France, Turkey and radical Islam // Muslim backlash against Macron gathers pace after police raids

ANÁLISE

A França, a Turquia e o islamismo radical

 

JOSÉ PEDRO TEIXEIRA FERNANDES

27 de Outubro de 2020, 7:45 actualizada às 11:32

https://www.publico.pt/2020/10/27/mundo/analise/franca-turquia-islamismo-radical-1936828

 

1. O conflito entre a França e o islamismo radical não é novo. O assassinato por decapitação de Samuel Paty, ocorrido a 16 de Outubro de 2020 nos subúrbios de Paris, foi mais um episódio trágico. O seu autor, Abdoullakh Abouyedovich Anzorov, foi um jovem muçulmano refugiado de origem chechena. Para cometer esse acto de barbárie terá sido instigado pelo islamista radical Abdelhakim Sefrioui e outros, entre os quais se encontra também o pai de uma aluna do professor Samuel Paty.  No simbólico do atentado terrorista está uma clara intenção de atingir o cerne dos valores da sociedade francesa, em particular os valores laicos da república. A escolha de alvos altamente simbólicos para a sociedade, feita pelos islamistas radicais (jihadistas), não é um mero acaso. Basta recordar um outro atentado também perpetrado por islamistas radicais, ocorrido a 26 de Julho de 2016, numa igreja em Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, perto de Ruão. Nesse atentado, o octogenário padre Jacques Hamel foi barbaramente assassinado (degolado) e um dos fiéis ficou em estado grave.

 

2. Quer o professor Samuel Paty, quer o padre Jacques Hamel, são apenas duas vítimas entre os muitos milhares de mortos e de feridos graves que os atentados perpetrados pelos islamistas radicais têm provocado, em França, na Europa e um pouco por todo o mundo (incluindo nos próprios países muçulmanos). Mas, no caso francês, existe, como notado, um simbolismo particular nestes dois atentados terroristas. Mostram uma intenção de atacar o cerne da identidade e valores franceses, seja na sua versão tradicional religiosa cristã (simbolizada pelo ataque a uma igreja e pela morte do padre), seja na sua versão republicana ligada à escola laica (simbolizado pelo ataque e morte de um professor à saída da escola). A mensagem é clara: não há compromisso possível entre os valores do Islão, tal como os interpretam, ou distorcem, os islamistas radicais (jihadistas) e os valores da França, seja na sua versão tradicional religiosa cristã, seja na versão da república laica de valores e direitos humanos tendencialmente universais.

 

3. Após o último atentado, o Presidente francês, Emmanuel Macron, decidiu actuar em termos políticos e jurídicos contra o islamismo radical. Propôs-se especialmente combater o separatismo promovido pelos islamistas radicais o qual obsta, deliberadamente, a uma integração de muitos muçulmanos na sociedade francesa. Estes últimos, os islamistas radicais, têm por objectivo criar mundos à parte no mesmo território. Pretendem evitar a todo custo a absorção, pelas diversas populações muçulmanas, dos valores franceses em qualquer das versões apontadas — em especial os valores da república laica, os quais são estruturantes da organização político-jurídica da França contemporânea. Tais populações são tipicamente oriundas de fluxos migratórios, antigos ou recentes, com origem nas sociedades tradicionalistas muçulmanas do Sul do Mediterrâneo. Têm, naturalmente, dificuldades de adaptação a uma sociedade urbana, impessoal e imbuída de valores profundamente laicos/seculares (e materialistas). Mas, neste combate político de Emmanuel Macron contra o islamismo radical dentro do seu próprio país, estes últimos encontraram um aliado externo de envergadura: a Turquia de Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Recorrendo a uma linguagem truculenta e (ainda mais) imprópria diplomaticamente do que é habitual, o Presidente da Turquia pôs em causa a sanidade mental de Emmanuel Macron.

