Interview conducted with a supporter in June 2015, initially published in November 2015 in brochure “n°21 Islamisms, Islamo-leftism, Islamophobia. Part One: Islam on the Offensive, from Preaching to War, then put online on the Lieux Communs website in September 2016.
Nawith, do you want to introduce yourself?
I am a voluntarily precarious teacher (in fact we now say "Professor des écoles" since we don't institute much anymore...), French, born in France at the beginning of the 70s to parents of Maghrebi and Muslim origin. I mainly do sick leave replacements, depression replacements, maternity leave replacements, etc., replacements whose duration varies from three days to the entire school year. I work in the "working class" suburbs of a large city. So I've been flying like this, for about 6 years, from school to school, nursery schools but especially elementary schools. I must have done more than forty in all... So children between 3 and 12 years old.
It gives a good point of view… Especially since you live there, right?
Yes, for about ten years – and I fight not to have schools too close to the city where I live. So I have a panorama of what is happening there, and it is very worrying. These are neighborhoods and classes with dozens of different origins, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Romania, Mali, Senegal, Caribbean, Chechnya, Ukraine, etc. and of course massively Maghreb and now Middle East, and often the only cultural “binding” of these little towers of Babel will be Islam, willingly or not, since the classes are often more than 70% Muslim, or even more in these neighborhoods.
For you, is it religion that poses a problem at school?
J.-P. Le Goff, J.-C. Michéa, etc. have very well described the managerial shift in education at the end of the 90s. At that time, I was a secondary school teacher in the suburbs and I experienced this shift with the bitter observation of the recovery of the tools and techniques of institutional and self-management pedagogies that I had been practicing for several years and on which I occasionally published. I was then, like these authors, blind to the emergence of this Islamist counter-culture that came to certain areas to fill the void of institutions in full decay. Today, we are still far from imagining what is happening there… Kids know how to write " Allah " before their own first name... And just the first names become crazy. For example, in a middle section kindergarten class that I had all year, parents came to complain about the fact that I was constantly making a mistake in the pronunciation of their child's first name. And it's true that the kid, quite reserved, corrects me, with the support of the class, every time I pronounce his first name as it is spelled, either Aymane. Now, this is pronounced Eymene parents tell me… I retort that at that point, if it doesn’t bother them, I will change the spelling of the name on their child’s name tag to match the pronunciation they want. I explain to them that at this stage of schooling it is essential that these five-year-olds understand the relationship between sounds and letters – we say “ develop phonological awareness » – this is the basis of reading and writing, of language appropriation. I tell them that my first name is also Arabic but that in French it is pronounced differently, it is normal, we are in France… Parents refuse. I give up after a few weeks of tension, and so all the kids in the class learn that in French, the letter “A” can be pronounced “È”… And this is not an exception: once it was Imane, which had to be pronounced Imene, another time it was the first name Islam that had to be pronounced ÈslÈm, etc., etc. Just from a "functional" educational point of view, it poses a problem... Well, without even mentioning the connivance that is immediately established between the kids and the "rebeu" teachers...
This is what we find in college in contested learning: the history of religions, the theory of evolution, sport, etc.
That's it, non-Muslim teachers tell me, amazed, that their teenagers come to tell them that everything they teach them is in the Koran. Otherwise, you understand, it's worthless. In fact, it's a cultural handicap but maintained by parents, family, neighborhood, etc. So kids start out in life with a relationship of strangeness and especially of adversity with the language that allows them to express themselves. It is radical: even before learning anything, even in the language of the country, they have no place here, they are in conflict, from the outset, they have no place, linguistically, caught in a vice between the good language and the total refusal of integration cultural of their parents. The little Asians are called Philippe, Jean, Vincent or Carole…
It complicates things, indeed...
And if that were all... We are witnessing the proliferation of first names that are explicitly Koranic or come from the stars of Islamic terrorism: Abou Hamza, Aymène, Hassibullah, Harith... and the whole series of Machins-Allah (God) and Machins-Your (faith). It has nothing to do with the first names given by Arab immigrant parents in the 60s and 70s… And that is part of everything else: the obsession with halal, discrimination against non-Muslims, religious holidays, Koranic schools, etc. For example, half of the parents I meet wear Islamist clothing: long beards or beards cut in a hipster for the most mainstream, kami or djellaba black or white for gentlemen, and the veil for ladies and young ladies, more and more strict, with long skirts now, up to the Burqa…and they have the relationships that go with it: they don’t come within two meters of me, don’t look at me or else they glare at me… Yes, women are Satan… When it’s not a master-servant relationship – I’m the servant, eh! Even in the chic schools, you don’t see that…
How does the staff react?
It crashes, in its majority, or remains locked in compassionate postures, or for Muslim staff, victimhood. The day after the execution of the editorial board of Charlie Hebdo, the teachers of Maghrebi origin were freaked out… but not by the attack of the neo-barbarians! For them! They repeated: “ It's going to come back to haunt us! "They didn't care about Charb, Cabu, freedom of expression and blasphemy, etc. It was Islam that should not be attacked!" This is really nonsense, I'm sick of these stories, it has nothing to do with Islam ", they said in unison. But on the other hand, they defend tooth and nail all manifestations of belonging to Islam, day after day, whatever they may be: complaining about a father in a uniform jihadist, or a mother in niqab, that's discrimination! Refusing to speak Arabic with parents who speak French badly is also racism, etc.
In short, that morning of January 8, I announced that I would not welcome parents into my class exceptionally, I absolutely did not feel like welcoming covered moms and other victims of fashion as if nothing had happened. Muz' Brothers or salaf', I really didn't want to see their faces of conquering Tartufes, period; I didn't even understand why parents weren't forbidden from entering the school that day... It was taken very badly by the headmaster and my colleagues who still accepted my decision but I got the song padamalgam ; " These poor people have nothing to do with all this, they practice their religion, that's all, they have the right, we are all very moved but we mustn't lump things together... ", etc. Once again I was seen as the Arab who has a problem with his "community of origin", that is to say the girl who hates herself and others, the racist, theself-racist… While I had in front of me French people who hated each other as such, going further in repentance, self-flagellation… However, the Maghrebis should all have a big problem with this “community of origin” which is in full regressive and belligerent delirium which is unfortunately not about to calm down.
And with the rest of the staff?
