Many inside and outside of Europe consider nations of the Old Continent and their states to be secular if not altogether post-religious. Though it may be true, there is a curious phenomenon emerging in parts of it – regimes of governance of religion and practical politics related to them in a number of European countries, particularly in Central Europe, appear to be changing toward greater control of, if not intolerance toward, religion, or, to be more precise, certain forms of religiosity, foremost Islamic.
This paradox – putting religion center-stage in the domestic politics and national(ist) rhetoric by governments in some of the least religious nations – deserves a closer scrutiny. And this is what this piece is meant to do.
In July of 2019, Pew Research Center published a short piece by Jeff Diamant, called “Europe experienced a surge in government restrictions on religious activity over the last decade”, itself based on the Center’s report A Closer Look at How Religious Restrictions Have Risen Around the World, covering the period between 2007 and 2017. In his text, Diamant argues that “religious restrictions have in recent years become more common in Europe.” Though much of the purported increase in religious restrictions across Europe revolves around the bans on wearing religious clothing and symbols in public, bans on public worship and circumcision are also mentioned as elements of these restrictions. Unfortunately, although the original report, in its Government Restrictions Index (pp. 85-86), places some three dozen European countries in the category of “Moderate”, neither Diamant nor the original report discuss in any detail these purportedly increasing restrictions.
