Nadia El Fani

Nadia El Fani is a courageous woman.  Last week the Tunisian filmmaker was on campus for a screening of her most recent work, Laïcité, inch’Allah (English title: Neither Allah, Nor Master), which examines the increasing control exerted by Islamist groups on daily life in her homeland.  The film is a form of documentary, in the sense that it comprises a series of interviews and discussions regarding the Muslim requirement to fast during the month of Ramadan.  The question at the heart of the film is whether religious practice is an individual choice, or whether it can be imposed by believers on society as a whole.  Should all Tunisians be expected to fast, or only those who wish to do so?  Last June, the cinema in Tunis showing the film was subjected to a violent attack, and El Fani is herself now facing charges of blasphemy.  A lengthy jail term awaits, should she choose to return from her exile in France. 

I can predict with some confidence that the role of religion in public life will become one of the most important public debates of the 21^st century, and personally I regret the apparent movement towards greater intolerance of the “other”.  This is by no means an issue confined to post-revolutionary Tunisia.  It seems that, increasingly, those of a particular faith or creed seek to impose their particular beliefs and values on the behaviour of others, lest they be “offended”.  It is happening everywhere, witness the polarizing debates gripping the election campaign in our neighbour to the south – and this will grow even more heated in the months to come.  It is very much present in current debates over dress and behaviour in Québec, and not only in rural communities but also in normally sane and civilized Outremont.  In essence, it is the struggle between individual rights and collective rights.  Does democracy allow a majority to impose its will on a minority?  And if so, should there be restrictions of some kind on that ability?  I won’t pretend that these are easy questions, although I know where I stand on them myself.

What worries me most is the apparent lack of willingness in some quarters for discussion and dialogue, and instead a spirit of determined intolerance, all too frequently linked to violence.  It is reminiscent of the tactics of the Nazi party in Germany in the early 1930s, where opposition rallies would be forcibly broken up by jack-booted thugs.  And sadly, such occurrences are not sufficiently rare in contemporary Europe, let alone other continents.  Ideology dominates much of our public discourse, and in politics as well as religion.

And that brings me back to universities, and their role in our society.  One of those roles, and in my mind an exceptionally important one, is to function as a “talking shop”, a place where ideas can be debated without fear of violence or recrimination, or charges of blasphemy, in a spirit of free and open inquiry, and in an atmosphere of civility and respect.  We need to grapple with the ideas, not attack the individuals who profess them.  With all the current public debates about the purpose of post-secondary education and questions about the value of a liberal arts degree, it strikes me that what is almost always forgotten is the critical role of the university, not as an engine of the economy, nor as qualifying graduates for a specific job, but much more importantly as providing a forum for the debates that engage us and govern how we live.

The discussion following the screening of Nadia El Fani’s film was passionate and pointed, but no punches were thrown.  And that is exactly how it should be.