Philippe Wojazer/Reuters

One panelist, journalist Sonia Mabrouk, argued that Muslims in France are constantly used by opportunists, from politicians to intellectuals, as a constituency to serve their own purposes.

The incident recalled the final televised debate of France’s 2012 presidential election, when then-candidate François Hollande sparred with incumbent President Nicolas Sarkozy over the “Muslim vote”.

Hollande was in favour of extending the right to vote in local elections to non-EU citizens living in France, while Sarkozy argued against it. The president claimed that such a move would lead to “identity-based voting practices” and “divisive sectarian demands”.

Women, it’s worth remembering, were once suspected of voting with their sex.

As the French go to the polls on April 23 and May 7 to elect their new president, the question reemerges: is it reasonable to assume that Muslims’ voting behaviour is based on their religion and on the Quran?
 

The impact of religion on votes

Some 93% of French Muslims cast their ballots for François Hollande in the second round of the 2012 presidential election, according to a poll by OpinionWay. That’s 41% above than the national average, since Hollande was ultimately elected with 52% of votes.

Several attempts have been made to explain why French Muslims voted almost unanimously for the left.

In their 2012 book Français comme les autres? (As French as everyone else?), political scientists Sylvain Brouard and Vincent Tiberj concluded that the impact of religion on the voting practices of believers should not be overestimated.

Catholics in France and in the United States, for example, vote in ways diametrically opposed to each other. In France, people who identify as Catholic are today markedly in favour of the conservative Républicains, particularly since the legalisation of same-sex marriage in 2013.

In the US, on the other hand, they tend to vote for the Democrats, a more socially progressive party.

How can this difference be explained? According to Brouard and Tiberj, Catholics in the US vote Democratic for precisely the same reasons that Muslims in France went for Hollande’s Socialist Party: they cast their ballots for candidates who support minority rights.
 

Both groups are often found among racial and religious minorities – American citizens of Latin American origin and people of Maghrebian or African background in France – who have faced economic and social marginalisation in their respective countries.

In France, on the other hand, Catholicism is the main religious faith. Hence the difference in voting orientations (though a bastion of left-wing Catholic voters has also historically existed in France).

In other words, religion is not the be-all, end-all of a believer’s political choices.
 

Identifying as Muslims

Though the impact of faith must be taken with a grain of salt, it is not entirely irrelevant in the context of elections. Qualitative research I conducted in 2012 and 2013 found that the vote of French Muslim citizens I interviewed was indeed influenced by their religious identity.

Being a Muslim did not predetermine their answer to the question, Who should I vote for? But it did lead people to ask, Who shouldn’t I vote for? The impact was negative, helping them eliminate candidates deemed Islamophobic, rather than positive ([I] choose a candidate who defends my values, including religious values).

French Muslims took into account laws banning the headscarf or niqab, a veil that covers the face, as well as public comments against Islam, for instance, when weighing different candidates and their platforms. Candidates’ positions on foreign policy were also considered, with military interventions in Muslim-majority countries particularly frowned upon.

This is similar to how French citizens who identify as Jewish tend to be especially sensitive to antisemitism and to the position of candidates regarding Israel.

According to my study, being a Muslim can have three different effects on a person’s vote: it can consolidate a choice previously made, based on factors unrelated to religion; it can help select among a few candidates on the basis of the Islamophobia criterion; and when a candidate’s attitude towards Muslims is negatively perceived, it can destabilise and change a person’s political orientation.

Take, for example, Youssouf, a self-made man who in 2007 voted for Nicolas Sarkozy, the Republican party candidate. But in 2012, after what he called “the unashamed Islamophobic discourses and public policies targeting Islam made by him and his governement”, Youssouf decided to vote for the left-wing François Hollande. Even though Youssouf didn’t at all like Hollande’s stance on economic and social issues.

Because of their lower socioeconomic status and the marginalisation they face, many French Muslims, especially those living in France’s banlieues (suburbs), might simply choose not to vote.

Some of them justify their abstention with religious explanations, claiming that “voting is not halal”, since France is not a Muslim country.
 

