The French Suburban House & Field Negros

The French Suburban House and Field Negro

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بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم


In the aftermath of 9/11 Muslims all over the world came to realize that they have been the real victims of international terror

attacks. If Osama Ben Laden really was behind the September attacks he definitely had caused more harm to his own ummah

then he had to the West. Muslims today feel targeted when displaying their religion, especially when it comes to practicing the

Sunnah1. In doing so, they become subjected to a "guilty until proven innocent" policy and are expected to justify themselves

for the crimes of a few nut heads who happen to have the same religion. Thousands of innocent Muslims, including journalists,

found themselves behind bars, and torture increased worldwide due to some ridiculous anti-terror law. Organizations like Al

Qaida have rolled out the red carpet to the West welcoming a new kind of colonization into the Middle East with US invasions

tearing up Muslim countries with a 6000 year old history, costing the lives of thousands of innocent civilians. Americans greatly

benefited from their newly installed oil plants, Muslims only saw blood and humiliation. Another international post-9/11

phenomena is that Islamic dress is being repressed, by which Muslims undergo a new widespread form of religious

discrimination, whether it be in the West or in Muslim countries. It seems everything has become permissible in this never

ending war on terrorism, whether this war is fought out by American troops, US sponsored Arab governments or by major

broadcasting companies in renewed assaults of ideological warfare against everything that smells Islamic. The world is rife with

anti-Islamic sentiments and the international fight against ‘Islamic terror’ echoes throughout the streets of European suburbs.

Ever since it has been colonizing Muslim countries, France has never been able to cope with the Muslim population. When in

1963 Algeria, France’s ‘colonie chérie’, was given back to its people, many thought it to be the end of French colonization- but it

wasn’t. It continued in a more subtle way. It changed from being physical and territorial activity to being a mental and cultural

conquest. Instead of conquering natural resources abroad, it now tries to occupy the hearts and minds of the children of

immigrants that came from the old colonies. France stubbornly persists in its attempts to force western norms on their Arab

and other minorities, kneading and muddling up their culture and religion, trying to make it as French as possible. The feeling of

superiority they had towards the Arab in the days of French colonization has never really disappeared, hence maintaining the

colonial culture that lead to today’s second class treatment of French Muslim citizens.

French politicians have always strongly insisted on the fact that Muslims and Arabs in their country need to integrate. However,

the term integration has never been clearly defined and it is understood in different ways. If integration would mean that

people of foreign cultures are to comply with French laws, than this would suggest that obeying state laws is alien to these

foreign cultures and their demand for integration could then be considered a racist statement. It would also imply that all

French people whose parents were born in France should from now on be asked to integrate. No, what really is meant with the

term integration is adopting Western values, as became clear in 2003 when a new bill required immigrants who applied for

French residence to sign a contract of integration enjoining on them “respecting the Republican laws and values”. Muslim

citizens are expected to obey unwritten laws of forced cultural assimilation, and this has lead Muslim youth in French suburbs

to adopt a different approach in dealing with their intolerant society. Some of them totally merged with French culture, others

took it back to their Islamic roots in which they found new pride and strong identity. These two opposite ways of reacting to

discrimination isn’t new and was already noticed in the time of American Slavery. Throughout time, a submissive mentality has

always faced the revolutionary way of thinking.

1 The prophetic traditions that comprise the acts, words, silent affirmations and characteristics of the prophet Mohammed


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House vs. Field Negros

On November 9th,

1963, Malcolm X gave his “Message to the Grass roots”, a speech in which he described the two different

kinds of slaves living in 18th

century oppressive, cruel America. X looked back at the history of slavery and found striking

resemblances between what he called Negro slaves and the African-American people of the 20th

century. This is how he

portrayed this fascinating duality within the slave community:

