France has made the news headlines once again for what is perceived to be yet another demonstration of State violence against ethnic minorities in general and Muslims in particular. This time, it was the brutal killing of 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk by the police, which unleashed a series of riots all throughout the country.
In the modern nation-state—theorized by the likes of Jean Bodin and Thomas Hobbes (looking mainly at the intra-Christian conflicts between Catholics and Protestants); and inaugurated by the 1648 Westphalia treaties—, the police represents the nation-state’s internal security and, by extension, its demonstration of sovereignty over its own territories. Thus, the perpetual strife that exists between the French police and the Muslims is not only about temporary, that is to say, materialistic, socio-economic challenges surrounding the nature of “social justice.” Rather, it serves as a very revealing exegesis of a much deeper, metaphysical conflict between civilizational approaches that are diametrically opposed to one another.
This “radicalization” of the French police, routinely observed by many analysts within the country, is simply just the French state’s immune system kicking into action and becoming more proactive in order to fight off infection and protect its essence from outside invaders.
And the essence of the French state is laïcité, the particularly militant brand of secularism which is so characteristic of the country.
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Contrary to a notion that is popular, even if it were the case that secularism was radicalized by the 1789 French Revolution, it has nevertheless been present and triumphant for almost a millenium. Jean-François Colosimo, a French intellectual who identifies as Christian, has demonstrated as much in his 2019 essay, La religion française (The French Religion).
What Colosimo describes as “the French religion” is the long-standing conflict in French politics between the spiritual and the secular, with the latter having triumphed for centuries.
French specialists of laïcité (David Simard, Yves Bruley, and others) mention that it all began with the “Gregorian Reform” just after the year 1000 CE, when Pope Gregory VII (1015-1085) pushed for the separation of the temporal and spiritual powers. However, he also gave a more prominent place to the Church, which he centralized, so that it has authority over bishops outside of Rome (prior to this, bishops would be appointed by local rulers).
He thought that, with the Church being a divine institution, it was destined to be above the secular institutions, i.e., the state, which it would thus control.
As Rémi Brague—a French philosopher of the Christian faith who is critical of Islam—has noted in one of his books, the Church, despite having placed itself at the top of the pyramid, had already laid the ground for secularism by separating the religious and secular forms of governance.
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This move was aimed at the Germanic rulers, who, due to their culture, had a tendency to try and control the clerical class specifically, and this would inevitably alienate them.
The Gregorian Reform continued to gain momentum, finally reaching its zenith with Pope Boniface VIII (1230-1303). He was then stopped by Philip IV, known as Philip the Fair, who reigned as king of France between 1285-1314.
As it was often primarily a question of money, in 1296, Pope Boniface VIII forbade Europe’s kings from imposing taxes on the clergy without his explicit authorization. Philip IV perceived this as a direct attack against the monarch and, more generally, what we would describe today as the sovereignty of the state. This decision was followed by violent episodes between both sides. These included a famous (but perhaps apocryphal) instance where the Pope was slapped in his native town of Anagni in 1303 and, more importantly, the transferral of the papacy from 1309 to 1376 to Avignon, a city in southern France.
This particular doctrine came to be known as Gallicanism: the inclination of the temporal or secular French authority (whether it was embodied in a monarch or an impersonal state) to effectively control the Catholic Church by denying papal supremacy and, more generally, by denying the supremacy of the spiritual over the temporal.
Gallicanism permeates French history and culture so much that even someone like Charles Maurras (died 1952)—the radical Christian ideologue in France, who supposedly based his entire political philosophy on Catholicism—somehow remained within this Gallicanist framework because of his French nationalism and monarchism.
All of this is important to keep in mind whenever you witness the actions of the French state and the reactions thereto. It is a radical secular entity that has been trying to suppress any form of religious expression for a thousand years.
Its internal armed wing, the police force, is radical simply because the French state is itself radical, and this radicalization is merely applied secularism, with the French state being the secular state par excellence.
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Interesting to learn that France has been fighting religion for thousands of years Jazakallahu kahir for this beneficial knowledge please make and article debunking right with idiots who keep blaming most of the riots on immigrants and Muslims when that’s not the case inshallah.
