Submitted by Charles Gave via Evergreen Gavekal [5],
Une nation est une ame, un principe spirituel. Deux choses qui, a vrai dire, n’en font qu’une, constituent cette ame, ce principe pirituel. L’une est dans le passe, l’autre dans le present. L’une est la possession en commun d’un riche legs de souvenirs ; l’autre est le consentement actuel, le desir de vivre ensemble, la volonte de continuer a faire valoir l’heritage qu’on a recu indivis.
Ernest Renan, Conference a la Sorbonne, March 1883
In order to define a nation Ernest Renan spoke of a will to live together, from which emerged the institution of the state. This state would then have a monopoly on violence (except for genuine cases of self-defense).
Throughout history, there have been cases where this willingness to live together vanished because part of a population wanted to break away and form another nation (the US civil war, Yugoslavia). There have also been cases where a regime has captured a legitimate state using violence against a population that was, in fact, willing to live together (Russia under the communists?). It can also occur when a big part of the population expresses a desire to live under different rules, and this desire spills into armed conflict (the Spanish civil war).
What happened last week in Paris begs the question whether Western Europe faces a problem in the last category; i.e., does France and its neighbors have a part of their population that rejects the rules on which the nation is based, and wishes to build a nation under a different set of rules? At the outset, it is important to draw a distinction between the two assassins of the Charlie Hebdo staff, and the lone killer of the kosher supermarket. Indeed, the Charlie Hebdo killers operated under the principles of a different civilization; principles that are very much the opposite of those that hold the French nation together (respect for free speech, etc…) but principles nonetheless. Meanwhile, the murders in the kosher supermarket are of a different nature. There, defenseless people were murdered simply for being Jewish, an outcome completely devoid of any principles other than the crassest form of anti-Semitism, which no religion condones.
The courageous Charlie Hebdo journalists took a risk and paid with their lives. As the wife of cartoonist Georges Wolinski put it, he died in the ‘field of battle, with heroes and men of honor’. Wolinski, Charb, Cabu and all the other Charlie Hebdo staff died defending the ideals they believed in and nothing can be greater than that. In the second case the fact that the Islamist fundamentalist murdered civilians simply for being Jewish makes it a more ghastly act; something akin to the events in Toulouse a couple of years ago. For every Frenchman, the first set of murders should inspire rage. The second set of murders should inspire shame and outrage. The heroes at Charlie Hebdo had taken a calculated risk which they embraced and assumed. The second set of victims had done nothing more but share the faith of their forefathers.
Which brings us back to the simple fact that the Charlie journalists were assassinated in application of a [blasphemy] law, which France rejects, but a law that, in the eyes of religious fundamentalists, trumps all others. At least, this much is clear from the declarations of the assassins who, on the scene of the crime declared ‘we have avenged the prophet’. Very clearly, the Charlie Hebdo killers did not share in what Renan called le legs constitutif de l’ame francaise. Instead, their reference points where, they seem to believe, in a legs constitutif of the Muslim ummah. And if this this is the case, then we should ask ourselves a number of questions:
1. The first is that the men who committed these crimes were raised in schools of the French republic. So how did they come to reject, and even hate, the republic’s values so much?
2. The second is that most French people have no problem with Islam per se. This was clear after almost four million people yesterday walked in the name of tolerance, and also from the ‘pride’ taken in one of the policemen, who died defending the Charlie Hedbo office, being a Muslim, as was the young Malian supermarket clerk who helped shoppers hide from the murderous terrorist. Still, the question must be asked whether Western nations are nursing a small minority of individuals who want to impose a system of Sharia law that opposes everything the majority holds dear? And, if so, and if that minority is large enough, do we risk more blood on our streets (whether in Paris, Sydney, Ottawa, Toulouse…). The question that then emerges is what can Western nations do about it without compromising the values they hold dear?
3. The above is not a racist question (as some commentators hint). Indeed, profound devotion to the tenets of a religion does not emanate from nature (as races do) but from thought. In that regard, being an ‘islamistphobe’ is more akin to being a ‘communistphobe’ or a ‘fascistphobe’ then a racist. At stake is the question of whether fundamentalist Islam presents a core set of values and beliefs which may, or may not, prove compatible with a) democracy and b) the ability to live in the multicultural/ multi-value society most Western societies have come to cherish. For example, today, a record number of French Jews are emigrating to Israel because of the rising anti-Semitism which was on display at the Kosher supermarket—so if this emigration trend is pushed to its conclusion (i.e., no more Jews in France), France will end up being less of a multi-cultural society.
4. The question of Islam’s compatibility with Western democratic values is not a question that we, in the West, can answer. This is a question that only the Muslim world itself can answer. For example, can a line of the Koran be changed or interpreted in different ways? After all, like most holy books, the Koran states many contradictory things and one can find quotes to justify almost anything. But the Koran is different from other religious books in that it was written by Mohammed, but dictated by God (through an archangel). Meanwhile, the Torah, as well as the Ancient and New Testaments, were written by men, inspired (or not) by God. These men are accepted to have been imperfect, unlike Mohammed, whom as the Charlie Hebdo staff paid dearly to show, one cannot criticize. So the Bible can be criticized and even re-interpreted. Can the Koran? Can this be done without criticizing the prophet? Or is the Sharia not adaptable and thus, for the true followers, an almost guarantee of conflicting systems?
Let us hope that this latest drama forces the Muslim World to confront these challenging questions. As far as France and most other Western nations are concerned, it is obvious that these questions will now, more than ever (and in spite of the mainstream politicians’ best efforts to keep them out) enter the political stream and discourse. And instead of calming tensions in an era of great economic discomfort, this will likely amplify them.
