Dilemma of French Muslims

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These are just a few stray thoughts about the ongoing issue with the Charlie Hebdo crisis that have been nagging me over the past few days.

I have a simple question to ask people who are (1) familiar with Islam, and who aren't MINOs, and (2) familiar with the intricacy of French law, which as a civil code system has little resemblance to anything effective in the US or the UK:

How can French Muslims participate -- assimilate -- in a Republican system that is by constitution secular without themselves falling into apostasy, which is unacceptable to them?

Republican France is constructed by law and mores to prevent the free, or even muted expression (I experienced this first hand in Paris -- and I am not in any sense religious) of any religious impulse, as religion itself (as I have read it in French-language blogs) is thought the enemy of reason and consequently the enemy of the state. Mind you, this was because the old Bourbon monarchy in France was bound up within Catholicism -- the King himself was 'most-Christian' and his coronation was a priestly ordination as well. It didn't help matters that Roman Catholicism itself for two centuries afterwards willingly used itself as a cat's paw for all and sundry secular philosophies whose goal was to destroy the state.

The tools/weapons/laws that French secularists have developed to prevent the return of state Catholicism is now deployed against Islam, which no one can mistake for a state religion in France (or Algeria).

It is too much to ask France to modify laicite. But at the same time I refuse to accept simple answers that six million people, give or take, be compelled to abandon their beliefs as a precondition for citizenship. Not even Stalin made such a gross demand on Muslims in Soviet times.

The fact that France doesn't have a Muslim equivalent of a Bernard-Henri Levy, or even a Fareed Zakaria, to argue on every talk show that Islam is (somehow??) compatible with republican values and that French Muslims have no intention of bringing Sharia into the country does not help matters. One can go on why that is the case, but that is for later discussion.

You can dismiss this as concern trolling for my part -- but I am writing this at 4 AM on a Sunday morning, so take that for what you will.

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I really don't see the difference for Muslim between living under a aggressive secular state like France or living in other European states, with their official or semi-official religion. For a Muslim for who the issue means a lot, it's just as bad to live in either states.

That really doesn't follow. All those other countries don't have the same policies or cultures that France does. An officially Protestant country with tepid treatment of public expression of other religions is most certainly not just as bad as an officially secular country with hostile treatment of public expression of almost any religion, especially if it's selectively deployed against religious minorities.

A country with an established church is not necessarily so bad for religious minorities. In Denmark Muslim private schools can get 75% of their expenses covered by the state under the free school legislation (provided they meet a certain standard and teach general subjects). That would be unthinkable in France (or the US for that matter). The fact that one denomination gets supported by the state tends to create pressure for other denominations to be supported as well (although on a much lower level). So it creates discrimination, but not suppression.

I often thought that, at least in Europe, this was the better option as far as assimilating Muslim citizens. State support of mosques would as least entail state officials forming a relationship, if not full state oversight, of their imams and their messages/sermons.

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That may have been the case a generation ago, but the Muslims adopting Islamism as an ideology however one defines it are moving up, or rather past, their original cohorts of felons and reform schoolers.

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Most French Muslims are French citizens, and recent Muslim immigrants to France tend to be from Francophone nations, so this isn't a matter of lack of familiarity with western liberalism or secularism as may be the case with Muslim asylum seekers in Scandinavia or Germany.

The expression of anticlericalism that is tolerated -- state-sanctioned, really -- in France goes much farther than in every other European country. This is significant because France, compared to the US,  in most respects places greater practical limits on freedom of expression than us, especially when related to publishable works:

(in French)

From Charlie to Dieudonne: How far can freedom of expression go?

According to that article, religion itself may be criticized, but the members of a religion cannot be. I honestly don't see how this can be done except by identifying and distorting a composite (less politely, a stereotype) of the most visible members of the religion as religion itself, in a way that is intended to defame them all. This is especially comical since the images used to caricature Islam (...but not Muslims...), such as black-shrouded women and Kalashnikov-wielding men with unwashed beards, are, as you point out, already illegal in France. Yet, mocking the salient personalities behind the growth of militant Islam in France or in north Africa and Arabia, is illegal in France, too.

You end up with the curious situation that the beliefs of 2-6 million people (we only have estimates for the number of Muslims in France) are lampooned but the people responsible for creating their bad image aren't.

