Strict interpretation of secularism in Geneva
The Geneva city school authorities are preventing five to seven-year-old primary school pupils from taking part in a performance of Britten's Noah's Flood. In the opinion of the authority, the performance violates the secular constitution.
The Direction de l'enseignement obligatoire (DGO), which apparently wants to take strict action against activities that presumably violate the city's secular basic principles, is thus preventing a project by the Geneva Chamber Orchestra.
The decision has provoked international head-shaking. For example, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitungnow "Geneva is suddenly getting the reputation of being even more fussy and fanatical about secularism than the French". And the Wiener Zeitung speaks of a "missionary atheism". Especially as the flood story is "a mythical legacy of humanity" and is not tied to a single religion.
