Eurabia Myth

I found some interesting stats recently which didn’t surprise me at all.

A recent French poll asked the question "What religion do you feel closest to?"

Sixty-four per cent of French citizens responded "catholic," 27.6% said "atheist," and 3% said Islam. (20 minutes/fr)

Via SuperFrenchie

"Many in America and elsewhere often delight in predicting the future of France as an Islamic country. Even in France, many would like us to believe that Islam is about to overcome our culture and way of life. The Le Pen candidacy is partly based on that fear. Back last summer, the Economist’s cover famously headlined “Eurabia” with the Eiffel Tower in the background. Even today, the MSNBC web page has an extensive presentation of “Islam in Europe,” with a link on its home page and France the subject of many of the articles".

Right before 9/11 I was finishing up at university in France and had to complete a piece of work of around 50 000 words on a topic of my own choice.  I decided to write about Islam in Lorraine. I was at the University there, an industrial region with a large number of immigrants – for example about 40-50% of the students in the university were North African. It seemed like the smart option anyway, suitably liberal sort of topic, I would score some brownie points just for deciding to investigate the issues of l’integration which was high on the topic list at just about every class I attended. 

I was staying in Halls. Most of the students were maghrebins.  They were okay. Mostly groups of guys.  One of them, Karim, who was like the one guy everyone seemed to respect and was vocally atheist.   We would all take lunch in a canteen and he would sit at the top of the table and lecture everyone about the horrors of religion - in particular Islam.  It was mostly directed at me. I think id done something stupid like buy a necklace I thought was nice, which had a hand on it.  It was called the ‘main de Fatima’ (the hand of Fatima) and was supposed to protect you if you wore it.  A lot of the north African girls were wearing one.  Id spent a significant amount of time with a girl called Havidah, who lived on an HLM in Metz.  She convinced me about the necklace.  She was every inch the French chick.  But when we stayed at her appartment her mother was as sharp a contrast as you would find between first and third generation immigrants. A sincere and incredibly fearsome woman with henna tattoos practically burned into her face.  My eyes were perfect for henna make up apparently.  She made me stand in the kitchen and with a typically British inability to be impolite, I allowed her to pull a silver rod through my eyes with dark henna powder on it. It coats the inside of your eye blue and basically achieves the eyes through the burqa look you would expect to find in North Africa.  It would cure me of headaches aswell apparently, not that I had any. Her father was elderly and a sweet enough guy who would mostly listen to us all at dinner..   

