"Freedom
of speech" - A protester in Paris after the killing of Samuel Paty, a
history teacher beheaded by an Islamist extremist after having shown a cartoon
of the Prophet Muhammed. Photo: AFP
Islamo-gauchisme – what does it mean and why is
it controversial in France?
AFP/The
Local
news@thelocal.fr
@thelocalfrance
17 February
2021
17:16 CET
Islamo-gauchisme - what does it mean and why is it
controversial in France?
If you
follow French news reports you will have seen recently a lot of controversy
about 'Islamo-gauchisme' - but what exactly does this term mean and is it
really the French version of 'woke'?
What does
it mean?
Its literal
translation is 'Islamo-leftism', with the left referring to the political left.
However
it's a bit more complicated than that.
The term,
in its essence, makes a connection between Islam and the political left. What
link exactly that is, is however unclear, and the term does not make clear
whether the target is the religion Islam itself or extremist Islamism or
Islamists. Nor does it specify which part of the left is doing the linking.
It is
frequently used in France to accuse people on the left of being blind to
Islamist extremism and overly worried about racism and identity.
In that
sense it shares some similarities with the English term 'woke' – it's generally
used as an insult against those on the left by people on the political right,
but it's more specific to Islam, whereas 'woke' can be used for a wide range of
issues.
A person
can be denounced as Islamo-gauchiste (Islamo-leftist).
Where does
it come from?
Islamo-leftism
first appeared in 2002, in a book written by sociologist Pierre-André Taguieff
called La Nouvelle Judéophobie (The New Judeophobia).
Taguieff
coined the term to describe a link between some groups of the French extreme
left and members of the country's Muslim community.
He was
specifically referring to the pro-Palestinian protests that took place in Paris
in the early 2000s, where “neo-leftists (Trotskyists, anarchists and
professional anti-globalisation activists) rubbed shoulders with Islamists
(Hezbollah or Hamas), supporters of the outright eliminating Israel,” as he
wrote in his book.
According
to Taguieff, the Islamo-leftists founded a pragmatic alliance to weaken common
enemies.
More
recently, Taguieff wrote in the French newspaper Libération that the term had
since been “mise à toutes les sauces” (put at all sauces), meaning it was used
'fast and loose' by anyone seeking to discredit groups on the left.
“That . . .
the expression achieved the success we know today, I am not responsible for,”
he wrote.
Frédérique Vidal, the French minister for higher
education, claims 'Islamo-leftism' has infested French univesities.
Who uses
it?
Long a
favourite punchline of the far right, Islamo-leftism has been used by Marine Le
Pen and several other Rassemblement National party members.
But it has
broader appeal than the far right and several intellectuals have used it,
including Gilles Kepel, a renowned specialist of the Arab world, and Elisabeth
Badinter, a philosopher and feminist who has advocated for women migrant
workers' rights.
Manuel
Valls, ex-prime minister and Socialist Party politician, has used it too.
Others
include Eric Zemmour, a highly controversial writer with extreme-right,
anti-immigrant views, but also far left journalist Caroline Fourest, a feminist
and outspoken critic of Islam. According
to Fourest, the term “designates those who, in the name of identity politics
and an Americanised vision of identity, fight universalist feminism and
secularism.”
Lately the
term has also found its way into the mouths of government ministers belonging
to the ruling party La République En Marche (LREM).
The French minister for higher education,
Frédérique Vidal, sparked a backlash from university heads after warning about
the spread of Islamo-leftism in the country's academic institutions.
“I think
that Islamo-leftism is eating away at our society as a whole, and universities
are not immune and are part of our society,” Vidal told CNews television on
Sunday.
Last
October, Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer also warned that
“Islamo-leftism” was “wreaking havoc” in French academia.
That same
month Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin accused the far-left party La France
Insoumise, “which long has denounced the 'opium of the people', (of having) now
become linked an Islamo-leftism that is destroying the Republic.”
Why does it
matter?
Mostly it
matters because the term has reached government level at a highly sensitive
time in France, and because critics say the recent attack is an infringement on
academic freedom.
The
ministers' comments added fuel to the fire to an already divisive debate about
what President Emmanuel Macron has termed “Islamist separatism,” in which
Islamists are said to be flouting French laws in closed-off Muslim communities
and fuelling terror attacks on French soil.
The lower
house of parliament approved a draft law on Tuesday that will extend the
state's powers to shut down religious groups judged to be extremist.
Macron has
recently been accused by critics of pandering to the far-right ahead of
presidential elections next year, which polls show are likely to be a re-run of
his 2017 duel with Marine Le Pen, leader of the anti-immigration National Rally
(RN).
One of the things I’m most worried about in
France is the rise in friends on the Left saying they won’t vote for Macron vs
Le Pen in a runoff but abstain. How can I persuade them when the Interior
Minister is giving interviews to a far right magazine on the “challenge of
Islam”? pic.twitter.com/oLkH68crWB
— Ben Judah
(@b_judah) February 14, 2021
Movements
against racism over the last year such as Black Lives Matter, which resonated
in France after arriving from the US, have led to fears that the country is
importing American racial and identity politics sometimes derided as “woke
culture”.
Both Macron
and Education Minister Blanquer have spoken out about the danger of focusing on
race and discrimination, which they see as fostering divisions between
communities and undermining France's founding ideal of a united society.
Higher
Education Minister Vidal on Tuesday told Parliament that the investigation she
had ordered would determine “what is academic research and what is activism and
opinion.”
The
National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), the research body Vidal charged
with the study, condemned the government's “attempts to delegitimise different
fields of research such as post-colonial studies”.
President
of the Sorbonne University, Jean Chambaz, slammed Vidal's comments in an
interview with the TV channel France Info on Thursday, saying: “what is eating
up society? It's discrimination, it's ghettoisation, it's social inequality.”
“Racism,
lies, violence” reads a placard at one of the many protests against police violence and racism that took
place in Paris, June 2020. Photo: AFP
A new
generation of younger French activists have become increasingly vocal about the
problem of racism in France and the legacy of the country's colonial past in
Africa and the Middle East.
But
speaking in a Paris suburb in October, Macron said France had created its own
“separatism” by dumping poorer people in suburban ghettoes with few jobs and
poor housing.
Critics say
the Islamo-leftism debate is feeding the same purpose as the many and equally
divisive debates on the Muslim headscarf: shifting the focus over from policies
to rhetoric and souring the discourse until only the loudest voices are heard.
Are there
other terms like this?
Yes,
communautarisme is often heard in these types of debate.
This a
pejorative term used to discredit 'identity politics' such as anti-racist or
feminist movements which are argued to be detrimental to democracy by
emphasising feeling over facts. Communautarisme is wider than Islamo-gauchisme
and can used for arguments that don't involve Islam or the traditional
political left. It's broadly similar to sayings like 'political correctness
gone mad'.
The English
word 'woke' is also increasingly making its way into the French language,
usually used in a negative context as a damaging idea imported from the UK and
USA.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário