Terrorist attacks throughout Europe

This is the entire article run through Google Translate:

Do you pacify an open society by making sure not to offend anyone or by learning to tolerate offense? Beyond the unanimous condemnation of the horrible crime of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine (Yvelines), this question does not receive the same answer from all French people, and certainly not from all democracies.
In the United States, many commentators condemn, implicitly or explicitly, the supposed lack of "cultural sensitivity" of French non-Muslims to the "Muslim community" that the dissemination of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons would reveal, and see in the assassination of the professor. de Conflans indicates an increasingly divided France.

This analysis ignores the diversity of reactions among French people of Muslim faith, but it is in line with the movement that has seized many American universities, where professors are encouraged to avoid any comments, any reading, which could harm at ease some of their students.

For me who live in the United States, the answer is clear: American practice leads to an impasse, where the common space for democratic debate and reason is constantly shrinking. Its ultimate logic is to prohibit a man from talking about the status of women, a white man from the fate of blacks. The "community" becomes a fortress from which it is forbidden to leave, in the name of a communal experience which would be the same for all members of the "community", and would be incommunicable to those who are not members of it.

Society is transformed into a juxtaposition of hate fortresses, and all the public authorities have to do is try to regulate the relations between these fortresses through an increasing judicialization of social relations. This development provokes violent reactions of which the success of Donald Trump in 2016 and the rehabilitation of the politically incorrect are the symptoms. By believing to appease society by segmenting it, we exacerbate resentment and aggression.

The French way, which accepts blasphemy and encourages irreverence, is not, however, easy to implement in a society much more diverse than it was in the time of Jules Ferry (1832-1893). It places an overwhelming responsibility on teachers. It is up to them, as Professor de Conflans did, to make future citizens reflect on the difficult balance between the need for debate, which requires tolerance, and the needs of living together, which requires respect.

In an open society, this balance should not be regulated by law, which must fully protect the freedom of expression of a democratic society, but by the multitude of individual decisions. It is the implicit nature of a society, this civility by which everyone moderates their behavior, tolerating what they deem excessive or offensive, accepting different convictions, daring to assert vigorously, and sometimes insolently, their own, but choosing when and how to do it.

By showing his students the Charlie Hebdo cartoons, Samuel Paty cleverly and courageously opened a necessary debate that an open society should never end. We should all subscribe to the hashtag #jesuisprof. As for #jesuischarlie, there are circumstances where I make it mine, others where I reject it.

It's worth noting that the author is a French diplomat. So yeah, not exactly the best spokesperson for the 'American point of view', which is hardly monolithic to begin with.

This message board ILX is almost exclusively used by Anglo-Americans

the whole piece seems to want to talk about "the open society" as an abstraction with no connection to ongoing histories of oppression and institutional prejudice. "taking offence" feels inadequate to describe people's reactions to the experience of being addressed and policed as somehow lesser citizens because of their race, gender, beliefs, sexuality, culture

The author, Jean-Marie Guéhenno, lives in New York, as a former United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations.

i wonder if a teacher stripping naked and dancing the conga around a classroom would also be a clever and courageous way of debating freedom of expression

gyac, yes, I am an American citizen. Aren't you a resident of the UK? If you'd prefer, I will say, native English speakers.

Maybe this is my memory getting fuzzy, but I feel like this position (the author's opinion) was more acceptable in progressive circles in America in the 70s-90s, and has only really shifted in the past 20 years.

The author, Jean-Marie Guéhenno, lives in New York, as a former United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations.

Certainly a position where I would expect someone to really study and understand the complexity of intersectionality on American campuses

the whole piece seems to want to talk about "the open society" as an abstraction

Well, when the final conclusion is about which hashtags we should endorse...

