Without a detailed examination of their history and current reality, Afros loses the ability to integrate into society. In France, however, they see the autopsy as a ‘threat’.
Emmanuel Macron’s government has had a turn to the right that has been so pronounced that it has even stunned representatives of the National Group (RN, for its acronym in French), the party standing up for the far right in France.
Last week, French Interior Minister Gerald Dramanin suggested in a televised debate that RN leader Marine Le Pen was very “soft” about radical Islam. Le Pen’s expression after the comment was one of great surprise. That Darmanin accused her – whose speech is known as populist and xenophobic – of not being strong against Islam speaks to how the executive has also fed on extremist stances to please the more conservative voters in light of the presidential election. 2022.
In October 2020, Macron declared a war on “Islamist separatism”, as the president dubbed “Islam’s attempts to dominate parts of the national territory and go against France”. This was sweet news for Islamophobia. Through the anti-separatism law he filed and passed on Tuesday, the president wants to reconfigure the practices of Islam in his country to fit his vision of a “French Islam” that is supposedly the “republican principles of France”. confirms. His goal, he explains, is to fight radical Islam and terrorism in this way, but all this project ultimately does is increasing stigma, hate speech and the oppressive and authoritarian climate that Macron has unleashed.
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It should be remembered that Macron also uses the Global Security Law Project that tried to prevent citizens from registering abuse by the police. France is facing an extreme control device that Macron has tried to install because it is best to protect “republican principles” such as freedom. And while the French have demonstrated against these governmental measures, the president’s cabinet continues to put a finger on the pulse. The latest controversy came from the Minister of Higher Education, Frederique Vidal, who wants to control studies on racism in France.
The demonstrations against systemic racism in the United States following George Floyd’s death in 2020 have echoed in France, where they have tried to ignore this problem. The United States, a country like France built on the foundation of racism and slavery, has been debating the implications of its past for today’s society for several years. It’s worth highlighting, for example, the Project 1619 autopsy, which focuses on the consequences of slavery in the country and aims to be integrated into schools. But these US initiatives have not been properly interpreted by the Vidal and Macron team, who described them as “a threat.”
Macron’s struggle with “Islamic separatism” explained
The concept of “race” in France is a taboo that, for several politicians such as Macron, tries to “split the republic in two” between victims and perpetrators. Vidal understands it that way too, so he asked for an investigation into those who “see everything through the prism of wanting to break.” By this he meant researchers who investigated French colonialism and racism, whom he also called ‘activists’. “The research will determine what research is and what activism and opinion is,” concluded Vidal.
This attempt by the Ministry of Higher Education to take control of French colonialism and accuse American universities of “ promoting dangerous left-wing ideas ” troubles African scientists like Mame-Fatou Niang, who points out that minority researchers throughout activists were considered. through the ages, and this will only scrutinize them more closely. On the other hand, he warned that this “purge at the academy” would cause a brain drain.
“French higher education has an excellent reputation in doctoral schools in the US where very solid, knowledgeable and serious researchers would be trained. Bleeding and brain drain will undoubtedly increase with these types of actions. This is your goal. Evacuate critical thinking, “says Niang, who has been attacked by French lawmakers for alleged” ideological excesses “.
France has always had a problem with the history of its colonialism. It is as sensitive a subject as slavery for the United States. And this translates into a huge problem for minorities. Unlike other Western countries, the French government does not formally keep statistics on, for example, race or religion. But you cannot have a conversation about inequality without understanding race, its history, and its context. Without a detailed examination of their past and present reality, Afros loses the ability to integrate into society.
“It is the inability to shed light on that past that perpetuates racism and impunity for the police, or the impunity of those who make decisions, at work or in housing, based on physical criteria, and deny the rights of the blacks who are black or Arab, ”said Karfa Diallo, Senegal-born founder of Mémoires et Partages The New York Times
At French universities, some academics formed a group known as the ‘Observatory for Decolonialism and Identity Ideologies’ with the aim of tackling an approach that they consider to be an ‘unhealthy approach to race and identity in academia’. But all of these initiatives meet a government’s reluctance to investigate its mistakes while flirting with far-right voters, who want such a narrative unchecked, and passing laws to protect the smell of dung instead of measures to combat systemic racism. to revise.
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