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December
5, 2003
France Starts Facing
Up to Anti-Muslim Discrimination
"Intolerance
Toward Islam" Under Scrutiny
Comment and Translation
by NORMAN MADARASZ
Based on media reports, North-Americans are being
led to believe that Europe is crossing yet another bleak period
with regard to its Jewish populations. Thomas Friedman, the New
York Times columnist, regularly reminds Americans of how
the "European press" keeps stirring up "anti-Semitism"
whenever it criticizes the policies of the Sharon government
toward Palestine and the broader Middle East.
There is no question that European nations
have had a long history of willful attacks and atrocities committed
against its Jewish populations. For the record, though, until
Ariel Sharon came out of his post-Sabra and Chatila silence to
unleash the second 'Al-Aqsa' Intifada and then assume the Israeli
presidency, most European countries had faced growing concerns
of racism, as well as social and professional discrimination
not so much against Jews, but their Muslim populations. 'Christian'
Europe's relationship with the 'Jews' had at long last entered
the peaceful pastures of mutual respect. Statistics gathered
in France, with the largest Jewish population in the European
Union numbering at 600 000, had only been pointing to steadily
decreasing acts of anti-Semitism.
That there has been a shift over the
past year and a half is becoming increasingly clear. On the other
hand, anti-Muslim violence in France especially has never stopped
increasing ever since the events that led to the founding of
the anti-racist group, "SOS-Racisme", in 1984. Still,
detailed investigation by public associations or NGOs
into "intolerance towards Islam" has occurred at a
far lower rate. This is why the study drafted by France's Commission
nationale consultative des droits de l'homme (CNCDH-National
Consultative Commission on Human Rights) is timely, and the
Le Monde article on the subject deserving of a translation.
It would require a long paper, a carefully
argued one, refined through respectful inferences, to distinguish
today's anti-Jewish acts in Europe from the long history of anti-Semitism.
As the case so often is, however, the longer the analysis the
more diluted the point. Let it suffice for the present purposes
to say that prior to 2002, acts of racial violence were primarily
aimed at France's 4-5 million strong North-African Muslim population.
Since 2002, France and Europe's Jews have been increasing targeted--though
nothing suggests that racist acts have decreased against Muslims.
The point here is not to determine who might or might not be
the greater victim. The task is to give a just hearing to anyone
against whom individual, collective and/or institutional discrimination
is committed, and use of the measure of the law to act on it.
In the background to current European
frustrations is the paralysis of moves to found a Palestinian
state. The European Union, lest North-American pundits forget,
has contributed the major share of funds to building the infrastructure
the Palestinian Authority (PA) in view of what only recently
was planned to be an independent Palestinian State. To this day,
the EU remains the most important financial donor to the Palestinians.
The European Union External Relations
website on investment in the West Bank and Gaza provides the
following information. "Total assistance from the European
Community budget in support of the reform process and in response
to the worsening economic and humanitarian crisis stands at $570
million for 2002-2003. This covers assistance to the PA, an emergency
fund for the Palestinian private sector, rehabilitation of municipalities,
preparations for elections, assistance to refugees, food aid,
support to the health sector, institution building and judicial
reform." Under the pretext of first fighting the Intifada,
then Hamas, and finally alleged PA-supported terrorism, the Sharon
government in 2001 undertook the complete dismantling of the
Palestinian Authority infrastructure. In September 2002, the
IDF planted the Israeli on the PA compound in Ramallah. By mid-2003
the invasion and occupation of the Occupied Territories by the
Israeli military had led to the death of over 3000 persons, with
20 000 wounded. This prolonged campaign, justified by the Sharon
cabinet as measures to combat suicide bombings, has single-handedly
frustrated and angered even the most moderate of Europeans.
On the ground, it has made the P.A. inoperative,
confused and subjected at times to politically ill-advised decisions.
That Europe, and particularly France,
has led the G7 in criticism addressed against Sharon clearly
is set against a long, though far from consistent historical
background with the Arabs. It all started with Napoleon's invasion
of Egypt in 1799, at which time the future French emperor converted
to Islam. European colonialism differed in content, though hardly
in form, from what the USA later recognized as the singular importance
of Arab civilization once, that is, oil was discovered in the
Persian Gulf region.
In the wake of de-colonization and the
30-year post-WWII economic boom in Western Europe, many nations
called upon their former colonial subjects to help build the
European reconstruction. By the end of the 1970s, this period
of sustained growth had elapsed. Western European states such
as France confronted themselves with a growing unemployment problem.