It’s cool how freedom of expression is bold and courageous when you’re using it as your intellectual shield to discriminate as you normally do.

gyac, so to be clear: you think Samuel Paty was discriminating against his students?

gyac, yes, I am an American citizen. Aren't you a resident of the UK? If you'd prefer, I will say, native English speakers.

xp to my previous post: I'm not saying this in a "millennials are snowflakes" way -- just that it seems to me, as a LOL American, that the French way has remained the same, whereas America has changed.

gyac, so to be clear: you think Samuel Paty was discriminating against his students?

I don't know why you think I was saying that Islam is "taking over". I am talking about the murder of Samuel Paty and what can be done to prevent further murders of French teachers of histoire/géo giving their units on civics.

Also, to me, "terrorism" seems an awkward term to be used to describe this murder ... or is that term just being used to mean "criminal act motivated by Islam" ... a variant of "hate crime"?

??? Isn't the answer some form of "Give immigrants the resources and the space to live well in their new country without discrimination, and probably their 18-year-old children won't suicide by cop because they'll have good lives and good future opportunities to look forward to"? I meannn

just that it seems to me, as a LOL American, that the French way has remained the same, whereas America has changed.

tbh here the French ppl I know through my wife, much like the portuguese ppl in my group of friends, are much closer to the "American" way in this regard than the "French" way, tho obv there's other factors of class, education, etc. in there and I wouldn't want to claim either group representative. You could also paternalistically argue that they've "become" that way due to US influence, but good luck growing up in Europe w/o getting a fair helping of that whether you want to or not.

what can be done to prevent further murders of French teachers of histoire/géo giving their units on civics.

This framing just makes no sense.

i feel like a lot of the groundwork for allowing us to question the sweet, egalitarian idealism of enlightenment values was done by French philosophers tbf

I’m referring to your earlier posts which are still up there and which you haven’t clarified - if I’m wrong in what I (and others) are seeing, then feel free to correct me.

I mean, I’m no expert here, but I feel that the current approach of crackdown after crackdown after crackdown and increasing institutional discrimination isn’t really doing anything other than giving certain elements that they want, and by France implicitly telling a portion of society they won’t truly belong unless they fit in in a way that is difficult or problematic for them, the nation is voluntarily abdicating the role of the larger community and leaving lots and lots of space for those lonely and alienated people to be recruited by those who do not have their interests or France’s at heart. But as I said, I’m no expert.

_what can be done to prevent further murders of French teachers of histoire/géo giving their units on civics._

This framing just makes no sense.

I had read Euler's post as summarizing the views of the government and officials and "popular opinion" -- which I agree with you, gyac, are problematic

gyac, I will respond to your post about "discrimination forcing Muslims in Europe to “pick a side”?"

(though I don't agree that the ban on religious symbols in public offices is discrimination against Muslims in particular, though I recognize that based on what has been posted, I stand alone here)

How is something like this not pushing French Muslims to do the same, to pick a side? You say they're not allowed in public schools or buildings if they wear a headscarf, how is that not forcing people who would like to belong into a conflict they didn't choose to be in? And for that matter, a French Muslim woman wearing a headscarf in public, wearing the veil in public, is not being submissive, she's being defiant - of the state's ability to tell her what she can and can't wear. If a religious woman wants to cover her hair but the state forbids it, how is that not taking her liberty from her?

I think the ban on religious symbols in public offices is heavy handed and useless. I don't support burkini bans, or bans on the niqab. I think in this regard we are in agreement.

But if a religious person wants blasphemy against their religion to be forbidden, I think they are wrong.

Yes, sarahell is right, I was just trying to summarize what I take to be the "mainstream" French view on what's happened. My own views are obviously more aligned with those views than anyone else's here are, because I believe that protecting public life from religious imperatives---what the French call "obscurantisme", is important.

