Texts such as the UN Declaration of Human Rights, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the European Convention on Human Rights of the Council of Europe recognise freedom of thought, conscience and religion as fundamental rights. However, over time there has been a semantic shift that has led to these rights being restricted or neglected.
In December 2022, Ifop reported that 56% of public secondary school teachers said they had already self-censored their teaching, to avoid any incident triggered in the name of religious or philosophical beliefs.
Article one of the 1958 Constitution explains that the Republic is indivisible, secular, democratic and social. Secularism is therefore one of those principles that require, above all, a legal organization. Founded on the principle of separation (public sphere, private sphere) which guarantees freedom of conscience and worship, it is weakened today by the conjunction of politics and religion under the auspices of a galloping wokism that agrees with people like Norman Ajari in declaring that it is at once an "apartheid" measure, or even "Islamophobic, discriminatory, unjust and far-right."
Wouldn't the totalizing project of inclusion aim at a form of closure? We know that the strength of mythical thought lies in particular in its closure: myths are characterized by constant references between all semantic domains that allow thought to be locked in a totalization that is as seductive as it is illusory.
The fact is obvious: Islamism, this Islam on the offensive, banal or warlike, spectacular or diffuse, is in Europe, for a long time and in all its forms. It is spreading and developing. The French territory, its institutions and, increasingly, its populations are stakeholders in this atypical world war in progress.
Interview conducted with a sympathizer in June 2015, initially published in November 2015 in the brochure “n°21 Islamisms, Islamogauchisme, Islamophobie. Première partie: L’islam à l’offensive, de la prédication à la guerre”, then posted online on the Lieux Communs website in September 2016.
Article one of the 1958 Constitution explains that the Republic is indivisible, secular, democratic and social. Secularism is therefore one of those principles that require, above all, a legal organization. Founded on the principle of separation (public sphere, private sphere) which guarantees freedom of conscience and worship, it is weakened today by the conjunction of politics and religion under the auspices of a galloping wokism that agrees with people like Norman Ajari in declaring that it is at once an "apartheid" measure, or even "Islamophobic, discriminatory, unjust and far-right."
At the same time, a paradox is emerging in society: on the one hand, we want to abolish the boundary between the public and private spheres through religious demands within public services (the canteen, prayer, the separation of men and women, etc.) and at the same time, companies are demanding its application when it has no place there.
The school institution is at the heart of the tensions that are obviously shaking the adult world. Teachers are increasingly torn between the organizing principle to which they are subject and the social aspirations of the public users of the public service: their students and their parents. The odious murder committed in the most barbaric of ways
which Samuel Patty was a victim of should in itself be enough to understand that it is essential to resist by reaffirming the organizing principles of the State. The institutions which define the extent of the identity of the French nation depend in part on these: the language, its culture and literature, its school.
Our theme involves various issues where we are led to use the terms "culture", "minority", "majority" and "law". Each term must be defined anew, given the imprecision of words in the media, political life and in our university institution, the latter in particular contaminated by the current Woke movement.
So we – detractors of wokeism – would be driven by the “hatred of emancipation”, if we are to believe the title of François Cusset’s pamphlet, faced with the “youth of the world” who – if we are to believe its subtitle – would finally be “standing up”? For this Americanist, historian of ideas and in particular of French theory, “emancipation” is the key word – but emancipation from what, exactly? We will never know, as the word functions essentially as a slogan. The same goes for other fetish words that recur in the text, coded expressions erected as militant rallying signs: "worn stereotypes" (no, they are not his but, he claims, ours), "heteronormative stereotypes", "gender assigned at birth", "white males", "hard or extreme right", "moral panic", "market forces", "dominant media", "the established order", "social order", "elites"... Nothing out of the ordinary, in short - even banally populist.
Think of the possible psychological effects of this Goya painting – which would certainly make anyone lose their appetite – in which Saturn greedily devours his own children? The Spanish artist may have anticipated the stylistic revolutions that were to come later, but what does that matter? Should we show such horrors to young people? Of course not! What we need are works that make us proud of who we are (whatever that means), and certainly not works that glorify cannibalism! I am exhausted… But I cannot stop: there is still much work to be done. We must be more sensitive to others, erase everything that offends us – or, better: what offends me! These ideas will not fail to galvanize workers and independent voters in the coming electoral battles! But that is for another time! I am still learning! And I look forward to seeing what new lessons tomorrow will bring us.