France’s Tryst with Islamic Terror: The Liberal-Secular Hypocrisy of ‘Multiculturalism’ and Europe’s Demographic Catastrophe
- In Current Affairs
- 11:36 AM, Nov 01, 2020
- Ankita Dutta
At the very outset, it is important to accept that immigration (read: Islamic immigration) is a serious political, economic, and demographic issue and not simply a communal one. It is not just about saving a community’s religious identity from an alien force, but more about safeguarding its cultural and civilisational existence. The perils of Islamic immigration are an apt reminder of a stark political and socio-economic reality that is now threatening to tear apart those very same societies that had once stood up as the upholders of the ideals of multiculturalism and the world as a global village of melting-pot societies! Today it is Europe. Tomorrow it can be Assam or West Bengal or Kerala in India.
Revisiting History – Europe & Islam
Edward Said, in his famous work Orientalism, had brilliantly brought to light the darker side of colonisation, mindless persecution of communities in the colonised nations, exploitation and loot of natural resources and many such horrendous atrocities committed by the West upon the countries of Asia and Africa. In Europe, the end of the World War II and the defeat of Hitler fostered an irrational hatred for the concepts of ‘Nation’ and ‘Nationalism’ in the years that followed. The horrors of the Holocaust led to a heightened sense of compassion towards the Jews as a community throughout Europe, but particularly in Germany. It also led to a systematic acculturation of the European youth over the years in the values of compassion, generosity, humanity, etc. which acted as a serious dent on their fighting spirit. The comparatively safe and secure environment of Europe, especially Western Europe, acted as a further boost to such a mindset.
However, this perception of the Europeans changed as a result of the counterculture movement of the 1960s and the perceived persecution of Palestinians after the Arab-Israeli wars. As a result, the tide soon changed and Muslims became the new “victims” in the common European mentality. Anyone who criticised Islam, fair or foul, came to be immediately labelled as a fascist, Islamophobe, bigot and what not. In fact, the guilt complex of the Europeans has been very strategically exploited by the Muslims coming in as refugees into Europe post the Syrian civil war and the increasing political instability in the Islamic countries. The infiltration of European universities and academic institutions by Cultural Marxists and proponents of ‘Critical Theory’ romancing with the fancy ideals of Multiculturalism, Open Borders, Intersectionality, Liberalism and Tolerance, etc. further aided the process. E.g. the famous case of Aylan Kurdi and the subsequent outburst of emotions across the world stands out as one of the most prominent examples of media manipulation by a Left-leaning academia.
All these factors further reinforced the “victimhood” mentality that affects most Muslims today not only in Europe, but in India too; definitely, the Leftist-Islamist nexus accruing the maximum benefits out of it. According to the Washington-based Pew Research Center, the Muslim population in Europe (excluding Turkey) was about 30 million in 1990, and 44 million in 2010. In terms of percentage share, it had increased from 4.1% in 1990 to 6% in 2010. As of 2007, the fertility rate in France was 1.8; England 1.6; both Greece and Germany stood at 1.3; Italy 1.2; and, Spain 1.1. Across the entire European Union of 27 countries, the fertility rate stands at a mere 1.38. Historical research tells us that these numbers are impossible to reverse and in a matter of a few years, Europe as we know it, would cease to exist! Yet, the population of Europe is not declining, thanks to Islamic immigration and the accompanying demographic change.
Even in a zero-migration scenario, the Muslim population in Europe is still expected to rise from the current level of 4.9% to 7.4% by the year 2050. This is also because of the fact that Muslims are younger and have higher fertility rates as compared to other Europeans. Muammar al-Gaddafi of Libya famously said in a video that was telecast by Al-Jazeera TV way back in April, 2006 – “There are signs that Allah will grant victory to Islam in Europe without swords, without guns, without military conquest. We don’t need terrorists, we don’t need homicide bombers. The 50+ million Muslims [in Europe] will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades.” He went on to claim that Muhammad is the Prophet of all the people in the world from Europe to the Americas and Asia and Africa, and that he superseded all previous religions on the earth. He continued further on the same note – “Europe is in a predicament, and so is America. They should agree to become Islamic in the course of time, or else declare war on the Muslims.”