The rest of the staff... they go along with the mess, or even outbid each other, like the service staff or the AVSs [School Life Assistants, who assist the teachers for physically or mentally handicapped students]… They are overwhelmingly of Maghrebi origin in these schools and they do not oppose any of this, quite the contrary for the most reactionary. I remember very warm relations with a service lady of Moroccan origin who worked in my class until the day she learned that I was not " in the religion »: from one day to the next she was angry with me without further explanation, our relationship became very tense, she constantly provoked me, spoke Arabic in front of or with children, something she obviously knew I did not tolerate, or even put her veil back on in front of the kids at the end of her shift, and she thus passed in front of the director who did not give a damn. At least she did not palm me off with her leaflets for the pilgrimage to the Mecca, the leisure centers reserved " to little Muslims ", etc. As for the teachers of Maghrebi and Muslim origin who represent an increasingly large proportion of teachers in these suburbs, they are obviously not going to oppose demands that they also carry. It is not uncommon to see a colleague put her veil back on when leaving school...
I had a colleague like that who was feverishly busy trying to bring back a woman from Algeria. to marry her, a ma tahlache aïnaha [whose eyes have not yet opened], a bent'halal, [a daughter of "halal" parents raised in halal] " said the Algerian teacher, Muslim Brotherhood Hussar. Another colleague arab was still a virgin at over thirty because she wanted to marry according to Islamic law. It was so funny, she blushed whenever we talked about sex... What's less funny is that she's in charge of raising children with exploding libidos, willies, willies, googlies, etc. Another one who faints in the middle of recess because she's doing Ramadan, it's 40° and she has 27 4-5 year old kids on her tail all day long... and don't talk to her about the reality principle, that would be Islamophobia... In short, I came across ordinary Islamists like that every day, regardless of the school's sector, outlying neighborhoods or the city center of this submissive suburb.
You left the world of animation to escape that, right?
Yes! I remember one day one of these presenters from theYouth Antenna that I was then leading, who made me understand that it was not good form to show young people that I was not observing Ramadan… She herself, of Algerian Kabyle origin, was an atheist but did not let it show so as not to “ it falls back on him " She was freaking out, even French women had to comply, so as not to " se to be fined " by 12 year old kids! It was in the mid-2000s when this sector began to be invaded by Tartufe-racaille animators, some of whom came to work in djellaba the day before ugly and also by lads and other scarlet careerists and nihilists… I also remember a presenter of Malian origin who went to pray during each of her breaks Allah in his car in the parking lot of the leisure center and whose cell phone ringtone was a downloaded surah… if that’s not a “ neo-islam "That! It's this same type of people - and also French people converted to this Islam of morons - that you see arriving today in National Education in certain academies lacking in teachers, bigots, ignoramuses I-poded to whom we practically give the competition, small careerists who would make a good difference in their classes between the social classes, between a West Indian kufar and black muslim, between a kid and a little male, etc.
When I worked in animation, the mayors of the red suburbs where I worked favored this type of profile in their recruitments to have social peace and to recover votes in the process… And the mechanism is self-sustaining, obviously. Gradually, all the teams that I managed at the time in these suburbs included only one French person of origin, or even none in some centers. It is the same process at school now in these “conquered” territories where the school is one of the last places where there is an obligation to meet France. Twenty years ago, I would have been delighted if schools were opened more to parents, today, I watch with concern as these suburban colleges open up to mullahs premises, providing them with classrooms so that they can meet whenever they want, inviting them to run clubs, etc.
Et precisely, the French of origin?
Oh well, they are treated as racists, normal, huh! Sometimes there is only one French-French child, a native French person; from the CE2, and it obviously continues in middle school, these children are completely victimized by the other children (" bolossized " as the kids say), they constantly experience moral and physical harassment and are sometimes in terrible isolation and psychological suffering, unless they agree to become dhimmis. You have kids like that, who little by little stop eating pork and start exclaiming: starfi'allah " when they burp or punctuate their words with walla,Inshallah, etc. They adopt the language tics of the dominants. As for the others... During one of my replacements, I had a CM2 student like that, in total depression, a kid from Bretons who had been living in this suburb for 4 generations, I even feared that he would commit suicide... On the school management side, they told me " Yeah but he's annoying, he's constantly provoking and his mother is the same, a bitch bordering on racist by the way, be careful... ". Reverse the situation for a second: we would cry racism! There no, the white man is racist, at the limit, it is normal that he atones... Another example, this teacher of Portuguese origin who once told me how much my words made her feel good. Me, of Maghrebi origin, I could denounce such a bearded father in jihadist outfit who looks at you with a scowl or the mother who insults you by throwing in your face the packet of sweets that you have just given to her son for his birthday because the sweets are not halal… One day this teacher had the misfortune to tell a woman that her little girl could go to the mosque but not every Friday and not on every Muslim holiday, anyway, maybe just once a month because there was school and that even in the last year of kindergarten school was compulsory and important for her daughter who was off to a bad start. Since then a rumor accusing her of racism has been circulating in the city and her estate where her family has lived for ages. I don't know what happened to her... It is well known that racism is the prerogative of the white man. You understand, either you give in to blackmail or you are racist. However, racism is quite the opposite: it is treating people differently depending on their origins.
Do you mean that under the pretext of respecting differences, we are recreating inequalities?
An example: Kashan has not come to school for almost two weeks, I am worried, this kid of Pakistani origin took months to learn ten words of French and to sit on a chair and not cross-legged on the floor… The headmistress ends up contacting a relative of the family and learns that the kid is “on vacation” with his parents in Pakistan, he will be back in a few days… The kid is already in difficulty, at home we speak Urdu, we only watch TV bled, we only receive the family, etc. If he also misses school… I share the legal means to put pressure on the parents. The headmaster and colleagues laugh in my face: "Well, go tell them yourself if you want when they come back, eh? They won't understand anything, they barely speak 3 words of French, forget it, it's no use, plus they're hard to reach, no, forget it, honestly you're going to get bored for nothing, It's May, too, so it's not that bad... "Four weeks later, at the beginning of June, Kashan was back among us dressed in a kami having obviously forgotten everything about my learnings from another world. It is impossible to know more about the reason for this long trip to Pakistan, the father in Taliban look ran off as usual, dropping the little one who wanders around the classroom lost, goes to the tap and watches strangely as the water flows like on his first day of school... Of course these absences were reported to the Inspector as they should be and... nothing.