“Back during slavery there was two kinds of slaves, two kinds of Negros. There was the house Negro and the field Negro, the

house Negro always looked out for his master. When the field Negros got too much out of line he held them back in check, he

put them back on the plantation. The house Negro could afford to do this because he lived better than the field Negro, he ate

better, he dressed better and he lived in a better house, he lived in the house of his master in the attic or the basement, he ate

the same food his master ate and wore his same clothes and he could talk just like his master, good diction. And he loved his

master more than the master loved himself. That is why he didn’t want his master hurt. If the master got sick, the house Negro

would say: "What's the matter, boss, we sick?" We sick! He identified himself with his master more than his master identified

with himself. If the master's house caught on fire, the house Negro would fight harder to put the blaze out than the master

would. They would give their life to save the master's house quicker than the master would. But then you got some field Negros

who lived in a hut, they had nothing to lose. They wore the worst kind of clothes, they ate the worst food and they caught hell,

they felt the sting of the lash. The field Negro hated his master. I say he hated his master. He was intelligent. If the master got

sick he prayed that the master died. If the master’s house caught on fire he prayed for a strong wind to come along. This was the

difference between the two. And today you still have house Negroes and field Negros…I am a field Negro!”

Malcolm X was right; today you still have house and field Negros, and the dichotomy between both types of slaves during

slavery cannot only be compared to the differences in today’s Afro-American community but also reflects on Muslims in

suburbs of major Western European cities, like Amsterdam and Paris. This distinction in reaction to oppression can clearly be

noticed in France within its Muslim community. Conscious of the religious and social injustice, French Muslim youth have all

developed a different mentality in coping with their situation, and have fallen into opposites that don’t attract. The House

Negro Mentality could be found in the French Ikhwan Muslimoun (the French Brotherhood Muslims) who exert all effort to

become model French citizens, often entirely assimilating into the French culture and leaving the suburbs to achieve higher

status within French society, in this way hoping to receive some equal treatment. The typical Ikhwani is represented as being

the clean shaven Arab dressed in suit and tie thinking his social disguise will grant him freedom by his French Sayyid. On the

other hand you have the Salafis who mainly live in HLM buildings, the modern equivalent to the huts their old field Negro

brothers used to live in. They are not trying to look or sound French, they don’t dress French, nor do they care about what

France expects from them. They realize that being in France or being born in France doesn’t mean you’re French. It isn’t the

dark red passport that makes you French, what makes you French is your state of mind. Salafis refuse to play the ‘oui bono’

game, they have a flowing beard and dress nicely in Islamic robes2. The Salafi finds pride in all aspects of Islam, whereas his

Ikhwani brother is ashamed of the Islamic rules and principles that go against western values.

Ethnologically, the Afro-American and the European-Arab have a lot in common. Although Arab immigrants left their countries

out of free will, they were accepted in the European continent according to the roughness of their palms and fingers3. The first

black slaves had been selected according to their physical strength and were kidnapped from the African continent and put

onto slave ships. French colonization was far from being as brutal and destructive as American slavery, but the comparison still

holds, since both African slaves and Arab immigrants have been brought into prosperous promised lands to build up a country

and boost its local economy. After World War II Muslims were invited into the European host-countries to do the ‘dirty’ work

Europeans didn’t want to do, thus resolving their mass problem of labor shortage. The coal mines and car manufacturing plants

have replaced the cotton fields, Kunta Kinte is now called Monsieur Momo and the metal shackles of the slaves have become

mental ones the Western Arab can’t get rid of. In America it all had to do with color; in France the problem is socio-religious.

French converts who dress according to Islam are being discriminated against in the same way their Arab brothers are. And a

clean shaven Mohamed in tight jeans will have a better chance of finding a good job than his brother Jacques who embraced

Islam and now has a full-grown beard and white turban.

