French Muslims Are Fighting Against the Islamists and Macron Could Do Far More to Support Those Speaking Out Against Radical Islam
By Ayaan Hirsi Ali
17 October
2020
Emmanuel
Macron recently announced that he wanted to end ‘Islamic separatism’ in France.
A minority of the country’s estimated six million Muslims risk forming a
‘counter-society’, he said. It is tough talk from the President, but Macron is
keen to position himself as the defender of French values, and he has form:
when statues were being pulled down across the western world, Macron proclaimed
that ‘the Republic won’t erase any name from its history. It will forget none
of its artworks. It won’t take down statues.’
[Getty
Images]
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That Macron
even gave an anti-Islamism speech was itself a sign of how fast the debate is
moving in France. Five years ago, when Fox News referred to ‘no-go zones’ in
Paris, the city’s mayor threatened to sue. Now we have an avowed centrist like
Macron warning that the ‘final goal’ of the ‘ideology’ of Islamism is to ‘take
complete control’ of society. Anyone making such arguments just a few years ago
would have been condemned by the left as an extremist. Macron is promising a
law on ‘Islamist separatism’, restricting home-schooling of Muslims and
demanding that Islamic groups in receipt of French state funding will have to
sign a ‘secular charter’.
But if he’s
serious, why stop there? A week before his speech, for example, there was a
stabbing outside the offices of Charlie Hebdo, which France’s interior minister
described as an ‘act of Islamist terrorism’ and a ‘new, bloody attack against
our country’. It would be brave and powerful to put up a monument in memory of
people who were killed by the Islamists while fighting for freedom of speech:
perhaps a statue of the Charlie Hebdo team or my late friend Theo van Gogh. At
the statue’s unveiling, Macron might refute the false notion — increasingly
widespread today — that scrutinising Islamism and Islamists is an act of
‘Islamophobia’. Defending universal human rights is an act of compassion, not a
‘phobia’; failing to make this point only leaves an opportunity for the real
bigots of the far right.
In his
speech, Macron also said that the ‘challenge is to fight against those who go
off the rails in the name of religion... while protecting those who believe in
Islam and are full citizens of the republic’. If he really means this, perhaps
he could provide security and support to those French Muslims courageously
speaking out against radical Islam? He could also support those French Muslims
who seek to modify Sharia, historically contextualise the Sunnah (traditional
Muslim practices) and establish a meaningful boundary between religion and
state by challenging doctrinal purity. In the effort to combat the extremists,
it is vital to distinguish the Muslims pushing for real change from the
Islamists with silver tongues. A great many French Muslims are fighting against
the Islamists, and Macron could do far more to support them.
The battle
of ideas against Islamism will, of necessity, be a long one and if he hopes to
succeed Macron must ensure that French civil society and philanthropic
foundations are fully engaged in this effort. He should disband subversive
Islamist organisations that lay the ideological groundwork for violence, while
calling on his fellow European leaders to do the same. It’s amazing how many of
them, even now, prefer to avoid the topic.
He might
also strengthen immigration laws to ensure that French civic values are taken
into account in admission decisions. Those admitted to the Republic from abroad
should be told to embrace the French notion of social cohesion, which means
they cannot embrace separatism or Islamism, or belong to organisations that do.
Existing
laws should be used more too. Not so long ago, an Algerian woman who refused to
shake hands with male officials at a French naturalisation ceremony was denied
citizenship as a result. Islamists can, in this way, be served notice that
France is not their natural home.
French law
allows the government to reject naturalisation requests on grounds of ‘lack of
assimilation, other than linguistic’. So in the spirit of this law, Macron
should start to repatriate asylum-seekers who engage in violence or the
incitement of violence — particularly against women.
In foreign
policy, he could tackle the ideological extremism that is disseminated by the
governments of Qatar and Turkey — among others — through their support of
Islamists, Islamist foundations and communitarianism in Europe (including
France). He could take a much stronger stand against the Iranian regime —
bilaterally as well as at the EU level — for its hostile activities on European
soil, its vicious cruelty towards its own population and its efforts to export
revolutionary Islamism throughout the Middle East. This would also mean further
strengthening France’s ties to Israel, the UAE and Egypt and demanding that
Saudi Arabia stop funding Wahhabi extremists abroad.
France’s
corps diplomatique still possesses exceptional historical and linguistic
knowledge of Africa, Asia and the Middle East. This could be used to counter
the activities of groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Tablighi Jamaat, and
Hezbollah, Hizb ut-Tahrir and their many branches and offshoots. Macron says
his Bill will ‘dissolve’ Islamic groups whose principles clash with those of
the French Republic. He can do so by cutting off the financial flows from
foreign powers to the Islamist organisations within France.
Macron is
right: Islamic separatism does indeed threaten to turn France into two nations.
But if the problem is to be addressed, the French people need to be shown that
the President has the guts not just to call out radical Islam — but also to
take real, practical steps to defeat it.
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Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a research fellow at the
Hoover Institution and founder of the AHA Foundation. She served as a member of
the Dutch parliament from 2003-2006.
Original Headline: The significance of Macron’s
war on Islamism
Source: The Spectator
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-west/french-muslims-fighting-islamists-macron/d/123162
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