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Cartoons, secularism, and inequality
Author(s) -
Hannoum Abdelmajid
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
anthropology today
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.419
H-Index - 24
eISSN - 1467-8322
pISSN - 0268-540X
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8322.12201
Subject(s) - secularism , tragedy (event) , islam , colonialism , state (computer science) , sociology , history , focus (optics) , religious studies , law , philosophy , political science , social science , archaeology , physics , optics , algorithm , computer science
In this article, I discuss the tragic attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris on 7 January 2015. First, I comment on Didier Fassin's article ‘In the name of the Republic’, published in anthropology today in April 2015. I express my disagreement with him on the issue of laïcité , and offer a critical examination of the concept, taking into account what I call ‘the Christian heritage of the secular state’. I then examine the various French reactions to the tragedy and focus on the history of the French state and its (post)colonial relations with French Islam to offer an explanation of the events.