2 Many of this is based on the verse in Sourah Al Baqara: “The Jews and Christians won't be pleased with you until you follow their religion” 3 This was a way to know whether the person was used to hard work; people with soft inner hands were rejected


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Salafis have become France’s most disturbing problem, and have come under great scrutiny by French media that is trying by all

means to describe this new social being. One of those attempts was made by a proponent of the French Ikhwan Muslimoun

movement (Muslim Brotherhood) named Mohamed-Ali Adraoui, who in his article “Purist Salafism in France”4 has laid down

the Ikhwani analyses of Salafism. In it he mentioned that, “according to Purist Salafis, human beings are created for a strict

religious purpose: obeying Allah and following His moral and judicial commands.” This clearly proves Mr. Adraoui’s

unacquaintedness with Islam and raises the question whether he has ever read the Quran in which it is clearly mentioned in

many verses that Allah has created men for the single purpose of worshiping their creator. All scholars of Islam and all Muslims

in all times, whether they belong to a sect or not, have this belief; which, by the way, is fully comprised in the first pillar of

Islam. Limiting this conviction to the Salafis is something quite strange. But what Mr. Adraoui is attempting to say is that Salafis

are missing out or abandoning some aspects of life by focusing on religion. This is a clear distortion and nonevidenced

restriction of the meaning of tawheed5, since all forms of adoration in Islam are social-oriented aspects which reach far beyond

the scope of individual obedience. And this is something the Ikhwani has not grasped.

Mohamed Adraoui seems to have an inferiority complex when describing Salafis, about whom he said that, “Allah chose them

to be the taifa el mansoura, in reference to the hadith that Muslims will divide into seventy three factions, all of which will end

in hell except for the one Allah saves”. First of all the hadith doesn’t mean that all Muslims of the 72 sects will go to hell nor

does it mean that all Muslims who didn’t adhere to a sect will go straight to paradise. Just a little research in the explanation of

the hadith would have been enough to understand its meaning. He then states that the saved group are those “that stayed

faithful in the face of temptations”. Again this proves that Adraoui has not even read the hadith he is talking about6. The

Muslims of the saved group are those who will stay upon Islam the way the prophet and his companions did, meaning those

who don’t adhere to any sect and don’t innovate in religion by adding new principles into the creed. By claiming to be Salafi,

one declares not to be part of any sect. This is a central idea of Salafism, since the prophet has forbidden his community to join

sects7.

Islamic sects are easily recognizable because they all have a founder and believe in principles of creed which can’t be found in

the Quran or prophetic Sunnah. The founding father of Shi-ism was Abdullah Ibn Saba, the Tablighi sect was founded by

Mohamed Ilyas, the Muslim Brotherhood by Hassan El Banna8 and today’s Khawaridj are the descendants of Dhoul

Khouweysira Attameemy.

Adraoui then expressed that “many Salafis think they form that only group destined for eternal salvation, because they have

resisted the allure of “new” gods such as money, democracy, or secularism." These again are tremendous misconceptions.

Believing in "new gods" is not something that makes you part of the 72 groups, on the contrary it takes you out of each and

every Islamic group and sect because worshipping another god with or besides Allah takes you out of the fold of Islam. The

second point is that the reason why these groups have become sects is not because they love money or are committing physical

sins. The breaking off of sects from “original Islam” is primary due to religious matters, not worldly matters. All sects in Islam

descend from four mother sects: the Khawaridj, the Rafidhah, the Jahmeeyah and the Qadareeyah. But it is also incorrect in

regard to the modern groups like Jihadees, Tablighis, Ikhwanis, and extreme Sufis. They do not belong to the seventy two sects

because they accepted the "new” gods such as money, democracy, or secularism but because of ideological innovation in their

religion. Mr. Adraoui is juggling apples and oranges and calling them mangoes!

