31 January 2015

"Bêtes et Méchants" Thoughts on Charlie Hebdo I: The French Case

UPDATE: I decided to divide this post into two parts. Apparently it was too long to be read in one shot.

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When the Charlie Hebdo attack occurred I was in an airplane. Upon landing, I found several messages on my cell phone from well-meaning friends.

You could say that it was my second John Lennon moment.

The friends who called knew that, in my misspent youth, I used to read Charlie Hebdo and its predecessor Hara Kiri magazine religiously. No pun intended.

People like Wolinski, Cabu, Reiser, Delfeil de Ton, Professeur Choron were my anarchist heroes. Even when I completely disagreed with their point of view, I admired their offensive humor and daring stances.

In that sense, that is, as an expression of grief and empathy, I say "Je suis Charlie" without any hesitation.

Je suis Charlie.

But the more I spoke to friends, the more I realized that the moniker Je Suis Charlie was quickly appropriated and turned into a shorthand version of the Clash of Civilizations argument. Indeed, I was struck by the polarizing anger both sides had for the other and the competing narratives full of errors and omissions.

It was a dialogue de sourds designed to present their respective positions as absolute and to ignore the other side's context and arguments. Clearly, no one wanted to hear anything other than a full-fledged corroboration of their stand.

Initially, my intention was to write about the Lone Wolf theories and how terrorists and extreme right wing parties are partnering up to shape the future of Europe.

But, when people I spoke to began urging me to write about "the freedom of expression hypocrisy and European Islamophobia" and the "beheading barbarians who live in our midst to slaughter us" I decided to pull a Charlie Hebdo.

You see, "Journal bête et méchant" [Stupid and vicious magazine] was the slogan of the predecessor of Charlie Hebdo, the Hara Kiri magazine.

I decided that a proper tribute to them would be to write a post that offends everyone.

What follows are the constructed and distilled versions of my many conversations with friends and acquaintances and random individuals.

Muslims go first.

Conversations with Muslim Friends

- What do you think about these attacks?

- I know that killing people is terrible but I cannot condemn the Kouachi brothers because Charlie Hebdo people committed a grave sin.

- What was that?

- Depicting the Prophet. It is forbidden by the Koran. It is a big sin.

- No, it is not.

- What do you mean?

- Just that. It is not. That specific act is not mentioned anywhere in the Koran. In some of the Hadith, that is, the sayings of the Prophet written down many decades after his passing, he is reported to have said that it was not a good idea to represent him because this might turn him into an icon.

Over the centuries this suggestion was turned into a ban to represent any sentient being in any form. And as usual, this absolute ban is the work of the House of Wahhab in the 18th century.

There are countless pictures of people and of the Prophet in previous centuries. When it came to the Prophet they simply omitted to draw his facial features, but the rest of the people were all represented normally.

There is a hand drawn picture of Mohammed in the previous link if you want to see it.

- This can not be true.

- It is. Look at the miniatures, the Ottoman archives are full of them. They depict people in all walks of life.

What is more, the Ottoman Sultans have all had their portraits done.

- Why is that relevant?

- The Ottoman sultans doubled as Caliphs from Mehmed II onward. He claimed the Caliphate when he invaded Constantinople in 1453. His grand son Selim I attacked the Mamluk dynasty and took the actual title from Al Mutawakkil II in 1517.

The Caliph is the ruler of the Ummah and the political and religious successor of the Prophet. There is no higher authority in Islam. If they had their portraits done and displayed them proudly, can you claim to know better and tell me that depicting people is forbidden in Islam?

- OK, I see what you mean but this case is more than depicting the Prophet. These people made fun of Islam.

-  I am not so sure that this was their goal but let's say that they did. Do you know what is the recommended course of action in the Koran when someone makes fun of Islam?

- Yes, our imam told us: Kill them, make them stop, shut them up by any means necessary.

- It is just the opposite.

