Some European Muslims find themselves exposed to McCarthyism campaigns, prejudiced policies, strange procedures, and symbolic humiliation that humiliates their sanctities under clear moral pretexts, despite experiences of openness and successes in dealing with Muslims elsewhere.
Nothing in France rises above the "values of the republic", as understood from political outbids and media deliberations that use these "values" as a pretext for division or as an excuse to attack sublime values and noble principles that were supposed to be protected, which is what is known as McCarthyism. It is that twisted way of assassinating political opponents morally to achieve certain goals, using undemocratic methods.
The season again revealed that the values of the Republic (them) infiltrated the French stadiums as well, trampling on the path of principled human and moral obligations related to Muslim players.
The matter came when the French Football Federation decided to prevent fasting Muslim players in the national league from sipping water or biting fruit during matches when it was time for them to break their fast, and stressed the importance of the referees’ commitment not to pause play in obedience to secularism, as the federation understands it.
These players must continue to play no matter what, claiming that Article 1 of the Federation’s statute requires respect for the principle of secularism in football, which requires them to continue to strain their bodies, even if the crude decision is stripped of human significance, moral character, and practical feasibility.
This is what the invocation of the "values of the republic" and its sacred sayings in the French public sphere has led to, as it stands as a justification for narrowing the opportunities for Muslims, men and women, to be present in the public scene that tends towards the far right, and to tighten the screws on their religious and cultural specificities in dress and behavior. These "values" have been a pretext for spreading hate speech, according to the experience of the satirical newspaper "Charlie Hebdo", for example. whose famous approach to contempt won literary protection from the masters of the Elysee, state leaders, and community figures.
The doctrine of “Republican Values” rears its head during seasons of symbolic cultural pursuit of French Muslims, who constitute the largest Muslim component at the European level. It is common in the French context to portray these “values” as threatening, which calls for their “protection” through further bans, restrictions and discrimination that selectively target Muslim men and women.
Those involved in these auctions do not show a willingness to self-criticism, or to doubt their statements that are likely to backfire on them rather. What remains of the slogans of the republic, such as freedom, equality and fraternity, for example, when discrimination is practiced in its name and citizens, men and women, are deprived under its pretext of simple rights and freedoms that are supposed to remain guaranteed to everyone basically, such as the right to choose clothing, or the opportunity to sip water at a specific moment, or immunity from contempt. Beliefs and insulting sanctities?!
The French Federation denied Muslim players a drink of water or a bite of fruit, revealing the extent to which the cultural stalking fever has reached, which is strengthened by its stereotypical justifications. "Republican McCarthyism", in the expression of critical French academics, infiltrated the green field, and put the Muslim players in the French matches, in practice, facing a compulsive choice between stopping the commitment to the ritual of fasting, or risking their physical health and their athletic performance, on the pretext that respect for secularism requires it.
France would not have deteriorated to this extent of the ideology of slogans and the strictness of interpretations had it not been for the ruling and opposition elites engaging in escalatory rhetoric season after season. For example, against Muslim women and girls covering their hair, or against the presence of halal products on the shelves of French stores, or against taking into account the privacy of Muslim students in school canteens, on the grounds that allowing these simple appearances threatens the “values of the republic” or rather undermines the secularism of the state. These outbids were exacerbated by the trend of political polarization and partisanship in France, with the increasing slide towards the contents of the far right and its traditional priorities.
And while France remains stuck with its inability to absorb the diversity inherent in its bowels, under the pretext of preserving the “values of the Republic”, the openness to the manifestations of diversity is proceeding smoothly in other European countries and regions. English matches give Muslim players the opportunity to stop playing in order to break their fast, as is the case in other European stadiums without noise or complications. No whirlwinds erupted in Britain when football star Mohamed Salah prostrated to God in thanksgiving after scoring amazing goals, or when the new Scottish Prime Minister, Hamza Yusuf, published his pictures leading his family to pray after being elected to the position that a Muslim occupies for the first time in the Western European context.
Far from being between two neighboring countries, the distance between these two experiences, French and British, is roughly between two worlds, and similar contradictions and contrasts can be found across Europe. In the Kingdom of Sweden, which until recently was an example of cultural openness, respect for diversity, and friendly dealings with Muslims, hateful hate campaigns found ample opportunity to spread it under the pretext of "freedom of expression." The reckless extremist politician, Rasmus Paludan, drew from the traditions of the European Middle Ages as his preferred method of mass warm-up by burning books in cold blood.
These shocking practices revealed the extension of the deterioration of values to the quiet European North, where noble values, such as "freedom of expression", are used as a tool to attack sublime values and principles that are indispensable for social peace, civil harmony, human coexistence and mutual respect for them.
This extremist politician insists on burning the Koran under the protection of the authorities in order to humiliate, provoke and hurt Muslims. The “rule of law” in the Nordic kingdom encouraged this absurdity when, in April 2023, a Swedish administrative appeals court overturned the ban on burning Qurans during demonstrations, after the police had banned some of these practices and allowed others.
The slide of public life into escalatory bids or its submission to McCarthyist tendencies targeting certain societal components is not, in fact, a sign of wellness, as it is an indication of latent crises in the bowels of democracies. The French political reality, for example, seems to bear witness to the disregard of the ruling class in this McCarthyism, the demands of the street burdened with demanding issues, to the extent that the ruling expanded in resorting to exceptional powers in the constitution and bypassing parliament to pass certain legislation.
The Austrian case also showed that the spread of McCarthyism is not limited to threatening the interests of the persecuted social component only. During the past decade, a young political leadership rose in the Alpine Republic through a coalition of the right and the far right, which relentlessly pursued the Muslims of Austria. The leadership of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz accomplished a coup against the Austrian traditions of openness to Muslims and cultural diversity, and was extravagant in targeting mosques and imams, financing Islamic centers and associations, dressing Muslim schoolgirls, working Muslim kindergartens, distributing the Qur’an in public places, and so on, and then targeting Muslims with the widest security campaign in the history of the Republic ( November 2020). McCarthyism rose during the reign of Chancellor Curtis under the pretext of chasing what is called "political Islam".
Europe does not lack experiences of openness and successes in dealing with Muslims, but it does not obliterate the causes of anxiety throughout the continent, where Muslims find themselves subject to McCarthyist campaigns, prejudiced policies, and symbolic humiliation that insults their sanctities under the pretexts of shining values. It is difficult for the new Muslim generations, for example, to comprehend the fact that the Holy Qur’an in particular is the holy book that the law in a European country forbids its distribution in public places to the exclusion of other holy books (Austria, 2018), and the judiciary in another European country allowed the organization of provocative activities dedicated to its burning in Al-Mayadeen (Sweden, 2023), and hate cartoons targeted him in other countries with campaigns of contempt under political protection, media veneration, and cultural blessing.
Writer Hossam Shaker Hos_Shaker Media consultant and researcher in media and European affairs
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