France faces its moment of peril and the dangers of 'us' and 'them'

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In author Michel Houellebecq’s controversial new novel, Submission, a future France (2022) is ruled by a Muslim president who introduces Sharia law, legalizes polygamy and makes the Qur’an required reading in the nation’s schools.

The novel’s protagonist, François, a middle-aged literary professor and lonesome atheist, is forced to convert to Islam but finds exotic comfort in polygamy.

Houellebecq’s literary bombshell was released to the public on the same day that terrorists forced their way into the offices of Charlie Hebdo and slaughtered 12 people to exact revenge for the satirical magazine’s repeated insults to the Prophet Muhammad.

By coincidence, Houellebecq — not Muhammad — was the one being skewered on the cover of that week’s issue of Charlie Hebdo. The acclaimed author’s caricature — he was drawn heavy-lidded and bulbous-nosed — appeared in a sorcerer’s hat under the headline, “The Predictions of Wizard Houellebecq.” “In 2015, I lose my teeth,” he says. “In 2022, I do Ramadan.”

His book has since rocketed to the top of the Amazon’s best-seller list in France. Amazon says customers who were interested in Submission also bought The French Suicide, a book that suggests the country is destroying itself, in part, through its immigration policies, and Muslims: You Lie To Us, a polemic about the danger Islam poses to secular France.

Houellebecq, the enfant terrible of French literature who was once charged with inciting hatred against Muslims, has since cancelled his book tour and gone into hiding.

Welcome to the troubled land of liberty, equality and fraternity, which must now decide how to deal with an internal security threat against the backdrop of an angry, fearful and polarized citizenry.

History shows it is a perilous time.

The last four decades have been pockmarked by blowback from frightened overreactions to terrorism. All too often, governments have responded to the provocation of terrorists with the kind of massive force and moral bankruptcy that are the fire and oxygen of extremism. In the heat of the moment, each country believed its response was measured; history reveals the extent of their miscalculations.

Consider “Operation Peace for Galilee,” Israel’s 1982 response to cross-border attacks from Palestinian terrorists based in Lebanon. What was billed as a limited incursion to uproot the Palestine Liberation Organization from south Lebanon, however, mushroomed into a three-year war that took Israeli forces into the heart of Beirut. The war led to the rise of a new terrorist organization, Hezbollah, and badly damaged Israel’s international reputation when its military forces stood by as at least 700 Palestinians were slaughtered by Christian militias in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. When Israel’s occupation of south Lebanon finally ended in May 2000, its security situation was little improved: Hezbollah militants began cross-border raids within months.

In June 1984, it was India’s turn to overreact. Then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was confronted by a militant group of Sikh separatists in Punjab who had attacked police and extorted money from villagers. When the group, led by a fundamentalist Sikh preacher, occupied the Golden Temple complex in Amritsar, Gandhi ordered the army to evict and crush the militants. The subsequent bloodbath left hundreds dead and inflamed Sikhs worldwide; they accused the government of desecrating their holiest shrine. Six months later, Gandhi was assassinated in the garden of her home by two Sikh bodyguards. The event set off anti-Sikh riots across the country that killed thousands.

The world, of course, is still dealing with the fallout from the reaction of the United States government to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden wanted to engage the broader Muslim world in a confrontation with the U.S. and President George W. Bush obliged him by ordering the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. The Bush White House then became al-Qaida’s best recruiting agent by permitting torture and abuse to flourish in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and the CIA’s secret prisons. The rise of the Islamic State can also trace its origins to the civil war between Sunnis and Shias uncorked by the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Canada was guilty of its own brand of overreaction post 9/11. Under pressure from the U.S. to crack down on Islamic extremists inside the country, Canadian security officials adopted a campaign of “disruption” aimed at suspected terrorists. The campaign led to the worst excesses of Canada’s war on terror, and contributed to the detention and torture of four Arab-Canadians in Syria: Maher Arar, Abdullah Almalki, Ahmed El-Maati and Muayyed Nureddin. All four men were tortured overseas while under investigation in Canada. In Almalki’s case, the RCMP even sent the Syrians questions to put to him despite serious concerns that such action could result in torture.

