After Sweden, the tension about Islam between Europe and the Middle East hits a dangerous crossroads
During a demonstration in Stockholm in front of the Turkish embassy last week, a copy of the Koran was burned in public. It immediately led Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to reinstate his veto against Sweden’s accession to NATO, and then the (Dutch) NATO Secretary General replied that the demonstration was about freedom of expression in a democratic country.
That context echoed the keys of Michel Houellebecq, the most widely read living French writer in the world. His work explores the complex interweaving of religious and ethnic diversity caused by the tidal waves of immigration from Africa, the Middle East and Asia in countries that – until the 1960s – were mostly rooted in their own culture, language and sense of belonging. cohesive nation.
The novelist is known for an extraordinary style. In 2001, he published “Platform”, a novel set in a tourist village in Malaysia that ends with a raid by jihadists storming the place. Early reviewers of the French version criticized the final plot as excessive and discriminatory – until the 9/11 “blessed holy raids” on New York City and Washington by al-Qaeda implemented it in reality a few weeks later.
Houellebecq’s novel “Submission” – which translates into Arabic as “Islam” – made it even more the case. Completed in 2014, it was a dystopia that predicted the victory of a Muslim brother of Tunisian descent in the 2022 French presidential election – in reality Emmanuel Macron was re-elected last year – amid a civil war pitting jihadists against far-right nationalists. The book was published on January 7, 2015 – the very day of the deadly attack on the Charlie Hebdo editorial office, which would begin three years of jihadist terror in France, with 272 dead and more than 1,200 injured, and in many European countries.
Although his later novels focused on other issues, Houellebecq recently had a prolonged dialogue with the French public intellectual Michel Onfray, who is known for his strong “populist” views, in the latter’s magazine Front Populaire (Popular Front). Leaving fiction aside, he went back to the legacy of the deadly jihad terror on French soil and foresaw that the continent – due to the immigration of Muslims to Europe – would sooner or later end up in the same situation as the Iberian Peninsula under Muslim domination between seventh and fifteenth centuries.
“When entire territories are under Islamist yoke, I believe acts of resistance will take place. There will be explosions and shootings in mosques or cafes with Muslim patrons, Bataclan attacks in reverse,” Houellebecq wrote, alluding to the Bataclan music hall attack by an Islamic State commando in Paris on November 13, 2015, which left 87 bystanders dead. “And Muslims will not be satisfied with candles and flowers. So it can go pretty fast.”
“The will of people of French stock … is not for Muslims to assimilate, but for them to stop robbing and attacking them. Another option would be for them to leave,” he continued.
When considering a demonstration in Stockholm in front of the Turkish embassy last week, where a copy of the Koran was publicly burned, which in turn led to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan re-instating his veto of Sweden joining NATO, the (Dutch) NATO Secretary General responded that the demonstration was about freedom of expression in a democratic country. In that context, one could think of Michel Houellebecq, the most read living French writer in the world, who once again showed his style.
His work describes in a unique way the malaise of European civilization, individual shortcomings, the cultural clash between inherited traditions and globalized postmodernity. Houellebecq does not shy away from exploring the complex ethnic and religious interweaving of religious and ethnic diversity brought about by the tidal waves of immigration from Africa, the Middle East and Asia in countries that – until the 1960s – were mostly rooted in their own culture, language and sense of belonging to a cohesive nation.
The novelist is also known for an extraordinary style. In 2001, he published “Platform”, a novel set in a tourist village in Malaysia that ends with a raid by jihadists storming the place. Early reviewers of the French version criticized the final plot as excessive and discriminatory – until the 9/11 “blessed holy raids” on New York City and Washington by al-Qaeda implemented it in reality a few weeks later.
Houellebecq’s novel “Submission” – which translates into Arabic as “Islam” – made it even more the case. Completed in 2014, it was a dystopia that predicted the victory of a Muslim brother of Tunisian descent in the 2022 French presidential election – Emmanuel Macron was re-elected last year – amid a civil war pitting jihadists against far-right nationalists. The book was published on January 7, 2015 – the very day of the deadly attack on the Charlie Hebdo editorial office, which would begin three years of jihadist terror in France, with 272 dead and more than 1,200 injured, and in many European countries. Once again, and with impressive acuity, Houellebecq’s fiction had anticipated what would happen in reality.
Although his later novels focused on other issues, Houellebecq recently had a prolonged dialogue with the French public intellectual Michel Onfray, who is known for his strong “populist” views, in the latter’s newspaper Front Populaire (Popular Front). Leaving fiction aside, he went back to the legacy of the deadly jihad terror on French soil and foresaw that the continent – due to the immigration of Muslims to Europe – would sooner or later end up in the same situation as the Iberian Peninsula under Muslim domination between seventh and fifteenth centuries.
“When whole territories are under Islamist yoke, I think acts of resistance will take place. There will be explosions and shootings in mosques or cafes with Muslim patrons, Bataclan attacks in reverse,” Onfray wrote, referring to the Bataclan music hall attack by an Islamic State commando in Paris on November 13, 2015, which killed 87 bystanders. “And Muslims will not be satisfied with candles and flowers. So it can go pretty fast.”
“The will of people of French stock … is not for Muslims to assimilate, but for them to stop robbing and attacking them. Another option would be for them to leave,” he continued.
The principal didn’t like that [president] in the Paris Grand Mosque, Hafiz Shamseddin, a dual Algerian and French citizen. A staunch opponent of jihadists and extremists, he is an important power broker in the diverse and complex relationship between his two countries of origin and residence, and a confidant of both Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune and French President Macron, who recently knighted him in a well-attended ceremony. In his previous job as a lawyer for the Grand Mosque, he had already sued both Charlie Hebdo for publishing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad and Houellebecq himself, who in 2001, in a press interview when “Platform” came out, had called Islam “the stupidest religion”. ” — loses both goals on behalf of free speech. Then Salman Rushdie had sent a letter to Houellebecq in which he expressed his solidarity.
In the fall of 2022, Hafiz had created the Paris Mosque Literary Prize, with a committee of well-known French academics and literati, giving its first prize to the autobiography of a destitute Algerian immigrant family’s gay son, whose upwardly mobile fast-track made him a senior executive in a major cosmetics company. Therefore, Hafiz was able to sue the author in the capacity of head of a religious institution, while also conveying a certain literary legitimacy.
At the same time, another priest entered the fray: Haim Korsia, Chief Rabbi of France, scion of an Algerian Jewish family and a close friend of both Hafiz and Houellebecq, who brought them together. The latter – who has been living under police protection due to threats since that issue of Front Populaire made the news and boosted sales towards 100,000 copies – took back his words and said he would rephrase them in a forthcoming book; therefore the former withdrew its action. Although other Muslim institutions in France – notably those linked to Morocco, and arch-rivals of the Algerian-controlled Grand Mosque for the leadership of Islam in France – continued with the legal proceedings, so that a trial would take place.
Whatever the coming verdict, that episode – and the subsequent Stockholm auto-da-fé – exemplified in a nutshell the resilient tensions that exist in Europe over the issue of Islam, caught between a sizeable population of Muslim descent that is now well within in their second or third generation, have acquired citizenship and voting rights, and countries of origin struggling for political influence – Turkey, Algeria and Morocco are three examples of such strong self-assertion. This is especially the case while Russia’s war on Ukraine, the reshaping of the post-pandemic world order, the gas crisis and the whims of China have reinforced ad hoc contractual relations between states, based on give-and-take and political pressure, instead. of ancient alliances.
Dealing with Islam on European soil has become an example of the crossroads between burning domestic issues and an increasingly disconnected international system.