“Je Suis Charlie” – “I Am Charlie” : Which Way France After the Big Demo? France’s and the World’s Take Away From This Tragedy

~ “No-one believes Islamism is going to take over France. We know very well this is a minute minority – just fifteen jerks protesting this way. People are troubled moderate Muslims do not speak out. But that’s because there are no moderate Muslims in France. There are no Muslims at all. There are merely people of Muslim culture who observe Ramadan as I might celebrate Christmas eating turkey with my family. But they have no need to come out more than that against radical Islam. For, they are not moderate Muslims, they are citizens.” ~ Stéphane Charbonnier (“Charb”), 2012
~ “This big demonstration will be fixed in our memories as a bitter marker of our democracy. How shall we make that succeed? It’s simple : by combatting, here and now, tomorrow and later on, strongly and patiently, the plague of identity. Each has a right to his homeland, his religion, his tradition, his roots. No-one has the right to impose theirs on others.” ~ Laurent Joffrin, January 11, 2015
~ “France is at war with terrorism, with jihadism, with radical Islamism. She will protect her citizens whether they are believers or not. France is not at war with a religion. She is not at war with Islam and Muslims.” ~ Manuel Valls, January 11, 2015.
~ “ France is a relatively conservative society when it comes to immigration and “assimilation” .The obsession with Muslims, which can often seem irrational or disproportionate, is a way of appearing to “deal with the race problem” without addressing the underlying issues. Above all: mass unemployment in the “ghetto” banlieues. Hostility to Muslims is a unifying factor in white French society, able to unite conservative nationalists, leftist anti-clericalists, Jews and Catholics.” ~ Craig Willy, 2013.
~ “The universal model of French citizenship was notdesigned with Muslims in mind.And their presence worrisomely draws attentionto the limits of that universality. Importantly, the most common politicalresponse has been to criticize Muslims for failing to integrate, not to questionhow capacious French universality is.” ~ Jennifer Fredette, 2014.
~ “People in the Gaza ghetto continue to die of cold as a direct consequence of the destruction and ongoing siege : One observer in Gaza, Dima Eleiwa, had a wry explanation for why the leaders embracing Netanyahu have kept silent about their ordeal: “We’re not French enough.”” ~ Ali Abunimah, January 12, 2015
~ “There is no peace unless righteousness and truth are preserved. A peace which does damage to these is no peace. There can be a peace which is worse than struggle. But it must be a struggle out of love for the other, a struggle of the spirit, and not of the flesh.” ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1932

Last Sunday Paris saw a truly extraordinary outpouring of solidarity shown by the French people, following the tragic events a few days earlier, when seventeen were so brutally killed by three terrorists. Watching it left me, perhaps like you, wondering how the French government and France as a nation can best respond in coming days to the major challenges they now face.
The appalling killing, by two young Algerian French Muslim men – the Kouachi brothers – of eleven journalists at the satirical weekly “Charlie Hebdo” – apparently for lampooning the Prophet Mohammed – has rightly been viewed as an attack on freedom of speech and the press. The despicable murder of four French Jews in a kosher supermarket in the Paris suburb of Vincennes by a third young Senegalese French Muslim man – Ali Coulibaly – raised the specter of rising anti-Semitism once more in France. Coulibaly had earlier killed a young French police woman – as a direct attack on the forces of law and order.
Thankfully, French security forces were quickly able to track down and eventually kill the three perpetrators. They thus made up for earlier apparent lapses in surveillance since all three were known to be “radicalized” Muslims in France. Meanwhile, last Sunday, at the call of French President François Hollande, over 1.5 million people in Paris and over 3.75 million across France marched to show their strong support for the fallen and for France’s constitutional principles of freedom of speech and religion.
The throngs included French men and women from all faiths – including Muslims, Jews, Christians – and from all walks of life. They were joined by world political leaders from across Europe and the world. Some – notably Israeli prime minister Netanyahu (who apparently gate-crashed the march) – hastened to generalize the events as part of a much broader clash of civilizations – a “war on radical Islam” that includes Hamas and the Palestinians.
However, President Hollande and other French leaders were steadfast in insisting their cause was against terrorism not a religion. Their stated goal now is understandably – after the worst incident in France for fifty years – to strengthen security against terrorist attacks, but while maintaining civic freedoms and the rule of law. Nevertheless, many remain very insecure, and politicians – especially on the right – are already pressing for tougher security actions against terrorism, even a “Patriot Act” for France, beyond the anti-terrorism law passed just last November.
All this is occurring in a France much changed as a society in the past thirty years. It now has the largest Muslim population (5.5 million) of any major European nation and the largest Jewish population (0.5 million). In the past decade, France has faced deepening economic crisis, including high unemployment, as well as difficulties – beneath the surface – in handling issues of race and minorities. And, of course, all these forces are further complicated by the continuing strife and turmoil in the Middle East, and its links to terrorism in the West.
Key Questions : Today (January 13), French Prime Minister Manuel Valls spoke to the French parliament stressing the need for stepped up action to address the threat of terrorism inside France, while defending French actions abroad – notably in Mali, Iraq and Afghanistan. A particular focus now will be to intensify efforts to prevent “radicalization” of youth in prisons. However, this begs serious questions about the underlying causes of both terrorism and growing anti-Semitism in France. Also, are these major challenges in themselves, or, rather, the result of political, societal and economic forces in France and abroad? What role do Western policies in the Middle East play? Beyond security measures, what actions are needed to address marginalization of minorities – both Muslim and Jewish – in French society?