These anecdotes show to what extent in ten years we have gone from "lost territories of the Republic" to parts of cities where immigrant families impose pretty much everything they want... and in particular Koranic law. These little stories are not original, unfortunately; spend a few hours in one, two, three schools in these areas and you will collect loads of them if the staff is confident enough to tell you all about it, because the law of silence at Éduc' Nat' is worse than at the Grande Muette! Especially around these issues. You have more and more girls who have just arrived from the provinces and thrown into these predominantly Muslim classes who turn to antidepressants from their second week back at school and it's off for years before the miraculous courage' [mutation, to change academy] that everyone hopes for after barely a year in class, it's heartbreaking to see... You have the impression that they are there without understanding what is happening to them, what is happening, that they are doing their best, taking a beating, spending hours studiously preparing their "learning sequences" which are shattered in a quarter of an hour, spending their day screaming and suffering while waiting for the deliverance that may come some distant day... Others adopt demagogic postures and are led around by 8-year-old kids... Still others start voting FN and don't hide it, it's weird in a milieu known for being left-wing, you even have a teachers' union affiliated with the FN now.
We could say that it is due to the concentration of immigrants in certain areas...
I heard nothing like that when, forty years ago and in the same cities, there were Polish or Portuguese, or Spanish or Breton neighborhoods. And I grew up in a Chinese neighborhood, I never saw that and I don't think we're seeing similar behavior from them today... That's not really the problem. It's more as if the egalitarian treatment that the republican school must reserve for all its students bothers Muslims who demand that their particularities be taken into account, and they often win their case, even if it hinders their children's learning. As a teacher, it's very difficult to hold on. For example, I don't even talk to mothers who bring candy anymore. halal exclusively for their child so that " theirs valeurs religious and cultural rights are respected at school "Now I accept the sweets and when distributing them I mix them with the others, children who are still under 7 years old generally do not pay attention to them and that is good..." No waves ", that's rule number one. Obviously it's a renunciation and it bothers me deeply but, for the moment and in the isolation in which I am, I haven't found any other solution... When I was a child it would never have occurred to my parents to have such demands on school, we didn't eat pork in the canteen and that was the only distinction we experienced - rather badly, actually... Because for a child belonging to the collective, to the group is very important, it's it are job to the kid: to enter a society, to be part of it and that is among other things which is broken here at the request of the parents. We are going to create generations of psychopaths. It is as if the parents were telling their children " Attention: you are in their school, in their country but there are those who are haram [impure], and there is us who we are halal [pure] and it doesn't mix "... So, this story of institutional racism is a fantasy of many immigrants who do everything to make this fantasy come true and who in the meantime practice fully their own racism.
Pure and impure, it is true that this is an authentically racist discourse like we have not heard for a long time...
There is clearly a refusal of otherness, it's mind-boggling, kids are fed on that, on sexism, xenophobia, and hatred of Jews: the rare teachers in these suburbs who are assimilated Jews don't say so or remain very vague about their origins. Last December, I was horrified to hear a small group of 8-year-old girls making fun of one of their classmates about the fact that she celebrated Christmas... One of the little girls, wanting to kindly defend her, exclaimed in a great burst of tolerance: " Leave her alone! It's not her fault if she's a Christian, that's why she has to celebrate Christmas, it's not funny, she's from the Antilles! "But there is also genuine racism, based on the race : nothing more racist than a veiled North African bigot, they can't stand the Roma for example and just the idea that there are some, not in their child's class, but only in the school, is unbearable for them… The Roma live a daily hell in the playgrounds, they are insulted and mistreated by other children: I heard a little 7-year-old North African say to a Roma: You will end up in prison like all those of your race! " or another one saying to a 6-year-old Romanian girl: " Dirty Rom, your clothes come from our trash... ", etc. So they defend themselves as best they can, often with their fists... And the bigots in the tarpaulin come running and spew their xenophobia as soon as their kid is caught up in these stories: " We told you these children are violent, they ruin the school, I don't understand why the school takes them! » etc. For these women, the Roma kid is the worst, even worse than the Blacks because a Black man for them, well he's a monkey, but he can still be muslim, see rich like them…While the Roma, in addition to not being Muslim, is the very incarnation of poverty and there it is too much for these women who combine very well Islamic outfits, latest Smartphone and sunglasses Dolce Gabbana paid by the Social Security. With regard to the Roma, we find the same contempt that the sedentary people of the city have for the poor, semi-nomadic and semi-Islamized tribes that survive in the Maghreb in particular.
So this cuts across social divides?
Overall, the most reactionary and the most demanding are the Maghrebi Muslim parents, often middle class. They are the ones who are starting to demand more "mixing" in schools: understand more Sunnis of the same economic and social profile as them, a few Whites because it looks chic and that still, between us, we know that the more Whites there are, the better the level and therefore the better the prospects for social advancement, but above all, above all they want much fewer, or even no Blacks or Roma in their children's class. These Maghrebi Muslims are not poor and most of them have lived in France for more than 10 years when they were not born there, the newly arrived students for example are most of the time from Eastern countries or China, for the last two years there have also been some who come from Arab countries like Libya, Syria or Iraq, more and more, people who are fleeing the Islamists and their barbarity but who continue to claim to be publicly In Islam, women always wear the veil and fathers ask you, first and foremost, in broken English, if the meat in the canteen is halal… But the parents who are most assertive about their identity are those who are economically integrated, often owning a small business and/or their own home, not to mention properties in the bled. And their wives (sometimes several, eh!) veiled, who can afford not to have any paid activity and to go away several times a year bled, without this posing a financial problem for the household and without them being deprived of social relations since they are very well integrated into the life of their neighborhood, notably via the mosque, even the municipality, and all the small businesses are halal and run by coreligionists, obviously, so there is no problem of exclusion as other minorities may experience.
What about sub-Saharan Muslims?
