On the occasion of the International Youth Day on 12 August, the European Commission posted a video on Instagram showing young FEMYSO activists wearing T-shirts with their association’s logo. The organisation, which is part of the Muslim Brotherhood, was previously received by the Maltese Commissioner for Equality, Helena Dalli, to talk about stereotypes, discrimination and hatred against young Muslims in Europe. In the same video, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, says: “Let’s be inspired by all the young people who show that you can achieve what you believe in”, before concluding: “This is the spirit of Europe’s next generation”.
A good Muslim today feels guilty for not having succeeded in establishing the Islamic State, whether by persuasion or force. This ideal, this ultimate goal is based on his pride as a Muslim. He is proud of what he is, not what he does. Instead of being what he will become, he wants to be what he has been. This blockage leads to a dichotomous attitude and, while he accepts technical modernity, he rejects its metaphysics. Thus, he lives a development without progress because he remains stuck to the sacred: the forbidden, halal, paradise, hell, the torments of the grave… For him, purity and fear prevail over the process of freedom. But because he feels guilty for not advancing the cause of Islam, which is to spread the law of Allah throughout the world, he is in constant conflict with himself.
In Germany, where three million Turks live, more than a million of whom have German nationality, Ankara has been trying for several years to influence elections by calling on voters with dual nationality not to vote for political parties deemed hostile to Turkey’s interests. Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s networks are also active in France, although much more discreetly, via the Council for Justice, Equality and Peace (Cojep), which presented – without much success – several candidates in the recent legislative elections.
Summer is just around the corner and the perennial question of the burkini is coming back like a yearly boomerang, just like the Latin beat that should accompany summer people on the beach. However, if musical successes are never predictable, the headlines, comments, condemnations and other resurgences on the legitimacy or banning of this “beachwear”, an extension of the hijab, will certainly be at the heart of the debate.
At a time when Afghan women are deprived of their faces, of work, of school, of going out, doomed by the Taliban to claustration from birth to death, Éric Piolle, the green mayor of Grenoble, has become famous for defending the burkini. A swimming pool chador that would be Islamo-compatible with the French way of life. The mayor brandished different models of the pious fabric before the Council of State, which on 14 June examined the appeal lodged by the municipality of Grenoble after the suspension of the right to burkini by the administrative court.
How can we explain that certain influential figures of the Muslim Brotherhood are constantly giving lessons in morality, while they lead a private life that is often totally dissolute? One immediately thinks of Tariq Ramadan, whose investigating judges recently announced the end of the investigations into the rape accusations, thus opening the way for a trial to be held soon. But it is also the case of Mohamed Karmous, in Switzerland, victim of blackmailers. He was recently filmed without his knowledge having sex with a girl he met the day before.
The perversion of the city, said Plato, begins with the fraud of words. In the case of Islam, we have reached the point in France where words are massacred. If this religion is at the heart of this French presidential election, it is not because of the importance of what Muslim votes could represent in the ballot box, but for other reasons, linked to explosive issues. Why has Islam become a major issue in the election campaign? It is only because of fear or the semblance of fear in the face of the “great replacement”, or in order to refute it. If the right in all its colours has found its Trojan horse in this “great replacement”, the political decline of the left is essentially due to the denial of this situation, which is now at the heart of the political debate in France.
Imam Mohamed Toujgani is affiliated to the Council of Theologians of Belgium, a very opaque organisation, close to the Executive of Muslims of Belgium (EMB). The other Muslim organisations in Belgium accuse the members of this executive of being co-opted in a “nepotistic manner”. Its board is currently chaired by Imam Tahar Toujgani, Mohamed’s cousin, who is also head of the European Council of Moroccan Ulemas.
The imam of the famous al-Khalil mosque in Molenbeek, Mohamed Toujgani, is now banned from Belgium for 10 years. He was on holiday in Morocco when the official announcement was made that he was not allowed to return to Belgium.
The local press widely reported the tug of war between him and the Belgian Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration, Sammy Mahdi, who initiated the procedure for banning the Molenbeek imam, following a report by the Belgian State Security Service describing him as “a danger to national security”.
The French Ministries of Interior and Economy have created a joint working group to better control the financial circuits linked to travel agencies specialising in the sale of tickets and packages for the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.