Furthermore, Islamophobia, as such, is not a crime under French law:

(in French)

Is Islamophobia punishable by law?

This is logical since, of course, there is no law against blasphemy or apostasy or "giving offense" by airing criticism of religious attitudes in a country with no state religion. But no one is naive enough to accept that airing criticism of Islam does not entail venting prejudice against Muslims in general, since the former is legally protected and the latter isn't. CH may have made pains to distinguish between their hatred (the correct word) for Islam with respect for Muslims themselves, but most commenters on Islam in France aren't so equitable.

I understand how French Muslims, who have been taught the values of the Republic near from infancy, can take exception to this.

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lolno. Wake up dude, we're not in 1905 anymore. Actually, the French State is waaay nicer toward the Catholic Church than it should be, and the discourse of right-wing politicians has increasingly religious undertones (see Sarkozy's Lateran speech in 2007).[/quote]

That only reflects the cozy, and likely corrupt, relationship between traditionalist and right-wing politicians and bureaucrats to the Catholic Church, not towards religion in general. That might be more an expression of growing reactionary sentiment in France, seen amongst Muslims themselves, but I don't see how Muslims necessarily "benefit" from that.

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No, that's not how it works. You have it completely backwards. While it is true that you can construct a stereotype out of the religion (isn't all caricature based on stereotyping anyway?) you cannot use stereotypes to stigmatize all the followers of a religion without risking a trial for hate crime. On the contrary, you absolutely can satirize Islamist leaders or generic Islamists (ie, proponents of a certain political ideology). In fact, probably about two thirds of Charlie Hebdo's supposed "caricatures on Islam" were actually caricatures of radical islamist figures or ideas. You have to get better information if you really wish to formulate some grand theory on French policy.[/quote]

My contention is that the images used to illustrate the absurdities of Islam as religion or a belief system come from the stereotypes and cliches themselves, and using figures clearly meant to depict Muhammad himself as the stand-in for this sort of "Islam" (1.5 billion people) contradicts the statement of yours that I highlighted. This is a satire that paints with a very broad brush.

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Yeah, but what do you want to do? Ban legitimate criticism of religion on the pretext that it might be used as a code-word for racism?
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The popular discourse used to criticize Islam isn't a patient, or even impassioned, refutation of the interpretations of the Koran or hadiths that radical clerics use to foment violence (a poster mentioned that earlier in this thread -- if only that were the case). Instead, it uses "sociological" arguments suggesting that Islamic (mal)education, or anti-westernism, or something like it, hinders Muslim assimilation into society (an argument that I don't accept in the slightest), which then escalates into "Why are you all so foreign?" -- why do you people keep your women in shrouds?, why do your kids leave school so early and just smoke hashish all day?, and then turn to Islam when they stop? .. etc. Discussions about Islam in the abstract degenerate into thinly veiled screeds on why those types are even in the country at all. Crude caricatures and sweeping generalities from people like Levy will not be the spark that leads to fruitful debate.

I read what anvi wrote about the different schools of Islamic thought hold different views of the degree of assimilation into a non-Muslim nation, but

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In both France and north Africa generation ago, Muslim women were seen walking bare-headed through the streets, and only the older women kept themselves mostly covered -- and even then, not to the extent seen in modern Saudi Arabia or the Gulf states. Something has changed between then and now, but I really refuse to accept the argument that Muslims are now adopting a strain of Islam so fundamental and fanatic (even when not outwardly violent) that it makes assimilation into their host nations impossible. That's the argument that every neocon has made since 2000.

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These discussions about Islamic clothing for women can become pretty academic. Too often these discussions assume that women's clothing is in-itself a badge of shame and a consequence of patriarchy. It surely is when religious authorities or the police (or husbands or fathers, but that sadly is not limited to Muslims) force women to wear certain unwieldy styles out of doors, but even in Iran, total body drapes are not compulsory.

Muslim women shop for Islamic clothing just as well as they shop for any other article of clothing. Muslim women can express personality through more concealing wardrobes as well as through western clothing, it being no more an expression of patriarchy than buying clothes from J. C. Penney or Gucci.

However, the most conservative of styles, like niqab and this chador abaya, do merit the scorn that people in this thread have levied against Muslim clothing in general. Not only do they obliterate personality (which was their intention), they are genuine health and safety hazards as well.