The Curious Case of France
Amid a huge surge of coronavirus cases across the European continent in what scientists have referred to as the “second wave” of the viral pandemic, the barbaric attacks by Islamists in France seem to have renewed the debate on fantabulous academic jargons such as ‘Islamophobia’ and ‘xenophobia. For a long time, “armchair intellectuals” have misled people by taking recourse to these ‘phobias’ and presenting a fabricated version of the truth. Their academic papers stink of deceptive and hypocritical claims about all societies and civilisations being tolerant and peace-loving and that terrorism has no religion. There is a genuine sense of fear and insecurity that grips Europe today, especially France. It is a palpable reality of cultural decimation fuelled by a well-planned and well-executed demographic invasion of Lebensraum (living space). Hence, it cannot and should not be denigrated through the usage of disparaging terms like ‘xenophobia’ or ‘Islamophobia’.
Earlier in the month of October 2020, a middle-school teacher in northwest Paris named Samuel Paty, was beheaded by a Chechnyan Islamist days after Paty had shown controversial cartoons of Prophet Muhammad to some of his pupils. The horrific memories of this heinous episode had yet not faded, when just a couple of days back, three people were knifed to death at the Notre-Dame Basilica in Nice, in what President Emmanuel Macron declared was an “Islamist terrorist attack”. A male suspect, a 21-year old Tunisian national who had arrived in France sometimes in the beginning of October, was apprehended soon after. Coincidentally, two other attacks took place on the very same day – a man was shot dead in Montfavet near the southern city of Avignon after threatening the police with a hand-gun, and a security guard was attacked outside the French consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Undoubtedly, the spate of these terror attacks was triggered by reprehensible comments made by certain Islamic leaders like Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan.
In the recent years, France has been subjected to perhaps the largest number of terrorist attacks in Europe, some of which crossed all the human limits of barbarism and savagery. France was taken by a storm after the deadly attacks of January 2015, when two Islamist militant gunmen forced their way into the office of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo which had published cartoons that depicted the Prophet, and killed 12 members of the office staff. In one of the latest incidents, two people were critically injured in a knife attack near the former office of Charlie Hebdo in Paris. The suspect, an 18-year old Pakistani immigrant named Ali Hassan aka Zaheer Hassan Mehmood, later told the police that he was avenging the magazine’s re-publication of the cartoons on Prophet Muhammad! Equally gruesome was the November 2015 attack in which Islamic suicide bombers had launched assaults on different venues in Paris, leaving at least 130 people dead and hundreds wounded. It was again in July 2016 when a terrorist drove a truck into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, leading to the death of 86 people. The perpetrator was one Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, a Tunisian living in France at that time.
Besides Germany, the Muslim population of France is one among the largest in the entire European continent. It is home to around 5 million Muslims, constituting 5-8% of the population here. Most of the Muslims residing in France have migrated from orthodox Islamic societies, and hence they have a very clear idea of their identity vis-à-vis the indigenous population of France. The working-class suburbs or banlieues that encircle most of the major cities of France have become fertile recruiting grounds for Islamist terrorist groups in the recent times. However, the reality is that these banlieues do not come anywhere close to the established dictionary meaning of suburbs; instead, they resemble self-imposed ghettos of Muslims where the rule of law is almost non-existent unlike in other places.
This has been one of the major points of criticism against multiculturalism as a doctrine, which gives rise to ghettoisation and balkanisation of communities in due course of time. Because of its over-emphasis on culture, multiculturalism encourages members of different ethnic groups and a community to look inwards which, in turn, helps harbour a psychology of separatism by highlighting more upon the differences between groups rather than their shared rights and privileges.
While preferring to stay within one’s own community might not always be seen as an abnormality per se keeping in mind the considerations of safety and security, but it does raise certain serious concerns with respect to an open society of the stature of France. This apparent and deliberate insularity of the Muslims in fact, is more worrisome because in reality, it is a religious duty for them as clearly enshrined in Verse no. 28 and Verse no. 29 of the Surahs (Chapters) 3 and 9 respectively of the Al-Quran. They give clear injunctions to the Muslims to not come to friendly terms with the kafirs (non-Muslims). If the Quran itself gives such clear instructions to the Muslims in this regard, it is not difficult to understand the possible causes behind the same ghetto mentality of the Muslims as a community.
