When war in the Middle East is told in the language of those who wage it

Since 7 October 2023, a significant share of French audiovisual media coverage of the Israeli war on Gaza, and subsequently of the war in Lebanon, has revealed an inability to inform accurately, as well as a deeper crisis in the categories through which the Middle East is rendered intelligible.

What has prevailed across a majority of television channels is therefore not merely an editorial political bias, a compassion asymmetry, or a hierarchy of urgencies. It is a genuine reconfiguration of the gaze. The Israeli narrative of the war, together with its military terminology, was adopted and then gradually detached from history, the social sciences, and international law.

From that moment on, the societies targeted by the “Israeli operations” ceased to appear as inhabited worlds, shaped by social relations, memories, institutions, aspirations, and by individual as well as collective experiences. They became spaces of “surgical” intervention, theatres of manoeuvre, maps saturated with objectives and risks. The consequence of such a shift was decisive: by substituting a cold commentary for politics, this coverage did not merely impoverish analysis; it also helped render acceptable extreme forms of violence and criminality.

On the crisis of Islam: In defense of discussion

The murder last month of the French history teacher Samuel Paty, with its atrocious symbolism, marks the latest in a series of terrorist acts perpetrated by young French Muslims, or other Muslims residing in France. As is often the case, it has inflamed emotions to the extreme, rendering it impossible for days or even weeks thereafter to have a reasonable conversation about Islam and related questions.

As secular, democratic intellectuals, descending from the Arab Levant, and from a heritage of which Islam was and is an essential component, we are compelled by this state of affairs to affirm—first of all—that communication between different people, and the thorny examination of complex issues, are the key to disarming the militarization of thought and culture advocated by Islamist nihilists such as Paty’s killer, Abdullah Anzorov, and the many others like him. The more such people succeed in deepening the trenches separating Muslim communities from the world around them, the more they prosper and flourish.

Second, we affirm that this militarization of thought and culture is not limited to these Islamist nihilists alone. Plenty in the West play the very same game, and encourage the Islamists themselves to play it further, for they too seek to deepen the trenches and live in buttressed fortresses, indifferent to all that goes on around them and out on the margins of their settlements.

To read this article by Yassin Al-Haj Saleh, Farouk Mardam-Bey and Ziad Majed, please visit Aljumhuriya

A propos de la crise de l’islam

Tribune de Yassin Al-Haj Saleh, Farouk Mardam Bey et Ziad Majed, parue dans Le Monde, le 27 octobre 2020.

L’assassinat de Samuel Paty est venu s’ajouter à une série de crimes terroristes commis par de jeunes musulmans français ou résidents en France.  Par son horreur et sa sinistre symbolique, ce meurtre a exacerbé les passions et rendu presque impossible de débattre sereinement de tout ce qui a trait à l’islam et aux musulmans.

C‘est ce qui nous incite, comme intellectuels démocrates et laïques et comme héritiers d’une culture plurielle marquée par l’islam, à affirmer que le débat est plus que jamais nécessaire pour échapper au piège que nous tendent les Anzorov. Ce qu’ils cherchent, ainsi que leurs instigateurs et tous ceux qui justifient leur folie meurtrière, c’est justement à élargir davantage le fossé entre les musulmans et le reste de l’humanité. Et il ne manque pas en Occident des gens qui se plaisent à jouer le même jeu et qui aimeraient vivre dans des citadelles fortifiées, indifférents à tout ce qui se passe alentour. 

La mort tragique de Muhammad

Hela Ouardi, professeur à l’Université de Tunis, propose dans son ouvrage Les Derniers jours de Muhammad une reconstitution chronologique des événements qui ont précédé la mort du prophète de l’islam à Médine, le 8 juin 632. Son enquête (ou contre-enquête) interroge les différents livres de la tradition musulmane (sunnite et chiite), les récits biographiques et les textes des historiens, les compare et tente de restituer les faits, souvent intrigants, de la fin de la vie du prophète et de la lutte pour sa succession.

Pour lire l’article publié dans l’Orient Littéraire, veuillez suivre ce lien.