??? Isn't the answer some form of "Give immigrants the resources and the space to live well in their new country without discrimination, and probably their 18-year-old children won't suicide by cop because they'll have good lives and good future opportunities to look forward to"? I meannn

― Ima Gardener (in orbit), Monday, October 19, 2020 6:10 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

in order, do you know the details of what happened here? The 18 year old had just been given a car by his father so that he could join his father in doing security work. He had a reasonable blue-collar future ahead of him. Instead, he drove more than 100km to murder a middle school teacher he'd learned about on social media.

I don't want to read you as saying that discrimination generally licenses murder of school teachers.

Pointing out that discrimination against a group powers extremism isn't the same as saying it justifies extremism.

It's pretty common for well off members from marginalized groups to still identify with that group identity enough for that marginalization to power their extremism.

I've probably just been watching too much "Criminal Minds" but I feel like there needs to be room in this discussion for the possibility of this kid just being a fucked up kid, and it not being "terrorism" or a threat against the French way of life.

I mean he could be, but there is an ecosphere of extremism that allowed him to get where he was, and similar incidents in recent memory in various European countries.

I guess it goes back to issues of agency and self-determination (related but not the same as what gyac brought up re Muslim women), that Muslims are more circumscribed by their religion/racial identity than white people from Christian cultures.

If the fucked up kid framed it as a political act, it becomes a political act whether or not the kid is politically clueless and only wanted to give some justification to cover his wanting to kill someone.

The "kid" had been frequenting a boxing club in Toulouse that has been investigated for some time as a radical Islamic base: strict separation of sexes, halal food required, etc. Why was a fucked-up kid from Normandy in Toulouse so much? That's 700km from home.

fair enough, I walk it back

I mean he could be, but there is an ecosphere of extremism that allowed him to get where he was, and similar incidents in recent memory in various European countries.

it also is kinda similar to something bamcquern brought up a number of years ago, about how cultural expectations (both within a marginalized group and from the dominant culture) lead to (I'm paraphrasing here) self-fulling prophecies. In bamcquern's example (about public education in America), it was about the expectation that black boys were just going to grow up to be thugs, and how some public schools operate with that assumption and how that encourages the boys to behave that way.

Yes, sorry, just coming back--Euler, I acknowledge I didn't know any of that about the attacker. I googled the news story but I didn't see any English lang articles with that detail. But I think gyac and sarahell have said it better than I could itt.

thanks i.o. -- gyac did the heavy lifting here

I'd still like to hear gyac's reply on whether they think Samuel Paty was discriminating against his students, not because I think that position is absurd, but because it would help me understand the threads of this thread better.

Could not Paty have taught the exact same lesson without physically confronting his Muslim students with the cartoons? What would have been be lost by that approach?

First of all, why? Was he "asking for it" by exercising his right, the exact right he was trying to teach in his civics course?

Second of all, he warned his students about what he was going to show. They were able to not look or even leave the classroom. The student who is at the root of this situation reacted angrily nevertheless and told her father, who posted the first video that went viral.

Not gonna speak for gyac of course but I think that when ppl talk about racialization/marginalization of a group this involves entire societal structures and not reducible to the actions of any one individual. I don't entirely know what I think of this teacher's concrete actions (he might have been doing "the right thing" AND feeding into that oppresion at the same time, even!), but to evaluate that seems pretty facile when he was slaughtered in a horrible manner and whatever disagreements I may have had with his actions obv I don't think (and don't think anyone itt thinks) that was right or just or ok.

Sort of a tangent on this thread as well and perhaps a bit navel-gazing but on the question of the "American" and "French" attitudes towards integration in general it strikes me that one thing that doesn't tend to get brought up is how communities, and specifically activist groups within them, feel on this topic. A lot of what I often see derided as "Americanized thinking" is really just down to listening to and engaging with what those groups say, and have been saying for ages (certainly predating the wokening of the US).

Yes that’s a fair summary of what I mean, Daniel, the structural element is important.

I'd still like to hear gyac's reply on whether they think Samuel Paty was discriminating against his students, not because I think that position is absurd, but because it would help me understand the threads of this thread better.