Picture Credits: Thomas @AnteMemoriam, Sep 21, 2019. twitter.com
No wonder, France was one of the West’s biggest hotbeds of ISIS militants when the terror group used to control large areas across Iraq and northern Syria. Hundreds of French nationals travelled to ISIS territory, many also bringing along with them their children. The expansionist nature of Islam has been starkly visible in Southern France, which is traditionally one of the regions in the world that is densely populated with Churches. However, a rapid mushrooming of mosques has taken place here lately, so much so that there are now more mosques than Churches in this entire region of Southern France. At present, there are around 2,300 mosques in France and millions of others in several parts of the world, which invite the “faithful” bunch of “peace-lovers” five times a day to proclaim Allahu-Akbar which translates as “Allah is the Greatest”. It implies that Allah occupies the supreme position of authority and all the rest are lesser Gods – a kind of bully on every occasion without fail, but still hinging upon the politics of victim-card and committing violence on the non-believers of Allah even when they try to protect and save themselves!
It needs to be mentioned here that most of the suburban riots that occurred in France from 1979 onwards till date involved youth of North African origins. While fleeing from their countries for various reasons and coming to live in France as refugees, a major chunk of the Muslim population here has not tried to integrate themselves with or accept the civilisational values of the French Republic. This self-imposed insularity of living has led to a further reinforcement of their prejudices and pre-judgements against the host population, which leads to a heightened sense of blind anger and frustration over the existing state of affairs. It then perpetrates a never-ending cycle of violence and bloodshed against those same people who in the first place, welcomed and provided them refuge.
In 2006, a Spanish weekly Alba was quoted as saying – “Immigration in France has led to a strong growth in the building of mosques and evangelical places of worship, which has been paralleled by the decrease in Catholic Churches. France now has more than 1,500 mosques, almost as many as existing in Istanbul, Turkey.” The article titled “Muslim Boom in France: More Mosques, Fewer Churches”, drew attention to the increasing Islamisation of Europe with France which is historically considered to be “the eldest daughter of the Church”, leading the way. It is indeed an alarming change that raises several uncomfortable questions over the larger designs of Islam, its ideology and guiding doctrines which are chiefly based on an unending policy of territorial and demographic expansion.
One needs to recall here that the position of Islam and Muslims, as a religious community, within the socio-political system of France, is centrally conditioned by the French concept of secularism popularly known as the laicite. This was determined as per the law of December 9, 1905 concerning the strict separation of the Church from the state and vice-versa. The French society staunchly believes in these principles and hence, in any way, does not let the French state mix politics and religion with one another. It rejects any references of national, racial, ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities, and is based upon the idea of the state that interacts only with the individual and not any groups/communities with the objective of providing equal treatment to everyone. In the Western concept of secularism as practised in the European context, “absolute equality” is perceived as the best way to ensure the full-fledged integration of all citizens with the state that would benefit both the state and the citizens alike.
Islamisation of Europe – A Looming Threat
Of all the population growth in Europe since 1990, 90% has been attributed to Islamic immigration, overwhelmingly. E.g. whereas the French are estimated to be having 1.8 children per family, Muslims, on an average, have 8.1 children per family. As per current estimates, 30% of the children aged 20 years and younger today in France are Muslims. In the larger cities such as Paris, Nice and Marseilles, their number has grown even more to 45%. As per estimated data, by 2027, 1 in every 5 Frenchmen will be Muslim. In this way, France will become an Islamic Republic within just a period of 39 years. In the last 30-40 years, the Muslim population of Great Britain too has risen from 82,000 to over a 30-fold increase of 2.5 million! Currently, there are over 1,000 mosques throughout Britain, and many of them are former Churches. Britain passionately voted out of the EU with hatred against the state of affairs that it was going through, signalling a perceptible shift in the political discourse of Europe with respect to migration and the state of migrants.
