France

Comment: France, the Republic and freedom

The Republic is the art of managing diversity politically. Diversity is not for everyone. That is why the Republic is, for many citizens, a disgrace. But one that offers tremendous opportunities, writes Kersten Knipp.

The Place de la Republique in Paris

There he is, the young pupil was sitting, surrounded by strange classmates, who used a nearly unknown language. No, he was hardly familiar with the French, because his parents, Polish Jews who had come in the mid-1950s, after France, talked in a different language. But found the new teacher in Paris, was the personal Problem of the young migrant child – and not one that concerns the whole class. He tried to keep up in class, he would work twice, you told him. The Boy complied, and eventually became one of the most famous French philosophers.

The Republic independent

Not least his own biography has brought the philosophers Alain Finkielkraut, stood up for the Ideals of the French Republic, an Institution, a non – integrated people in society-but in the best case, even turns, you can even out grow. The Republic, this is the wonderful machine that offers its citizens a unique Chance to leave your past behind, to be free and independent.

DW-author Kersten Knipp

However, their dynamic force, fear Finkielkraut, the threat of losing the Republic because they take too much consideration to the geographic, cultural, and religious origins of its citizens. This applies, in particular, in the school, where you have to renounce in the name of respect for cultural “identities” too easy a way out, to demand that the students adherence to the school rules of the game; especially as regards the Demonstration of your respective faith. So Finkielkraut and a group of French Intellectuals welcomed the 2004 explicit ban on the headscarf in public schools (the Wearing of the cross and the Kippa is also prohibited).

The Central Argument: It can’t just be that, to respect the “difference” of the students. More importantly, a different right of the student, namely the “difference in the difference” – the ability to emancipate themselves from the parents ‘ house to represent a separate, from the point of view of the parents is also quite different positions.

Pain and Chance of

The example of the school one of the profound challenges, before the modern republics of today are: you must manage the pain – the pain that it means to take ideologically farewell. Because of the large, some of the bands of earlier times have lost their once self-evident validity: the Belief in God according to the defined rules of a Religion, the Fatherland, the ethnically homogeneous people – you can count on the closed following. It is not enough that an Individual believes in one of these ideas, and the pluralism of the world. And because he is in the world, are republics of the community of faith. Tick ideologically not in one but in many different rhythms.

The, like, in particular, fall those heavy, which you Think a lot, if not everything – whether that of a particular God, the father of the country or its people. But the recognition of the Unalterable, namely, the ideological diversity of the society, is a prerequisite for the Success of the Republic. Anyone who lives with others together in a confined space, must also be tolerant of others. This may do some hurt, guaranteed, but the existence of the community. And it allows the citizens to constantly reinvent, far beyond the school years and beyond.

Behind-the-pluralism-there is no free state can be culturally and politically. If you do not accept this, and rejects the Modern and the that model of society, which is guaranteed for at least 70 years of peace in Western Europe. That is why it is being discussed in France, the principles of the Republic as intense. Ultimately, it is nothing less than the future of the company.

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