Two trials, same disease

So it turns out that Alexander Wiens, the Islamophobe who has recently been found guilty of the murder of Marwa al-Sherbini, is appealing his life sentence at the Federal Court of Justice. Let's hope this court has enough strength of character to reaffirm the sentence.

Meanwhile, the trial of Radovan Karadžić has been postponed until 1 March. Karadžić, of course, has been charged with the murder of 7,000 Muslims in Srebrenica and 10,000 people, most of them Muslims, in Sarajevo, among other crimes. So far, he has been able to obstruct his trial by boycotting it and continually asking for more time to study the charges against him. It seems, though, that, once the trial is well and truly under way, Karadžić should receive a life sentence if even one of the more serious charges against him is proven. Anything less would be a travesty of justice.

The difference between Karadžić and Wiens is simply one of degree. Unquestionably, there is a significant minority of Europeans that believes that there is no place for Muslims in Europe. While most such right-wing extremists spread their views non-violently (see picture), there are those, like Karadžić and Wiens, who evidently believe that European Muslims should be physically exterminated. It is thus reassuring that Wiens received his life sentence, and also reassuring that Karadžić is behind bars, despite the lack of progress in his trial.

The European and international justice system have so far been able to demonstrate that the brazen murder of innocents in Europe will not be tolerated. Thank God for that. However, an almost equally serious problem, in my view, is the seemingly growing political clout of openly Islamophobic movements that, while stopping short of calling for violence against Muslims, do their best to depict European Muslims as enemy aliens.

Among such groups I would count the British National Party (BNP). Last May, on a visit to England, I saw a BNP flyer which said, which no apparent shame, that Turkey should be prevented from entering the EU so that "70 million Muslim Turks" would not be able to flock to British shores. I would have thought that such open attacks on a particular group based solely on their religion would be illegal. But apparently not. Take a look at this poster, which makes it clear that opposition to Muslims (not Muslim extremists or whatever, mind, but all Muslims) is a central plank of the BNP's platform. Or look at this poster. Or this one.

Then, of course, there's the Swiss People's Party and its anti-minaret referendum, or Geert Wilders and his call for the Qur'an to be banned in the Netherlands, and for new Muslim immigrants to be kept out of the country. Lighter shades of Islamophobia are evident in Nicolas Sarkozy's campaign to legislate the clothing of Muslim women in France.

While anti-Semitism is, thankfully, on the decline in Europe, it seems that Islamophobia has very quickly taken its place. As Nick Griffin has admitted, this replacement of anti-Semitism with Islamophobia is, often, intentional. It's simply what sells these days.

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Now playing: "Concerto for Two Violins and Strings in D Minor: Largo ma non tanto" by Johann Sebastian Bach.

Bardot convicted of inciting racial hatred

The former actress Brigitte Bardot has been found guilty of inciting racial hatred against Muslims. The court in Paris where Bardot, 73, was convicted has fined her €15,000 (Canadian $23,531; US $23,157).

The conviction stems from a statement made in a letter to Nicolas Sarkozy (then the French Interior Minister) in December 2006, in which she called Muslims "this whole population that is destroying us, destroying our country...." The reason for her anger at Muslims was that they usually do not stun animals before slaughtering them (Белорусские новости; Le Point).

Sarkozy promises to defend women forced into burqa

The French president-elect, Nicolas Sarkozy, has said in his victory speech that "France will not abandon the women condemned to wear the burqa" (BBC).

But France has already abandoned the women -- the Frenchwomen -- who wear the hijab. Excuse me, but who is France to lecture others on how people should dress, when its own citizens do not have the freedom to choose their clothes without hindrance? This is a rather unimpressive start for Sarkozy, and it shouldn't come as a surprise.

Visitor profile, 15 March to 14 April 2007

Have you ever wondered who besides you (and me, of course) visits this blog?

Here are some answers:

In the month between 15 March and 14 April 2007, Notes on Religion received 207 visits. These visits came from all the inhabited continents except South America. Most visitors (54%) came from Canada. The second-highest number came from the United States (27%). Britain came a distant third with 7%.

Within Canada, 63% of the visits came from Quebec.

The biggest proportion of visitors (36%) was referred to the blog by Blogger. As for those who were referred by Google, they were searching for all sorts of things, from '"aziz senni" bbc' to 'sarkozy'.

I'm glad to say that Firefox was the most popular browser (56%) among the users of this blog during the period under review. 95% of the visitors were Windows users.

Thank you for your continued participation in this conversation. :)

Hard-won successes for French Muslims

Hamid Senni, a second-generation Frenchman of Moroccan origin, was told by his teacher to change his given name to Lionel if he wanted to achieve anything in France. That advice has so far proven true: after getting an MBA in Sweden and a stint with Ericsson, Senni was offered a job as a travelling vacuum-cleaner salesman in France. He has decided to leave France for Britain, becoming one of 15,000 French people who cross the Channel permanently every year in search of work. In Britain, Senni runs his own consultancy, and has written a book about his experiences.

Meanwhile, Hamid's cousin Aziz Senni launched a shared taxi company in 2000, and is now a political consultant for French presidential candidate François Bayrou. He, too, has written a book about his struggles, entitled The Social Elevator is Broken... So I Took the Stairs. He counters right-wing presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy's slogan of "France, you love it or you leave it" with a more inclusive "France, you love it and you change it" (BBC).

Of course, nobody loses more from placing impediments in the path of immigrants and their descendants than the host nation itself. Despite the way he was treated in France, Hamid Senni dreams of returning there and doing something useful for his country. However, while he remains in Britain, France is deprived of his productive potential, exclusively through its own fault. As long as French Muslims need to package themselves as "Lionel" in order to achieve economic success (or even, simply, to get jobs that match their qualifications), France cannot escape social tensions and divisions. The way to move forward is together, and France would do well to learn from North American countries, where second-generation immigrants, at least, have a much easier time fitting in.