[by Jean-Baptiste Chikhi-Budjeia [1] .]
While the start of the sports season brings its share of controversies and highlights, in the media, the major upcoming international events – the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, the Olympic Games in Paris – it should also remind us that the vast majority of sports participation is amateur and recreational [2] . However, it is not immune. Indeed, the non-profit sector in general, and the community education sector in particular, has long been bearing the brunt of attacks from fundamentalist Muslim networks. Sport seems to be a more specific target, particularly team sports, combat sports, and "martial arts" – which, according to a 2020 report by the National Institute for Youth and Popular Education (INJEP), were practiced by only 11% and 4% of registered members of a sports organization, respectively [3] . For a long time now, we can and should ask ourselves: is sport a preferred space for fundamentalist movements, and if so, why? What types of proselytizing demonstrations do we observe? But ultimately, the essential question remains: is sport a vehicle for emancipation or alienation?
Sport, a preferred environment for fundamentalist Islamic movements?
Let us agree that the practice of physical and sporting activities (PSA) is popular – in the quantitative sense. The popular dimension in the sociological sense of the term is more pronounced in some disciplines than in others. The Ministry of Sports is perfectly aware of this dual reality – widespread participation and a social dimension – so much so that it is renewing the “Pass’Sport” scheme this year [4] .
A lot of money circulates in sport [5] , including amateur sport – which does not mean that all clubs are rich. Membership fees often represent the primary source of income for sports associations [6] . Public policies, admittedly less and less generous, support the French sporting movement, notably through subsidies. It is therefore easy to understand that, relatively speaking, the sporting movement, even at the amateur and recreational level, can represent a financial windfall, but above all, these numerous events, at the neighborhood, city, or federal level – at the departmental committee, league, or even interclub tournament levels – offer significant visibility. Furthermore, sport is a means of mass education that primarily attracts a young audience [7] , which can be impressionable and fall victim to sectarianism, in the all-too-frequent cases where the demands of the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist networks are allowed onto the football field or into the dojo.
Proselytizing demonstrations
While we have observed that it seems easy, in some media outlets, to label freethinkers and, more broadly, universalist republicans with clichés such as "racist" and "Islamophobic," using the exact vocabulary of fundamentalist Islamic movements, we also note—and this is now a well-established expression—that they find it very difficult to describe these fundamentalist practices with the appropriate words: extremist, retrograde, or even fanatical. But let's move on…
The pressure exerted by the hijab-wearing women has revealed to the general public the extreme tensions that can exist within the federations [8] , as well as reminding us that for fundamentalist Muslims – supported in their demands by certain media outlets and many elected officials – a woman presumed to be Muslim, or who claims to be so, has every right to play sports, provided she does so with her ball and chain, pardon, "her covering." We will not dwell here on the usual sophisms that feign ignorance of both a reprehensible activism and proselytism, even if supposedly chosen, and of the mechanisms of voluntary servitude so brilliantly highlighted by Étienne de La Boétie. It seems more useful today to highlight the ease with which, amid near-total indifference, we have moved from sophistry to exhortations for women to cover themselves: for example, Adidas launched a campaign in the fall of 2022 for its swim hijab featuring the slogan "Cover yourself" [9] ! In the name of a misguided tolerance and a puritanism imported from the United States, we are supposed to avoid emphasizing the repugnance and fiercely retrograde and phallocentric nature of such a campaign—without this apparently bothering the neo-feminist movements, so quick to denounce the "heteronormative white patriarchy"—of such a campaign. Is woman, then, a walking sexual organ that should be covered even during sports activities? Here, as elsewhere, capitalism provides the commodity, and religion the clientele. It would be wrong to assume that the demands of the movements we will, admittedly somewhat hastily, call "Brotherhood-Salafists" are merely a matter of public relations, without ever reaching the grassroots level of practice, the amateur sports field. For example, the head of a departmental basketball committee recently informed me that, during a competition, some teenage girls on a team had worn hijabs with their jerseys . It wasn't "just" a matter of covering their heads, but also their arms… The committee stood firm; it didn't back down. My "source" indicated that the regulations would be revised to clearly state that religiously themed clothing had no place on the court.
As a professional sports instructor and Karate-Do teacher , I have personally witnessed instances of boys refusing to allow mixed-gender activities and rejecting girls, invoking the religion of Allah, sometimes even before the age of eight! Furthermore, proselytizing and fundamentalist pressures are not limited to a form of "sexual apartheid." For example, after one of my presentations at a multi-sport camp, a Salafist mother told me that the Japanese ritual bow is "a very great sin [for us]" because it calls into question "the oneness of Allah." Using the presence of dog photos in the room—the presentation was taking place in a school setting—as a pretext, she added, "There's no way my children are going to prostrate themselves before dogs." This was a way for her to kill two birds with one stone, but of course, it's the National Rally voter whom the mainstream media will portray as fundamentally racist. Faced with my intransigence and refusal to negotiate, she threatened to withdraw her children from the activity. I replied, "No problem." This fundamentalist, who delivered a fanatical speech, was taken aback, attempted another "negotiation," and my refusal was met with, "You're the one excluding your children from the activity."