The mother was determined to prove to me how incredibly rich and amazing Algerian culture is. She told me with enormous delight how Havidah was married off to a Moroccan man in her late teens and cried her eyes out on her wedding day. Apparently crying is traditional but Havidah didn’t look all that thrilled to bits in her wedding video. She later divorced him on account of him being gay. She persuaded her mother to let her go to university, which they didn’t object to and so off she went. One of the most awkward moments was when her mother pulled out all sorts of memorabilia from a box she had in the living room. Some of it beautiful, other stuff not so beautiful. Berbere jewellery which was gorgeous, amazing finely embroidered dresses and…then quite unexpectedly the bedsheets from her wedding. (Christ on a bike) This was accompanied by another video of a traditional North African wedding. If you have ever seen Borat proposing to Pamela Anderson, that is not too far off the truth. Weekends passed by spent entirely in the kitchen eating bread and couscous. They have to be the most hospitable people I have ever met, totally fascinated by British life, enquiring and charming. It all ended weirdly though. I was so under-whelmed by the whole North African bedsheets thing, the mother seemed more and more anxious. She asked me how she could have the tattoos removed from her face and cried and cried when we left . Try as I might I couldn’t hide my feelings on that whole bride in a bag being passed from one horseman to another thing. Not that Havidah’s wedding was like this but all the same. Still. I wound up feeling incredibly rude. Maybe my face couldn’t hide what I felt at that point. I felt sorry for her. But angry about a culture that treated women like property. Noone tried to convert me to Islam. Obviously. But it was an experience I won’t forget. I wrote it up and then realising I knew nothing about Islam at all set about trying to find out as much as I could. This was quite a tall order. I couldn’t be bothered to read the Koran and never did. None of the students at university practised religion and couldn’t really tell me much other than some obvious basics. When I interviewed them none wanted a) a mosque b) a room or c) any time off from lessons to pray. None of them viewed religion above nationality. None of them had issues with equality - although several were at pains to stress to me they would beat the shit out of anyone who tried to dishonour their sister(s). As in blood relation. The whole honour thing is entirely cultural and very prescient. One weekend I crossed paths with some guy who I’d gone out of my way to avoid and ignore at every opportunity. He was trying to be intimidating so I told him to get lost. Which prompted him to get all ‘tall’ on me, using his physical size to make me aware that was the wrong thing to say. At about the same time someone else was going up the stairs stopped and I heard them run off. A few hours later when I was cooking (using one of the two crap hotplates) Karim appeared in the doorway and asked me if I had had any trouble with one of the other students. I replied ‘no’. He responded that he had heard otherwise and asked me if I had spoken to a fella called Driss. Driss it is worth noting was a berber arab: with blonde hair and blue eyes. Karim went on and on and became very insistent. A few minutes later Driss was on his knees in the kitchen in front of me looking petrified, surrounded by Karim and several others ‘advising’ him to apologise or (“wa’llah” = “I swear to God”) get his throat cut. When I think about the kids in the banlieues now that is what I think of. Not so much religion as a whole cultural gangster thing going on. I interviewed an imam and a catholic priest. The latter spent some time helping me out and told me that Islam was a ‘backward and mysoginist’ religion that ‘had no place’ in France and that largely thanks to French secularism would never gain a major foothold. Which I think is partly true. The imam I interviewed in his house. I wasn’t allowed to go unaccompanied so I went with a couple of the other male students who found the imams requests backwards and hilarious. The most striking thing was the house. It was devoid of furniture. His wife served tea through a partition and we sat cross legged on the carpet. I didn’t gain much of an insight about the issues of Islam in France from that interview really. He wasn’t ranting about a lack of facilities or ‘racism’ when asked. There was no local mosque to speak of and wouldn’t be from what I understood. The only thing I do remember is getting back on a bus afterwards and someone calling Karim and Kader ‘a sale arab’ (dirty arab). That happened a lot. I took away the overall impression that the issues of the Palestinians was paramount. That the students sincerely, almost desperately, wanted to be thought of as French, not Arab and were enormously proud of France. That they didn’t fit in. That their employment prospects were zero even with a university degree and that consequently they would stick together and amble around in groups worrying about ‘territory’ ‘honour’ and ‘respect’. Now that Sarkozy is in power and has promoted some key maghrebines to his Cabinet a lot is riding on it. I think one of the worst things they could possibly do is legitimise Islam by connecting it to the issues and defining those kids as muslims. In fact I think that is one of the biggest mistakes we have made here.

Comments

[Rastaman]

Wow! That's a lot of insight. Thanks for such a revealing view into the French-Muslim social relationship.

All we hear over here on this side of the water, in our major media, is the riots and how many cars were burned by rioting "youth" whom we all know are muslims.

When it comes to womens rights, Islam is truly a retarded doctrine. Many of the people practicing Islam are still members of hunter/gatherer tribes or little removed from that primitive stage of human social evolution, and still practice their primitive rites as part of their religion.

From what you say, a lot of muslims in France are abandoning Islam or at least becoming pretty secular. There's hope.

Rasta

[aDM]

There is hope. But what worries me most at the moment is that by defining them as muslims we almost turn it into them versus us. We give Islam a cool status which appeals to any bunch of kids who want to be menacing. It needs ridicule. Easier said than done. When i see girls here walk around with their niqabs Im sure it is for theatrical reasons more than a huge desire to be 'subservient to God'. That pisses me off and i haven't yet walked by someone like that without saying something on a piss take level. You don't see that so much here in France.

[Iam who Iam]

So, you give examples from your student days, round about the time of 9/11.
Point 1
I'd say things have radicalised substantially since then, not least because of 9/11, and the response it brought about.
The response was global by all parties, and reflected strongly in the umma.
Point2
Students always speak fondly of their student days, about what might have been, how good they could have been.
Ever heard the phrase, "The older I get, the better I was", ?
Are you starting early?

Really, aDM, if you're gonna talk about current topics, don't you think you should update your knowledge?

[aDM]

I wouldn't disagree with your first point so the last part of your comment is a bit crap. You seem a bit uptight about all this though.

I think defining people by their religion is still daft and adds to the problem. I also don't think that in light of 9/11 a huge amount has gone on in France as people had hoped it would.

[Iam who Iam]

Sheesh.
Now I know you must be smoking something extremely distortional.
You think your answer was worth anything? Gawd.
What university was it?

[aDM]

Why are you being such an obnoxious tosser. Any reason to be?