Sub-Saharan African Muslims, generally speaking, are often less demanding, less aggressive. First of all, they have a much worse command of French than their Maghrebi coreligionists, they are less well off economically and culturally, they educate their children, both male and female, especially in a sort of indifference to schooling. That is very striking, and it often poses educational problems for me because one has the impression that these children are sitting there waiting for it to pass, everything slides off their shoulders, nothing sticks… School being compulsory until the age of 16, they are there but without really being there, without understanding why or for what purpose, and especially among the children who remain silent. African mothers seem to think that school is a sort of PMI [Maternal and Child Protection] and daycare (which is what it actually looks like more and more). Whether their children are good or bad students, you don't see them, it doesn't interest them - except for rare exceptions. They come from societies of origin with statuses where you don't have social mobility, you have to read Hugues Lagrange's sociological survey on this, it's very enlightening... I have in mind, for example, a kid of Malian origin, excellent, a rare pearl in this senior kindergarten class, comfortable speaking, bright, alert, etc., who already knew how to write a few words in cursive, well never during the five months that I spent in this class was I able to meet her parents to tell them directly how brilliant their daughter was. They don't care.
There is a cultural gap…
Not just a little... You also have the African father who gets stingy once every thirty-six, often after you've put a note in the kid's notebook, after having tried everything, for repeated violence or something else; he gives the kid a big slap in the face in front of you and explains to you: « CThis is how it isil you have to deal with him, you don't know how to do it, that's why he doesn't obey yout not. " Ok, thanks for the advice, bye. So what? I'm going to contact Child Abuse, is that it? Make a report? It's an open secret in the business, we all know how it goes at home for these little black guys, and you're not only a girl but you don't hit, so it's party time in class compared to home or madrassa from the corner where there, it hits. At the same time what is very disturbing is that the kid is going to be beaten and at the same time spoiled rotten, the outings to EuroDisney ou Central Parc with the big brother (or big sister now that the burkinis is tolerated there!), video games, tablets, TVs and all the mind-numbing material and cultural junk of the time, there is no shortage of that. Sometimes these are the same children who show up at school in flip-flops in the middle of February!
Yes, but that must depend on when they arrive in France...
No. What is quite disturbing is that it is increasingly difficult to determine how long they have been in France. I was appalled, for example, to learn that a mother of Senegalese origin had been living in this suburb for over 10 years: she did not speak French except for a dozen words at most, while I would have bet that this mother had just arrived from the bush a few months ago. This raises questions about the desire for integration and the ability of these suburbs to integrate into French culture, which is no longer embodied in much of these territories. It is quite possible today to live in these suburbs knowing almost everything about France and the French, even their language, without being isolated: for example, when I enter the apartment of my neighbors of Senegalese origin, it is West Africa: the cuisine, the music, the Koranic TV, the people visiting, the language spoken, etc. The kids fiddle with my straight hair, they never see that... They have been here for fifteen years... And little Bintou has just put on the black veil at 11 years old... Cool, starting sixth grade! Oh yes, no more laughing! The little one is now settled... We will have to think about marrying her off soon, eh... In short, many sub-Saharans have very little mastery of cultural codes, which certainly contributes to the creation of a sort of inferiority complex with regard to school. So maybe Islamism, for them, is a way of trying to resemble the Maghrebis who sit in large numbers on the school boards of these suburbs, and they don't limit themselves to imposing a particular supplier of merguez sausages. halal for the school's end-of-year party... They start looking at the school programs...
You mean there really is an activist dimension?
Very clearly! A bit like the PC activists of the great era, they are on the ground and very active. These mothers are very attentive to what is happening in class, are interested in school and a growing number of them sit on school councils, without removing their veil since it is allowed. They are militant Muslim mothers, Islamists, not terrorists obviously, but who know very well how to step up to the plate to gradually adapt teaching to their superstitions. For example, when the "ABCD of Equality" was implemented on an experimental basis, I discovered mothers who had informed themselves, better informed on this point than most teachers. The imams had then done a whole job of training and spreading false rumors, the parents were really angry, their arguments revolved around questions of homosexuality, as good homophobes they were afraid that children would be taught that it was not serious to be gay, or that they would be "shown" genitals or how a man and a woman make love, or pronounce the words sexe, vagina, etc. in front of their pure little angels. They won! Don't tell me it's the Catholics: the JRE [« Days of Rwithdrawal of theÉcole »] organized by F. Berghoul have been a success mainly in immigrant neighborhoods… Same thing for the support of school trips, which are now open to veiled women, they have won, that's all, through pressure. Not to mention the projects to expand funding for crèches and denominational schools, etc.
And on the side ofand the institution, teachers, directors, and especially the rectorate?
On the "ABCD of equality", they were exemplary in their courage: the school inspectors invited teachers to reassure parents by telling them that their implementation was not on the agenda for this school year, that it was just a project and that it was not certain that it would be implemented as is, etc. Do you see what I mean? No problem… I am not defending the delirium of gender theory, but there was something to play here. I make the kids sit down by alternating girls/boys, something that I would never have instituted in a group of children ten years ago. Just for that, parents fall on me… In fact everyone is panicked, no one admits it so we put on a relativistic or demagogic veneer, but it is a climate of terror that reigns, a latent terror.
One day, a substitute canteen supervisor came to get the students from my class at lunch time, with her neo-fascist veil of hyper-Islam on her head, very black, very tight. She walked past colleagues and then the school principal calmly… I got up and told her that she didn’t have the right to wear her thing on her head on school grounds. She laughed in my face, I refused to entrust my students to her, the tension rose and finally the principal intervened, took the children to the refectory… where she handed them over to the bigot… To avoid causing problems, and then her veil is discreet, etc. "You understand? And it's linked to the rest: A lot of elected officials are of Maghrebi origin, a significant proportion of school children regularly attend the neighborhood mosque, etc. On weekends, I quite regularly come across my little students who are between 4 and 11 years old who go to the madrassa from the neighborhood, veiled, and my little 8 year old boys in djellaba who look at you proudly with their prayer mat rolled up under their arm: it's totally depressing. So in class you have kids who literally demand their slap, provoke you constantly, take you for an idiot, etc. to see if you too will take out your big stick and hit them like the imam does with them. So when you threaten a kid to send him to the headmaster because he refuses to obey the woman that I am, obviously most of the time he laughs...
Is there physical violence?
Are you here or what? Obviously there is physical violence every day, between students of course, but especially students and parents towards the educational teams, and it is only increasing. I have heard and seen attacks on principals, considered "losers". At one point, in front of an elementary school, we had for a week the presence of a "militia" from the National Education sent by the Rectorate and in charge of protecting the teams, including the principal who had received physical threats. These special brigades were created for middle schools, at the base, now they also intervene in elementary school. The first time I walked past these five, six burly guys, for a brief moment I thought I was in Beirut… The guys themselves were surprised to be there. Juicy detail: they all had faces of Muslim brothers bodybuilders ! The trouble started with a rebellious 8-year-old girl who threatened to kill some teachers and the headmistress. because they were all bad" : everyone laughed and called the parents. The next day, the father came back with his brothers from the mosque and told them the same thing… Finally, after the parents were called by the school inspector, the girl was moved to another school in the city, it was April and it was already her third change of school.
