Sarkozy's War Against Islam

No matter how hard Nicolas SarkozyNicolas Sarkozy tries to portray himself as some sort of statesman, to me he will always look a typical haughty Western politician who exploits the anti-Islam sentiment in his European country to help his political ambitions. Obama was referring to Islamophobes like Sarkozy in his Cairo speech when he talked about those who fight against Islam in the name of liberal values. If France is supposed to be a secular democracy, then how come it does not guarantee religious freedom for its citizens... for all of its citizens? France has about 50 million people, and 5 million of them are of Muslim heritage. France has more Muslims than any other country in Europe. The interesting thing about France is that it's not just the Caucasians that are against the burqa; radical feminists of Moroccan and Algerian descent are (in some cases) even more Islamophobic than the ethnically white French people.

Sarkozy calls the burqa a "symbol of enslavement." It's actually not a symbol of enslavement, Mr. Sarkozy. It's a symbol of modesty. But I don't think Sarkozy cares all that much about modest attire given the fact that he lets his wife dress like a high-class hooker. Sarkozy says, "We cannot accept to have in our country women who are prisoners behind netting, cut off from all social life, deprived of identity." But he's totally OK with turning Muslim women into prisoners of secularism and forcing them to give up their Islamic identity. I think France misunderstands what separation of church and state is supposed to be about. It's supposed to be about freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. The state is not supposed to be in the business of regulating faith. If the French government can prevent you from observing a particular religion, then that's only a few short steps away from the state forcing you to observe a state religion. That is dangerous territory.

And I don't for a second buy that all this is about secularism. It is about Islam-hatred, plain and simple. Europe hates Islam in the 21st century the same way that it hated the Jews in the 20th century. Europe has always been the problem child of the world; it started both World Wars that killed millions of people, and before that it colonized the rest of the world, enslaved the people whose territory they conquered, and exploited their resources. The world would be a better place without Europe (as it exists today). If Europeans can somehow get rid of their xenophobia and their Islamophobia, then they can be seen as a responsible members of the international community. This is not to say that all Europeans are anti-Islam; but the fact that these countries keep electing racists and Islamophobes to their Parliaments is enough to give one pause.

Sarkozy often talks about the need to prevent a "suicidal" clash between the West and Islam. Is he not aware that he is exacerbating already existing tensions between "the West and Islam?" In 2004, France banned the hijaab for school-age girls. No serious person believes that that was about protecting those girls from "enslavement." The hatred of Islam has reached almost a fever pitch in France as well as in the rest of Europe. Not only is France causing tensions between its Muslim community and the French state, but it's also damaging its already damaged reputation in the eyes of Muslims worldwide. Most Muslim women in the world do not wear the burqa, and most Muslim men around the world probably do not even like the burqa very much. But we can all recognize Islamophobia when we see it. I myself do not believe the burqa to be a religious requirement. But I support the right of any woman (Muslim or not) to wear the burqa for what ever reason she sees fit. The worldwide campaign against Islam is meant to stigmatize those that practice the Islamic faith. This is the goal of the non-Muslim Islamophobes and their Muslim helpers. Hearing Sarkozy talk about avoiding a West-Islam clash is like listening to Hitler condemning Holocaust denial.