There are two passages in the Koran that specifically mention the reaction you are supposed to have if you, as a Muslim, see someone making fun of Islam and the verses of the Koran.
The first one is in the Al-An'am sura (68)
And when you see those who engage in [offensive] discourse concerning Our verses, then turn away from them until they enter into another conversion. And if Satan should cause you to forget, then do not remain after the reminder with the wrongdoing people.
This was revealed when the Prophet was in Mecca and the context was the mushrikun making fun of Islam. If you have any notion of Islam you must know what a seriously offensive situation this was. Yet Allah simply tells him and all Muslims to move away and to not come back until these people stopped making fun of Islam.

That is it.

And this is not all. Later when the Prophet is in Medina, Christians and Jews make fun of him and his teachings, Allah intervenes again. This is what he says in An Nisa sura (140).
And it has already come down to you in the Book that when you hear the verses of Allah [recited], they are denied [by them] and ridiculed; so do not sit with them until they enter into another conversation. Indeed, you would then be like them. Indeed Allah will gather the hypocrites and disbelievers in Hell all together.
Where do you see Allah ordering you to kill people who committed blasphemy?

He clearly says, walk away, I will take care of it myself later on. In fact, he reminds the Prophet that he had already sent him a message about this.

Now, what part of the above makes the Kouachi brothers or anyone else an agent of God to kill people? What kind of arrogance should one have to substitute one's own judgement with Allah's? Do you know what a grave sin this is in Islam?

- What you say cannot be true. Our imam told us that the Koran unequivocally orders the killing of people who made fun of Islam.

- Then ask him to show you the exact verses. Just like I did. Incidentally, how can you not check the accuracy of his claims? Especially if he tells you that it is okay to kill someone, should you not even look it up?

- Well, he is a holy man, he would not lie to us.

- If he told you that the Koran orders the killing of such people then he definitely lied to you. In any event, he is most probably a Salafist whose salary is paid by Saudi Arabia and he has been indoctrinating you in Wahhabism.  That hardly makes him a holy man.

I'll bet he has been telling you not to say anything critical of the Kouachi brothers and Amedy Koulibaly.

- Yes, he has.

- There you go. This is how these radical imams are forcing you to side with them. You are either with us all the way or you are against us.

Can you see the irony in all this? Charlie Hebdo people were your most natural allies. They've always stood up for the downtrodden, the immigrant, the outcast, the marginal. They railed against racism, xenophobia, the Front National, the government and institutionalized religion. Their favorite target was the Catholic Church.

Kouachi brothers killed your staunchest defenders.

- Actually I am not so sure that it was the Kouachi brothers who killed the Charlie Hebdo journalists.

- Really? How do you know that?

- Well, the killers hid their faces and acted like professionals, people like that don't lose their ID cards. So some other people must have set them up.

- This only shows that they were not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Or they were so French that they went to kill people with their papers in their pockets. If they had nothing to do with it, how do you explain the call they placed to a journalist to brag about their exploits and to claim the attack in the name of AQAP? How about AQAP confirming it subsequently?

- I don't know. But the whole thing is suspicious. Is it a coincidence that. François Hollande became very popular after these attacks?

- This is one of the oldest logical fallacies: it is known as "post hoc ergo propter hoc." The fact that event B comes after event A does not make them causally linked.

Besides, let's assume the 9/11 conspiracy framework, that is, let's say that the French secret services knew about the attacks but did nothing to stop the Kouachi brothers in order to bolster Hollande's approval rating. It is a stupid idea because they wouldn't lift a finger for Hollande but let's stipulate it for the sake of the argument.

It still leaves you with two Muslims reacting violently to acts that are not deemed offensive in the Koran and using a remedy that is explicitly banned by Allah.

Notwithstanding the secret services conspiracy, what kind of a Muslim does this act make them? And what kind of a Muslim are you to stay silent and to find excuses for their actions?

- You don't understand because you are not one of us. French people hate us so much. When they pass by they look at us funny. They roll their eyes when they see our women in their Islamic garb.

- I get that. I know that you have become "the other."

But do you also see how hard you have been trying to look and act like "the other"?