Calls for abstention in 2017

Generally, this position is only held by a minority of highly orthodox Tabligh or Salafist Muslims. But today, several public Muslim intellectuals, including leaders who are not necessarily from those sects are calling for an “active abstention” by Muslims of the 2017 presidential election. The intent is to escape the constant trap of voting for the “lesser of two evils”.

Nizarr Bourchada, leader of the Français et Musulmans (French and Muslim) party, advocates a similar approach. His is one of the first French political parties to claim a strong attachment to both Islamic and French Republican values.

This echoes French author Michel Houellebecq’s prescient 2015 novel Soumission (Submission). Set in 2022, the book imagines the rise to power in France of a Muslim political party that imposes polygamy and prohibits women from wearing clothes that make them “desirable”.
 

Within a few weeks of publication, Soumission had become a bestseller in France, Italy and Germany. It bolsters the idea that a collective vote of French Muslims, or at least their federation into a political party, would be a threat for French society.

The reality is quite different. But whatever the outcome of this election season, it seems that the fantasy of a “Muslim vote” will continue to haunt Europe’s imagination for years to come.
 

Fatima Khemilat, PhD Student, Sciences Po Aix

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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फ्रांस में बैन के बाद पूरे शरीर को ढकने वाले स्विमसूट बुर्किनी की बिक्री बढ़ गई है। खास कर गैर मुस्लिम महिलाओं के बीच इसकी बिक्री ज्यादा बढ़ी है। यह किसी और का नहीं बल्कि इसे डिजाइन करने वाली ऑस्ट्रेलियन डिजाइनर का दावा है।

फुल बॉडी स्विम सूट बुर्किनी का ईजाद सिडनी में रहने वाली आहेदा जेनेटी ने किया था। इस डिजाइनर का दावा है कि पिछले आठ साल में 7 लाख बुर्किनी बिक चुकी हैं।

सिडनी मॉर्निंग हेराल्ड को दिए अपने इंटरव्यू में जेनेटी कहती हैं कि बुर्किनी पहनना पसंद का मामला है। बुर्किनी आजादी, सुविधा और आत्मविश्वास से जुड़ी है। इसका परेशानी, प्रताड़ना या आतंकवाद से कोई लेनादेना नहीं है।

फ्रांस सरकार ने बुर्किनी पहनने पर पाबंदी लगा दी है। हालांकि सरकार के इस बेहद विवादित कदम पर सर्वोच्च अदालत ने स्टे लगा दिया है। लेकिन जेनेटी का कहना है कि उनके खरीदारों में हर विचारधारा के लोग शामिल हैं और सबने एकमत से फ्रांस सरकार के इस इकतरफा फैसले का विरोध किया है। वह कहती हैं- मुझे एक गैर मुस्लिम ग्राहक ने वारविक, क्वीन्सलैंड से मैसेज किया – यह एक स्विम सूट ही तो है। इस पर इतना बवाल क्यों। एक और महिला ने अमेरिका से मैसेज किया- मैं स्किन कैंसर से उबरी हूं और आम स्विमसूट पहन कर धूप में नहीं जा सकती हूं।

जेनटी कहती हैं गैर मुस्लिम महिलाएं अक्सर उन्हें ई-मेल कर यह पूछती हैं कि क्या उनके बुर्किनी पहनने पर मुस्लिम धर्मगुरु आपत्ति करेंगे।

फ्रांस सरकार की ओर से बुर्किनी को बैन करने का कुछ अलग ही असर हुआ । इस बैन के बाद बुर्किनी की बिक्री इतनी बढ़ी कि जेनेटी को अपने ब्रांड अहीदा की सप्लाई में मुश्किल आऩे लगी। लोगों तक समय पर डिलीवरी के लिए उन्हें अपनी कुरियर कंपनियों को बदलना पड़ा।

जेनेटी कहती हैं कि जब-जब किसी ने बुर्किनी के खिलाफ कुछ कहा तब-तब तक उनके पास इसकी पूछ-परख से संबंधित आने वाली कॉल्स की तादाद बढ़ गई।

