The Stupid Solidarity

Amer Mohsen - al-Akhbar newspaper

After a crime and a tragedy like the one that took place in Paris earlier this week, the mantra "solidarity with France' resounds in every speech, as if the country has been under a foreign attack, especially by Arabs and Muslims who see that the attack entails a stance from them, perhaps a sense of apology, and a statement in support for the freedom of press and opinion, confirming that they are not with the "bad Muslims."

Even more, the "solidarity with France" mantra, and presenting the attack as if it was strange to the country, is an old conduct in turning the internal crises into external ones, and in avoiding the key idea, according to which what happened in Paris was about France attacking France.

Assailants were probably born in Paris, like of most of Europe's Salafis. They can only be regarded as the net product of the French society, not the Moroccan, nor the Tunisian one for instance, which they did not get familiar to, unless we got along the theory as per which Islam is per se strange to Europe, albeit it has become the religion of millions of Europe's sons and inhabitants.

Paris attack brings to mind two dynamics that has togethehttp://admin.english.alahednews.com.lb/sitemod/essayadd.phpr ruled France's relation with its Muslims for the past years. It is from here that the answer to the Salafi question which massacred Charlie Hebdo on Tuesday morning begins. First, the discrimination of the French society and state against immigrants and their sons precluded Muslims from easy social integration, until the concepts of "French" and "Muslim" have become contradictory.

At the same time the French state has allowed, since the 70's, for the Saudi money to circulate freely in the field of Daawa and Tabligh, whereby the Wahhabi Salafism was just about to hold sway of the Islamic centers, mosques, and religious schools inside the country.

Therefore, the French rejected by his society found himself in search of his Islamic identity and eventually a Salafi.
France's ties with Saudi Arabia, starting with arms deal and the kickbacks received by the French officials from the Gulf throughout years, allowed to hand over the European Islam to Saudis without any objection being made. As a result, entire streets of Europe's cities have converted to Salafism.

In order not to promote for the white victims at the expense of others, we must remember that we live in a world where atrocious and unfair things happen every day; some things are even worse than Paris attack.
Instead of dashing to apologies, we must explain to the French, clearly, that this "their" Islam and no "ours," and that what happened in Paris was the start of the aftermath of what they have sowed.

It is up to them to choose between searching for the flaw in their policies and racism, or to do otherwise, to keep thinking that the problem is in Islam and Muslims, who must have come to them from another planet.