While a Gallic “intellectual” did propose in 2017 the creation of a quasi-Sharia state within France in order to avoid civil war with its Muslims, not all his countrymen are quite ready to throw in the towel. In fact, the French government has just shut down 21 mosques for “extremist” preaching.
This isn’t the first time the nation has targeted jihadist-oriented Islamic entities. France closed approximately 20 mosques and prayer halls in 2016 and last year shuttered 73 “places of radicalization,” which included mosques, schools, shops, and drinking establishments. The Gallic country is host to approximately 2,500 mosques and prayer halls in total.
As PressTV reported on Tuesday:
France’s Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, appearing on the French television LCI on Sunday … said they recently carried out raids at 99 mosques on suspicion of extremism, and closed 21 of the mosques in question while the process of closing 6 others was underway.
Darmanin further said that these steps were taken on the basis of the so-called “separatist” law.
He said 36 mosques were left open “because they did not contradict the laws of the Republic,” while other mosques were stopped from receiving external funding and the prayer leader of one of the mosques was dismissed on suspicion of extremism.
He later took to Twitter to share details about the action taken by the French government, while emphasizing that the raids on mosques will continue.
In its very biased article, PressTV writes that the “move is seen as yet another Islamophobic attack targeting the country’s persecuted minority Muslim community.” That it is thus “seen” is undoubtedly true, of course, but the outlet doesn’t specify by whom (France’s communist party?).
But here’s what PressTV, which would have you believe the mosques were Targeted For No Good Reason Whatsoever™, didn’t report:
At least one of the mosques, in Beauvais, was temporarily closed because, relates Breitbart, it “‘attacks in an unacceptable manner Christians, homosexuals, and Jews,’ Mr Darmanin told CNews, according to the newspaper, Le Figaro.”
“The mosque, which was built in 2014 with the support of the local town hall, has allegedly seen multiple cases of hate preaching, with security services stating there had been ‘several sermons that incite hatred, violence and glorify jihad,’” Breitbart continues.
(Perhaps the “local town hall” ought to ponder the concepts known as self-destructiveness and “cultural suicide.”)
Interestingly and in typical left-wing style, PressTV is picking winners and losers from among its identity groups; that is to say, it’s siding with the “extremist” mosques here even though they’re apparently inveighing against liberals’ treasured “LGBT” lobby.
And for those who’d say that “jihad” may only refer in all these cases to some kind of “spiritual battle,” Breitbart presents the following tweet:
France has also since 2010 prohibited total facial concealment in public, a measure obviously meant to target the Muslim hijab and niqab.
Related to this, French President Emmanuel Macron has “said ‘no concessions’ would be made in a new drive to eliminate religion from education and [the] public sector in the country,” PressTV also tells us. Yet to move on to a deeper matter, this is a bit as if while trying to denazify Germany after WWII, we said that “ideology” was the problem. (By the way, ponder for a moment that we have the term “denazify,” but not “demarxify.” Hmm.)
Or it’s a bit as if, while trying to eliminate temper tantrums in a school, we said emotion was the problem and forbade laughter, smiling, and signs of compassion along with angry outbursts. Talk about throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Of course, France must speak of banning “facial concealment” and not “hijabs,” and “religion” and not “Islam,” because of the standard that no “religion” may be singled out. Oddly, that same standard holds that religion may be singled out relative to secularism — with zeal. Or, that is to say, at least anything called “religion.”
Consider that, as liberal NBC rightly pointed out implying hypocrisy, France still maintained its facial-coverings ban last year while mandating facial coverings: COVID-19-inspired face masks. Oh, “That’s not religious,” some will say. (Of course, the French law’s prohibition isn’t limited to “religious” coverings.) “It’s not a matter of faith!”
No, it’s just a tenet of what some have called Branch COVIDianism for a reason: To combat a virus, we’re supposed to wear masks that don’t filter out the virus and take “vaccines” that don’t stop the spread of the virus, under the direction of Grand Mufti Fauci and his circle of imams, on faith. Just consider the masks and the shots as being like an amulet.
The point here isn’t about what should and shouldn’t be banned or mandated (Fauci and his secularist comrades and the Islamists all have their preferences on that; Christians do, too). Rather, it’s about clarifying thinking. To wit:
At bottom, “religious”/“secular” is a false distinction. After all, hypothetically speaking, if God exists, what’s more significant: that we call belief in Him “religious” or that it’s true? If Marxism is a pernicious lie, what’s more significant: that we call the ideology “secular” or that it’s mainly untrue?
The only distinction that really matters is true vs. untrue. Every other is at best secondary and, if it serves to obscure the ultimate distinction, is actually destructive.
A people focused on Truth would be far more likely to know what beliefs and practices should be encouraged and discouraged and would, in keeping with this, be far less likely to embrace scientifically obscurantist health measures.
Such a people also wouldn’t combat what it considers a lie with another lie, which never ends well. For that’s not just throwing out the baby with the bathwater, but is sometimes actually the replacing of both with all bathwater, albeit of a different kind. And a bathwater civilization, ultimately, goes down the drain.