France is unique among European countries in that, here, racism is cultural. Nobody pays attention to what they call interracial marriages in the US, but you become an instant pariah if you don't do things the French way. "Ça ne se fait pas" [this is not done] is the most often heard phrase in daily life.

Imagine how these people, who freak out when you use the wrong salad fork, feel when they see young men parading around Saint Denis in shalwar kameezes as if they were in downtown Tora Bora. Or women with headscarves.

- What is wrong with that? According to the Koran, women should be completely covered in public. At the very least, they should cover their heads and disguise their bodies.

- That is not true. Hijab, burqa, niqab are not mentioned in the Holy Book. Typically, verses 30-31 of An-Nisa (24) surah is quoted by people who want women to be covered.

But these verses actually talk about beauty that can be revealed in public and beauty that should remain private and the latter does not include face, hair, hands, feet, etc:
Such a striking of feet or walk could only reveal a limited number of parts of the body, e.g. the private parts, buttocks, thighs, breasts, hips, thus any part not revealed by such an action should not be considered part of hidden beauty and therefore part of apparent beauty. Of course, this means such things as face, hair, hands, feet etc would not clearly fall into the category of beauty that is meant to be hidden. 
This understanding would also fit with The Quran's instruction on the body parts that are to be cleansed during daily ablution (hands, arms, face, head and feet), see 5:6, 4:43
In other words, there is no actual religious reason to turn women into black ghosts or even to force them to cover their heads. It is something that came into prominence in the last 40 years and almost everywhere as a result of Salafist push.

Remember these pictures from Afghanistan in the 1960s? Show me a woman with a headscarf.

Or take a look at this clip from 1953 Nasser and Egyptians politicians laughing so hard at the idea of women wearing the veil that they have tears in their eyes. It is in Arabic with French subtitles.



As you can see in that clip, even at the time, the highest priority of conservative Muslims was turning women into black ghosts. They could not do it until the Salafist imams sponsored by the House of Wahhab began pushing for it after 1979.  In fact, as I noted in my last post, they reduced Islam to women covering themselves and to banning alcohol.

They want to prevent you from assimilating into larger society and to continue to exert control over you in your besieged ghettos. They are also creating a very sharp divide between you and the rest of society and forcing you to take a Salafist position. There is no gray area, you are either with them or you are against them. Just like in George W. Bush's crusade.

That is why they insist on shalwar kameez outfits, long beards and headscarves and why they promote the practice of shutting down traffic to have Friday prayers on the streets.

- Why is praying a problem, isn't it our right? What is it to them? They have banned them anyway.

- Tell me honestly, if a priest stopped traffic and held an open air mess in any Muslim country, including a Coptic priest in Egypt where there are 9 million Christians, what would be the reaction of Muslims? Wouldn't they see this as a provocation, as Christians sticking it to them?

Why is it not a provocation when you do it in your adopted country?

If you do, and I agree that it is your right, then why are you surprised when the non-Muslims react negatively?

- These are all excuses, they despise us regardless of what we do. They want to get rid of us.

- They do. But is it solely due to their inner racism? Or does your unwillingness to criticize the radical imams, the extremists among you and your willingness to side with them and segregate yourself from society have something to do with it as well?

Do you remember the 1980's movement behind the slogan "Touche pas à mon pote"? It was supported by a large segment of French society and it was to express their solidarity with immigrants. If they were inherently racist, would they have bothered?

But since then, they changed and you changed. So, don't blame them for everything. You listened to your Salafist imams and retrieved into your community and emphasized visible symbols of being Muslim to signal that you were not interested in being French. And in turn, especially after 9/11 they began to look at you as alien beings.

Everything is dialectical in life.

- So you are blaming us. That is not fair they are the majority they can do what they want to us. They can even deport us even though I lived here most of my adult life and my kids know no other country.

- I am not blaming you. I am simply telling you that it is not helpful to only find fault on the other side. You should also think why they perceive you in a certain way and how their opinions are formed.

- They don't do it either.

