Europe's next door threat

The caricature of a megalomaniac politician

Victor Angelo

 

My text of last week on Islamist radicalism provoked several reactions. The Portuguese friends, who have always lived in Portugal, although with many tourist trips in the curriculum, were surprised by my description of the intolerance in certain schools and in some segments of French society. This is a situation that does not occur in Portugal. Here nobody intimidates anyone by mentioning Infante D. Henrique, Mouzinho de Albuquerque or the atheist José Saramago. Friends living in the Europe of immigration - in Belgium, for example - have recognised in my chronicle situations that are familiar to them. The rejection of values that we consider fundamental and life in social silos are commonplace. They added that it takes courage to talk about these things, in a balanced way and without falling into primary and racist recrimination. I have also received messages from former co-workers, who live out their Muslim faith in many parts of the world. For them, the problem lies in the mockery, the caricatures, their interpretation as an instrument of the Europeans' onslaught against Islam.

I remembered then that at the ceremony to honour Professor Samuel Paty, President Emmanuel Macron said that France would not give up the cartoons. I understand that position. What others see as an unforgivable offence is for us a simple expression of freedom. Religion is a subject like any other. In Europe, the collapse of the idea of blasphemy began in 1789 with the French Revolution.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan clung to Macron's statement about the drawings to treat his French counterpart as mentally ill. He said it repeatedly, so that there would be no doubt about the insult. For Erdogan, the drawing of a bottom end in the air is more shocking than the inhumane persecution of millions of Muslims by the Xi Jinping regime. He does not get nervous, he says nothing about it.

We live in unique times, with one head of state harassing another, from an allied country. Erdogan's hostility towards Macron is nothing new. It began right after the French president's term began in 2017. There are several points of friction between them, starting with the French opposition to Turkey's accession to the EU and continuing in Libya, Syria, in support of Greek sovereignty in the Mediterranean Sea and more and more. There is also enormous tension within NATO, where France accuses Turkey of holding back the organisation's strategy when it comes to regions in which Ankara is directly involved.

On top of all this, I can guess that Erdogan wants to break the alliance that exists between Paris and Berlin. He is investing against France knowing that Germany, where more than four million people with Turkish roots live, does not have much room for manoeuvre to take a stand in solidarity with France. By attacking this pillar of the EU and maintaining the recurrent threat of opening the gates to a new wave of migration to Europe, similar to that which occurred in 2015, Erdogan's Turkey constitutes the most important risk to the survival of the European project.

At the December European Council it is absolutely necessary that the leaders of the member states take a tough stance against the Turkish president. In international politics, there are only two possible positions before a bully: give in and end up paying a high price, or else confront him with all the necessary diplomatic arsenal.

Salman Rushdie warns us that "fundamentalism is not about religion, but about power". Erdogan sees himself as the leader of Sunni Muslims and the guardian of the faithful in the face of the so-called European attacks. He combines megalomania with fanaticism. In collusion with the radicals of the Muslim Brotherhood and with the financial support of Qatar, Erdogan has established in several European countries a series of associations which, under the guise of religion, culture and humanitarian action, promote totalitarian interpretations of the Koran and its image as a defender of the faith.

One of the tasks of the European security services is to monitor these associations and their most influential members. It is, however, an almost impossible mission. Monitoring every potentially violent extremist, to be done properly, requires around twenty officers, twenty-four hours a day. The real answer must therefore be political and shared by all European countries. 

(Machine translation of my opinion column of today, published in the Portuguese newspaper Diário de Notícias, Lisbon)

 

 

Dealing with Islamist terrorism

 Terror or democracy

Victor Angelo

 

Almost two hundred and fifty years after his death, Voltaire remains one of the most influential thinkers in the history of France and Europe. He wrote abundantly and was an advisor to the great ones of his time. His political and philosophical thinking opened the path that would lead to the French Revolution and to the national motto that remains today: Freedom, Equality, Fraternity. His writings mocked religious dogmas, at a time when it was very dangerous to do so. They fought against intolerance, advocated freedom of expression and the separation of the church from the state. In 1736, he wrote a play against religious intransigence, which he entitled "Fanaticism or Mohammed the Prophet". In this tragedy, Voltaire criticized directly and with all the letters the founder of Islam. Personally, I read the work as an onslaught against religions, in one case, openly, in another, that of Catholicism, in a more subtle way, so as not to endanger his own skin.

Now it has become impossible to teach Voltaire in some schools in France, especially in the suburbs of Paris. Certain students, coming from radicalized Muslim families, prevent this from happening. For these people, Voltaire is the worst of the infidels, the one who dared to sully the name of the Prophet. In the past, the Holy Catholic Inquisition burned heretics in public. In the present of the Islamist maniacs, Voltaire would be beheaded. Besides Voltaire, it is a danger to talk about the Holocaust or condemn anti-Semitism, to quote the writer Gustave Flaubert and his novel Madame Bovary - a free and passionate woman, a terrible example for a radical who considers that women should be submissive and walk covered from head to toe - or try to discuss Charlie Hebdo and the caricatures of Mohammed. A good part of the French public-school system lives in a climate of turmoil, in which the violent reaction of certain students has replaced the debate of ideas. And the intimidation begins earlier and earlier. There are already stories of boys refusing to sit next to girls in maternal schools.

All this leads us to the criminal and absurd decapitation that took place last week. The victim, Professor Samuel Paty, was a brave man and aware that the mission of the schools is also to form future citizens, free, equal in rights, in solidarity, respectful and responsible. But in France, the secular school has been actively undermined by radical Islamists since 2005. A recent survey revealed that about 40% of teachers of literary, civic and humanities subjects censor themselves and do not mention in their classes anything that might provoke the anger of the most fanatical students. Therefore, my first reaction to the news of the mad act was admiration for Samuel Paty's courage and sense of professional duty. He also reminded me that the response to the terrorist threat is to behave vertically, unequivocally firmly.