4 See ISIM Review 21 (http://www.isim.nl/files/review_21/review_21-12.pdf)

5 Singling out Allah in all affairs of worship, asserting that there is no god that deserves to be worshipped except Allah 6 The hadith has been reported by 13 of the prophet’s companions in several Sunan-books and is not at all contested 7 The prophet has, in many hadiths forbidden to adhere to sects, the most famous one is the hadith reported by Hudheyfa Ibnoul Yaman in Sahih El Bukhari (#3606) 8 Hassan El Banna (1906-1949) founded the Society of Muslim Brothers in Egypt in 1928

http://www.isim.nl/files/review_21/review_21-12.pdf


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Hijra, the Escape to Freedom

Back in the days of slavery when black field slaves in the Deep South were plucking white cotton under a burning sun, they only

dreamt of one thing: freedom. This wasn’t the case for the house slave, who was satisfied with the life he led under his slave

master and wasn’t thinking about escaping the plantation. Fleeing to freedom was also a major topic Malcolm X brought up in

his same speech:

“The modern house Negro loves his master. He wants to live near him. He'll pay three times as much as the house is worth just

to live near his master, and then brag about "I'm the only Negro out here." "I'm the only one on my job." "I'm the only one in this

school." You're nothing but a house Negro. If someone came to the field Negro and said, "Let's separate, let's run," he didn't say,

"Where we going?" He'd say, "Any place is better than here”. But if someone came to the house Negro and said, "Let's run

away, let's escape, let's separate," the house Negro would look at him and say, "Man, you crazy. What you mean, separate?

Where is there a better house than this? Where can I wear better clothes than this? Where can I eat better food than this? What

you mean, separate? From America? This good white man? Where you going to get a better job than you get here?" I mean, this

is what you say. "I ain't left nothing in Africa," that's what you say. Why, you left your mind in Africa. "That was that house

Negro. In those days he was called a ‘house nigger’. And that's what we call him today”

Very similar to the first influx of African slaves into America, many of the first Arab working-class immigrants that flowed into

Europe have abandoned a part of their cultural and religious identity in their home countries. They wished for their children to

benefit from a Western education and earn a good livelihood, rarely teaching them religious basics and cultural aspects. This is

how the new home grown second class generation Muslims got assimilated into a foreign culture and became uprooted to such

a degree that very often their name is the only Islamic leftover they now possess. But on the other hand many of them, just as

Alex Hailey, traced back their religious roots and discovered Islam was much more than their parents told them it was. Indeed,

they entirely took it back to the source and started practicing Islam in its most original way, bringing the Sunnah their parents

had all forgotten about back to life, and living according to the Quran their often illiterate parents never read. Despite the fact

that they are more fluent in French than their parents and that they are receiving a ‘better’ French education, Salafis today

have more hardship finding a job their fathers had. Muslims applying the prophetic Sunnah don’t get accepted in French

society, in which they are unable to fully practice Islam. A strong desire to emigrate ensued from this general ill-feeling. Today

the Salafi dreams of religious freedom the same way the slaves in the cotton fields dreamed of physical freedom, all despising

the white man for the injustice he committed on their people, whether it be by slavery or colonization. The same way black

slaves escaped the oppressive racist south to find freedom in the Northern states of America, European Salafis escape a new

form of inquisition in the countries they were raised in and travel to Muslim countries where they can practice Islam without

the headache.

The Ikhwani doesn’t understand why his Salafi brother wants to leave France- why he wants to leave that good French man. But

really, why shouldn’t they? They are often not allowed onto the French work plantations, since religious discrimination on the

French job market is at an all-time high. It has become an almost impossible mission for bearded men or head-covered women

to find a job, whether that person has graduated or not. Job-hunting for Salafis has indeed become a painful activity because

employment agencies in France and Belgium are known to work with religious and racially segregated employee files providing

employers with the requested home-born white employee.