- I know and that is my whole point. Unless this mutual intransigence is removed, things will get really nasty. You are right about the deportation business. It is on the agenda. Besides if this government does not do something that will appease the French public opinion (and deporting some people is definitely part of that) the next right wing government will go further.

It is already happening elsewhere as Norway has been deporting record number of Muslims since 2013.

In any event, deportation is just one measure. They could achieve the same result by simply creating a very hostile environment. Look at Germany. Last year 63,000 Turks moved back to Turkey. And they expect similar numbers this year.

- That hostile environment is already there, our kids cannot get jobs. If you have a Muslim name, your application is not taken seriously.

- I understand that. I also know that it is true. In France it is 2.5 times harder for descendants of immigrants to find jobs than anyone else. That is largely because they have recognizable names which allow companies and organizations to remove them from their list.

In that respect, let me make a point. I understand and agree that you have every right to name your kids what you want.  But names matter. There is evidence that suggests that they influence a kid's school performance and even her career opportunities.

Famous musician Frank Zappa named his daughter Moon Unit. And because she was his daughter she became a minor celebrity and the name helped. But if I named my daughter Moon Unit she would very likely end up in a marginal job. Can you imagine, "this is Dr. Moon Unit, the surgeon who will perform your angioplasty"? Or "meet your defense attorney Ms. Moon Unit."

We don't get to select names and then ask the larger society to not attribute any meaning to it. You are free to name them, they are free to react to them. Professor Latanya Sweeney found that Google searches for distinctly black names triggered 25 percent more arrest report ads despite the fact that the person being searched had no criminal record.

I would venture that the Algerian-born French actor Kad Merad would not have become a famous actor if he was named Abdurrahman Rashid al Ansari like your son. In fact, his name at birth was Kaddour and he shortened it to make it sound less ethnic.

What is wrong with that if it is to help your kid overcome some prejudices?

- I named my son Abdurrahman Rashid al Ansari because I don't want him to forget his roots.

- You know what a French person might say to you: if your roots were so important to you why did you uproot your family in the first place?

But let me ask you something, did you teach him Arabic and told him extensively about his country of origin?

- I never had the time. So, he only learned French. Thank God the new imam took him under his wings and taught him Arabic so that he can recite the Koran. He also arranged him to visit Muslim countries.

- In other words, you felt guilty about being an economic refugee and you tried to alleviate this sentiment by branding your son. But you were too busy or too lazy to teach him about his roots. So he grew up in French society, knowing only this culture but feeling like a foreigner who couldn't get a job and who was ostracized at every turn.

When you realized that he did not fit in and was acting up you pushed him towards the Wahhabi imam. And you felt relieved that he was turning him into a good Muslim. Right?

- Yes, he was doing everything I failed to do.

- And got him to visit the holy places in the Middles East and you said nothing.

And your son grew a beard and stopped talking to you. You felt it was OK because he was a good Muslim.

- Yes.

- And he left six months ago to join ISIS and now you are upset. Because you believe it was the fault of French government for not keeping an eye of him.

- You don't understand.

- I think I do.


"Bêtes et Méchants" Thoughts on Charlie Hebdo II: The Muslim Case

When the Charlie Hebdo attack occurred I was in an airplane. Upon landing, I found several messages on my cell phone from well-meaning friends.

You could say that it was my second John Lennon moment.

The friends who called knew that, in my misspent youth, I used to read Charlie Hebdo and its predecessor Hara Kiri magazine religiously. No pun intended.

People like WolinskiCabuReiserDelfeil de TonProfesseur Choron were my anarchist heroes. Even when I completely disagreed with their point of view, I admired their offensive humor and daring stances.

In that sense, that is, as an expression of grief and empathy, I say "Je suis Charlie" without any hesitation.

Je suis Charlie.

But the more I spoke to friends, the more I realized that the moniker Je Suis Charlie was quickly appropriated and turned into a shorthand version of the Clash of Civilizations argument. Indeed, I was struck by the polarizing anger both sides had for the other and the competing narratives full of errors and omissions.