Wristy Hurlington (ShariVari)
Posted: 8 January 2015 at 12:31:21
There's a strong possibility that many of their cartoons would have fallen foul of British laws about inciting racial and religious hatred. Many would have been equally as at home in a Neo-Nazi publication as they were in a libertarian satirical magazine. It's clearly possible to separate the belief that they have a right to publish from a belief that other organisations should republish as a point of principle, though.

xp In the unlikely event Euler's question is serious, no, I don't think Paty was "asking for" his murder and beheading. Rational people understand that crime to be barbaric and grotesquely disproportionate to Paty's actions in the classroom.

That said, imagining there been no murder or other reprisal, would Paty's actions be defensible as good teaching? To me, they look more like a vicarious exercise of state authority over a captive audience than a thoughtful effort to teach concepts of free speech to a multi-cultural group.

Paty was in a position of power with respect to his younger, minority students. He chose to use that power to show them images he knew would be offensive, as his caveats and precautions illustrate. What was it about the content of his lesson that required him to dramatically present the images? Even in the USA, we've all heard of the Hebdo cartoons, so I assume everyone in that classroom knew what was being discussed. Being told they could hide their eyes or leave the room (in other words, disclose their personal religious views to everyone else there) seems manipulative and theatrical. What was gained for greater understanding of free speech by creating that situation?

This is an interesting discussion to me as a person of no religious faith living in the American South, where I encounter hateful, coercive Christianity in various forms every day and see constant efforts to erode the separation of church and state, especially in local school systems. In principle and in practice, greater separation of church and state would be very welcome to me. But I can't reconcile French state policy in this area with my ideas about liberty, equality, or fraternity.

I was being serious, inasmuch as the view that bringing up the consequences of an act as a reason not to do that act is rightly criticized in other cases.

My kids have all been through the course of civics in middle school that Samuel Paty was giving. No, not with him at his school, but the rough structure of this course is shared by all instructors. We just talked about it at dinner, and my kids say the entire point of this course is to understand laïcité and its role in combatting religious extremism. Paty was just doing his job. I gather many here think that he should not have done his job, because this course and possibly the concept of laïcité itself is at odds with a multicultural society. I appreciate gyac's responses on this point, which acknowledges that there is a role for laïcité. But how to thread the needle here? Is banning blasphemy the right way to go? Why give religion that much power? The French take is that religious communities, and sub-communities of all kinds, undermine equality. Surely there's something right there: community networks that exclude other groups convey advantages to its members. But some groups just want to separate: in the case of religious groups, they feel that they're called to separate. How is that compatible with a civil society based on values other than capitalism (which I think undergirds the approach to civic society of the English speaking world)?

*They were able to not look or even leave the classroom.*

Was anyone in the situation expecting that the Muslim students would be cool with the rest of the class seeing it, even if they chose not to? I wouldn't have thought that it's solely the Muslim students *seeing* the cartoon that was the problem, they are probably well aware what it depicts.

O I think Calz probably covered that upthread

imagining there been no murder or other reprisal, would Paty's actions be defensible as good teaching?

Somehow it seems like focussing minor criticisms on the teaching methods on a teacher who was executed verges into victim-blaming territory. Beheading Paty was a barbaric, indefensible, criminal, and inexcusable act. Immediately shifting one's thoughts to finding reasonable objections to what he did in the classroom implies that those objections were wholly justified, but simply expressed disproportionately.

If you want to search for some rational grounds upon which to explain this act, then look to systemic injustice against immigrants. Parsing the finer points of Paty's teaching tells us nothing useful about the problem or its remedies.

"The French take is that religious communities, and sub-communities of all kinds, undermine equality"

This seems (imo, and outside France) to be a very white-privileged perspective though ie from the pov of white non-muslims who have the privilege not to need to form sub-communities (for protection, for support, to stay alive)? Like saying "all lives matter", you come at equality from a very different direction dependending whether you have power or are under siege.