It is the responsibility of any government to address such atrocities and the context that allowed them to happen. But what has happened in France since Paty’s murder is different. Instead of working to bring the population together, the government has chosen to adopt reactionary language and direct its rhetoric toward criminalizing and stigmatizing France’s Muslim population.
A couple of days after the killing, Gérald Darmanin, the interior minister, proclaimed “a war against the enemies from within.” He then launched a series of police operations and raids against Muslim organizations and individuals who, in his words, “were not linked with the investigation but to whom we are clearly willing to send a message.” Darmanin also announced his intention to immediately disband several anti-Islamophobia organizations, labeling one of them an “enemy of the republic.” The minister then went further, saying he was “shocked” to see halal and kosher sections in supermarkets, because he apparently finds them divisive.
Setting a climate of suspicion in a moment of major tension is irresponsible. Using the national emotion to target political opponents is even worse.
Yet that is what happened to “Observatoire de la Laïcité” (Secularism Observatory) rapporteur Nicolas Cadène, who learned he might be removed from the position from the media. After repeatedly opposing Islamophobic policies, the observatory has been criticized by those who have repeatedly tried to single out Islam and Muslims. The office of Prime Minister Jean Castex seized the opportunity to declare that the institution “should evolve so that it can be possible in France to defend [secularism] without being branded as Islamophobic.” There is now momentum for the government to disqualify all those who are accused of being too soft or complacent.
This has also become prevalent in academic settings. The education minister, Jean-Michel Blanquer, has opposed what he termed “intellectual complicities with terrorism.” He said that so-called “Islamo-leftism . . . wreaks havoc in university” and in organizations such as UNEF, a prominent students’ union whose vice president is a Muslim woman. The union promptly responded in a statement that it was regrettable a person who was supposed to lead “the institution of knowledge” had “sunk into ignorance and hatred.”
Saturday, October 31, 2020
Rokhaya Diallo in the Washington Post: "After another tragedy, France should be combating terrorism, not criminalizing Muslims" (Oct 30, 2020)
Friday, October 30, 2020
Chris Hedges and Karl Polanyi on free market ideology
But our collapse is more than an economic and political collapse. It is a crisis of faith. The capitalist ideology of unlimited growth has failed. It did not take into account the massive depletion of the world's resources, from fossil fuels to clean water to fish stocks to soil erosion, as well as overpopulation, global warming, and climate change. It failed to understand that the huge, unregulated international flows of capital and assault on manufacturing would wreck the global financial system. An overvalued dollar (which could soon deflate); wild tech; stock and housing financial bubbles; unchecked greed; the decimation of our manufacturing sector; the empowerment of an oligarchic class; the corruption of our political elite; the impoverishment of workers; a bloated military and defense budget; and unrestrained credit binges are consequences of a failed ideology and conspire to bring us down. The financial crisis may soon become a currency crisis. This second shock will threaten our financial viability. We let the market rule. Now we are paying for it.
In his book The Great Transformation, written in 1944, Karl Polanyi laid out the devastating consequences - the depressions, wars, and totalitarianism - that grow out of a so-called self-regulated free market. He grasped that "fascism, like socialism, was rooted in a market society that refused to function." He warned that a financial system always devolved, without heavy government control, into a Mafia capitalism - and a Mafia political system - which is a good description of our power elite.
Polanyi, who fled fascist Europe in 1933 and eventually taught at Columbia University, wrote that a self-regulating market turned human beings and the natural environment into commodities, a situation that ensures the destruction of both society and the natural environment. He decried the free market's assumption that nature and human beings are objects whose worth is determined by the market. He reminded us that a society that no longer recognizes that nature and human life have a sacred dimension, an intrinsic worth beyond monetary value, ultimately commits collective suicide. Such societies cannibalize themselves until they die. Speculative excesses and growing inequality, he wrote, always destroy the foundation for a continued prosperity.
Chris Hedges, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle, pp. 184-5.
Thursday, October 29, 2020
Murtaza Hussain: "Trump, the War President, Leaves a Trail of Civilians Dead in Yemen" (Oct 29, 2020)
As Trump now pushes for reelection, touting himself as an opponent of “endless wars,” it is worth reflecting on the fates of the civilians in al-Ghayil — and the many other small towns and villages, unknown to most Americans, destroyed during by the U.S. military on Trump’s watch. Rather than the opponent of the military-industrial complex he likes to portray himself as, from his perch in the White House, Trump has served as its pliant and willing enabler.
https://theintercept.com/2020/10/29/trump-yemen-war-civilian-deaths
Wednesday, October 28, 2020
Tuesday, October 27, 2020
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