Also I hated liberals more than modernists and I didn’t have that much of a reason to hate modernist Muslims as much as liberals and feminists . But after what Jafed did to Ustdah Daniel in their recent debate I actually have a bigger reason to hate modernist liberal Muslims than the liberals and feminists themselves. May Allah prophecy DH and his family and the Muslim skeptic team and their families inshallah.
Ameen
Modernists are inherently liberal bud
Yes,they are inherently zindiq like baathini group like imamis and nusayris.
You literally have no place to talk
Raafidhi you are in wrong chat.Zindiq shiachat is waiting for you.Baatini group are raafidha are in alliance with enemies of Islam.Bjp muslim wings is full of shia Sayeed.And Bjp is itself anti muslim,and in their orchestrated riots even shias lost their life.
Normally the police agents in France don’t stop practicing muslims that don’t break the law, most of the time they stop youth from the banlieus(the hood), yes many from muslim families (but many also christian and atheists), that act in very unislamic ways like theft, selling drugs, violence, gangs,etc.The acts done by this badly raised youth without discipline and lack of a proper islamic upbringing.Another factor is racial profiling but this affects christian black and brown folks as well
At the end of the day many french people are racists towards muslims, specially maghrebians because of the crazy stuff that a minority of badly raised young maghrebians has done in the past, imagine having your son beaten up and sent to the hospital?I mean we all would become radical, we should also look at ourselves,the french-maghrebi youth is in desperate need of dawah, discipline and many a father figure that is present in their adolescence period…
And yes the french state apparatus is secular to the core and wants to eventually delete all religions in the long term, but what I said plays a huge role because many french that could be open for dawah, that are sicere Christians or open minded,are driven away because of this anti-social behavior from this youth with muslim names. Even good muslim citizens aren’t safe from this youth, I invite any of you to visite one of this banlieus as foreigners and park your car there..
Bad behavior from male muslim youth doesn’t explain France banning hijab (even sometimes long skirts) in schools, France banning niqabs, France banning parts of Quran, French police forcing muslim women to remove hijab (which isn’t even illegal in public), French politicians yelling at muslim women to remove hijab in government buildings, French hypocracy regarding insulting the prophet (ﷺ) compared to other groups, etc.
The French’s hatred of muslims goes beyond bad behavior from male muslim youth, you can perhaps make that argument for people in Germany and Sweden, but not France, for France, it is obviously a deeper hatred of Islam that they have compared to other western european nations.
That’s why I said that the french state apparatus is secular to the core and wants to eventually delete all religions in the long term. But I was talking about the french people not the government.You are mistaken if you believe that France is more anti-Islam than all other european countries, all the neighboring countries of France have almost the same anti muslim laws(ban of hijabs,…).Bad behavior from male muslim youth makes the problem much much worse, gaining hatred from the natives…
that with the wars and genocide against Algeria, which was apparently pretty bad compared to other forms of European Colonialism against Muslims.
France wasn’t the only european nation that commited genocide on muslims, 3 centuries before,the christians in the Iberian peninsula commited also a genocide on the muslim andalusians.The same in Sicily.Without speaking about the fact that the mediterranean sea was a battle arena between north african muslims and romance speaking catholics since the fall of Al-andalus until the 1800’s with regular raids performed by both sides(Leonardo da Vinci’s mom was a slave captured in 1 of such raids..)
Takashi, I had to totally disagree with some of the portions.France was always hostile to Islam,since the era of charlemagne.Ironically he bought waterclock from muslims.Also, most of the crusaders were Franks.And french colonialism was really more brutal as vietnam and Algeria showed.And there are also Jewish and christian criminals and far rights extremist exists.Most of the Maghrebis are arabised too. And also Romans and Greeks also invaded and exploited north Africa.Egypt was one of the vic
Note: It is necessary to send peace end blessings in text.
While I kind of agree with this to some extent the article as a whole is a massive reach, this just seems like it was quickly plucked out of thin air, I’d appreciate if it was longer and more in depth