Islamophobia, the only solution to all the problems facing France?

Under the leadership of President Nicolas Sarkozy, we have already reached a zero degree in politics. But now we are going even deeper.

But the good news is that in spite having eradicated unemployment, solved the housing issues, regulated the financial markets or looked for a solution to global warming, Nicolas Sarkozy and his team have found a strategy to overcome all the problems our country is facing: Islamophobia.

Economical, Generic and Consensual

The use of Islamophobia as a solution to the problems facing our country has the advantage of being economical generic and consensual. It is also easy to implement. The strategy is very simple: whatever the question is, it is sufficient to involve either Islam, Muslims or any  religious practice which can be associated with this group.

Economical: The use of Islamophobia as a strategy is very economical because today, smearing the dignity of Muslims is very cheap and highly profitable. We can write books ad nauseam about the eternal issue of the impossible integration of Muslims within the monolithic French identity. Otherwise we can get  television experts or iconoclast intellectuals on the simple condition (once again) that they address a branding message regarding any Muslim practice not duly dubbed by 'Frontist' thoughts.

Generic: The strategy is also very generic because it applies to any problem within a society especially when it comes to unemployment, talks of national preferences and threats of the republican model which is stuck on the deepening social distance between citizens, caused by the Muslim Communitarianism. The government has been caught with a pathetic safety record of finger-pointing the existence of “abandoned areas or areas where Sharia is sovereign”. It is  unable to produce any constructive solution which allows citizens to be recognized and keeps going back to the eternal sacrosant secularism, whose definition has become a tool of exclusion and in the same time a 'cloak' of respectability, under which you can easily conceal your sinister ideology. In order words “whatever the problem is and regardless of your inability to solve it, there will be always someone, who is going to pay for your failure”. Too often, he or she is a Muslim

Consensual: Given the few voices speaking against this new evil that strikes our society, it can be argued that there seems to be some sort of consensus on the use of Islamophobia as a smokescreen to deal with the country’s problems. Moreover, both right-wing and left-wing parties increasingly look at the Muslim community as an adjustment variable on their electoral votes. Through a daily progressive eloquence, the so-called leftist 'thinkers' feed the rejection of Islam and Muslims based on what they define by themselves in terms of religious practices.

Self Righteous Leftist

From Manuel Valls all the way to Caroline Fourest and from Philippe Val to Bernand-Henri Levy, the self-righteous leftist today engage in delivering discourses on inclusion in order to legitimize and justify means of exclusion. They utilise arguments from feminist discourse, progessivism and egalitarianism in order to stigmatize Muslim citizens. This sad fact shows how the ideas of extreme right parties have widely infiltrated conventional parties; it only undergoes a transition of reconstruction of legitimizing discourses.

It is very easy for these politicians to promote Islamophobia. This is because it is sufficient for them to send small packages of racism covertly in order to avoid the banning of the Republican agenda. Thus, each month, some politicians express their rejection of Islam and Muslims. Through electoral acrobacies that would be almost laughable if they were not involved in the drama of a country, political parties compete in subterfuges to send messages of seduction towards the part of the electorate which is racist. For example, the left has recently proposed a new law against nannies wearing headscarves which aims to exclude Muslim women from all sorts of social life.

It took an unprecedented mobilization of citizens to influence the position of the Socialist Party, which speaking timidly through its spokesman Benoit Hamon, had given up to vote in the National Assembly article 3 of the bill (the most controversial of the bill which planned to oblige nannies to contractually clarify the nature of their religious practices and political views) without really understanding the fact that the bill as a whole is problematic. If we are to acknowledge this as a significant advance in positioning, it is by no means sufficient and it will require far more to be done for the Socialist Party to become really credible when they deliver talks of respect and coexistence.

Right-wing Ambassadors of intolerance

At right, with Marine Le Pen being almost the progressivist figure on the issue, the UMP accounts for other talented ambassadors of intolerance and rejection of others. From Nadine Morano to Jean-Francois Copé, there are countless 'friends' which the Muslims in France would have got on well with. But there is one man who stands out from the crowd, both by his openness and brilliance of spirit, which together with his duties as an intendant of the National Society of deportation of undocumented immigrants (CDNISP- Compagnie de déportation nationale des immigrés sans-papiers)  will make him earn the envy of the world's largest universities. This is the self-taught ethnologist Claude Guéant.

The President  has rarely had to turn to any other faithful and loyal servant. This is because every time someone has to get sacrificed to go and do the dirty job they just end up soliciting in the swamps of the FN. It is also recognized that the brave and loyal companion Guéant is always present from a controlled slide added to his high flawless consistency. Thus, in his last outing, Claude Guéant informed us that ‘civilizations are not equal’. We would have thought that he was going to begin a deep analysis about the excesses of our civilization, which led human being to even bigger sacrifices for the glory of the financial capitalism that has gone mad. Excesses which furthermore threatened even the simple idea of life for the future generations, as people are being enslaved for the glory of few men. Maybe then, one might have.

“It is the Muslim religion”

But fortunately, ‘monsieur le Ministre’ explained his point. It is not the surrender to the values of a system that led us to an unprecedented moral, social and economic crisis, rather it is an ‘n-th operation’ seduction bound to an electorate that does not hate Islamophobia. This is added to the explications given by him that 'it is the Muslim religion which is in question'. If this is a declaration of war against Muslim citizens, it definitely has the merit of being really clear.

Faced with this, we must show restraint and analytical skills. Nicolas Sarkozy makes no secret of his strategy for his electoral campaign which will consist of a total war in which no single efforts will be spared to make the Muslim population in France the mat on which he will be wiping to access the treasures of the FN electorate.  It remains to be seen if the left will take the same ride and show us who between the UMP and PS is going to be the best at denigrating Muslims or will become aware of its historical responsibility of bringing people together rather than dividing them.

It must be said that in matters of Islamophobia, it is now difficult to find a party that clearly stands out. Muslims in France certainly know what to expect and should realize the importance of mobilizing in a useful and constructive way to face the dangers of Islamophobia. It is nothing but a community problem, as Islamophobia is a disease that harms our society as a whole by addressing a particular community. It just comes to separate the citizens rather than unite them, by generating cleavages and misunderstanding which result in more and more acts of violence and discrimination in everyday life.

We can judge the greatness of a civilization in the way it behaves in times of difficulties. Let's make sure that our strategy to get out of difficult times comes along with shared values of respect and tolerance rather than division. This is because what we do really need today more than ever are men and women capable of embodying hope that does not run on the rejection of others.