It was in this same school that I took my first punch from an 11-year-old kid, it had never happened to me in 20 years of working in the suburbs with kids, including teenagers. It was mid-January 2015, Mohamed (that was his first name, so obviously he thought he was the insulted prophet) was a poor, regimented kid, anti-Semitic to the core, who recited the conspiracy theories his dad had taught him much better than Paul Éluard's poem of the month... We had just finished a workshop that I had prepared on the Chevalier de La Barre after January 7 (I'll spare you the reaction of my colleagues: " Who is this? ") and the debate that followed (the same colleagues: " Hannn! You did that?! No, I did something about tolerance and respect! And I was careful not to say Islamists but "terrorists" so as not to stigmatize them "). The kid had been hellish throughout the session, calling everyone a kufar, especially me who he identified as a Muslim, I could not approach the freedom of blasphemy, it was too much for him, I had to take him out. The following recess, he was involved in a fight with a West Indian whom he had called " porc , Of " black pudding ", etc. I separated them by putting Mohamed aside, he took the opportunity to punch me. Of course the parents were summoned by the director who told them " It's not good, really what your son did, not good at all. " Inspector so-and-so was informed and nothing more happened: the same one who told school management teams to " don't let anything go regarding secularism " on the morning of January 8. It was in this school group that a canteen worker was slapped by a Salafist father in the middle of service in front of the kids and his colleagues for having accidentally served pork to his son the day before; there again the employer of this canteen worker, a Stalinist-Islamist town hall, was exemplary in courage and responsiveness: nothing happened, no sanction, everything is running smoothly. These are moments of great solitude, it's as if up there, there's no response, there's no one! Most directors don't report these incidents, " We'll sort this out internally. ", understand: " This mustn't go back up because I'll start to be looked down upon... "On the other hand, and this is understandable, why ask your superiors when you know, one: that they will do nothing; two: that it will mark you as a bad principal or teacher; and three: you don't want the neighborhood to find out about it, the flat tires, all that...
It was in this context that you experienced the January attacks against Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Casher.
Look, just a week later I was replacing a CM1 class, I asked the principal of this elementary school where he had posted the Charter of Secularism, obligatory in all schools: " Oh yeah, I took it down but I'm going to put it back, I had more space for the other displays... ". Classy, huh? Another headmaster, at a time when I have the kids do a survey on the symbols of the Republic: " A bust of Marianne? A photo of the President of the Republic? I don't know what you're talking about. I have a photo of Ben Ali in my office but no bust of something or other... ". He was a funny guy... The only principal I met who was very clear on these issues and tried as best she could not to let anything slip had a reputation as a racist, an Islamophobe in the neighborhood and among the Maghrebi teachers at her school. To be honest, she was a year away from retirement and was delighted to finally get out of there because the atmosphere was becoming more and more unhealthy for her... Since then, she has moved.
In short, for many parents the January attacks, the application of the fatwa which weighed on Charlie Hebdo, it was the non-event, nothing had happened, or else fear, but not fear of terrorists: fear of being stigmatized! And of course all the fuss " Islam is not that " and blah blah blah... Embellished with anti-Jewish and conspiracy hysteria of the genre "between us we know who is behind all this... it's to sully us once again", and to pour out their nauseating, paranoid and delusional sludge about the Jews who hold the world, etc. I only had an exceptional and salutary " I am ashamed to be a Muslim " from a mother, two days after the massacres - I think she has recovered since then, we shouldn't worry too much about her... As for the service staff and teachers, I saw a lady on duty who usually wore the veil and who took it off on January 8th..." for fear of being the victim of an act of Islamophobia " The next day, she puts it back on, everything is fine in the end, calm down. French In fact! What struck me most about the parents was their indifference at the time of these events; I really experienced this as a strong and natural expression of the incorporated split between "them" and "us".
And what about the kids?
On the kids' side, there was first the " No comment ", mute silence. I organized a few debates with CM1s in particular, and then CM2s: " It's none of our business, we don't know... ". This was especially the reaction of the girls, who were almost prostrate during the debate, the little girls whose dads are more than ever in jihadist gear. So for them, it was more like: we're waiting for it to pass, we can't wait to do maths. Another reaction: the " Yes, but ", the "yes but" of the Muslim Brotherhood: " Yes, no, what the terrorists did is not good, but… But the journalists should not have… But still, Islam was attacked… » Conspiracy theory too: « Yes, but it's because Israel... yes, but it's because the Jews... ". 9, 10 year old kids fantasizing about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, who talk to you about it, who take a clear position. An example of what they wrote to me (I have them write about it after a debate), I read: " They don't have the right to kill, but Charlie Hebdo draws bad things, so everyone protests. The police were able to stop them, I don't agree with terrorists because they kill, but I don't agree with Charlie Hebdo because they draw the prophet Mohammed and that's not done. » Second short writing: « I think the terrorists are right because they don't need to criticize Islam. I think they would do better to make cartoons that have nothing to do with the prophets and Islam, and in the cartoons, they go too far. So I think they would do better to stop that and they will be at peace. "There you go. Last reaction, it was therefore openly and frankly in agreement with the terrorists, including in the drawings... So some " Je ne suis pas Charlie ", I've had a lot of those too, some with terrorists with smiles on their faces; terrorists who are happy to walk into a gun shop to buy their arsenal, etc.
No questioning, therefore, no doubt or solidarity?
It's all very paradoxical, but exactly like the day after the attacks of September 11 and all those that followed since, instead of calming down and stopping constantly claiming to be Muslims in public spaces and then complaining about fantastical and/or insignificant discrimination, Muslims have paradoxically outbid each other... If that's not a common front, what is... Since January 7, attendance at mosques has not decreased, quite the contrary, and I have the impression (when I look at those in my neighborhood) that they are even more full, the number of little girls wearing veils is constantly increasing, it's very far from decreasing... Apparently, I'm the only one who is so sensitive to the strange antics of this mother in a burqa who nonchalantly crosses the playground of the nursery school the day after the massacre of Charlie Hebdo… Wearing the veil more and more ostentatiously is becoming the norm, as is having a beard, whether shaggy or clean, which goes down to the navel or is square cut, becomes an obligatory marker… It is the Muslim extreme right which is simply asserting itself and education is an area in which they overinvest, even the very secular League of Education was infiltrated for a time by the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Muslim far right is asserting itself...