In the nation of the Netherlands, 50% of all newborns are Muslims, and it has been postulated that within just a period of 15 years, almost half of the population of the Netherlands will be Muslim. Today, Islam is the second-largest religion in the Netherlands after Christianity, as per 2018 estimates. Majority of the Muslims here belong to the Sunni denomination and reside in the country’s four major cities – Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, and Utrecht. As a matter of fact, the Netherlands developed from a relatively very tolerant polity dominated by the Calvinist Church to a ‘pillarised’ society, in which the Rome-Reformation divide (which also had a strong geographical dimension) was gradually institutionalised within the political system. It was after the 1960s that a very strong undercurrent of ‘secularisation’ put this ‘pillarised’ system under severe strain. But, the remnants of this system offered a huge opportunity that eventually became favourable for religious newcomers (Muslims in particular), who could establish their mosques and Madarssas relatively easily.
Keeping aside all the “liberal-secular” talk of minority rights, Islam is now the fastest growing religion across the world. The looming danger of Islamisation of Europe is very much a reality today. The American continent has also not been far behind. For instance, Canada’s population increased by 1.6 million between the period 2001-2006, with 1.2 million being attributed to Islamic immigration alone. In the USA, the current fertility rate of American citizens is 1.6; with the influx of the Latino nations, the rate increases to 2.11, a bare minimum required to sustain a culture. In 1970, there were 100,000 Muslims in America. In 2008, this number increased to over 9,000,000! In fact, the issue of migration has become one of the major emotional concerns of American citizens, impacting the outcome of its presidential elections too. Panic buttons need to be pressed right now, for the world is changing, both demographically and culturally, and it is changing too fast.
President Macron & His Stand On Islam
On October 2, 2020 French President Emmanuel Macron had introduced a bill to defend France’s secular values against what he referred to as ‘Islamic separatism’. He proclaimed that the bill intends to check the influence and spread of radical Islam in the country and also help develop what he called an ‘Islam of France’ that is compatible with the nation’s republican ethos and way of life. With the aim of ending the role of any form of religion and religious practices in the sphere of public education and employment in France, President Macron, in a long-awaited speech on the subject, also said that the negative influence of Islamism must be eradicated from all public institutions. Reportedly, the law will also check the proliferation of ‘unregistered’ educational institutions, which are based on a curriculum that is completely different from what is followed at the national level.
The measures include imposing stringent limits on home-schooling and increasing the scrutiny of religious schools/madarssas, besides ensuring that all those organisations which solicit public funds sign a ‘Charter of Secularism’. While these measures would be applicable to all communities across France, they are primarily targeted at the radical and extremist elements of Islam responsible for sowing the seeds of indoctrination among Muslims. He further stated that the importance of these measures needs to be understood in the context of improving the ability of the French citizens to live together in a state of peace and harmony by eradicating the ill-effects of Islam, amid increasing fears of terrorist attacks that the country has been a witness to in the recent years. Macron also announced additional funding for the country’s education and justice ministries in order to “ensure a Republican presence in every road, every building.”
The proposed legislation has led to a serious backlash among Islamists as they believe that Macron’s views have been aimed at further emboldening the far-right groups, and threatening the lives of Muslim students by calling for drastic restrictions on home-schooling, especially in the midst of a global pandemic. A wide majority of the Muslims are of the opinion that such a law, if implemented, would take away their right to leading a normal life and practising their faith without any undue pressure. They have consistently denounced these laws, describing them as going against the precepts of the Quran! In fact, Macron’s speech was reflective of a much deep-rooted problem that the French society, in fact, almost the entire Europe for that matter, is constantly having to deal with – the enduring difficulty of integrating the Muslim population of immigrants and their descendants.
All of these developments are likely to further exacerbate the already existing tensions in France because of the increasing ideological radicalisation among Muslim youth. The law, to be formally presented in December, will primarily crack down on the foreign influences in French Muslim communities. It will allow the state to monitor the different sources of funding that French mosques receive from abroad, introduce a certificate programme for French imams and put a complete ban on home-schooling of children. The new law will also empower central government representatives to overturn decisions by mayors that promote gender-based segregation in cafeterias and swimming pools. Besides the mosques, there has also been a drastic increase in the number of madarssas and segregated swimming pools in France over the past few years.
Does Europe Have a way Out?