It was a dialogue de sourds designed to present their respective positions as absolute and to ignore the other side's context and arguments. Clearly, no one wanted to hear anything other than a full-fledged corroboration of their stand.

Initially, my intention was to write about the Lone Wolf theories and how terrorists and extreme right wing parties are partnering up to shape the future of Europe.

But, when people I spoke to began urging me to write about "the freedom of expression hypocrisy and European Islamophobia" and the "beheading barbarians who live in our midst to slaughter us" I decided to pull a Charlie Hebdo.

You see, "Journal bête et méchant" [Stupid and vicious magazine] was the slogan of the predecessor of Charlie Hebdo, the Hara Kiri magazine.

I decided that a proper tribute to them would be to write a post that offends everyone.

What follows are the constructed and distilled versions of my many conversations with friends and acquaintances and random individuals.

This is the French people's turn.

Conversations with my French Friends

- What do you think of these attacks?

- I am very upset. I knew something like this was going to happen one day. With these people around, it was a matter of time.

- What people?

- You know, Arabs. Muslims. These people came to our country and now they try to impose their views on us and limit our freedoms. Freedom of expression is the foundation of our republic and it is sacrosanct for us.

- Actually that is not true. Freedom of expression is quite limited in Europe, especially in France. Denying the Holocaust will earn you a lengthy prison sentence. As this blogger notes "to deny the Holocaust is massively stupid but (...) being a moron isn't against the law. Or at least it shouldn't be."

Moreover, in recent years, we witnessed many attempts to limit and criminalize free speech. Here is a bunch of examples. A more recent list can be found here.

Since the Charlie Hebdo attacks over 100 people were arrested for hate speech.

In Toulouse, three guys were fast-tracked to ten months in prison for shouting obscenities to cops. Another one got a one-year prison sentence for making fun of the slain police officer, Ahmed Merabet. While these are reprehensible forms of expression, they should have been protected. They were not.

But even if we stay with the limited example of Charlie Hebdo, the magazine was banned several times by the authorities. In fact, its birth is due to a ban imposed on its predecessor Hara Kiri (for a fairly innocuous joke about De Gaulle's passing).

In the 70s some of its issues were removed from the newsstands, most notably the 8 April 1976 issue which was banned in most of Europe.

- Charlie Hebdo is a satirical magazine, it is free to make fun of everyone. Muslims cannot be an exception.

- Very true. But this principle does not seem to be applicable in every situation. Remember l'Affaire Siné?

In 2009, Charlie Hebdo fired one of its journalists, Maurice Sinet, for making fun of the rumors that Sarkozy's son was going to convert to Judaism to please his future father in law, the owner of the Darty chain. He wrote: "He'll go a long way in life, that little lad."

This quip was deemed anti-Semitic and he was promptly fired by his Editor-in-Chief and he was charged with a hate crime by the State. (He was acquitted and subsequently won a judgement against Charlie Hebdo for unfair dismissal).

His dismissal was encouraged by a large and vocal segment of the French intelligentsia, the very same people who invoked an absolute freedom of expression when the magazine published the infamous Prophet cartoons.

You can see why some people charge your side with hypocrisy.

- You must be supporting Dieudonné's Je suis Charlie Koulibaly FaceBook outburst.

- I don't support anyone or defend any side. I am aware that he is an anti-Semite but I disagree that writing in your FaceBook "Je suis Charlie Koulibaly" should be punishable with a prison sentence. By the way, what you just did is a perfect example of what both sides have been doing. You both present your position as a principled absolute and when shown many contradictions, you accuse people of siding with the enemy.

If you are curious about my position on this matter, I wrote about freedom of expression and religion two and a half years ago. My points still stand. I stated that while I support a much larger definition of freedom of expression than French jurisprudence currently allows, I am also cognizant of the context and power dimension of any speech and how it is perceived by different groups.

Which is another way of saying that the same joke told by a woman might be funny but when told by a man it might become sexist.

My post was about the silly Muhammad movie trailer but I made my point using a Charlie Hebdo cover. Their 8 April 1976 issue had a penis on the cover and the headline was "Notre envoyé special à Rome nous cable: Dieu existe, j'ai enculé le Pape."