I regularly see mothers veiling themselves under pressure from others, during the year. It's a very concrete step forward... You're not veiled, you're a bad Muslim, you're a bad mother, not to say a whore, etc. So the cowards end up giving in, it's like they all have an Islamic State cop following them everywhere, a kind of Daech mental. You have Algerian women in their fifties, very courageous, Muslim like my grandmother could be, that is to say relaxed, open, frank, the faith of the coalman, who have set up a collective "women without veils" so that we stop insulting them and attacking them because they do not wear the veil or others who campaign to re-establish mixed-gender relations in the bars of these cities... That's where the feminist fight is in these territories, you see the level of regression we have reached!
What about teachers' unions?
Pffff… Why are you talking to me about them? They are locked in their demagogy and their petty calculations. They only know how to tell you that the problem is economic and blah blah blah, nothing cultural (it seems that, for them, the word “cultural” is equivalent to “racially inferior”) and then they serve you their speech on the socio-economic conditions of the ghetto, the lack of means, the lack of jobs, etc. Assholes. So their speech is reduced to means, means, etc. Their meetings, their AGMs, their actions are full of Islamists but they think it’s a fad or that they’re going to overtake them… You bet. You shouldn’t cry if the FN is stingy…
It's nothing new that unions are not interested in the grassroots...
Of course. When you read the monographs of the guys who did Institutional Pedagogy in the 60s-70s in these same suburbs, the Fonvieille, the Oury, the J. Pain… they could have classes of more than fifty students with derisory budgets and pedagogical means, but they encountered much fewer problems than us in class because they had to deal with a common culture: the proletarian culture and the immigrant parents at that time even if they were non-French speaking really aimed for the integration of their kids and had a deep respect for the teachers… You have to read Cavanna…
At the start of the 2014 school year, I was offered a year-round position in a CM2 class in the school in the neighborhood where I live and where I am already the counter-example for all the bigoted Arab girls and Islamist rabbits: I hang out with French people, I buy alcohol, I don't want to have children, etc. The mothers already hate me, and if I also refuse them the special privileges and private lessons they demand, it's going to be hell... Because that's what a teacher is: someone who is supposed to help you, in particular, to swindle with the National Education, the City Hall, the CAF, etc. So a teacher arab ! This is double or triple betrayal of the clan!
In short, today, as I was telling you, you will have classes with 20 different nationalities. Sometimes, I am completely lost when faced with certain students, it is I who do not have the codes, how does this one's psyche work? What did he see, this little Afghan who arrived six months ago, prostrate, mute and thrown into what we increasingly call among ourselves " our courses of miracles » of classes? We should train in ethnopsychiatry but for each culture and tribal subculture! And I am still a little less in trouble because I have a dual Franco-Maghrebian and Muslim culture so I get by at least with the Maghrebian kids – the French don't understand what's going on... With the little ones, it gives them confidence to believe that I am Muslim like them, with the big ones it's the opposite when they understand that I am an "apostate", therefore condemned to death by their parents, because they saw me with a cigarette during Ramadan... Obviously, here again the question of immigration and the problems it poses in these neighborhoods, at school and for us teachers never comes up, too politically incorrect, yet it will have to be addressed. Because if we take stock of the reception of Algerians in France who were fleeing the black decade and barbarism, there are not many Mohamed Sifaouis, Dilems, etc. To return to school, I believe that the unionists do not understand what is happening or do not see the problems other than material ones.
Do you think the unionists don't understand what's going on?
Don't understand or don't want to understand, or understand too well... It's well-known, leftist hypocrisy when it comes to school maps: long live happy diversity, but not with my child... As a result, the unions are asking for ever more positions without taking this cultural dimension into account... We didn't hear them about the JRE either, it looked bad for them that it wasn't reactionary Catholic families who followed the slogan but Muslim immigrants! So radio silence. Recently I went to one of their stupid demonstrations during yet another day of strikes by teachers-gnan-gnan who are demanding po-posts : imagine that when we were about to stop in front of the town hall, a dozen leftists showed up with placards with slogans written on them. in Arabic, please, and in white on a black background! In the midst of the expansion of the territory of the Islamic State! That's roughly the landscape on the side of the union or political forces faced with what is happening in the neighborhoods, we see nothing, we act as if, we retreat. But the more we retreat, the more they advance: Vallaud-Belkacem repeals "the ABCD of equality"? Immediately afterwards voices were raised to demand the repeal of the 2004 law on the wearing of religious symbols... Do you accept that they have special menus without pork in the canteen? They are now asking you for sweets and eggs halal…It’s war, they’re not going to thank you…
This is war, according to you... How did it come to this?
Well, on the Muslim side, it's not hard, you have to look at the state of these countries for the last forty years: for them, it's been war for a long time, against the Jews, the Copts, America, the French... The question is rather how come we are incapable of facing it, here, in France... Because, simply, the speeches that take note of what is happening, there are not many. Marine Le Pen seizes, in her own way, the questions that really concern the French-French working classes, but not only them, who in certain territories feel completely abandoned by the moralizing left. You are fed up, and it is completely healthy, of being the only "White", or even non-Muslim, in your city, surrounded by foreigners who also reject French culture, to the limit despise youstill be there, and, the cherry on the cake, they are constantly renewing themselves, because as soon as they have money, they leave to go and live somewhere else or put the kids in private schools, if possible. Muslim, well you must not feel that way otherwise you are a nasty racist, you are not in the know, not in the bath of "happy globalization", in short you are a little reactionary. In some suburban towns where out of 25 inhabitants there are at most only a hundred or so French people who have been there for at least 000 generations... It is a geographical reality, on your commuter train you come across a white person every 3th of the month for years now and the laws of the Republic are becoming optional. The champions of capitalism, the Attali, etc. are delighted with the historical migrations that we are experiencing at the moment, they are delighted to see the people dissolve into a multitude of ethnic lobbies and small clans and other gangs because on the other side there are no longer many people who want to to make society. The only French cultural dimension seems to be summed up in guilt: being guilty and indebted to the crimes of one's ancestors - like, the Arabs are choirboys and built an empire by calling for universal love! In short, the French are not those who claim to be part of the Enlightenment, revolutions, the women's struggle, etc. and who are inhabited by certain values inherited from these struggles, but they are those who have understood that they are guilty and must constantly ask for forgiveness. It's been there for forty years, but now we're starting to see the legislative results: memorial laws, positive discrimination, the hunt for dreamlike racism, the culture of apology, and now the return of blasphemy. I even know French people who, in contexts where they are a minority, are ashamed to say that they have been for several generations.