 

4. As críticas e hostilidade de Recep Tayyip Erdoğan às políticas de integração das comunidades muçulmanas na Europa e Ocidente, em particular às políticas mais determinadas a prosseguir os valores seculares europeus, não são nada de novo. Vê tais populações como um instrumento útil da sua política externa (neo)otomana, pelo que quer evitar, o mais possível, que absorvam valores democráticos, pluralistas e laicos pela via social, cultural e educativa. Anteriormente, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan incitou a numerosa diáspora turca na Alemanha a resistir à integração no sentido de absorção cultural e dos valores da sociedade germânica, irritando Angela Merkel e o Governo alemão. Importa clarificar que Recep Tayyip Erdoğan e o seu Partido da Justiça e Desenvolvimento (AKP), não são islamistas radicais. Todavia, para os seus próprios fins de política interna e externa, procuram usar e instrumentalizar os múltiplos grupos islamistas radicais sunitas, desde os jihadistas do Daesh e outros mais ou próximos (nas guerras da Síria e da Líbia) até à Irmandade Muçulmana (no Egipto e com ramificações a muitos países europeus).

 

 5. No passado, a Turquia de Recep Tayyip Erdoğan projectava uma imagem para o mundo muçulmano diferente daquela que procurava dar na União Europeia, para agradar aos europeus. Hoje o Governo da Turquia sente-se demasiado forte para se dar a esse trabalho. Se voltarmos ao caso original das caricaturas do Profeta Maomé vemos a raiz da actual atitude turca com mais nitidez. O caso começou na Dinamarca em finais de 2005 com a publicação feita inicialmente pelo jornal Jyllands-Posten. Em inícios de 2006 as caricaturas foram republicadas em vários países europeus, em especial em França, tornando-se o jornal satírico Charlie Hebdo um novo alvo dos que contestavam tal publicação. Se os europeus na época prestassem mais atenção ao que a Turquia dizia sobre tal caso na Organização da Conferência Islâmica (OCI), não ficariam tão surpreendidos com as actuais posições de Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Importa lembrar que, na altura, a OCI era até presidida por um turco, Ekmleddin İhsanoğlu. Todavia, a Turquia não se empenhou em explicar o funcionamento das sociedades europeias aos restantes membros da OCI, em particular ao nível da liberdade de expressão e de imprensa — um direito que permite a caricatura, mesmo que de mau gosto ou podendo ser considerada ofensiva — como seria expectável de um candidato à adesão à União Europeia. Procurou bem mais mostrar-se solidária com os restantes países muçulmanos que condenaram duramente a Dinamarca e todos os que publicaram as candidaturas na imprensa europeia.

 

6. A acrescer à disputa em torno da integração de populações muçulmanas na Europa e sobre a forma de lidar com o islamismo radical — no limite esta é uma disputa sobre os valores estruturantes de uma sociedade, sobre os quais não se pode abdicar —, há hoje uma dimensão fortemente geopolítica na rivalidade entre a França e a Turquia, a qual decorre sobretudo no Mediterrâneo Sul e Oriental. Em grande parte, está ligada à já referida ambição (neo)otomana da Turquia, de projectar a sua influência e poder nos antigos territórios do Império Otomano que perdeu em inícios do século XX, do Iraque à Líbia passando pelos Balcãs. Um episódio significativo ocorreu ligado ao conflito da Líbia em Junho de 2020. Um navio da marinha francesa que participava na operação Sea Guardian da NATO terá sido alvo de uma acção agressiva por parte de fragatas turcas quando procurava controlar um navio cargueiro (também turco) suspeito de violar o embargo de armas com destino à Líbia. No cerne desse incidente estão os apoios a facções opostas da guerra na Líbia. De um lado o governo da unidade nacional de Fayez al-Sarraj apoiado política e militarmente pela Turquia, pelo Qatar e pela Itália. No outro lado o Exército Nacional da Líbia chefiado pelo marechal Khalifa Haftar, apoiado pelo Egipto, Emirados Árabes Unidos e também pela França.

