"French forget lesson of Bastille Day"

("USA Today," July 14, 2000)

The blacklisting of "cults" originated in a 1996 parliamentary commission report headed by French legislator Jacques Guyard. While part of the impetus for the legislation was the tragic murder- suicide of members of the Solar Temple movement in France and Switzerland, it also encompasses such familiar religious groups as Jehovah's Witnesses, Southern Baptists (presidential candidate Al Gore's own faith), as well as Satmar Hasidic Jews.
What a deeply moving experience it was for me as a woman in my 20s to find myself wandering around Paris one gray, drizzly July 14 -- Bastille Day.
The city sparkled on this national holiday commemorating the storming of the notorious Bastille Prison in 1789, with a solemn military parade up the grand boulevard, Champs-Elysees, fireworks and dancing. While this holiday symbolizes liberty, democracy and struggle against all forms of tyranny, I wonder whether the French will find time this year to reflect on how fragile these ideals really are.
How deep and enduring must be the shadow cast by Bastille Prison now that the French National Assembly is considering legislation that would allow private citizens to sue practitioners of at least 172 religious groups, considered to engage in the "mental manipulation" of their purported victims.
The blacklisting of "cults" originated in a 1996 parliamentary commission report headed by French legislator Jacques Guyard. While part of the impetus for the legislation was the tragic murder- suicide of members of the Solar Temple movement in France and Switzerland, it also encompasses such familiar religious groups as Jehovah's Witnesses, Southern Baptists (presidential candidate Al Gore's own faith), as well as Satmar Hasidic Jews.
This proposal is just the latest threat to minority religions in France, which have included efforts to tax donations and challenging tax exemptions.
As an American of African descent, I am at times painfully aware of our own nation's struggles to live up to the ideals enshrined in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Even so, we may still have a lesson or two to teach the French from our own history about the ways in which decent citizens can be prone to rationalize away the freedoms of others.
Sure, some proselytizers could win an Academy Award for sheer theatrical obnoxiousness. But isn't extending our democratic liberties to those whom we perceive as different from us the real point of religious, racial and other forms of tolerance in the first place?
I fear this move toward religious tyranny in France. In fact, I wouldn't even think of visiting Paris again before checking that ever- growing blacklist to see whether "my kind" would be welcome there.
Constance Hilliard is an associate professor of history at the University of North Texas in Denton and author of Intellectual Traditions of Pre-Colonial Africa.