It therefore seems necessary to recall a few obvious truths.*
1. Secularism is not an antidote to terrorism
Imagine that an uncompromising secularism is adopted in France by modifying or repealing the law of December 9, 1905. Imagine that all religious symbols are banned in public spaces, at work, and in public administration. No more veils, burkas, burkinis, no more nun’s habits, crosses, yarmulkes, or Stars of David. Will the attacks in France cease? Obviously not, and the harshest secularism will never prevent fanaticism from striking.
We are mistaken in thinking that secularism is an instrument to fight terrorism. Worse, we distort secularism, and those who advocate for uncompromising secularism are not actually defending secularism, but rather secularization.
Secularism is not the negation of religious fact; it guarantees each person’s freedom of worship and conscience within the limits of the law. It remains above all a principle of emancipation.
Secularism should be treated for its own sake and should neither serve as compensation for our collective frustration at being unable to eradicate the terrorist threat, nor as a pretext to reaffirm the predominance of France’s Christian religious identity over Islam, nor as a shield for anti-Arab racism which today thrives on the fear of attacks to spread with impunity.
The underlying link between secularism and terrorism is the concept of radicalization. The erroneous assumption is made that by limiting the public manifestations of belonging to Islam through secularism turned secularization, one would combat the phenomenon of radicalization that supposedly leads from Islam to political Islam, Islamism, and terrorism.
2. Stop talking about “radicalization”
Using terms like “radicalization” and “radical” Islam suggests that there is only a difference of degree and not of nature between Islam and Islamism, between Islam and terrorism. A person would be Muslim and could gradually become Islamist or terrorist. Worse, every Muslim would be a potential terrorist. And since every North African is, in the collective unconscious, assumed to be Muslim, the mixing of concepts leads to the trivialization of anti-Arab racism under the guise of fighting terrorism.
This is not to say that Islamist terrorism has nothing to do with Islam since, evidently, it claims to represent it. However, it is clear that the transition to terrorist acts is an eminently complex, plural, and multifaceted phenomenon. Anyone writing on the subject must acknowledge: no explanation suffices on its own, no one holds “the” solution because there is no single explanation but a concurrence of multiple and interdependent factors. Terrorism affects as much adherents of extreme right-wing supremacist theories as it does jihadists. Some terrorists seem to resort to jihad only to legitimize their actions, and it is very difficult to determine whether some heinous acts stem from religious fanaticism and are guided from abroad or result from pathological behaviors disconnected from a true terrorist enterprise, even if claimed as such.
For those who have genuinely adhered to jihadist theses, referring to “jihadization” would be more accurate than talking about “radicalization,” referencing not spiritual or defensive jihad but offensive jihad and the jihadist theses advocated by Al Qaeda and Daesh.
3. No longer speak of “political” Islam
If attacks are claimed in the name of a religion, it does not mean that the religion itself is to blame or inherently contains the seed of its deviation. The instrumentalization of a belief to establish political domination is not a new phenomenon. Remember the forced conversions, the Crusades, the Reconquista, the torture under the Inquisition, or the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. We did not speak then, nor do we retrospectively speak of “political Christianity.” Likewise, when the State of Israel implements a policy of expanding Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, we do not speak of “political Judaism.” These are political enterprises seeking justification in religion for their attempts at domination. Why would we speak of “political Islam” regarding Islam?
Just like the term radicalization, the term political Islam suggests that Islam inherently contains a terrorist potential. We have seen figures like Michel Onfray argue that Islam is incompatible with the republic because the Quran contains calls to murder, forgetting the violence of certain biblical passages and forgetting that massacres have also been committed in the name of a religion advocating love for one’s neighbor.
In reality, any attempt at political domination and any wrongdoing can be justified through a religion or an ideology, regardless of its nature, by distorting and instrumentalizing it. Remember, too, the communist ideal and Stalin’s gulags…
4. Do not legitimize, organize, or institutionalize Islamophobia
Most terrorists who have committed or attempted attacks on French soil in recent years attended the school of the Republic, were monitored by social services and French intelligence, and were detained in French prisons. Very few were regular mosque-goers. A military organization, a totalitarian ideology, and sectarian deviations are not fought by stigmatizing a religion.
Dividing French society by discriminating against a portion of the population weakens France and plays into the hands of terrorism. Islamist terrorism seeks precisely to destroy the French republican and secular model. It fights the possibility of living together; it opposes individual freedoms, notably those of women. Renouncing our individual freedoms and making coexistence impossible by organizing the stigmatization of French citizens of Muslim faith precisely facilitates terrorism’s task.
While millions of French Muslims demonstrate daily that their faith practice does not threaten the Nation, the legitimization, organization, and institutionalization of Islamophobia in France by the President of the Republic and the government constitutes a major political error.
Reporting and thus tracking a man because he does not kiss women on the cheek, reporting and thus tracking a little boy who does not hold girls’ hands is absurd and dangerous. Elevating the fight against radicalization into public policy with such arbitrary and discretionary content borders on the grotesque but can have serious and dangerous consequences.
This state Islamophobia should provoke outrage among the entire progressive and humanist political class. It should elicit a universal uproar. The lack of reaction commensurate with the gravity of the cited facts shows that these amalgamations and confusion affect the left as well as the right and society as a whole. We have even recently seen, with dismay, Henry Pena-Ruiz claim that one has “the right to be Islamophobic,” only to then fail to convincingly explain his statement.
It is up to us, as citizens, to not be misled on these issues, to mobilize, and to stand against the stigmatizations and discriminations faced by our fellow citizens of Muslim faith, to tirelessly fight against Islamophobia in all its forms, whether it emanates from political forces or personalities from the left or right and certainly from the far right, or whether it emanates from the government and public authorities themselves.
David Nakache, All Citizens