In his analyses Mr. Adraoui claimed “that hijra made by French Salafis obeys a western logic, because they are attracted by

modern and dynamic trading circles enabling them to set up businesses and become wealthy”. This quote is in total

contradiction to what he previously stated. How does he reconcile between the restricted understanding he first attributed to

Salafis with them jumping up businesses and then calling it “religiousness”? Neither Salafis nor any other Muslims see trading

or business as being a western logic and in Islam there is nothing wrong with becoming wealthy. This is a reproach often made

by Ikhwanis who call up to the boycotting of western products, yet fully accept western ideas; whereas the Salafi is boycotting

western ideas, not western products. For example most Ikhwanis don’t drink Coke, which they boycott or deem to be haram

(illicit) basing themselves on a Yousouf El Qardawi fatwa. The Ikhwani would say that Coca Cola is a Jewish company, to which

the Salafi would reply that the prophet Mohamed was invited to Jewish households where he ate and drank with Jews. A Salafi

doesn’t have any problem with enjoying a refreshing can of Coke, or with wearing American shoes or driving in US-made cars,


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and will assert that the problem of the Muslim ummah is not the western financial wealth but rather today’s Muslim

intellectual and religious poverty.

The Making of the French House Negro

During the slave days the kernel method used by the slave master to ensure control over the plantation consisted of taking a

handful of submissive slaves and upgrading them to what Malcolm X called “Uncle Toms”. They would be given a certain

measure of authority over the field slaves they had to keep in control. In his same speech, Malcolm X compared the civil-rights

leaders of his time to this type of house slave:

“Just as the slave master of that day used Tom, the house Negro, to keep the field Negroes in check, the same old slave master

today has Negroes who are nothing but modern Uncle Toms, 20th century Uncle Toms, to keep you and me in check, keep us

under control, keep us passive and peaceful and nonviolent. That's Tom making you nonviolent. The slave master took Tom and

dressed him well, and fed him well, and even gave him a little education -- a little education; gave him a long coat and a top hat

and made all the other slaves look up to him. Then he used Tom to control them. They controlled you, but they never incited you

or excited you. They controlled you; they contained you; they kept you on the plantation. The same strategy that was used in

those days is used today, by the same white man. He takes a Negro, a so-called Negro, and make him prominent, build him up,

publicize him, make him a celebrity. And then he becomes a spokesman for Negroes -- and a Negro leader.”

The Uncle Tom figure in contemporary France is reincarnated as the French home bred imams on one hand and state controlled

Muslim institutions on the other. During his function as Minister of Interior affairs Nicolas Sarkozy wanted all French imams to

be trained in France and they were to be given ‘a little education’, just enough to be able to control the French worshippers. In

December 2004 Sarkozy announced the provision of university courses for would-be imams “on private law, the constitutional

law on public freedom and the history of the French institutions”. These were the courses judged necessary by the French

government to teach and spread Islam in France.

France’s tight control over Muslims all started with the formation of the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM – Conseil

français du Culte musulman) representing diverse Muslim groups. The project had been launched by Nicolas Sarkozy, again,

who actively participated in joining the OUIF (the French Muslim Brotherhood) to CFCM. In April 2003, after a successful search

for France’s most submissive Sufi, Sarkozy entrusted the Algerian doctor, Dalil Boubakeur, with leading the newly formed CFCM

coalition. By handing over the Islamic religious authority to a secular Sufi and the French brotherhood Sarko found an inventive

way to impose a hybrid Islam on French Muslims: l’Islam de France, being a mixture of sectarian Islam and French secular

humanism. The CFCM became France’s largest Uncle Tom association and French Salafis considered it as being part of Sarkozy’s

strategy to keep the Muslim masses unconditionally loyal to French culture and Western values.

Dalil Boubakeur, the first chairman of the CFCM has often been described as a state controlled marionette who, with his very

little Islamic knowledge, stated that the CFCM’s prior engagement is to not infringe French secularism. Another impressive

statement of France’s new ‘Dalilama’ was that his acceptance of French values constituted the wave of the future, as he

expressed it: "That for me is being a modern man, and that is the message I would like to pass on to my Muslim brothers and

sisters. I want them to adopt European culture without fear and to embrace it wholeheartedly." Sarkozy had found his perfect

House Negro calling to French secularism in the name of Islam and telling French Muslims everything the French President

always wanted but wouldn’t dare to utter. Dalil Boubakeur wasn’t representing the French Muslim community in France, but

rather he was the de facto representative of the French government to its Muslim community. In 2008, Boubakeur was

followed as chairman of the CFCM by Mohamed Moussaoui a mathematics professor meticulously walking in the footsteps of

his meek predecessor. In February 2008, after having led the CFCM for five years, Boubakeur got rewarded for his unconditional

loyalty to Sarkozy, who appointed him to ‘Commander to the Order of National Merit’9.