जेनेटी का मानना है कि बुर्किनी की वजह से अब कई सारी महिलाएं खेलों में हिस्सा ले रही हैं और समुद्र तटों पर जा रही हैं। बदन दिखाने की शर्म, स्वास्थ्य और धार्मिक कारणों से इस तरह की महिलाएं पहले इन गतिविधियों से महरूम थीं।

जेनेटी ने मुस्लिम महिलाओं और बुर्किनी की संबंधों पर कहा कि यह महिलाओं के सशक्तिकरण और चुनने की आजादी की प्रतीक है। वह कहती हैं लोग जितना सोचते हैं, मुस्लिम महिलाएं उनसे ज्यादा मजबूत हैं। मुस्लिम महिलाएं सादा जीवनशैली में विश्वास करती हैं।

वर्ष 2007 में अहीदा को समुद्र में सर्फिंग करने वाले लोगों की जिंदगी बचाने वाले लाइफ सेवर्स के लिए बुर्किनी डिजाइन करने का ऑर्डर मिला था। जेनेटी इसे समावेश और सामंजस्य बढ़ाने वाला कदम मानती हैं।

गैर मुस्लिम महिलाओं के बीच बुर्किनी की बढ़ी बिक्री से यह साबित होता है कि महिलाएं स्वभाव से ही पहनावे के मामले में सादगी पसंद होती हैं। आश्चर्य नहीं कि इस्लाम यूरोप में सबसे तेजी से बढ़ने वाला धर्म बनता जा रहा है। इस्लाम अपनाने वालों में ज्यादातर महिलाएं हैं।

साभार  – द सियासत डेली

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Encounters at an open day at a Paris mosque. Charles Platiau/Reuters

The big question, however is this: Why are we seeing a rash of these attacks in Europe and especially in France, and are such measures effective in countering them?

What have we learned from the horrors of the Charlie Hebdo shooting, the murder of 130 people in and around Paris last November, the Bastille Day truck attack in Nice and the killing of an 85-year-old priest inside of a church in Normandy?

Examining the reactions of French authorities, we can conclude there are only limited actions that can be taken to prevent such atrocities.

Security can been heightened by extending the state of emergency that it declared last November. Intelligence efforts can be redoubled. Such efforts are raising concern about civil liberties being curtailed. But the Nice attack is also a dire warning that these measures aren’t effective as a means of protecting citizens from continued attacks.

Police guard the church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray where Father Jacques Hamel was killed. Pascal Rossignol/Reuters

The point is that none of the above policies could have prevented Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel and Abdelmalik Petitjean from carrying out their violent actions. Thousands if not millions of people living in Europe have similar profiles. Tunisian or Algerian descent and French citizenship are not enough to tip off authorities that a person could run over 84 people with a truck or slit the throat of a priest.

So how can we hope to prevent future attacks? We need to change our focus, in my opinion, to examining these perpetrators' “sense of belonging” rather than looking for reasons to detain or expel them because they don’t belong.

A Canadian case study

A number of years ago, while working at the National Institute for Scientific Research in Montréal, I was invited to join a research team studying the integration of refugees and immigrants into Québec society.

This led me to work on research projects that looked at a broad range of questions – from why people claim refugee status to how immigrants use storytelling to talk about their displacement and assimilation into Canada.

A scene from a play by Lebanese Canadian writer Wajdi Moawad. Nicolas M. Perrault, CC BY

My first project was focused upon immigrant literary works – especially novels and short stories – that were a largely untapped source of information to help officials understand the complex process of integrating into Quebec society, and in particular, as a way to understand relationships between immigrants and individuals from the host country.

There’s a pretty large body of so-called immigrant literature in Québec. Interestingly, many of these narratives include graphic and sometimes even pornographic descriptions of encounters between native-born and immigrant protagonists.
A broad reading of these stories made me realize that developing relationships with friends and lovers contributed to the migrant’s “sense of belonging.” They helped him or her to forget their country of origin and forge a new beginning in the host society.

