٢٠٠٣ میں فرانس میں دو ایسے رائٹرز بہت مقبول ہوئے جو اپنے آپکو مسلمان کہتے تھے لیکن انکی کتابیں مسلمانوں کے خلاف جذبات ابھارنے میں مدد دیتی تھیں-
ان میں سے ایک کا دعویٰ تھا کہ وہ مسلمان ہے، الجیریا میں پیدا ہوا اور پیشے کے لحاظ سے صحافی ہے- اسکا کہنا تھا کہ وہ القاعدہ کے ایک ممبر کی حیثیت سے بھیس بدل کر فرانس میں القاعدہ کے پوشیدہ سیل کے لوگوں سے معلومات جمع کرتا رہا ہے- مساجد میں مسلم دہشت گردی کے نیٹ ورکس سے رابطے کے ذریعے اس نے فرانس کی مسلم کمیونٹی کے بارے میں کثیر معلومات جمع کرنے کا دعویٰ کیا-
وہ خود اپنے آپ کو مسلمان کہتا ہے لیکن جتنے بھی لوگوں سے اس نے معلومات جمع کیں انکے بارے میں اسکا کہنا ہے کہ وہ اسلامسٹ تھے-
اپنے آپ کو مسلمان کہنے کے ساتھ ساتھ وہ اسلام کی تعلیمات کو بھو ایک فرنچ مسلمان کے طور پر مسترد کرتا رہا- یہاں تک کہ اسکا کہنا ہے کہ نماز بھی
What does it take to be a French Muslim commentator?
I have suggested at the beginning of this article that the sudden media interest for Mohamed Sifaoui and Chahdortt Djavann in 2003 lays in both authors’ self-identification as authoritative figures in debates revolving around the representation of Islam and Muslims in France.
This article has subsequently highlighted a shift in the persona of the ‘Muslim commentator’; from being a reluctant witness, in other words still an outsider, promoting France’s ‘arrogant assimilationism’; to being a model minority, in other word the product of this assimilation, fully integrated to France’s republican ideal.
The use of inverted commas in the title of this article is deliberate and raises the question ‘what is a Muslim?’, or rather the question ‘what sort of Muslims are co-opted to the rank of Muslim commentators by the French intelligentsia?’.
Mohamed Sifaoui self-identifies as a Muslim, yet he either ignores or disparages the most basic practices of Islam. From a traditional Islamic perspective, he could even be said to be an apostate since he goes as far as to discard the second pillar of Islam by implying that the five daily Muslim prayers are mere Islamist practices.
As for Chahdortt Djavann, her only reference to a Muslim identity consists in saying that she was forced to be a Muslim when she was ‘sentenced’ to wear the headscarf.
If one defines ‘Islam’ as a set of beliefs and practices and ‘a Muslim’ simply as someone who lives by them, with no communautariste agenda, then one would have to admit that neither Mohamed Sifaoui nor Chahdortt Djavann are representative of Islam and Muslims.
Yet, both authors have remained largely unchallenged and in fact widely praised; Sifaoui is still a regular pundit on Islam in the French mainstream media and Djavann’s services to laïcité were recognised by various awards.
It appears thus that the answer to the question asked at the beginning of this paragraph is ‘cultural Muslims only’, if not ‘resentful former Muslims’, in other word someone whose heritage is Muslim but decries Islamic practices.
In both cases, it is worth noting that these commentators were not born in France; either to maintain them as outside reluctant witnesses or because it takes an outsider to fully integrate and become a model minority.
Since Mes « frères » assassins and Bas les voiles ! were published in 2003, the representation of Islam in France has covered many critical events and affaires, from the 2012 and 2015 terror attacks to the 2011 ‘burka ban’ and various ‘burkini’ and ‘headscarf affairs’.
Yet, most interventions by ‘Muslim’ commentators ever since seem to have followed the footsteps of Mohamed Sifaoui and Chahdortt Djavann, that is either self-defining as Muslims whilst overtly presenting Islamic practices as extreme or calling out Islam altogether.
On the other hand, no credible Muslim commentator, as per the above-mentioned definition of Muslim, seems to have emerged.Up until the late 2010s, intellectual Tariq Ramadan fitted the definition. 6 Yet even then, Ramadan was often invited to televised debate panels to serve as cannon fodder for the likes of Sifaoui and Djavann, as per a well-oiled script at which John Bowen points in the context of the 2004 ‘headscarf affair’ (Bowen 2007, 232–233). If not that, then Ramadan was constantly reminded of his heritage as the grandson of Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim brotherhood. As such, he was accused of double discours, in other words of claiming a republican right to indifference in front of non-Muslim audiences whilst encouraging his fellow Muslims to claim a communautariste right to difference. Another example of such Muslim commentator is activist Houria Bouteldja and her defence, in Mayanthi Fernando’s words, of the right for Muslims to be ‘ordinary’ (2014, 79). Bouteldja argues for instance that ‘Muslim homophobia’ should not be seen as a greater threat to republican values than ‘non-Muslim homophobia’ is (79–80). Despite her claim, Bouteldja received this exact special treatment after the publication of her controversial Les Blancs, les juifs et nous in 2016. The book, which was said to be anti-White, antisemitic and homophobic, led to Bouteldja not only being accused of hate crimes, but also pilloried for communautarisme.
More recently, a Muslim reluctant witness promoting assimilation in a way that recalls Mohamed Sifaoui was found in Tarek Oubrou. In an interview for Le Point’s website promoting his latest book in June 2019, this Moroccan-born, media-friendly imam and essayist urged, amongst other things, devout French Muslims to abandon their halal diet ‘par politesse’ in order to assimilate to republican values. As for the figure of the ‘Muslim’ model minority fully integrated to France’s laïcité, pioneered by Chahdortt Djavann, it has recently been best embodied by Zineb El Rhazoui, who was a vocal advocate against the Muslim headscarf during the debates of autumn 2019 on headscarf-wearing mothers accompanying children on school trips. This Moroccan-born journalist used to write on Islam for Charlie Hebdo, France’s fetishized emblem of free speech, at the time of the 2015 attacks. Since, she has become an icon. So much so that in May 2019, France Inter relayed on its website an online petition asking for El Rhazoui to be the model for France’s next Marianne. More nuanced examples than Oubrou and El Rhazoui can of course be found, amongst writers in particular; such as Tahar Ben Jelloun and Leïla Slimani, both Moroccan born, writing exclusively in French, and laureates of the prestigious Prix Goncourt. When the French representation of the Arab Uprisings of 2010–2011 feared the emergence of a more visible Islam in the countries involved, Ben Jelloun normalised Islamic beliefs and practices therein as banal daily activities (Ben Jelloun 2011, 61–64). Yet the same Ben Jelloun, in the lead-up to the 2003–2004 ‘headscarf debates’, publicly discarded the headscarf as a mere centuries-old tradition (Tout le monde en parle 2002). As for Leïla Slimani, in reaction to several MPs walking out of the Assemblée Nationale to protest the presence of a young woman wearing a headscarf, she pointed out on French television in September 2020—the video was later widely shared and commended on social media—that there is a difference between opposing the headscarf and attacking a woman wearing it (C politique 2020). Yet her tirade in favour of vivre-ensemble started with her specifying that ‘everyone knows [her] fight’—hinting at her own opposition to the headscarf, which leaves a bitter taste from the perspective of a Muslim as previously defined. A new twist on the ‘I’m not racist, but … ’ cliché; ‘I’m not an Islamophobe, but I oppose the headscarf’.
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