9 The Order of National Merit (l’Ordre National du Mérite) was founded on December 3rd 1963 by general de Gaulle, it rewards people who delivered meritorious services to the French state.


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In his defense of the French Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Adrauoi mentioned that the “UOIF prioritizes the need for a

contextual Islam that will allow one to be fully Muslim and fully citizen at the same time,“ and said that, “Integration leads to

reformulating religious imperatives”. And this is exactly the religious bargain European Muslims are faced with today: the more

you let go of your Islamic identity the more equal rights and esteem you will get in our society. A bargain Ikhwanis have

miserably fallen for. Salafis consider their religion to be nonnegotiable, following the teachings of the prophet Mohamed, who

taught his community that there is no obedience to creation when it comes to disobeying the creator. They therefore reproach

Ikhwanis as having adopted an "I'm going to love these folks no matter how much they hate me"-mentality. Indeed, integration

is assimilation, coexistence is something completely different.

Mohamed Adraoui launched a religious ad by describing the Muslim Brotherhood as a group “insisting on the need to unify

Muslims and to come to an agreement with all of them so that Islam and Muslims restore their glory.” This is indeed the sect’s

basic methodology, and was put forth by the founder of the Ikhwan Muslimoun, Hassan El Banna, who stated, “We work

together on what we agree upon, and excuse each other in those areas we differ in”. He called it ‘El ‘Qa’ida El Dhahabiya’ (the

golden rule) and used this principle in a strategy to unite the different Muslim sects (regardless of their differences in creed) in

the Arab nationalist resistance to British occupation of Egypt. That is why today almost all sects are represented within the

Brotherhood’s religious melting pot, from dancing Sufis to hardcore Takfiris and sometimes even Christians10

. Ikhwanis are

basically hamstrung by their obsession with El Banna writings, principles, and ideas. They have accepted the western paradigm

that the individual makes the movement, and that the movement is based upon the individual. Salafis reject this, since Islam

has always been based upon transmitted, revealed knowledge; one either accepts it and implements it, or one does not and, by

not doing so, often falls into sectarianism. The people always change over the centuries but the message never does. All the

works and insights of scholars and others are essential but secondary, and subservient to the foundations which originate in

revelation. Therefore Salafis see that Muslims should unite on Islamic creed and not on world based political views. They totally

reject Hassan El Banna’s golden rule, refusing to line up with terrorists and grave worshippers, and only wish to unite upon the

authentic belief of the Muslim that comprises true solid roots and a firm basis for the building of a successful society.

Uncle Tantawi and the House Negro Fatwa

In 1712, the British slave owner Willie Lynch developed a method in breaking slave women in order to get control over the next

slave generations. Controlling the black woman would mean controlling all slaves, since the woman is the strongest link in each

community. Similarly, in 2004, Nicolas Sarkozy, in what was seen as an attempt to break Muslim women, developed a law

banning the headscarf. French Muslims were oppressed by the new law, but almost didn’t react to it because domestic and

foreign religious institutions had been functioning as tranquilizers to the Muslim community. Dalil Boubakeur called on Muslims

to show solidarity with the French people in respecting the new law on secularism and branded the French pro-hijab march as

being dangerous. Boubakeur was saying out loud everything Sarkozy was silently whispering into his ear. During the 1960s in

America, Black Christian preachers and civil rights activists were reprimanded by Malcolm X for their lax approach to white

oppression:

“It's like when you go to the dentist, and the man's going to take your tooth. You're going to fight him when he starts pulling. So

he squirts some stuff in your jaw called novocaine, to make you think they're not doing anything to you. So you sit there and