It’s hard to feel like we’re in the country of 1789…
Worse! I am always shocked to see that the descendants of Olympe de Gouges, the Communards, the feminism of the 60s etc. are women ravaged by consumerism and conformism. A simple example, I made the choice not to have children and today, unlike thirty years ago, it is a choice that makes you live a real hell in terms of social pressure from all sides including in the teaching environment which is supposed to be open. I will not tell you about the North African mothers who, with their hand on your shoulder and a compassionate air, tell you: " Inch Allah you will have one, at least one, it is God who decides, my daughter, it's not you "... So I understand perfectly that we can want to be parents, a child can give hope and a sense of responsibility to those who would otherwise be deprived of it or an occupation or whatever... It's not because I don't want a child that I don't understand why people want one and that I look at those who embark on the adventure as pathological abnormalities (although, in certain cases...). But the opposite is not possible. When you arrive at a school, colleagues ask the question quite quickly, I have no problem answering it, I argue but often it creates a kind of fear panic including among guys: in the face, they ultimately have no valid argument for their choice of child, the question does not arise, it was in the order of things and then a kid is nice, it fills your life… So suddenly you come across as an alien, or the poor sterile chick or the mean little selfish girl – by the way I would like to meet parents whose offspring is not a sign of their social success! In short, you don't want pathologically egocentric, manic-depressive, hyperconnected, hysterical, etc. kids, well this choice is in-hearable for these rabbit lovers. It's not even a child at all costs anymore but my genes at all costs, PMA, GPA, and all the hardware, and you if you're not in it you have a big psychological problem that you rationalize more or less well, period! Well, today's kids, that's what they teach at the IUFM, it's 10 to 15 minutes of attention, eh, no more, you have to change activities every quarter of an hour, otherwise hop it's gone! And suddenly it's chaos, the educational advisors tell us: if you are overwhelmed by discipline problems in your class it's entirely your fault, you are not playful enough, your activities are too long, understand your teaching does not resemble a video game enough, It has to pulse… A maximum concentration of 10 to 15 minutes, you realize… That corresponds to nothing, not even to the good submissive worker that the capitalist school would like to train! Even advertisers complain about having only 8 seconds of sustained attention compared to 15 ten years ago! School textbooks increasingly resemble comics for morons, schools like entertainment centers in which the laborious transmission of knowledge becomes optional or even suspect.
This is the Western collapse…
That's it, so faced with this void and this Western regression, indeed, sexist Islamist ideology, among others, has no trouble deploying itself. I took the example of women because as a woman it is the one that saddens me the most, but it is the same for other themes, same regression... So to face the catastrophe of the ruin of the school we are going to put "more adults per class": where it is most feared, one adult will be assigned to the integration of non-French-speaking children, another to children in difficulty and, as I said, the black, the "educational" solution that our elites have found to manage all this mess is techno-scientism, digital technology in schools and all that stuff: skills grids and bogus assessments galore that are like so many plasma smoke screens thrown over a disturbing reality. The unions are delighted, no more positions, no more bogus training, no more machines that are useless like "digital boards", etc. but when you see the recruitment in the last two years in certain academies, you freak out... I shared a class with a contract colleague: " Hello zonfont! ", he was an Algerian who had recently settled in France with his Algerian Master 2 in management in his pocket, who had never seen a group of kids in his life, one morning Pôle Emploi contacted him and the next day, boom, he was in a class. True. Even the veiled mothers complained about him but very nicely! Imagine if he was a white man! or a Jew what he would have taken!… In short, we put in place a bunch of techno-pedagogical prostheses, brigades of educational advisors to panic-train these novice teachers who it turns out do not master the knowledge or even the language they are supposed to teach. In the classes where I was sent to “put out fires” after the passage of beginners whose classes had become cages for wild animals, I came across in the notebooks words intended for parents full of spelling mistakes… I work in an area that seems to be self-destructing at all levels, as if it were planned, but to such an extent that no State could do it, nor any power of any kind. It's history moving forward – or backward, rather…
You are describing something that is difficult to imagine for those who are not directly confronted with it...
The people I talk to about it don't believe me, or they quickly forget, in any case, they don't take the measure of what is happening, neither in intensity nor in extent. Around my neighborhood in a radius of one kilometer you have 4 official mosques, including two gigantic, brand new, with minarets and domes overlooking the neighborhood. The do-gooders play the frightened virgins seeing thousands of kids tempted by the jihad : but these people grew up fifteen or twenty years ago, even before, and have only experienced a tenth of what has appeared since, let's say, the Arab uprisings, that is to say kids who are born literally enlisted and surrounded, in the family, in the neighborhood, at the mosque, at the Koranic school, in the playground, on the internet, etc. You can no longer say the word "wine" without provoking emotion and hostility in the classroom. And reading "The Three Little Pigs" is met with profound incomprehension: these kids cannot identify with it... I'm not telling you anything very original, reports on Muslim tensions and the problems that this poses in education (and also in other sectors) have been piling up on the desks of the highest authorities for at least 15 years now. We still have a few years to go, eh...
Don't you think things can work out, somehow?
Ok, maybe, I hope so, but I don't see how. Maybe this youth raised in bigotry, rejection of difference and fundamental hatred of the host country will experience its adolescent crisis by breaking with the "values" of its parents, a sort of May 68, which we have been waiting for among Arab-Muslims for forty years! And which would ruin anti-Jewish vindictiveness, caricatured patriarchy, racism, superstitions, etc. That is possible, and it would be the only viable way out, but it would require a favorable context. The 60s were prosperous years in the West and contained a counter-culture that inherited the protest movements of past centuries... and what awaits us is rather repeated crises, particularly economic, which ultimately did not start here, contrary to what the leftists say... And like immigrants, those fleeing war including, came looking for prosperity, eh, it's not your stupid brochures that interest them! I doubt they'll react in a united manner.
