\u2019s \u2018Konzern und Moderne\u2019 [Consolidated Companies and Modern Times].<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Lea David, The Past Can\u2019t Heal Us. The Dangers of Mandating Memory in the Name of Human Rights, Cambridge University Press (2020). <\/strong>@Lea_David<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Lea David\u2019s \u2018The Past Can\u2019t Heal Us\u2019 addresses the topic of \u2018moral remembrance\u2019 \u2013 a standardised and institutionalised mode of remembering the past in the name of human rights. Two case studies provide the empirical material for her study: Palestine\/Israel and the Western Balkans. Her main conclusions are, first, that the standardised and institutionalised mode of mandated memory she describes enforces nationalist sentiments and, second, that it produces new social inequalities. The suffering party can gain status only as victims. In the resulting process of constantly having to reaffirm victim status, victim groups inevitably engage in homogenising their group members and see other victim groups as rivals in the struggle for scarce resources. The book is a particularly timely contribution, given that the politics of remembrance are being debated not only in so-called \u2018post-conflict\u2019 contexts.<\/p>\n Su\u00e9 Gonz\u00e1lez Hauck<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00c9tienne Balibar, Secularism and Cosmopolitanism. Critical Hypotheses on Religion and Politics, Columbia University Press (2018).<\/strong><\/p>\n How do we make normative claims in a globally interconnected and diverse world? In the search for a guiding concept in that regard, several thinkers have formulated versions of a critical universalism: an orientation at universalist norms such as equality and freedom, without claiming that anyone were in a superior position to conclusively declare what these norms entail in different circumstances. Such critical universalism corresponds to what \u00c9tienne Balibar has called \u2018cosmopolitics\u2019: a cosmopolitanism that consists in manifold political conversations and contestations with transnational reach, oriented at universalist norms.<\/p>\n This is the background against which to read \u00c9tienne Balibar\u2019s book \u2018Secularism and Cosmopolitanism. Critical Hypotheses on Religion and Politics\u2019 published in its English version by Columbia University Press in 2018. Balibar\u2019s focus is less on providing answers but rather on complicating concepts and their relationship. It is a reading well suited for weeks which allow taking a step back from the hustle. And it is a reading which certainly is and remains topical. Religious practices in numerous cases have been object of legal conflicts: specific clothing such as male or female head coverings, religious norms on slaughtering, or male circumcision are just a few examples. Much has been written about these topics, especially the headscarf can feel over-covered in academic literature \u2013 and yet remains as acute an object of disagreement as a decade ago. (For instance, the German Federal Constitutional Court ruled<\/a> on another headscarf case last February, a decision eloquently criticized<\/a> as \u2018provincialism for secularists\u2019.)<\/p>\n Viewing secularism in its relation to cosmopolitanism, in Balibar\u2019s version, entails more than the simple recognition that religious communities are transnational and that normative conflicts transcend the national sphere. Rather, he regards the two concepts as concepts with a universalist core. Secularism in that understanding does not mean the negation or absence of religion but the viewpoint that does not give preference to any particular religion. In that sense, secularism and cosmopolitanism appear co-dependent, yet they also produce contradictions in political practice: notably when a secularist societal self-understanding is opposed to a religious other.<\/p>\n Considering the French debate about the veil, Balibar analyses how secularism \u2013 or the more specific concept of la\u00efcit\u00e9 \u2013 becomes one part in a religious<\/em> conflict. This role of secularism as religious is one complication; another complication he introduces regards the institutional and linguistic frames, in which religious conflicts become visible and negotiable. With reference to Jacques Derrida, Balibar notes that the term \u2018religion\u2019 stems from the Roman-Christian tradition and is not directly translatable to other religious-cultural traditions (p. 27). Yet \u2018no recognition without representation, and no representation without a code for representation\u2019 (p.\u00a031). Pointing out that this particular code of \u2018religion\u2019 frames today\u2019s debates does not call for renouncing it, yet it underlines that there is no outside the conflict, \u2018no purely theoretical position\u2019 (ibid.).<\/p>\n I have to cut short, the book is much richer than this one aspect I can summarize here. Without specific answers, what is the direction the book suggests? In a movement familiar from the debate about cosmopolitanism, one begins to wonder if we should give up the notion of secularism altogether? Balibar instead speaks of \u2018alternative secularisms\u2019 (p. 23) and postulates to \u2018secularize secularism\u2019 (pp. 48 et seq.), in other words to pursue its inherent universalism while continuously identifying and opposing oppressive universalizations of one particular secular tradition.<\/p>\n