[by Pascal PERRINEAU]
The 18 February 2021[1], an strange official press release from Sciences Po, for the signature of the "scientific authorities" who are the president of the Scientific Council, the scientific director, the president of the Institute council as well as the directors of the research units and departments of Sciences Po, was entitled " Islamo-leftism: a regrettable investigation« .
In this 22-line text, the authors expressed their "shock at the announcement by the Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation that she wanted to conduct an investigation into the different currents of "Islamo-leftism". We can share or not this "shock" or even consider that this type of investigation was not the most appropriate way to address this very important issue, as shown by the sad affair of Sciences Po Grenoble where leftist circles unleashed themselves against two academics who had committed the crime of lèse-majesté by exercising their critical capacity with regard to certain excesses of Islam.
Declaring an official position on a concept like Islamo-leftism that was born at the very heart of political science brings back the worst memories of those "official sciences" that, at the time of the USSR, excommunicated this or that concept that did not please the bureaucrats of the Academy of Sciences... Let us listen carefully to these researchers from an institution long attached to pluralism, freedom of thought and innovative concepts: "As the Conference of University Presidents usefully recalled, the concept of Islamo-leftism has no scientific content and only leads to sterile polemics. This political vocabulary aims more to stigmatize the bearers of ideas that we do not share, and its use in an academic context makes no sense. " Regardless of the fact that the argument of the position of the Conference of University Presidents is a purely bureaucratic argument and that the legitimacy of the latter to award certificates of "scientificity" is null, the text of the "scientific authorities" of Sciences Po is above all characterized by a great ignorance of the subject. One can wonder who, in this gathering, has read the reference works on this notion of Islamo-leftism which, however, were written by Pierre-André Taguieff, director of research at the CNRS attached for several decades to the Center for Political Research of Sciences Po (CEVIPOF). This is worrying in a "university of research in social sciences" which wants to claim scientific excellence.
Pierre-André Taguieff coined the expression “Islamo-leftism” in the early 2000s in order to designate and circumscribe “a de facto militant alliance between Islamist circles and far-left circles [which he describes as “leftists”], in the name of the Palestinian cause, erected as a new great revolutionary cause with universal vocation.”[2]. It is in fact in a whole series of works devoted to the new Judeophobia that the CNRS research director brings to light a socio-historical reality marked by the convergence of extreme left and Islamist circles which make the accusation of "Islamophobia" a weapon of indoctrination and propaganda.[3]. For these circles, Islamophobia would have historically replaced anti-Semitism in Europe. This approach finds an echo even in certain university circles.[4] who refuse to consider the Islamization of the Palestinian cause and the fact that "it is jihadists and not neo-Nazis who are killing Jews in Europe"[5].
First of all, Pierre-André Taguieff notes that the history of strategic alliances between revolutionary circles and the Muslim world, or rather a particular Muslim country or Islamic organization, is ancient. "We must go back to the Baku Congress, the "first congress of the peoples of the Orient" organized on 1er on September 8, 1920 by the newly created Communist International. Comrade Zinoviev declared that it was necessary to “arouse a real holy war [Jihad] against the English and French capitalists”»[6]. These occasional rapprochements between a revolutionary left and Islamism are numerous, as evidenced by many recent elements. The conversion of the international terrorist, communist militant of Venezuelan origin, Ilich Ramirez Sanchez known as Carlos, to Islam in 1975; the participation of France insubordinate, the CGT and the NPA at the demonstration organized on November 10, 2019 by the Collective against Islamophobia in France (CCIF closely linked to Muslim Brotherhood circles) or the publication, in 1994, by one of the main leaders of the British Trotskyist party, Socialist Workers Party, Chris Harman, from a brochure The Prophet and the Proletariat[7] are all clear signs of the reality of Islamo-leftism. In his pamphlet devoted to these strategic confluences between Islamism and leftism, Trotskyist leader Chris Harman theorizes a conjunctural alliance between revolutionary socialists and Islamists: "On certain issues we will be on the same side as the Islamists against imperialism and against the State. This was the case, for example, in a large number of countries during the second Gulf War. This should be the case in countries like France or Great Britain when it comes to combating racism. Where Islamists are in opposition, our rule of conduct must be: 'with the Islamists sometimes, with the State never'."
Thus, the radicalization of a part of the Muslim world and the evolution of a part of the left, from the defense of a republican universalism towards an essentially communitarian logic, have created this Islamo-leftism.
The convergences between leftism and Islamism have been made around two areas: that of the Palestinian cause, hence the radical anti-Zionism that runs through this current, that of the reduction of the fight against racism to the "fight against Islamophobia", Muslims being supposed to be the main victims of "systemic discrimination" due to a so-called "state racism". This type of thesis, very fashionable in certain academic, media, associative and political sectors, is carried by "the convergence between anti-capitalism (Marxist), anti-Westernism (Islamist) and anti-white anti-racism (decolonialism)".[8] This creation of an Islamo-leftist space is also driven by the force of seduction that "the preference for violence" continues to have.[9] – to use Jacques Julliard's expression – of a number of intellectuals of the "high" and "low" intelligentsia for revolutionary utopianism and redemptive violence.
Thus, the radicalization of a part of the Muslim world and the evolution of a part of the left, from the defense of a republican universalism towards an essentially communitarian logic, have created this Islamo-leftism which, through the Islamist demonization of freedom of expression and secularism, is in the process of deeply dividing political and intellectual culture in France and elsewhere.
One might have expected that the women and men who signed this uncertain Sciences Po press release dated February 18, 2021, would have had a more balanced assessment, dare we say "more scientific" and above all a slightly more solid argument than the arguments of authority (the Conference of University Presidents thinks that...; the CNRS considers that...) which are very weak in the circumstances. Unless ignorance of the real debates fueled this lapidary and hasty judgment. But be careful because, as an old Spanish proverb says, "ignorance always leads to servitude."
The press release of February 18 is available here.
