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Franck Bertrand Ayinda has lived in Europe, Asia and Africa. He is an avid reader of Business, Public Policy, International Corporate Responsibility, Globalization, Macroeconomics, Political and African Affairs. He enjoys traveling across the world, writing and reading new books.[/symple_box]
Last Wednesday, two gunmen shot dead in cold blood 12 people at the Paris office of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in an apparent militant Islamist attack. Indeed there’s a strain of Islamic intolerance and extremism that is the backdrop of the attack on the said magazine. Charlie Hebdo was attacked several times, the last one dating back to 2011 after a cover depicted prophet Muhammad saying “100 lashes if you’re not dying of laughter”. The fact is that the French satirical outlet Charlie Hebdo spits people of all faiths and backgrounds. One cartoon showed rolls of toilet paper marked “Bible, Torah, and Quran,” with the explanation “In the toilet, all religions.” Frankly speaking, the way in which that publication represents Islam and other religions is racist. Nevertheless, a rational way to address such racism is to refute it, not attack it with Kalashnikovs, and that is the problem that must be addressed.
Though there are also politico-religious factors that contributed to this attack, I believe that the main cause behind this carnage is the apparent poverty and ignorance entwined with a large chunk of the Muslim communities in France, and this must be addressed first. Muslims in France and Europe are more than any other group confronted with exclusion, discrimination, and violence. Many Muslims suffer from discrimination in education, on the labor market and at the housing market. Their educational level is below average, their unemployment rate above average, they are over-represented in labor sectors with low wages and are disproportionately represented in areas with bad housing. French Muslims also face verbal threats and physical aggression in the streets by police (for seemingly looking different and sometimes for just not being “integrated”) and in schools. More hindrances that obstruct the social development of French Muslim youth have resulted in stronger feelings of social exclusion and helplessness, which in turn may have increased the chance of further radicalization of those youth, ergo driving them to join Jihad movements within their communities. Of course, Islam is not to blame, and Muslims collectively, most certainly, are not to blame for a fanatical, military act of violence. The first victim of Wednesday’s carnage was a Muslim police officer who was protecting one of the cartoonists. Terrorists do not differentiate between faiths (and neither should we).
At the same time, tolerance must not mean self-censorship or excessive deference of ideas and practices that some may find troubling, abhorrent, or simply ridiculous, whether or not they fall under the heading of “religious” beliefs. It is true that some Muslims can wield Islamophobia to ban criticism of Islam as Judeophobia or “anti-Semitism” is also used by some to prohibit criticism of the Israeli policy in Palestinian territories.
Today, it is clear to me that French Muslims are stigmatized on the same type of arguments that were once used against French Jews in the 1930s. “They are not like us, they pose a danger to the Republic”. “They have a secret plan to impose their law”. “Their religion is incompatible with our society”. “They will never integrate to become French and will stay foreigners”, even regardless of the statement on their passports. Back in the 1930s, even if one was a French national, a Jew was not considered un français de souche, a “pure French.” . The same is happening today as if history repeats itself with same arguments being used again in France and European countries at large.
Yet, Political Islam is another angle that needs to be explored to understand the motives behind these heinous acts. Tariq Ramadan, a renowned Islamic scholar, said on Al Jazeera’s Head to Head that “we should never separate politics from ethics and ethics has to do with religion”. His point is that we should never try to impose dogmatic religious principles onto politics. I believe religion should be our private matter as nothing in it ought to rub in to non-believers or to the policies of secular countries. The era of binary discourse over the connection between Islamist ideology (a political paradigm and not a faith) and politics is today at twilight. Beliefs are either a religion, praiseworthy of admiration, insertion and fortification or a political creed, exposed to challenge and interrogations. They should be mutually exclusive in a secular perspective.
In Muslim majority countries that opt for a Mosque-State, the suitably created legal régimes regulate the sort of religious policies that fit their hands. All being well, the sets made are supported by the people and comprise deference for non-believers. In the Charlie Hebdo homicide, witnesses said they heard the gunmen shouting “We have avenged the Prophet Muhammad” and “Allahu Akbar meaning in English “God Is Great.” This could easily imply that this act of violence was triggered by religious and political motives in the name of a religion that is systematically assimilated by some as a political ideology and a religion. This act seeks to impose the idea that Islam by essence is opposed to democracy and freedom of speech just like Saudi Arabia’s entwined political and religious line of thought.
The assassins who want the French society to retort with vengeance, retribution and abhorrence aimed at Muslims in general. They want Muslims to feel loathed, beleaguered and victimized to separate French citizens and create two camps. At present, there are numerous leaks of assaults in France against various mosques, and even a “felonious detonation” in a kebab shop. These are not just outrageous, detestable deeds. Those accountable are sticking to the plan of the culprits. They are themselves enlisted prophets for radicals.
Wednesday’s attack was probably not the intention of terrorists, but the first consequence of his act is to throw aspersions on immigrants and foreigners and lead to a new rise of the extreme right across Europe. At a time when dogmatism and intolerance of all kinds seem to thrive, many values, especially those of pluralism, diversity, the rule of law and the freedom to exercise their fundamental rights, will be put to the test. Unfortunately for the French society and the political establishment, this is some good news for Marine Lepen, and all her right wing allies at the European parliament. Even though many counter-events were organized all over France, populist movements, including that of Marine Le Pen, will try to exploit this injury by topping more salt on it to fuel more resentment against Islam and immigrants. The reaction need to be one of more openness rather than of more intolerance.
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Franck Bertrand Ayinda has lived in Europe, Asia and Africa. He is an avid reader of Business, Public Policy, International Corporate Responsibility, Globalization, Macroeconomics, Political and African Affairs. He enjoys traveling across the world, writing and reading new books.[/symple_box]