It is now France’s turn to respond in the overheated aftermath of a terror attack. Already engaged in military action against the Islamic State, the French government this week committed to more airstrikes against the terrorist group while also dispatching 10,000 troops to bolster security at potential targets inside France. But what other measures will they take to protect themselves and avenge the terror attack?

History should serve as a guide, The New Yorker’s John Cassidy argued this week. “In confronting the threat of homegrown jihadists, France and other European countries need to plot their own course,” he wrote. “If they rely too heavily on U.S. advice, they could end up making the same errors the United States did after 9/11, and that would be tragic.”

Yet there remains the possibility of an overreaction, he said, which could plunge “France and other European nations into conflict with the millions of Muslims living in their own countries — something that organizations like al-Qaida and ISIS would love to see, and whose consequences might be disastrous.”

All three gunmen involved in France’s three days of terror — they killed a total of 17 people — were born, raised and radicalized in the Paris area. They formed part of the country’s estimated population of five million Muslims, many of whom live in poverty in Marseille or in Paris’ sprawling suburbs, where al-Qaida and ISIS recruiters have already found success among the young, isolated and unemployed.

Even before this month’s mass murder in Paris, French authorities were worried about the consequences of that recruitment effort. Prime Minister Manuel Valls has told reporters that 1,400 French citizens have travelled as jihadists to Iraq and Syria — and that 70 have died.

Security officials are deeply concerned about what happens when surviving jihadists return. Already, there has been violence. In May, a French veteran of the Syrian jihad, 29-year-old Mehdi Nemmouche, was arrested in connection with an attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels that left three dead and one critically wounded. At the time, French President François Hollande vowed that his government would stop returning jihadists from terrorizing Europe.

“We will monitor those jihadists and make sure that when they come back from a fight that is not theirs — and that is definitely not ours — they cannot do any harm,” he said.

Canada, of course, confronts a similar dilemma. Three months after a lone gunman killed a sentry at the National War Memorial and terrorized Parliament Hill, the Conservative government is poised to introduce anti-terrorism legislation aimed at identifying extremists, disrupting potential attacks and preventing their overseas travel. (Canada may borrow at least one French law that allows officials to impose a renewable, six-month travel ban on those who express an interest in jihad.)

France also faces some unique challenges in crafting an appropriate response to the threat of homegrown terrorism.

Home to Europe’s biggest Muslim minority, France has a fractious history with the Islamic community inside its borders. The country, which waged a long campaign to free itself from the influence of the Catholic Church, is devoted to maintaining its century-old tradition of official secularism. To that end, it has banned all “conspicuous” religious symbols in schools, including veils, crosses and yarmulkes, and the use of full-face coverings in public places.

But, as author Carla Power recently noted in TIME Magazine, “The country’s radical secularism clashes with many Muslims’ desire to publicly display their faith.” Critics, including Amnesty International, have accused France of curbing the rights to freedom of religion at the expense of its politically weak Muslim minority.

The legality of the so-called “burqa ban” was challenged in court by one Muslim woman. But last year, the European Court of Human Rights upheld the law and endorsed France’s hard-boiled approach to assimilation.

The polarization of French society has been exacerbated by the growing popularity of Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front party. Her anti-immigrant, anti-Euro party dominated last year’s European Parliament elections in France, capturing one-quarter of all votes. The party has become the truculent standard-bearer for those who want to blame someone else — immigrants, Muslims, EU bureaucrats — for the problems that afflict the French economic model.

France is now struggling with record unemployment, stagnant growth and a persistent budget deficit that threatens many of the country’s cherished entitlements, including its 35-hour work week.

In times of crisis, the most strident voices often prevail over more moderate ones, which makes Le Pen so dangerously well-situated. Le Pen once compared Muslim worshippers, praying in the streets of France, to occupying Nazi forces. “There are no armoured vehicles, no soldiers, but it is an occupation all the same and it weighs on people,” she told National Front supporters in December 2010.

