In recent years, a number of political controversies around religious signs, symbols and practices in public spaces have brought to the foreground a set of ‘anxieties’ related to religion that are at once new but also haunted by history.
Especially prominent are those related to the clothing of Muslim women such as the hijab or burqa, but other examples include crucifixes, ritual slaughter, and are also reflected in negatively impassioned responses to the idea of prayer. In its strongest form this is underlain by fears of extremism related to religious nationalism, that a particular religion will rise to dominate political and social life, or to religiously-attributed terrorism.
Secularism, long seen as the answer to these anxieties, draws a line between public and private spheres, limiting religion to the private sphere and therefore defining the place of religion. This is largely because of the perceived need and importance for the ‘neutrality’ of the public sphere and the state, as equally open to all who abide by certain liberal principles, regardless of their religious or non-religious world views.