 

7. Neste conflito, que é simultaneamente sobre os valores mais profundos de uma boa sociedade e também geopolítico, Emmanuel Macron e a França necessitam de um claro apoio europeu na sua acção contra o islamismo radical. Mais do que isso, necessitam de um apoio inequívoco contra a tentativa de Recep Tayyip Erdoğan e da Turquia de condicionarem as políticas francesas, alimentando protestos contra a França no mundo muçulmano e ingerindo-se nos assuntos internos do país. Todavia, para além das declarações de circunstância do Alto Representante da União para os Negócios Estrangeiros e a Política de Segurança, Josep Borrell — que qualificou como inaceitáveis as declarações de Recep Tayyip Erdoğan sobre a sanidade mental do Presidente francês —, o apoio europeu à França é inconsistente. Com Recep Tayyip Erdoğan e a Turquia a fazerem o contra-jogo dos islamistas, facto ao qual acrescem os diferentes interesses geopolíticos dos europeus no Mediterrâneo Oriental, a questão, como quase sempre, dividirá a União Europeia. A Grécia e Chipre — envolvidos em antigos conflitos territoriais com a Turquia, agora também com uma nova dimensão energética — apoiam de forma inequívoca a França. Mas outros Estados como a Alemanha ou a Itália, que têm interesses particulares com a Turquia, desde logo devido aos refugiados da Síria e ao apoio a diferentes facções na Líbia, tendem a ser complacentes com Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. A ser assim, o resultado será uma França e uma União Europeia permanentemente frágeis face ao islamismo radical e sem qualquer estratégia geopolítica sólida para lidar com a ambição de poder (neo)otomana da Turquia.

 

Investigador do IPRI-NOVA - Universidade NOVA de Lisboa

Analysis

France, Turkey and radical Islam

 

JOSE PEDRO TEIXEIRA

October 27, 2020, 7:45 am updated at 11:32 AM

https://www.publico.pt/2020/10/27/mundo/analise/franca-turquia-islamismo-radical-1936828

 

1. The conflict between France and radical Islam is not new. The beheading murder of Samuel Paty, which took place on 16 October 2020 in the suburbs of Paris, was yet another tragic episode. Its author, Abdoullakh Abouyedovich Anzorov, was a young Muslim refugee of Chechen origin. To commit this act of barbarism he will have been instigated by radical Islamist Abdelhakim Sefrioui and others, among whom is also the father of a student of Professor Samuel Paty.  In the symbolic of the terrorist attack is a clear intention to reach the core of the values of French society, in particular the secular values of the republic. The choice of highly symbolic targets for society, made by radical Islamists (jihadists), is not a mere chance. Just remember another attack also perpetrated by radical Islamists, which occurred on 26 July 2016, in a church in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, near Rouvray. In this attack, the octogenarian father Jacques Hamel was savagely murdered (bewitched) and one of the faithful was in serious condition.

 

2. Both Professor Samuel Paty and Father Jacques Hamel are only two victims among the many thousands of people killed and seriously injured that the attacks by radical Islamists have caused in France, Europe and around the world (including in muslim countries themselves). But in the French case, there is, as noted, a particular symbolism in these two terrorist attacks. They show an intention to attack the core of French identity and values, whether in its traditional Christian religious version (symbolized by the attack on a church and the death of the priest), or in its republican version linked to the secular school (symbolized by the attack and death of a teacher outside the school). The message is clear: there is no possible compromise between the values of Islam, as interpreting, or distorting, radical Islamists (jihadists) and the values of France, whether in its traditional Christian religious version or in the secular republic's version of universal values and human rights.

 

3. After the latest attack, French President Emmanuel Macron decided to act in political and legal terms against radical Islam. It was especially proposed to combat the separatism promoted by radical Islamists, which deliberately prevents the integration of many Muslims into French society. The latter, radical Islamists, aim to create worlds apart in the same territory. They intend to avoid at all costs the absorption, by the various Muslim populations, of French values in any of the versions pointed out — in particular the values of the secular republic, which are structuring the political and legal organization of contemporary France. Such populations are typically derived from migratory flows, ancient or recent, originating in the traditionalist Muslim societies of the Southern Mediterranean. They have, of course, difficulties in adapting to an urban society, impersonal and imbued with deeply secular/secular (and materialistic) values. But in emmanuel Macron's political fight against radical Islam within his own country, the latter found a major external ally: Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's Turkey. Resorting to truculent and (even more) diplomatically inappropriate language than usual, the President of Turkey has called into question Emmanuel Macron's sanity.

