Yes, Islam Is Facing a Crisis. No, France Isn't Helping Solve It.

[Mosby]

Islam is a religion that is in crisis all over the world today.” That is what the French President Emmanuel Macron said on Oct. 2, while announcing his “anti-radicalism plan.” Just two weeks later, on Oct. 16, a devotee of that radicalism killed and beheaded a high-school teacher, Samuel Paty, in a Paris suburb, merely for showing the infamous cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in his classroom. And soon after, three worshippers at a church in Nice were savagely murdered by another terrorist who seemed to have the same motivation: to punish blasphemy against the prophet of Islam.

In return, the French authorities initiated a crackdown on anything they deemed to be Islamism, and also projected the controversial cartoons of Prophet Muhammad on government buildings in France—only to provoke mass protests in various parts of the Muslim world.

All these events have initiated an ongoing debate about France, Islam, and freedom. Some in the West now see France as the beacon of Enlightenment values against the dark forces of religious fanaticism. Others argue that the main problem is Islamophobia, racism and the colonial arrogance of France in a world where—except for a handful of extremists—Muslims are the real victims.

As a Muslim who has been writing about these issues for about two decades, let me offer a more nuanced view: First, France—like any target of terrorism—deserves sympathy for its fallen and solidarity against the threat. Moreover, Macron is largely correct that Islam is facing a “crisis”—not “all over world,” but certainly in some parts of the world—and we Muslims need an honest conversation about that. Unfortunately, Macron is doing little to resolve this crisis and could actually be inflaming it, because the sort of freedom he claims to defend is full of painful shortcomings and cynical double standards.


https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/11/20/islam-facing-crisis-macron-france-laicite-secularism-not-helping-solve-it/

[Laelth]

1. This is an excellent essay.

Highly recommended read, in its entirety.

-Laelth

[Backseat Driver]

2. Oh-oh, the headboard bookcase is filled with fatwa-ed Salman Rushdie novels and Rumi poetry...

alongside The Holy Bible. Do you think that's the reason my one-time next-door neighbors never greeted either of us with so much as a "good morning" or a "salam alaykum."

The horror that they parked their big black Uber cars in front of the fire hydrant (they'd look out-see a strange woman in immodest shorts and tank-top and ignore my knock on the door meant only to warn them of the high cost of a tow) or that (within earshot) they warned their kids, in English, that we "would eat them" never provoked this infidel to lethal violence.

I confess, though, I once found some bagpipe tunes I thought they'd enjoy through the wall in spite of what I heard this side, and when that didn't work, I downloaded my own program to announce their proper times of prayer and turned the speakers up quite loud because I was tired of hearing theirs though my walls..sort of if you can't lick 'em, join 'em ---ain't apartment living grand.

One of the nicest of the doctors I once worked with was a Muslim from Syria; he was married to a French general's beautiful daughter whose idea of shopping included hopping a jet for Paris. We had some very interesting discussions back in the day.