Appartenances religieuses, appartenance citoyenne : un équilibre en tension (review)

Both academic and popular discussions of Quebec's debates about "reasonable accommodation" of minorities and about "secularism" or "laïcité" have often been acontextual and shown limited understanding of the relevant historical roots and underlying theories of the applicable concepts. This edited collection, arising in part from an essay contest sponsored by Quebec's Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse in 2006, prior to the launch of the Bouchard-Taylor Commission, goes a significant distance in developing and elucidating the underlying context for these debates.

À cet égard, les chapitres de Jean Baubérot et de Micheline Milot constituent des textes incontournables sur le développement historique et théorique du concept de laïcité en France et au Québec respectivement. D'autres études, comme celle de Marianne Hardy-Dussault, approfondissent des situations plus précises, comme le port de signes religieux, une question qui reste évidemment d'actualité avec la législation récente en France relative au port de la bourka et les débats au Québec autour du port d'un niquab dans une classe de français langue seconde.

Among other topics addressed by the 12 authors, some chapters enter into the specific choices embodied within Canadian and Quebec law that arise at points of apparent tension between reasonable accommodation and gender equality. These chapters end up indicating an unspoken hierarchy of rights, with gender equality prioritized; they leave room for further theorization of this prioritization, however, insofar as they are primarily descriptive of it as a legal state of affairs. Two empirically oriented chapters are interesting but arguably fit less easily into the book, which returns to larger theoretical themes in later chapters, with one particularly stimulating chapter by Marco Jean interfacing the more pragmatic issues with different theoretical versions of deliberative democracy.

Il est peu fréquent qu'un ouvrage regroupant des textes de plusieurs auteurs propose une thèse unifiée. On aurait toutefois souhaité que ce projet amorcé en 2006 aboutisse avant 2009. Mais peu importe, car même trois ans plus tard, et sous forme d'ouvrage collectif, le livre justifie son sous-titre en reflétant une réalité qui est effectivement celle d'équilibres en tension.

The various chapters collectively reveal an intelligent sophistication and demonstrate the fundamentally contested nature of the norms of laïcité within the French and Quebec models and of reasonable accommodation within Quebec. The nature of the book, then, is not to close further debate but, rather, to enrich it with groundings in the real transitions over time in each of these societies, in the real contest of ideas in the ongoing development of balances for different contexts, and in the real complexity of the matters at stake. In future, farther-reaching discussions that advance larger justifications for particular resolutions of the clashes at issue should be put to several tests that a work like this implicitly offers. In particular, engagements with laïcité and reasonable accommodation within Quebec should respond to the full richness of the different approaches embodied in the debates thus far, as well as to the sorts of tangible cases that have given rise to contestation around the norms.

Après la canicule, les orages. Des torrents d'idées, d'analyses des concepts, d'explications des phénomènes sociaux déferlent dans cet ouvrage très riche. Ceux qui feront l'effort de s'y engager seront complètement immergés dans ces interprétations novatrices, voire imprégnés de ces compréhensions nouvelles, même s'il y a toujours de l'orage dans l'air.