Abstract
In March 2000, an atheist association claimed the right to broadcast a message on the nonexistence of God, for several minutes each week in reaction to the call to prayer granted to the grand mosque of Oslo by the municipality.1 This is one of many examples of the rejection of Islamic signs perceived as a violation of secular principles in Europe that, unlike in the United States, predates 9/11. Since then, more acute crises have occurred across European countries, including the September 2005 Danish cartoon incident; the November 2009 minaret ban in Switzerland; and the 2010 to 2011 wave of niqab bans in France, Belgium, and Spain.
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Notes
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See Jocelyne Cesari, Understanding the Arab Awakening: Islam, Modernity and Democracy (2013 forthcoming at Cambridge University Press).
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Cesari, J. (2013). How Islam Questions the Universalism of Western Secularism. In: Why the West Fears Islam. Culture and Religion in International Relations. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137121202_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137121202_6
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