Author: Joseph Massad
Affiliation: Columbia University
Organization/Publisher: Middle East Eye
Date/Place: October 12, 2020/UK
Type of Literature: Opinion Article
Word Count: 2093
Link: https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/france-islam-crisis-macron-secular
Keywords: France, Islam, Macron, French barbarism
Brief:
Joseph Massad, Professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History at Columbia University (New York), argues that the new statement by the French president Emmanuel Macron about ‘liberating’ Islam is a deep-rooted French ‘secular’ tradition. Further, he states that the hate of Muslims in France is a common discourse of the government, the media, and the pundits. This discourse incites violence against Muslims inside and outside France. Macron is not the first French ruler who wants to “liberate” Islam. The author elaborates on France’s invasion of Algeria as an example of the French colonial brutality against Muslims, and how France in 1832 wiped out the whole tribe of the Quffias, leaving no women and children in addition to confiscating all their possessions. The author calls out the French barbarism in Algeria that caused the death of one million people, which is approximately one-third of the Algerian population. Massad maintains that killing a third of the Algerians, eliminating the entire elite, and destroying dozens of towns and villages to the ground did not resolve France’s “crisis” with Islam, since the real crisis in France is the French chauvinism. However, to end France’s crisis with Islam as well as with itself, France has to pay back the debts for the robberies and killings it has caused around the world according to the author.
By: Fadi Zatari, CIGA Senior Research Associate
