The Toulouse Shootings have United France in Grief
By Eve Gani
23 March 2012
French Jews and
Muslims have come together to mourn, breaking easy links between their people
and Israeli policies or Jihadism
We were in a state of
shock that Monday, early in the morning, when we discovered that our children's
lives had been snatched by a cold-hearted killer who had poured his hate and
his bullets into the heart of a Jewish school.
Then the anguish came,
with all the questions that followed about who the killer was and the
possibility he might kill again. Given who the victims were – Muslims in
Montauban, Jews in Toulouse – we realised very quickly there was a message of
racist, anti-Semitic hate, but also, because of the two institutions that were
hit, the army on the one hand, the school on the other, it was clear that these
were also attacks on the institutions and symbols of the republic. Nicolas
Sarkozy met Jewish and Muslim leaders at the Elysée twice in 24 hours,
concerned the nation should not be torn apart by the actions of a single man or
group representing the most barbaric of all criminals.
This event marks a
particular turning-point in the history of anti-Semitism in France. First,
there's the modus operandi: never before has a murderer attacked
schoolchildren. And the motivation for what the suspect did, the link he made
between what he did and the death of "Palestinian children" shows the
hatred of Israel which is spreading among some groups in France, leading to
abominable anti-Semitic crimes. And when it's a school, it's a matter of
assassination and anti-Semitism. An assassination, not a shooting, because the
aim was to kill and terrorise a whole community. And anti-Semitic because it
was children who were killed, simply because they were Jewish, with this link
between "Jew" and "Israel", and "Israel" and
"criminal". The criminal that morning was the man who shot Jewish
children.
It's also a terrible
thing for Muslims in France. The French army binds everyone who serves in it to
the republic's principles of equality amongst citizens and meritocracy. When it
came to debating national identity, the army paid homage to the values of
courage and commitment to France. This tradition goes back a long way, because
Muslims were already fighting on the front in the First World War. We can also
understand why Mohammed Moussaoui, chairman of the French council of Muslims
(CFCM), said, when he arrived at the Elysée on Wednesday, that Muslims in
France were "offended" that the suspect behind the killings in
Montauban and Toulouse claimed to be acting in the name of Islam.
"These acts are
totally against the foundations of our religion," said Moussaoui, standing
alongside the chairman of the French Jewish council (Crif), Richard Prasquier.
In this crisis situation, Prasquier stressed to him the importance of dialogue
between Jews and Muslims with these words: "Our coming together shows a
wonderful thing: there is absolutely no reason to link this person and the
Islamist movement." He added: "This man's enemies include the Muslims
of France, after all … Having said that, we need to avoid being complacent
about these movements, which represent a real danger to our republic."
After these atrocious
deeds, we want to salute the common front our political class is making against
these awful deeds. We would like to thank France for the courage it has shown
in dealing with this crisis, and we hope people will admit after this tragedy
that raging against Israel kills in France, and Islam in France is not
Jihadism. Today, the whole of France is mourning its children, and will never
give an inch on these two subjects.
Source: The Guardian,
London