In fact, the big bet of those who refuse to see Islamism, to measure its extent, is to tell themselves that Muslims will gradually be devoured by consumer society, like all subversive movements, that they will end up integrating in one way or another. It is a trend that exists, it is clear that consumerist nihilism tears Muslims away from their delirium but it does not offer much in the way of meaning in life… And quite quickly, we find ourselves faced with our own emptiness, which deepens and deepens… And trinkets are not enough, and do not prevent anything: what we see, moreover, is that Al Banna campaigned with newspapers, Khomeney and the FIS with audio and video cassettes, today it is YouTube, tablets, and all their technological crap, in short, it has only gotten bigger. And the bearded or crypto-bearded, like the bigots in tarpaulins, are integrating at high speed: they are found in all positions, they penetrate almost all sectors, the fact for example of being a professor of linguistics in a French university and at the same time occupying the position of imam in the suburbs is not even shocking anymore: we will soon have Muz' Brothers inspectors, who will play the role of mediators in these territories. We need a revolution in Arab-Muslim mentalities, but for the moment I see nothing significant that goes in this direction...
For you, the solution could only come from a revolution in Arab-Muslim mentalities? And what would it be?
I see three obstacles to overcome. First, they would have to clarify their presence in France: the descendants of immigrants do not know what the hell they are doing there, their parents never told them why they emigrated and chose to live in France. It would have to be clear: we were not deported, we fled the mentalities, the corruption, the clannishness, the hypocrisy, etc. of our countries which had just obtained independence. And here we are, in a country which was willing to welcome us, so we are going to become French, gradually, from generation to generation, like all immigrants for centuries. On a larger scale, this of course overlaps with all the ambivalence of Arab-Muslim countries towards the West, both admired and hated to an indescribable point, and which we would have to assume in order to make it a force for change.
Then there would be the family structure, experienced as a refuge in “this country of Koufar » with at its center this legendary patriarchy that has been made all-powerful, tyrannical, by exile. The father finds himself without equals who balance his power. In this sense, communitarianism is a kind of return to normal… To diminish patriarchy would obviously be to give back a place to women, mothers, daughters, sisters, friends. To become human again, in other words…
And finally, the last point is obviously the relationship with the Koran, which was experienced by previous generations in a very relaxed, very loose, very distant way and which is becoming tense today. We should break with what is most regressive in our culture, its religious dimension of which the Maghrebis are for the moment the most proud. There you have it. But all of this will be difficult to do in a lethargic West, which itself denies its own culture or rather all of its emancipatory culture and also retains only its most alienated and destructive part.
But do you think it's possible anyway?
Less and less, in this totalitarian atmosphere. Having experienced it personally, this break with what is most alienating, most xenophobic in our cultures of origin is extremely complicated, the systematic outcome for those who take the step being great isolation. But this is all the more difficult since the dhimmis, the soft Left and its Islamo-leftists, use all means to stifle this desire for emancipation, to keep you in your determinisms by excusing everything, and that constitutes for me an extremely violent pincer movement. And as a woman obviously it is even more complicated: basically, if you think what you think and live what you live it is because there is a white male behind you (maybe even a Jew) who manipulates you without your knowledge: it is sexism, which I have been able to experience in particular coming from French militant types calling themselves revolutionaries…
You have people like that, dripping with good feelings, who infantilize you by constantly referring you to the crimes of colonialism (Western, obviously!) as if to make you feel guilty about joining the enemy, that is to say themselves, and to choose assimilation. It bothers them, deep down, that you assume a large part of the French heritage that you make your own, and that they seem to hate, that you are their equal and that you refuse the victim position that is very convenient for their little narcissism. If there is a real Western racism, it is this one, that is it, the real identity assignment. With a Le Penist at least it is clear, but here it is a racism that is adorned with a pseudo-benevolence, which makes it all the more odious.
In short, the French-French should realize that this is a war that has been declared for 30 years now. This would obviously imply that we finally adopt a less "Christian" stance, if I may say so, and above all more policy vis-à-vis the ongoing Islamization, which we will not combat by meditating after each Islamist attack and then going to eat at the salaf' nice guy who runs the local kebab shop.
And you, what are you going to do?
I am not leaving again at the start of the school year in September, there is a good chance that this academy will no longer recruit or very few contract workers now that all the positions are filled by permanent staff recruited in large numbers through competitive examinations with an admission threshold of 4 on average! But even in the event of a re-hiring, I do not think I will resume, I do not see myself continuing my mission in a school where everything is organized to prevent you from really transmitting, where if you really take your task seriously you are suspected, even ostracized and sanctioned.
But above all, I will very soon be changing my place of residence, because I value my physical and mental integrity, because that is where it is in certain territories, it is becoming just unbearable for women who are not within the Islamic norm, who do not submit to the dictates of daily aggressive machismo and claim to keep a minimum of femininity and freedom, and it is only getting worse over time, I do not have the soul of a martyr and the balance of power is not there...
Personally, all this ends up wearing me down, I don't even see what's left of pleasant in this suburb or in my classes, these little educational miracles: this little beaten African I was telling you about, who starts talking and listening attentively to others after three weeks of What's up, who no longer twists in all directions, who no longer hits anyone, who no longer breaks anything; the only twenty minutes of the day when he is with us, when he is not at war with just about everything and everyone… Or the other one, the little Afghan, stunned, inexpressive, hypotonic – “ your green plant " as my colleagues call him - who for the first time, after 4 months of class, gives you a barely perceptible smile because he has just succeeded in an exercise...
Of course, these are moments that recharge you and at the same time depress you because you can see, especially in kindergarten, that kids all want to learn in a society where almost everything is done to prevent them from doing so: I don't know any kid (except for severe psychotics) who doesn't want to integrate into the society in which they live, or grow up, I only see "adults" who stand in the way of that as probably never before in history. When, as a result, you end up being ashamed of being an adult in front of these kids thrown into a world where everything is collapsing and where nothing but barbarity emerges, whether gentle or uninhibited, this job becomes doubly impossible even by resorting to legal or illegal drugs as many colleagues do daily, exhausted nervously and physically. We have fallen back into the prehistory of the republican school while we must face a new fascism.
JJune 2015
