The state’s failure to confront Islamism has become evident because the legislative and administrative measures taken put Islam in a dead end, which heralds a major shift in secularism. Therefore, a comprehensive review of this policy is necessary, which is only counterproductive.
This is what came in the introduction to an article by French Professor Farhad Khosrokhawer, director of lessons at the prestigious school in France "Graduate School of Social Sciences" in Paris, known for short as "EHESS".
Khosrokhawar stated in his article, which he published on his blog on the French website Mediapart (farad123), that France has been on the wrong path for more than 30 years in its policy towards Islam, warning that secularism has transformed from a system to preserve the neutrality of the state to a civil religion, whose sacred standards contradict With the standards of Islam.
The writer, a French sociologist of Iranian origin, said that the time has come for a comprehensive review of this policy, which is counterproductive on several levels, as it is causing the isolation of the vast majority of Muslims who feel they are targeted by the increasingly restrictive legislation, which is likely to It stigmatizes them because of their religion, and it also promotes fundamentalism by denying the diversity of Islamic behavior, especially with regard to the hijab.
To demonstrate the contradiction in this policy, Khosrowkhawar says he will briefly analyze two of the most well-known aspects of this policy, namely the Islamic veil and Salafism.
Islamic headscarf
Although France is the western country that has implemented the largest number of legislative and administrative measures restricting the wearing of the headscarf, this did not prevent its increase and attractiveness among Muslim women, despite the fact that the veil is seen in France as a symbol of patriarchy, male dominance and weak status of women, as it is branded as a sign To reject French modernity and to contradict secularism.
The writer pointed out that university research shows that the hijab is not one type, but at least three types, namely the personal headscarf, the fundamentalist veil and the traditional hijab that elderly women wear in order to preserve the traditional Islamic culture that has become disappearing.
As for the individual veil - as the writer says - it is the veil of young women who claim to wear it in harmony with their vision of the personal relationship between them and God Almighty, while the fundamentalist veil is the one whose owners claim the right to appear in it in the public space, giving absolute priority to religious standards at the expense of Republic standards.
According to the author, among these three types, the traditional hijab alone returns to a "paternal" basis, while the individual hijab is nothing, and those who wear it may adopt the republican norms of equality between the sexes, while the fundamentalist veil is the most anti-republic without being paternalistic. Because those who wear it are the ones who have taken the initiative and promoted new values in a provocative manner against a society that does not make their lives meaningful, as the writer says.
The writer pointed out that the state's policy in France was to try to exclude the headscarf from the public space, through a series of coercive measures and discrediting, and even stigmatization through laws or cultural condemnation, but the result is not promising as we see it daily.
And a good policy - as the writer sees it - is to legalize the individual headscarf without the fundamentalist veil, because many young women who wear the hijab agree to participate in the "republican" version of the veil, as they recognize gender equality and denounce violations of women's rights.
However, instead of encouraging them to join the republic - as the writer says - they were isolated and deprived of full citizenship, and they became under suspicion that they carried black fundamentalist schemes on the subject of secularism, and thus they were illegally rejected and considered not real French.
The result - as the writer says - is to strengthen the fundamentalist grip because its supporters condemn a state and a society that reject Islam not in what is perceived as transgressions, but in its entirety.
The writer called for accepting the "republican veil" by giving Muslim women an opportunity to mobilize against the "fundamentalist veil", and to stop tarnishing their reputation and pushing them into the arms of the fundamentalists, stressing that the state should promote progressive Islam not by stigmatizing the veil, but by preferring its wearers who voluntarily commit By republican standards.
Salafism
As for Salafism - as the author sees it - the new vision of "separatism" will set its limits in the future, especially since restricting home education "is common sense", as well as other decisions related to religious education, but the basic matter is another matter.
The writer cautioned that Salafism is especially thriving in marginalized neighborhoods, where religious segregation is bordered, high rates of unemployment, poverty, delinquency and a lack of hope.
And the rest, according to Khosrokhawar, is the distortion that society casts on Islam, as the residents of these neighborhoods feel the delegitimation of their culture and their existence in general, which calls on many of them to adopt a defiant and provocative attitude towards the community that deprives them of their dignity and their right to social diversity.
Salafism in this urban and economic framework - as Khosrokhawar sees it - is an attempt to assert oneself against this feeling of deprivation, because it invents restrictive standards and bases them on God Almighty in the face of a society that excludes the deprived in the name of secularism, where young people feel that they are gaining a new identity through religious fundamentalism that Their status is strengthened by insulting those who humiliated them throughout their time in the secluded neighborhoods.
The solution to the issue of Salafism - as the writer sees it - is the Borloo project (attributed to the former president of the Union of Democrats and Independents Jean-Louis Marie Borloo), which is an expensive but necessary project, and it was presented two years ago and was rejected by the state, and is based on putting an end to the concentration of the Muslim population in private neighborhoods, and giving them The opportunity for republican social upbringing, by providing economic potentials and lifting social and cultural exclusion from them.
The solution is not in the government's "separatism" policy because it is doomed to failure - as Khosrokhawer says - despite its positive aspects that cannot be denied, especially since the state has failed for 30 years to confront "Islamism". The evidence is the large number of French jihadists who left To Syria, as well as the deadly attacks that affected France more than the neighboring countries.
And since France combines a cultural and religious façade, so that secularism functions more and more as a civil religion, and an urban structure like the suburbs, it is necessary to culturally restore secularism to its organizational function and deny it its sanctity as a civil religion that it has assumed for several decades, and socially put an end to segregation in the neighborhoods of the working class.
The time has come to reverse state policy - according to Khosrokhawar - and put an end to urban neighborhoods that are likely to become isolated Islamic neighborhoods, and secondly, to fully recognize legitimate Islam, especially by recognizing individual veils.
Khosrokhawar concludes his article with an explicit statement, "Separatism is primarily that of society and the state towards Muslims, not the other way around. Putting an end to the suspicion that weighs on Muslims will make the solution easier as civil society and Muslims within it will actively intervene to block the path to fundamentalism and religious extremism, and that will only be By rehabilitating individual Islam in the face of fundamentalist Islam. "