But courage and firmness cannot be just individual issues. Terrorism is not the result, as some claim, of the actions of "lone wolves”. The old visionary Friedrich Nietzsche said that "everything that is absolute belongs to pathology," but in the case of terrorism, this is more the social context. We are facing an extreme identity phenomenon, a social ecosystem that makes thousands of families live in a Salafist ideological swamp. They are a minority fringe of European citizens of Muslim faith, but their actions are very destabilizing.

In situations like France - and in other European countries, notably Belgium and the Netherlands, which go in the same direction as France - it is essential to get the right appropriate political response. On another occasion, I will write about the security treatment of the issue. Politically, it is important to begin by recognizing that fanaticism, by placing a manipulated, primary, and ignorant interpretation of religion above the values of the republic, is a threat to democracy and social peace. If the democrats could not deal with terrorist radicalism, the extreme right, whether it be called Le Pen or something else, in some other country, would use that political bankruptcy to gain power. And then it would crush everyone, not just the exalted knife-wielders and their supporting communities.

(Machine translation of my opinion column of today, published in the Portuguese newspaper Diário de Notícias, Lisbon)

 

 

 

What is behind the burkini

In past couple of days I wrote a number of lines about the burkini hullabaloo in France. They were addressed to the Portuguese readers as the controversy has gone beyond the French borders and attracted very serious attention in several European countries. It´s a good summer story at a time of the year most newspapers are looking for light pieces to entertain the vacationers.

But this is no light subject. The burkini hides a number of political issues. It is not just a matter of freedom. It is the tip of a political iceberg.

One should note that even now that France´s Conseil d´Etat – the Supreme Court for these matters – has decided that the ban on wearing a burkini is illegal, the vast majority of the French people are for its prohibition. This reveals a new state of mind in the country. Public opinion has been deeply traumatised by the acts of terror that occurred during the last two years. They want to feel safe and at home in their own country. And they see the beach swimwear as an expression of radical Islam. Moreover, they see it as a banner that says no to the French way of life. It´s an expression of a culture that is foreign to many mainstream people. And that is less and less tolerated.

  

All this calls for a moment of introspection about the future. But it has to be carried out with greater serenity than what we have seen so far.

On the burkini

Supporting the ban of the “burkini” in some French beaches sends a very strong political message, right from the top, as the Prime Minister himself has come out in favour of the prohibition: the French Muslims are expected to do much more in terms of integration in the host culture. There is the sentiment, in many quarters of the population, that the immigrants are not willing to accept the French way of life and more, that they are now engaged in a campaign to change the national culture and the behavioural norms.

This is also a very complex message. Behind it, I see a growing exasperation towards the Muslim population. Such trend can lead to serious conflicts. France seems to be in a path leading towards confrontation and greater social instability. If that comes to happen then we can say that the terrorists have managed to achieve two major goals: social destabilisation and diversion of public attention to matters that should not occupy the centre of the political attention. 

Getting back to the playground

Brussels is gradually getting back on its feet. People are still deeply shocked but they remain very composed. There has been no real manifestation of racism or xenophobia. Actually, the rallies in the city centre have attracted people from different backgrounds. That´s already a remarkable victory against the criminals that have decided to bring pain and chaos to the city and the country. The killers wanted to kill social peace and national harmony. They have not been allowed to achieve that.

Last evening I went to the theatre, as I had planned long before. The playhouse, a very well-known cultural institution, is located in the middle of an area of town where the vast majority of the residents are Muslims and other kinds of foreign people – the commune of Saint Josse, for those who know Brussels. There are, every evening, three plays running in the premises. Yesterday, it was business as usual. People, many of them older Belgian retirees mixing up with well-off younger fellows, came in large numbers. Not many, just a small number have cancelled their reservations. That was a nice and courageous response to the events of these very dramatic few days.

And, as they sat there, they knew they could become very vulnerable if a crazy pair of fellows had decided to bring chaos and pain to the show. I spent some time looking at my fellow spectators and felt good. As they enjoyed the play, they were silently telling me and my fears that life goes on. No need to change habits just because of some fanatics and their profoundly wrong and acutely disturbed approach to today´s world.

Our European problems and Cameron´s

There is very little time, these days, to think about David Cameron and his conditions for the UK to remain within the EU.

France and Marine Le Pen´s initial electoral victory are taking a lot of the attention span available. And there are good reasons for that. Le Pen´s race to power needs to be stopped. And the concerns of her voters must be responded to at the same time. These are two immense jobs. They concern not only the French but all those in the vicinity who believe in a united Europe.

Then, there is the fight against terrorism. The key issue is to devise approaches that could effectively prevent the radicalisation of some young Europeans. There is a lot of debate about the issue of radicalisation but not enough concrete ideas on how to tackle it. The competition for new ideas is open.

The immigration issue is still unresolved. That adds a very heavy burden to the European agenda. And the longer it takes the more complex it becomes. The first step here is to strengthen the Schengen external borders. But there are many other things that need to be dealt with, including the very serious challenge of integrating those who are already in. This task is now particularly complex in view of the current change of opinion about the massive presence of Muslim populations in the European space.

In the midst of these very critical issues the UK´s referendum looks very much like Cameron´s self-created problem. He will have to take the lead in sorting it out. He knows that his key financial masters want the UK to stay in the EU. He also understands he cannot deceive them. He has therefore to be smart and imaginative. What a challenge!