Radical Islam, Anti-Semitism and Civic Freedoms : Ironically, it was the editor of “Charlie Hebdo”, Stéphane Charbonnier (known as “Charb”) tragically killed last week, who was adamant in insisting the overwhelming majority of French Muslims were law-abiding normal citizens like anyone else. As such, he argued (see above quote) they should not be required to justify not speaking out against radical Islam, any more than Catholics. For all the government and press attention in recent months, especially as regards “radicalized” European Muslims going to fight in Syria, the actual numbers are so small – less than 1,000 out of 5.5 million ! – as to hardly represent a major trend in French Muslim society. In targeting “radicalization” in prisons and in criminalizing support for the beleaguered people of Syria, the French government needs to exercise great care. Much research shows that some of the most violent Middle Eastern terrorist leaders were indeed radicalized by ill-treatment – including torture in Middle Eastern countries – while in jail.
In recent days, much has been said about rising anti-Semitism in France. It is almost as if there were a return to the dark days of fascism in the 1930s. Today, in the French parliament prime minister Valls reiterated the danger of the rising trend. To be sure, as with attacks by terrorists claiming radical Islamic motives, there have been a very small, but growing number of such attacks tragically on Jews – in schools and elsewhere – in recent years. Also, there have been major demonstrations in French cities against Israeli military attacks on Gaza, notably in 2014. But, as mainstream French Jewish community leaders are quick to recognize, unlike the 1930s, the government stands staunchly for civic freedoms for all. Rather than anti-Semitism per se, therefore, today it is more anti-Zionism and anti-Israeli feeling— expressed by most Muslims and many non-Muslims – because of the injustice and repression in which Palestinians increasingly live.
Marginalization and Discrimination Against Muslims : Today in a ceremony honoring the police killed last week, President Hollande staunchly upheld the value of “secularism” (‘laïcité’) – respect for freedom of all beliefs – in French society. He later ceremonially kissed the cheeks of the Muslim family members of one fallen Muslim policeman. However, beneath the surface of this apparent equality and tolerance, France has in fact found adapting to a multi-cultural society that includes large numbers of Muslims a most difficult challenge. Over the past decade, as Jennifer Fredette and Craig Willy note (see above quotes), much reporting and research – notably by the BBC and Stanford University, as well as French scholars – has found deeply entrenched job, housing and education discrimination against Muslims in French society. As a result, many French Muslims can aspire only to lower paid jobs and living in over-crowded, crime-infested public housing projects in the outer suburbs of Paris and other big cities – the so-called “banlieues”. A growing number of French researchers have pointed to these poor living conditions and life prospects as more potent causes of “radicalization” than radical Islam in itself.
Adverse International Context – The Middle East and Gaza : As many world political leaders gathered in Paris last weekend and marched last Sunday, a broad cross-section of Muslim and Arab political commentators across the Middle East and the world noted the absence of any recognition by them of the often dire conditions of strife, government repression and hardship faced by so many Muslims in Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Palestine today. For them, particularly notable was the absence of any commentary on the appalling conditions of freezing cold and hunger faced by Palestinians in Gaza right now. This has been caused by the savage Israeli bombardment last July compounded by the continuing seven year Israeli blockade that prevents Gazans from rebuilding. As noted above, as one rueful Gazan put it, their problem is “we’re not French enough” for people to notice!
Equally, since the start of the USA-led coalition’s war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), neither Western press nor Western governments have paid any attention – since last August – to the ongoing three year old savage civil war in Syria, in which the Assad regime has already slaughtered over one quarter million of its own people and displaced over seven million as refugees. It is as if cognitive dissonance is so great between the West and Arab and Muslim majority societies that the admittedly tragic deaths of seventeen French people were vastly more important that those of over half a million in Iraq and Syria!
Indeed, as the brilliant and admirable German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer said in 1932 at the beginning of the rise of fascism – peace in face of injustice and denial of righteousness is worse than struggle, but the struggle should be of the spirit not by the flesh torn apart in war.
Conclusions :In meeting the challenges brought forth by the tragic brutal events in Paris last week, it is to be hoped that the leaders of France and the West will resist the temptation to pursue a course purely aimed at much tightened security. Strengthening the fortress walls while the deeper societal and international problems remain unaddressed is more likely to aggravate still further the conflicts arising from strife in the Middle East and in changing European societies as they adapt to becoming multi-cultural democracies.
Domestically, France needs the courage to tackle deep seated problems of inequality and discrimination. Internationally, the West needs to take firm and determined action to push for a just peace now between Israel and the Palestinians. The West needs to speak out against the repression and denial of freedoms in many autocratic regimes in the Middle East – notably Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia. It also needs to acknowledge the role played by the Saudis and the Gulf states in fomenting militant jihadism and Wahhabi Islam across much of the Muslim world for decades – including support for Boko Haram in Nigeria. Importantly, the West needs to shift from assistance to Middle Eastern nations mainly through weapons sales to broad-based economic assistance directly to civil society to transform access to education and business opportunity.
I, for one, earnestly hope that, in the coming months, France and other Western powers, including the U.S.A., will rise to these true and real challenges for the overall benefit of mankind.
Then, and only then, will we validly be able to affirm “Je suis Charlie”!