Douglas Murray: – Macron står alene mot islamsk ekstremisme; skammelig

President Emmanuel Macron holder en tale om hvordan islamsk separatisme kan bekjempes, i Les Mureaux, nær Paris, 2. oktober 2020. Foto: Ludovic Marin / REUTERS / NTB

Den franske presidenten forsvarer ytringsfriheten og det sekulære demokratiet mot islamsk ekstremisme og terrorisme, og har med det opprørt den islamske verden, som blant annet har svart med boikott av franske varer og angrep på franske mål.

Macron har fått liten støtte fra andre statsledere, hevder den kjente britiske skribenten Douglas Murray – forfatter av den internasjonale bestselgeren Europas underlige død (utgitt av Document forlag i 2017).

And while he has already incurred the wrath of much of the so-called Muslim world — with French goods disappearing from many Arab supermarkets and Macron condemned from Ankara to Islamabad — it is the silence of everyone else that has been so striking.

Den franske presidenten har i taler påpekt at «islam er i krise over hele verden» og at Frankrike har problemer med «islamsk segregasjon» og utenforskap. Det brutale drapet på læreren Samuel Paty på åpen gate opprørte Macron i ekstra stor grad.

Politikere som sier de støtter ytringsfrihet og sender sine tanker til pårørende, er noe vi har vent oss til skjer etter islamistisk vold, men denne gangen så det ut til at Macron mente alvor, registrerer Murray.

Such speeches are now common after such atrocities. We say ‘Je suis Charlie’ and then forget about it. But Macron seems to be serious. In the best traditions of the Republic, he stressed the non-negotiability of French secularism.

Å finne gode, sannferdige samtalepartnere i den muslimske verden om problemet med islamsk ekstremisme, er imidlertid ikke lett, påpeker Murray. Tyrkias president Erdogan vil gjerne være en leder for det muslimske fellesskapet, ummaen, men islamsk begrunnet terrorisme som tema liker han ikke: Islamofobi er mer i hans gate, pluss Macrons «mentale tilstand».

Sadly, honest interlocutors in the international arena are hard to find. And never harder than among those endlessly campaigning to be the leader of the world’s Muslims. The most eager candidate for would-be Caliph this time (as ever) has been Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Speaking to his party at the end of last month, the Turkish President said: ‘What is Macron’s problem with Muslims and Islam?’ He went on to claim that the French President requires ‘some sort of mental treatment’ over his attitudes towards Muslims in France. ‘What else is there to say about a head of state who doesn’t believe in the freedom of religion and behaves this way against the millions of people of different faiths living in his own country?’

From these comments, the world ought to have got a good reminder of how heroically dim or dishonest Erdogan can be. Either he actually fails to understand the very plain and sensible line that Macron has tried to draw — or he understands it very well but pretends not to in order to rile up a Muslim world of which he aims to be principal defender and leader.

Også Pakistans president Khan, tidligere «cricketer and playboy», liker å framstå som forsvarer av islam.

Khan claimed that Macron had deliberately created ‘further polarisation and marginalisation’. He went on: ‘President Macron has chosen to deliberately provoke Muslims, including his own citizens, through encouraging the display of blasphemous cartoons targeting Islam and our Prophet.’

Macron svarte på disse fornærmelsene og forvrengninger med tålmodighet. «Vi vet alle at Khan styrer et av verdens fattigste land, og det er lettere for ham å angripe Frankrike enn å forbedre levestandarden til sine 210 millioner landsmenn», skriver Murray ironisk.

Macron har satt fram konkrete forslag og tatt initiativer, og økt grensekontroll vil få støtte i alle fall fra land i Øst-Europa og Sentral-Europa.

In the weeks since his October speech he has ordered the recall of the French ambassador in Ankara and called for Turkey to be expelled from the EU customs union. Several radical organisations inside France have been dissolved and the numbers of government forces at the French borders doubled. Macron has also promised to bring his proposals for a rethink of EU border controls to the European Council in December. If he does, he will find some support from his eastern and central European counterparts, who may wonder what took him so long.

Men ett stort spørsmål gjenstår for Macron og Frankrike: Hvor ble det av landets venner og allierte?

Where are France’s friends and allies? Where has the German government been? Did Angela Merkel at any point join her French counterpart in condemning the pattern of violence followed by the exhortation of the extremists from the Turkish and Pakistani leaders? No — she remained silent, as though the protection of the principles of the French Republic are of no interest to Germany. The German press did publish words of support for Macron from one government minister: it was Anwar Gargash, an Emirati foreign minister, speaking to Die Welt. Muslims, he said, ‘have to listen carefully to what Macron said in his speech. He doesn’t want to isolate Muslims in the West, and he is totally right.’

The most support Macron has had from other western leaders is a tweet from Mark Rutte, the Dutch Prime Minister.

For Douglas Murray som brite er det aller mest skamfulle at Boris Johnson og Storbritannia har forblitt tause. Det er også en stor feil – «a deep mistake» – i en tid der Storbritannia trenger en god handelsavtale med Frankrike og EU.

Most shamefully for us, the Prime Minister and government of the United Kingdom have also remained silent. While we rightly focus on future trade relations with France and the rest of the EU, to ignore such a massive issue is a deep mistake. The principles France is defending may be subtly different from those of the UK, but at the most fundamental level they are shared.

Avslutningsvis påpeker Murray at Macron fortjener solidaritet fra sine vestlige venner og allierte. Så langt har han ikke engang fått verbal støtte. Og det er vår skam, ikke hans:

He deserves the support of his friends. To date he has not even got our words. To our shame, not his.

Macron alone: where are France’s allies in the fight against Islamism?

Kjøp Douglas Murrays bok “Europas underlige død” fra Document Forlag her!