The question of Islamic immigration has wreaked havoc on the politics, society and culture of the West, which is today seriously grappling with the problem of an altered demographic profile of their countries, besides increasing crime rates and terror attacks. What India has had always been witnessing since the time of Ghazni and Ghori is now repeating itself across the globe, with its most ugly repercussions in Europe. But, the idea of India still survives because our Dharma has firmly stood as a saviour in front of the demon. Despite several problems in our Hindu society, the Kshatriya spirit of resistance still continues to live on. We, the people of Bharatvarsha, have a violent cultural memory of the blood-thirsty Islamic invasions that destroyed our religious places of worship, raped our women and children and looted our riches. This memory has been passed on to us through several generations. But, what about Europe? Will it ever be able to come out of this monster of Islamic Jihad that is spreading its poisonous fangs every passing day?
Unlike Bharat, Europe does not have a collective memory of a violent past with Islam. Europeans have not seen the worst brutalities of the invasions that our ancestors in Bharat had. Moreover, the grand liberal ideas as mentioned earlier have conditioned Europeans to look at every situation threatening their identity and existence either through the lens of some conspiracy theory or Post-Modernist ideas. They idealise human excellence and compassion to such an extent that anything related to matters of religion and cultural pride is looked upon with detest. In fact, Western Europe, where Protestant Christianity originated and Catholicism has been based for most of its history, has come to be known as one of the most secular regions of the world.
Today, a majority of the European youth are leaving Christianity in huge numbers and identify themselves as either atheists or agnostics, making them further rootless. Even though a certain section of them identify themselves as Christians, few regularly attend the Church. They take pride in being open-minded and liberal citizens but have forgotten one of the most important lessons of history – “Those Who Fail to Learn from History are Doomed to Repeat it”.
An absurd sense of political correctness, largely based on the appeasement of political constituencies, has informed the politics of most of the Western European nations until now. It’s time we shed all our political correctness and acknowledge the problem the way it exists. Immigration is no longer an issue that is propelled by the logic of economic survival. Trying to understand it from the economic perspective alone means overlooking the real concerns of national security that is today confronting countries and nations across the globe. The continuous insistence of one side upon the expansion of their cult by whatever means possible, including forced religious conversions and killings, is a pure war cry against societies and cultures which do not believe in such medieval barbarism.
Only when we honestly accept these hard facts, a non-judgemental and non-prejudiced discussion, bereft of any ideological biases, can be initiated on this problem. It is also important that non-Muslims throughout the world study the Quran and concepts such as Al-Taqayya that are extremely important to the Islamic thought process, so that the myths of “Islam stands for Peace” or “True Islam” or “Moderate Muslim” can be busted open for one and all. We need to initiate open and fearless debates on all aspects of Islam, so that the Islamic victimhood mentality can be demystified and deconstructed in the earliest possible time-frame.
References:
- https://www.opindia.com/2020/10/france-to-bring-laws-to-tackle-Islamic-separatism-to-ban-foreign-imams/amp/
- https://www.jstor.org/stable/41148128?seq=1
- https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.catholicnewsagency.com/amp/news/muslim_boom_in_france_more_mosques_fewer_churches
- https://rmx.news/article/article/muslim-population-of-europe-could-triple-in-30-years-but-not-in-hungary-poland-czechia-and-slovakia-report
- https://qz.com/865147/the-heart-wrenching-image-you-shared-from-aleppo-might-be-a-fake-heres-what-you-can-do/
- https://nationalpost.com/opinion/europes-no-go-zones-inside-the-lawless-ghettos-that-breed-and-harbour-terrorists
- “Mapping the Global Muslim Population: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Muslim Population”, published by Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, Pew Research Center, October 2009.
- “Being Christian in Western Europe”, published by Pew Research Center on Religion and Public Life, May 2018. https://www.pewforum.org/2018/05/29/being-christian-in-western-europe/
- “Nearly as Many Muslims as Calvinists in the Netherlands”, Web Magazine, Statistics Netherlands, November 18, 2002.
- Muammar Gaddafi 2006 – “Islam Will Conquer Europe Without Firing A Shot”. https://youtu.be/WCGYKSEsYFM
- https://youtu.be/VOeAWy2vTCA
- https://youtu.be/6-3X5hIFXYU
Acknowledgements: A special note of thanks to Krishan for continuously enlightening me on several aspects of Islam.
Image Credit: Pew Research Centre, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/10/08/in-the-u-s-and-western-europe-people-say-they-accept-muslims-but-opinions-are-divided-on-islam/
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