A colleague who teaches another martial art explained to me that he had encountered this situation. One of his students told him, "My imam has forbidden me to greet you." Fortunately, the colleague did not heed the imam 's exhortation , and the student in question, an adult, left the club... with his children. These cases are far from isolated, so much so that a French karate expert , Lionel Froidure, who is far removed from political activism, published an article in 2017 entitled "Greetings and Religion" [10] . It should be noted immediately that these problems, this intimidation and threats, these fundamentalist Islamic exhortations, are not limited to France. Thus, the late Hirokazu Kanazawa, internationally renowned Karate-Do master, distinguished author and founding President of the Shotokan Karate-do International Federation (SKIF), wrote in 2006 in one of his reference works: "One thing I would like my readers to put into practice is the first of the Twenty Guiding Precepts of Karate , by Master Gichin Funakoshi: 'Remember that karate begins with a bow and ends with a bow.'"
The traditional Japanese bow, performed in a seated position with legs folded beneath oneself, is a way of expressing gratitude and respect. Unfortunately, some people, due to their religious beliefs, consider it unacceptable to bow their heads in this manner. I would like to point out to them that karate originates from Japanese culture and it is important to accept it as such. Having a dojo allows us to practice with partners. We should be grateful for this, and to show it, we must kneel and bow our heads in the Japanese style at the beginning and end of training.” [11] . I should point out here that a friend who teaches self-defense was confronted with this demand from a pastor who rejected "idolatry"; the teacher showed him the door of the dojo . Let's also consider the international dimension of the despicable importation onto the tatami of issues that have no place there. A krav maga instructor confided in me that a family practicing Islam, members of his club, had discovered—astonishingly—that the discipline he taught was of Israeli origin and that, consequently, it was out of the question for the child enrolled in the class, who was thriving in it, to continue. Let's also remember the Egyptian judoka Islam El-Shehaby who, in 2016, refused to shake hands with his Israeli opponent, Or Sasson. [12] .
Festive events are sometimes also subject to pressure from fundamentalist movements. For example, in a suburban club where I taught, a Salafist mother used alleged drunkenness and so-called incidents from the previous year as a pretext, as the association's end-of-year party approached, to try to impose… a ban on alcohol! Obviously, the club did not give in – I must admit that I, who do not drink alcohol, for reasons that are my own, had taken care to bring a pack of beer for the occasion… During the party, when the son of this lady, who could not have been 8 years old, or just barely, approached the meat that was grilling on the barbecue – a practice which a Member of Parliament, from the world of research, recently explained to us as “virilist” [13] , while a historian sees it as a perpetuation of slave-like practices [14] – she pulled him by the shoulder, her face distorted by fanaticism, telling him: “Don’t go there, it’s not halal , it’s not halal ! "Imagine the opposite situation, where a Catholic mother would say to her child, readily labeled an Islamophobic apprentice fascist: 'Don't go there, it's halal , it's halal !'"
The martial arts of the Far East are not only physical practices, they are also a phenomenon of acculturation. This acculturation is threatened, but beyond it, beyond the combat disciplines from faraway Asia, we have noticed for several years the refusal of practitioners, increasingly numerous, who in the name of Islam and a rigorous practice of religion, refuse in the domain of all that is common. The fundamentalist demands, antechamber of fanaticism, intend to sweep away the principles and values of sport and the like, while substituting themselves for them. The individual should kill who he is in order to submit to what he would be. Fortunately, sports educators and federal executives, sometimes - often? - alone, lead a fight which is historically that of free thought, applied to the field of physical and sporting activities, against the obscurantism and proselytism of the Salafist movements and the Muslim Brotherhood. The pseudo right to difference is the one that mechanically leads to the difference of rights and prepares for the war of all against all, here by imposing a tribal model, where the rules that would be imposed on all and in the common framework would be established on ethno-religious bases. Basically, what is openly threatened here, in the name of a misguided tolerance, what is sacrificed here on the altar of Anglo-Saxon multicultural conceptions – moreover fundamentally religious – is of course universalism, but also and therefore the possibility left to the individual to free himself from dogmas and beliefs, from social determinisms; it is his emancipation that is being assassinated, sometimes even before it happens! It is essential that this fight for the Enlightenment, which embraces all fields of education and instruction, be carried out in physical and sporting activities. Sports educators must realize what the Minister of National Education and Fine Arts of the Popular Front, Jean Zay, demanded for the School of the French Republic: "Public education is secular. No form of proselytism can be admitted in the establishments." But it is true that at the time, the left was secular...