In fact, I came to believe that these immigrants' ability to adapt had something to do with the very process of exchange. Or, put another way, the many acts of giving and receiving that they committed each day helped them to feel connected to society.

Measuring belonging

In order to evaluate this process of adaptation, I turned to work by French biblical scholars called the Groupe d'Entrevernes, which focuses upon how narratives “make sense”: that is, how a story creates meaning in the context of the text, but also in regards to the world to which it refers.

This approach focuses on looking for meaning by analyzing particular actions, notably “who does what to whom where.” So in the case of immigrant literature, a group of us looked in minute detail at the complex interactions between characters, with special focus upon how relationships begin and end, and what is gained in the process. We also assessed characters' attitudes prior to and after each interaction, with an eye to understanding the effect of the exchange.

Our goal was to assess which specific actions help foster a sense of belonging, in a new country and which alienate the character from his or her society.

The signing of a lease, the acquisition of immigrant status (whether a work visa or a green card) or being hired for a job all foster a sense of belonging. Being kicked out of an apartment, divorced or deported are all examples of loss of belonging.

Implications for policymakers

The advantage of research like this for a case like Nice is that it forces the investigator to examine all of the concrete details of the perpetrators' lives leading up to the horrific event, rather than just focusing upon the act of violence.
It’s not sufficient to know that Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel had a violent relationship with his wife, or that Abdelmalik Petitjean visited Turkey just prior to entering a church in Normandy.

What’s more important is to understand what they wanted for themselves in the longer term. As difficult as it now seems in light of their murderous actions, we would gain a lot by undertaking meticulous investigations into these individuals’ sense that they didn’t belong in France, and that they had to destroy what it represents.

By creating concrete conditions for different communities to feel they belong, policymakers can help their diverse populations feel connected to, and thus protective of, their societies.

Many of the analyses of recent terrorist events have focused upon the “lone-wolf” quality of the perpetrators. These lone wolves are difficult to predict, because they are acting independently, and without any contact with extremist organizations or individuals.

The work of policymakers, then, is to figure out how to prevent these individuals from acting impulsively, on the basis of some unpredictable trigger. My sense is that the only way to do this is to build a sense of belonging that will prevent them from feeling destructive. If they feel alienated from their society and feel they don’t belong there, then they can also feel that other people deserve to suffer or die.

Following the logic of this approach, we can try to figure out which actions serve to reinforce belonging and which hinder it and then develop policies that build on the positive rather than the purely negative.

Our research in Quebec indicated that most of these actions are quite simple and achievable. They range from providing federal funds for ethnic celebrations and translations for pamphlets about available social services to encouraging local tolerance for so-called “foreign” customs such as the wearing of burkinis (something that has not happened in France) or Sikh turbans. In the Quebec example, our reading of the literature also indicated that undue bureaucratic wrangling that hinders the process of procuring basic necessities, like a driver’s license, or that made access to social services such as health care or daycare difficult, can become sources of frustration and alienation.

At the same time, it is crucial to explain which of these customs can lead to severe punishment in the host country. Such actions as Latin Americans shooting off guns during parties or immigrants from Africa and the Middle East sending children abroad for female genital mutilation can become grounds for serous punishments.

Most importantly, our research suggested that successful integration generally occurs through individual incentive and personal relationships, fostered, whenever possible, by the community or the government. The 1988 Canadian Multiculturalism Act formalized a policy to encourage multicultural diversity and develop a sense of tolerance through recognition and understanding. One result of our own research was to help contribute to a higher profile for the Ministry of Immigration and Cultural Communities and to support their championing of diversity and inclusion.

A minute of silence July 18 in Nice. Eric Gaillard/Reuters

I may have traveled to Nice this summer with my family in order to celebrate Bastille Day, because it’s a beautiful setting, a city where we dream of the passion, luxury and the sultry pleasures of the French Riviera. Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel may have decided to target those same celebrations for exactly the same reasons, because while we might feel like sharing in that sense of belonging, he most certainly didn’t.

Robert F. Barsky is Professor of English and French Literatures, and Professor of Law , Vanderbilt University

This article was first published on The Conversation

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