 

4. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's criticism and hostility to the integration policies of Muslim communities in Europe and the West, in particular the policies most determined to pursue secular European values, are nothing new. It sees these populations as a useful instrument of its (neo)Otomanforeign policy, so it wants to avoid, as much as possible, that they absorb democratic, pluralistic and secular values through social, cultural and educational means. Earlier, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan urged the numerous Turkish diaspora in Germany to resist integration towards cultural absorption and the values of German society, angering Angela Merkel and the German government. It should be clarified that Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) are not radical Islamists. However, for their own domestic and foreign policy purposes, they seek to use and instrumentalize the multiple radical Sunni Islamist groups, from the jihadists of Daesh and others more or more (in the Wars of Syria and Libya) to the Muslim Brotherhood (in Egypt and with ramifications to many European countries).

 

 5. In the past, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's Turkey projected an image for the Muslim world other than the one it sought to give in the European Union to please Europeans. Today the Government of Turkey feels too strong to give itself to that job. If we go back to the original case of the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad we see the root of the current Turkish attitude more clearly. The case began in Denmark in late 2005 with publication initially by the newspaper Jyllands-Posten. In early 2006 the caricatures were republished in several European countries, especially in France, making the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo a new target of those who contested such publication. If Europeans at the time paid more attention to what Turkey was saying about this case in the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OCI), they would not be so surprised by recep Tayyip Erdoğan's current positions. It is important to remember that, at the time, the OCI was even presided over by a Turk, Ekmleddin İhsanoğlu. However, Turkey has not made an effort to explain the functioning of European societies to the other members of the OCI, in particular in terms of freedom of expression and the press — a right that allows caricature, even if in bad taste or may be considered offensive — as would be expected of a candidate to join the European Union. He sought much more solidarity with the other Muslim countries that strongly condemned Denmark and all those who published the applications in the European press.

 

6. In addition to the dispute over the integration of Muslim populations in Europe and on how to deal with radical Islam — at the limit this is a dispute over the structuring values of a society on which one cannot be relinquisive — there is now a strongly geopolitical dimension to the rivalry between France and Turkey, which takes place mainly in the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean. It is largely linked to Turkey's (neo)Ottoman ambition to project its influence and power into the former territories of the Ottoman Empire that it lost in the early 20th century, from Iraq to Libya through the Balkans. A significant episode occurred linked to the Libyan conflict in June 2020. A French navy ship participating in NATO's Sea Guardian operation has been the target of aggressive action by Turkish frigates as it sought to control a (also Turkish) cargo ship suspected of violating the arms embargo bound for Libya. At the heart of this incident is support for opposing factions of the war in Libya. On the one hand the government of the national unity of Fayez al-Sarraj supported politically and militarily by Turkey, Qatar and Italy. On the other side the Libyan National Army headed by Marshal Khalifa Haftar, supported by Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and also France.

 

7. In this conflict, which is both about the deepest values of a good society and also geopolitical, Emmanuel Macron and France need clear European support in their action against radical Islam. More than that, they need unequivocal support against Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Turkey's attempt to condition French policies, fuelling protests against France in the Muslim world and ingesting themselves in the country's internal affairs. However, in addition to the statements of circumstance by the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell - who described Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's statements on the French President's sanity as unacceptable , European support for France is inconsistent. With Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Turkey playing the counter-game of Islamists, which add to the different geopolitical interests of Europeans in the eastern Mediterranean, the issue will almost always divide the European Union. Greece and Cyprus - involved in old territorial conflicts with Turkey, now also with a new energy dimension - unequivocally support France. But other states such as Germany or Italy, which have particular interests with Turkey, right away because of refugees from Syria and support for different factions in Libya, tend to be complacent with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. If so, the result will be a permanently fragile France and European Union in the face of radical Islam and without any solid geopolitical strategy to deal with Turkey's (neo)Phoenicis ing of power.

 

IPRI-NOVA Researcher - NOVA University of Lisbon

Muslim backlash against Macron gathers pace after police raids

 

Iran calls Paris’s response to teacher’s killing ‘unwise’ amid protests across Muslim world

 

Kim Willsher

Tue 27 Oct 2020 12.26 GMT

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/27/muslim-backlash-against-macron-gathers-pace-after-police-raids

 

The backlash against Emmanuel Macron following his insistence that publication of caricatures of the prophet Muhammad is fundamental to freedom of speech has spread, with angry international protests, cyber-attacks against French websites and warnings that the president’s response is “unwise”.