The picture on the right is a later reprint.

I argued that while I personally was not offended by the headline and would defend their right to make offensive statements, I could understand why a Catholic, who sees religion as his personal identity and who feels powerless and marginalized in a staunchly secular society (which France was at the time), might take offense.

I suspect you never saw the actual Charlie Hebdo's Muhammad cartoons. Here is a description of some of them.
Muhammad, labelled as such, is shown naked and bending over, begging to be admired. Then the Prophet is crouched on all fours, with genitals bared. “A Star is Born!” the caption reads—a reference to the attention given “Innocence of Muslims,” a trifle of murky and unpleasant provenance, that has been invoked in attacks leading to the death of almost fifty people to date.
You see what I mean?

- These are both very offensive, but as Manuel Walls reiterated the right to blasphemy is absolute. Your example about the Pope supports that.

- Actually, the April 1976 issue was removed from the newsstands in France, Belgium and Portugal. I used to own that issue. And when it was subsequently reprinted, the penis on the cover was no longer there.

So, even the right to blasphemy is not absolute in France.

My point was that while making fun of a group that perceives itself as powerless and ostracized is (and should be) legal and permissible, I do not see it as a worthwhile endeavor. And I understand their outrage even if, as a non-believer, I do not share it.

As Will Self put it "satire is supposed to prick people's consciences and challenge the powerful." If the power structure and societal hierarchy is not there, it becomes problematic.

- These people are not powerless. They occupied entire districts and they behave like they own the country. Women with burqas are everywhere in Europe.

- Do you know how many women were wearing burqas or niqabs in France when the law banning them was passed?

- Tens of thousands, maybe more than one hundred thousand.

- According to the French police, there were 367 women who wore burqas or niqabs in France. 367, out of roughly 2.5 million Muslim women. When the lawmakers did not believe them, they asked the French secret services to do a recount and they obliged and offered a revised number as "up to 2000 women."

There are about 400 burqa/niqab-wearers in Holland and about 100 in Sweden and 150-200 in Denmark. Incidentally, most of them are younger than 40 and a bit more than half of them are Europeans who converted to Islam.

Your anger prevents you from seeing the dynamics behind these religious symbols.

Do you remember the first wave of Algerian immigrants after independence? Anyone with a niqab or an Islamic headscarf among them? They were all happy to be assimilated into the French way of life.

The so-called Islamic garb is a relatively new phenomenon promoted by radical imams and used as a symbol of defiance against the perceived discrimination of Muslims. It cuts them off from the society at large through visible symbols and allow these imams to have greater control over them,

- OK, maybe burqa or niqabs are not as common as I thought. But what about those headscarves?

- Covering women's hair is probably one of the most universal obsessions in human history. For instance, do you remember 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 and how a man does not have to cover his head because he is the image and glory of God whereas a woman should have her head covered because she is only the glory of man?

Or this Wikipedia observation "though head covering was practiced by most Christian women up until the 1960s, it is now a minority practice among contemporary Christians in the West."

It is also mandatory in Orthodox Judaism. In that sense, it has more to do with patriarchy than religion. It is one of those outward symbols that give men control over women's sexuality. Do you think it is a coincidence that the clergy in all religions is overwhelmingly and in most cases exclusively male?

The Muslim headscarf was introduced systematically and purposefully in the last 50 years. For instance, in Turkey "patient zero" was a woman by the name of Sule Yuksel Senler who campaigned in the 1970s for women to cover their heads. This style that you see on the right was created by her and it is now sported by most Turkish Islamist women, including the President's wife.

- If what you say is true and it is the work of radical imams, why don't the Muslims go against them?

- In a perfect world they should. But the current situation is set up to make this extremely unlikely. First, most of the first generation Muslims are economic immigrants who never lived in a civil society. They bow to authority and could not dream of going against a powerful figure as the community imam.

Second, their offspring grew up in Europe without a tangible identity, ostracized by their names and awkward integration into society. At some point (especially after 9/11), with the help of radical imams, they adopted Islam as their primary identity. There was no way they could question the authority of these imams.