So far, Le Pen has been restrained in her response to the Paris terror attacks: she has simply reiterated her call for France to resume control of its borders, which are now open to all EU members. But she is certain to attack Hollande — mired near record lows in public opinion polls — for any perceived weakness in his approach to immigrants and extremists.

The early stages of France’s response to the terror attacks have provided mixed messages to the country’s Muslim population. Hollande has appealed for national solidarity, saying “unity is our greatest weapon.” Yet last week’s massive street march in Paris challenged all French citizens to endorse its message of “Je suis Charlie” — an idea that’s anathema even to moderate Muslims.

Writing in the New Statesman, journalist Mehdi Hasan decried the notion that every Muslim must endorse the work of Charlie Hebdo or be billed a “freedom-hating fanatic.” “You think you’re defying the terrorists when, in reality, you’re playing into their bloodstained hands by dividing and demonizing,” he wrote. “Us and them. The enlightened and liberal west versus the backward, barbaric Muslims.”

Hasan, Huffington Post UK’s political director, said he can’t endorse Charlie Hebdo’s depiction of France’s black justice minister as a monkey much less a cartoon mocking the Prophet Muhammad. “Lampooning racism by reproducing brazenly racist imagery is a pretty dubious satirical tactic…It’s for these reasons that I can’t be, don’t want to be Charlie — if anything, we should want to be Ahmed (Merabet), the Muslim policeman who was killed while protecting the magazine’s right to exist.”

To further confound Muslims, many of whom believe there’s a double-standard at play when it comes to freedom of expression, French authorities this week arrested 54 people for comments that condoned terrorism or promoted the hatred of Jews. Among those arrested was controversial French comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, who posted a Facebook comment after the Paris street march in which he said, “Know that this evening, as far as I’m concerned, I’m feeling like Charlie Coulibaly.” The comment married the rallying cry, “Je suis Charlie,” with the name of one of the Paris gunmen, Amedy Coulibaly, who killed a police officer and four hostages at a kosher supermarket.

Satire and tragedy are dark sisters in France. And in his latest novel, Submission, Michel Houellebecq trades on the country’s deepest fears.

The novel sets out the circumstances that conspire to bring a Muslim president to power in 2022: France’s electorate, faced with a choice between Le Pen’s far-right National Front and the “traditional values” of the Muslim Fraternity, opts for the Islamic party. The country is transformed. Women adopt the veil and abandon the workforce, reducing unemployment, while oil-rich countries such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar pour money into the country, enriching cultural institutions and the economy.

The book has been denounced as Islamophobic, racist, incendiary and gloomy, but Houellebecq has argued it’s not so bad. “You can’t really describe this book as a pessimistic prediction,” he told the Paris Review earlier this month. “At the end of the day, things don’t go all that badly, really.”

In the same interview, Houellebecq, who once dismissed Islam as “the most stupid of religions,” recanted that position based on what he described as a careful reading of the Qur’an. “The most obvious conclusion is that the jihadists are bad Muslims. Obviously, as with all religious texts, there is room for interpretation, but an honest reading will conclude that a holy war of aggression in not generally sanctioned, prayer alone is valid,” he told the Paris Review. “So you might say I’ve changed my opinion. That’s why I don’t feel that I’m writing out of fear. I feel, rather, that we can make arrangements.”

So what’s a nation to do in the supercharged aftermath of a terror attack? How to discern satire from hate speech? How to weigh the erosion of basic freedoms against the right to live free of terror’s threat? How to know a fateful overreaction from a measured response?

Writing in The Guardian this week, columnist Jonathan Freedland offered a suggestion. “Our every move,” he said, “must now be aimed at confounding the killers’ wish to make this a holy war, pitting Muslims against everyone else. It is no such thing. Theirs is a dirty little war, a handful of wicked fanatics against the rest of us. And they must lose.”