 

Muslims in France – and elsewhere – are also furious at what they claim is a heavy-handed government clampdown on their communities in the wake of the killing 11 days ago of the high school teacher Samuel Paty.

 

The French interior minister, Gérard Darmanin, who has overseen raids on Islamic organisations and individuals in the last week, and even criticised supermarkets over their separate halal and kosher sections, defended the police actions, insisting France was seeking to stamp out extremism.

 

“We are seeking to fight an ideology, not a religion. I think the great majority of French Muslims are well aware they are the first affected by the ideological drift of radical Islam,” Darmanin told Libération.

 

In the latest fallout from Macron’s declaration that France would not “renounce the caricatures”, Iran summoned a French diplomat to inform them Paris’s response to the killing was “unwise”.

 

A report on state TV claimed an official from the Iranian foreign ministry in Tehran had accused France of fostering hatred against Islam under the guise of freedom of expression.

 

A powerful association of clerics in the Iranian city of Qom also urged the country’s government to condemn Macron’s remarks and called on Islamic nations to impose political and economic sanctions on France. One hardline Iranian newspaper depicted the French president as the devil, portraying him as Satan in a cartoon on its front page.

 

In Saudi Arabia, the country’s state run press agency quoted an anonymous foreign ministry official saying the kingdom “rejects any attempt to link Islam and terrorism, and denounces the offensive cartoons of the prophet”.

 

In Bangladesh, an estimated 40,000 people took part in an anti-France rally in the capital, Dhaka, burning an effigy of Macron and calling for a boycott of French products. The rally was organised by Islami Andolan Bangladesh (IAB), one of the country’s largest Islamist parties. There were also calls for the Bangladeshi government to order the French ambassador back to Paris and threats to tear down the French embassy building.

 

In France, Macron’s centrist government is facing criticism over its response to Paty’s killing by Abdoullakh Anzorov, 18, a Chechen national living in France since the age of six, after the teacher showed one of his high school classes a series of caricatures, including one of the prophet Muhammad, during a lesson on free speech.

 

After his death, French police raided dozens of suspected Islamist groups and individuals accused of extremism. Darmanin said the raids, authorised by a judge, were aimed at “sending a message” and told Libération the searches had uncovered “weapons and videos of decapitations”.

 

Darmanin has also announced his intention to dissolve high-profile Muslim organisations, including the Collective for the Fight Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF) and BarakaCity, a humanitarian organisation that has carried out projects in Togo, south-east Asia and Pakistan.

 

Darmanin said the CCIF was implicated in the murder of Paty as a video posted on Facebook implicated it in what he described as a “fatwa” against the history teacher.

 

“It is an Islamist outfit that does not condemn the attacks … that has invited radical islamists. It is an agency against the republic. It considers there is a state Islamophobia all the while being subsidised (financially) by the French state. And I think it’s time we stopped being naive with these outfits on our territory,” he told Libération.

 

The minister also defended his criticism of supermarkets that operated special sections for halal or kosher food, saying it led to “communitarianism” and “separation” and declared that the “harassment” of radical Islamism was a “national priority”.

 

In the wake of Paty’s killing, police sources told French media the authorities were ready to deport 213 foreign nationals on a government watchlist as holding alleged extreme religious beliefs.

 

There have been calls from several Islamic countries to boycott French goods and protests across the Islamic world, including in Kuwait, Qatar, Iraq, Turkey, the UAE and Gaza.

 

On Tuesday, Le Figaro reported Islamic hackers had taken over a number of French websites, leaving the message: “Those who mistreat the messenger of Allah must be punished.” Certain groups have called for an “apocalypse” to be brought down on the French web and appealed for other hackers to target French websites. Similar attacks, described by French officials as a “cyberjihad”, happened after the 2015 Charlie Hebdo attack, in which 12 people were killed by Islamist terrorists.

 

The Muslim advocacy group Cage, a London-based NGO, called on the French government to “end its campaign of hostility towards those carrying out their duties lawfully”.

 

“The interior minister made the shocking public admission that dozens of individuals not linked to any criminal investigation were raided in order to simply send a message to Muslims in France. This extraordinary claim highlights that the police and other arms of government have been politicised to intimidate otherwise innocent Muslim citizens,” it wrote in an open letter.