Third, after 9/11, the groundwork laid by these imams came to fruition as European and North American societies began to display open animosity towards Muslims. Now, Muslims feel besieged in their communities and they already have a very sharp Us vs Them mentality. Speaking up against the imams or ISIS or Kouachi brothers would be unthinkable as it would be construed as a terrible betrayal.

By the way, most of the imams in France come from a foreign country and more than half of them do not speak French.

But let me ask you this: why hasn't the French government stopped these imams from coming to France and preaching their radical version of Islam? Even if you were unaware of what they were doing, after 9/11, it must have been crystal clear.

Was it complacency or the notion that it was good that they were keeping these people in their banlieue ghettos?

- I don't know the answer to that. Probably both. Or the misguided belief that the state should not get involved in religion.

- The French state gets involved in everything so that cannot be it. North Americans may not understand how much information the French state has on its citizen. If the state knew the exact number (and therefore the identity) or burqa/niqab wearers, it should have known who these imams were and what they were doing.

But it did nothing until 9/11.

After 9/11, they talked about deporting imams who incite violence but it was a half-hearted effort: between 2001 and 2013 only 31 imams were expelled. But even this modest effort was perceived as a crusade against Muslims because it took place after 9/11 and the polarizing perspective promoted by these imams was already well established.

The state is also guilty of not trying harder to solve economic and social problems that turned Paris banlieues into dystopian nightmares. Remember the movie Banlieue 13? It was a science fiction film but in recent years it felt more like a documentary.

The American inner city issues are all part of the daily life in Paris suburbs. Terrible housing, high unemployment, rampant crime and low quality education destroy any chance the second generation might have to escape these miserable conditions.

Did you know that it is two and a half times harder for second generation immigrants to find a job?

And there was sufficient warning about the radical change that was taking place. In 2004, an official report warned that the word Jihad was perceived as something heroic by high school students in these suburbs. But nothing was done about it.

On top of that, the larger society looks upon them as welfare abusers, criminals and unsavory people to be avoided at all cost. Like Americans crossing the street not to be on the same sidewalk with young black males. Unsurprisingly, many of these young people dress like American hip-hop kids and act loud and obnoxious.

In that context, when radical imams turned them around, their families felt relief and gratitude. This is also why you read that many ISIS recruits are formerly petty criminals and drug and alcohol abusers.

- Are you saying that after all the terrible things they have done, we should cater to these bearded barbarians?

- I am not saying anything. It is up to you, But if you do not find a solution, a way to integrate them into your society, you will end up doing terrible things. And that is never good for one's self-image.

Extreme right is on the rise everywhere in Europe, look at Pegida in Germany. In the last European elections the National Front in France was the winner with 25 percent of the vote and got 24 seats out of a total of 74. In Austria Freedom Party has the support of 24-29 percent of the electorate (and 42 percent of those who are under 30). In Sweden, the Sweden Democrats hold 14 percent of the seats in parliament. In the Netherlands PVV still is very powerful force despite a recent decline.

UKIP in the UK is doing very well. In Greece, Golden Dawn won 17 seats despite the fact that most of its leadership was in jail during the campaign.

- So what if we deport some of them?

- Just like post-9/11 animosity was perfect for the radical imams and their message, such a move would strengthen the hands of Islamists in the recipient countries. They will be able to push an even more drastic Clash of Civilization message and will be able to portray Muslims as perennial victims.

Do you think having Turks, Algerians, Tunisians, Moroccans, Egyptians and Libyans see Europe as a threat to Islam and their identity is good for European security?

Also, what about the European identity based on freedom and tolerance and other fundamental principles?

In an Us vs Them context, the Islamists win and you lose.

In case you are not sure, ask the Canadian and American people regarding their decision to block Jewish immigration and to intern Japanese Canadians and Americans during the Second War.

Hasty decisions taken in polarized situation and using dubious information rarely give good results.

But it is your call. I am just a contrarian observer.