The former French Socialist governments went on to recognize
the difficulties in fully integrating immigrant workers and their
families, a group whose ranks had by then been filled overwhelmingly
by Muslims. Class differences, which have always been stark in
France, now doubled up with cultural and religious distinctions.
Exclusion began a foreboding course as a political buzzword in
the land of Sartre.
Notwithstanding the recent terror attacks
in Istanbul, and the torching of a Jewish school in a northern
Parisian suburb, the severest strain of racism being experienced
in Europe since the 1960s has been toward its immigrant Muslim
populations. In England, with Pakistanis, in Germany, with the
Turkish, and in France, Italy, Spain and Portugal, with immigrants
from the al-Maghreb North African region: Moroccans, Algerians,
Tunisians, Berbers, Cabyls, as well as Palestinians and sub-Saharan
Muslims, especially from Mali.
As said, anti-Jewish terror attacks had
steadily decreased since the 1970s. Their recent upsurge can
and must be understood in the context of the Sharon government's
war against the Palestinians and its expansionist policies in
the Occupied Territories, as well as the American invasion of
Iraq. Indeed, it may come as no surprise that the recent spate
of anti-Semitic, i.e. anti-Jewish, acts has reportedly been committed
by Muslims. In that respect, one can only agree with political
scientist, Nonna Mayer, a major anti-Semitism watchdog working
at France's CNRS (National Scientific Research Center), when
she believes that a fair peace settlement in the Middle East
is what can lead us to "hope for a reduction in tensions".
By contrast, the anti-Muslim backlash
to international terror attacks and the anger expressed toward
murdered Europeans as a result of America's War on Terror have
led to increasing the malaise of Muslim citizens throughout the
EU. Just as the average American cannot be identified with the
oil-clan inspired state terrorism led by the Bush administration,
nor can average Muslims be held globally accountable for the
actions of extremists. If in mourning our dead our culture cannot
understand and act on this analogy, the near future will only
unleash more bloodshed.
Likewise, when confronted with an October
poll that revealed widespread anger in the European Union against
Sharon's policies, Europeans must be weary of making all Israelis
responsible for the current violence favored by its government.
Upon publishing the poll details at the end of October, a Le
Monde editorial issued precisely a call to restraint from
the European populations on the expanding anger, issuing a major
warning of how easily the dip occurs toward making an entire
people responsible for the crimes of extremists. Contrary to
Friedman's claims, this is not a mere minority sentiment in Europe
today.
For the likes of Friedman, as well as
William Safire, another New York Times columnist, and
indeed CNN's Larry King, notwithstanding the help of fanatical
pro-American European supporters of Israel, who often seem to
be bereft of ideas on how to prevent the creation of a Palestinian
State, such detail is a mere annoyance. In our times of media
sensationalism, their path to simplification and victimization
is the wrong one to take if one is really interested to find
out who bears the brunt of racism in contemporary Europe. The
following translation of a recent Le Monde article will
hopefully add some details to the picture, and broaden our perspective
of the problems.
"Intolerance towards Islam"
under Scrutiny by France's CNCDH
Le Monde, November 24, 2003.
In a recent study, France's Commission
nationale consultative des droits de l'homme (CNCDH --National
Consultative Commission on Human Rights) acknowledges the existence
of anti-Muslim discrimination in the country, and provides some
details of its signs.
By Sylvia Zappi
One ought to speak of phenomena typical
of "intolerance towards Islam", instead of Islamophobia.
But the string of violent events, such as hostile reactions to
the debate on Islam's place in French society, is very real indeed.
Such are the conclusions of a study drawn by the Commission national
consultative des droits de l'homme (CNCDH), which should be published
in its March 2004 Annual Report. Le Monde has acquired
a copy of the report.
According to France's CNCDH, for several
months now acts of violence have been aimed at Muslim religious
symbols, while "hate books" and certain mass media
have targeted Islam. The CNCDH, an organization providing policy
analysis to the Prime Minister, is made up of representatives
from public administration and different associations [French
NGOs according to the 1901 law]. Faced with recent racist acts,
it has sought to determine whether a specific type of discrimination
is now affecting Muslims in France.
The study was drafted by Sarah Benichou,
former vice-president of SOS-Racisme [an anti-racist association
founded in 1984]. Its results were harshly debated during a CNCDH
assembly on Friday, November 21. Some associations, like the
Mouvement contre le racisme et pour l'amitie entre les peuples
(MRAP-- Movement against Racism and for Friendship among Peoples),
or the Ligue des droits de l'homme (Human Rights League)
were critical of the first version. In their view, it tended
to deny the phenomenon of "Islamophobia" and explained
it through the international context that blames Islam itself
for this stigmatization. Strongly amended but eventually validated,
the study's final version recommends using the term "Islamophobia"
with "utmost precaution". Among the other reasons evoked,
there is an insistence on preventing any amalgam between the
terms "Arab" and "Muslim" when the current
expression of intolerance in France is most often confused with
an anti-Maghrebin racism.
For the first time, the CNCDH has nonetheless
highlighted the specifics of anti-Muslim racial discrimination.
The authors have sought to define this emerging phenomenon. What
the latter points to is "unreasoned fear and total rejection
of Islam as a religion, way of life, community project as well
as culture." This hostility, fed by international events
like the Algerian civil war, the GIA (Groupe Islamiste Armé)
terrorist actions in France in 1995, the Taliban regime in Afghanistan
and 9/11, has been "reinforced with the mixed-up use of
terms such as Muslim, Islamic, fundamentalist, Islamist and terrorist,"
the study asserts. These amalgams wield disgrace on anyone who
is a rigorist practitioner of Islam by suspecting them of practicing
political Islamism.
"GOING INTO ACTION"
The report goes on to portray the acts
of violence that have been committed against Islam. According
to the authors, they are hard to number since the Ministry of
the Interior has never made such discrimination a specific category.
Nor are the facts related to discrimination listed by any community
organizations, as is done regularly with anti-Semitic acts. However,
the study does cite certain "actions", such as anti-Muslim
tracts distributed by the far-right, attempted torching of places
of worship, verbal or physical violence aimed at public figures
linked to Islam, anti-Muslim graffiti and, last but not least,
statements made by some celebrities in public.
While awaiting the 2003 statistics, the
study lists several examples of serious violence committed in
2002: Molotov cocktails thrown at the mosques of Mericourt (in
the Pas-de-Calais region) and Chalons (in the Marne region),
on April 25 and 27, and on March 24 against the Ecaudin mosque
(in the Rhone region) ; a letter bomb was sent to an association
seated at the Perpignan mosque (in the Pyrenees-Orientales),
on April 9; an Islamic religious sculpture was profaned in Lyon,
on April 24; attempted torching of a place of worship in Rillieux-la-Pape
(Rhone), on December 27; anonymous tracts distributed during
the presidential campaign [held in April 2002 which had set far-right
racist candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen against incumbent president
Chirac]. As for 2003, three facts can be pointed to: profaned
tombs in the Haut-Rhin region in July, torching of a place of
worship at Nancy, and profanation of an Islamic square in the
Meuse region in March. These are only examples that, in the CNCDH's
view, "fall well under the real number [of racist acts committed
against Islam]", especially as far as verbal insults and
lighter forms of violence is concerned.
The report brings attention to how certain
French Internet sites broadcast explicitly racist propaganda
toward Islam. It also highlights speeches made by elected officials,
foremost of which is the mayor of Nice, Jacques Peyrat, for whom
"mosques cannot be conceived of as existing within a secular
Republic", and notes the publicly manifested reticence every
time a mosque is built in France. The CNCDH has denounced the
"media-inspired amalgams" that explain Islamist terrorism
by "singling out Islam as its sole ideological cause".
Sensationalist images, headlines and commentary, "demagogic
and paranoiac in tone", feed "conspiracy fantasies"
and have multiplied over the last few months in the media. The
study makes special mention of statements made by Claude Imbert,
a columnist from the weekly Le Point, who recently declared
himself an "Islamophobe" (see Le Monde, November
5).
Ultimately, the CNCDH considers such hostility toward Islam as
"little acknowledged and feebly fought against". It
recommends up-grading the course content taught in religion classes
at both elementary and high schools, and "is favorable to
having places of worship be made more visible". Most of
all, the CNCDH stresses the importance of "waging a strong
public policy battle against all types of racial discrimination."
Article by Sylvia Zappi, Le Monde,
November 25, 2003
Translated for CounterPunch by Norman Madarasz (nmphdiol2@yahoo.ca)
Weekend
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Anthony Arnove
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with John Pilger
Greg Weiher
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Susan Davis
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Neve Gordon
Arundhati Roy's Complaint for Peace
Mitchel Cohen
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Ben Tripp
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Poets' Basement
Kearney, Albert, Guthrie and Smith
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