'cause you've got all of that novocaine in your jaw, you suffer peacefully. Blood running all down your jaw, and you don't know

what's happening. 'Cause someone has taught you to suffer -- peacefully. The white man do the same thing to you in the street,

when he want to put knots on your head and take advantage of you and don't have to be afraid of your fighting back. To keep

you from fighting back, he gets these old religious Uncle Toms to teach you and me, just like novocaine, suffer peacefully. Don't

stop suffering -- just suffer peacefully. As Reverend Cleage pointed out, "Let your blood flow In the streets." This is a shame. And

you know he's a Christian preacher. If it's a shame to him, you know what it is to me...”

10 This has been the case in Palestine where a Greek-Orthodox Christian candidate, Hosam Al Taweel, ran for Palestinian parliament on behalf of the Ikhwani group Hamas.


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The law that was passed on March 15th

2004 banning all conspicuous religious symbols in public schools and government

offices was a complicated way of saying that the headscarf had to disappear. Surprisingly, Christmas trees remained and no one

seemed to care about the yarmulkes11

. The law was only aimed at Muslims and more specifically the most vulnerable amongst

them: the Muslim woman12

. With the call of reaffirming the French tradition of secularism, a new form of hidden religious

apartheid was born and no one knew how to counter it.

In the 60’s, American racist laws were preventing young black girls from attending classes due to a segregated school system. In

France the headscarf ban is today excluding thousands of Muslim schoolgirls from attending French public schools and colleges

due to religious segregation. The discrimination is the same; only the reason for it has changed. The French Muslima today has

no choice but to suffer peacefully; never had she been more humiliated as then. Sarko had stolen her right to dress according to

her belief and to live accordingly to her principles. She is refused work and education simply because she wants to practice

Islam. The Salafi often wonders: if France gives its female citizens the right to walk in miniskirts, why wouldn’t they give our

Muslim sisters the right to put a piece of cloth on her head? And why are Christian nuns never bothered or discriminated

against when they wear headscarves? French tourists never encounter any problem when they bathe naked on the shores of

Muslim countries holding tight to their Carlsberg. So why is it when the Muslim woman wants to cover she is infringing French

liberty. Boubakeur counters this way of thinking and has an entire different way of seeing things: "I am not in favor of

multiculturalism, as a matter of fact there is only one culture: French culture."

The UOIF opposed the anti-hijab bill and Boubakeur, who had previously stated that the headscarf was an obstacle to

integration, said the scarf ought to be replaced by a bandanna, knowing that his full support to get Muslim women unveiled

would mean his end. But if Sarko’s local house Negros weren’t going to give him the much needed fatwa, he would snatch it

abroad from Egypt’s Al-Azhar University, where he met with Uncle Tantawi. Indeed, Sarkozy was able to squeeze an ‘express

fatwa’ out of the ‘Grand Imam’ of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Mohamed Sayed Tantawi, who told French Muslim women to obey their

French master and take off their scarves. In the Arab world Tantawi is known to be Egypt’s government ‘fatwa pimp’, issuing

measure-made fatwa’s to local political leaders who, for the occasion, had lent the Azhari Sheikh to France’s interior minister.

Two days after the pronounced edict, on January 1st

, Dalil Boubakeur sent a thank-you letter13

to Al-Azhar in name of the entire

French Muslim Community, eulogizing the fatwa which had “a relieving impact” and was “unanimously well received by all

French Muslims at all levels”. To put it short, Boubakeur thanked Tantawi for having done the dirty job.

French people love to boast of their many freedoms, but are unable and unwilling to apply them in their own country. The

universal declaration on human rights isn’t that universal after all. France doesn’t respect freedom of religion and their national

motto “liberté égalité fraternité” is only applied to its non-Muslim citizens. Having someone like Boubakeur speak in name of

five million Muslim citizens shows the French are not ready to accept other thinking patterns from its religious minorities.

11 Jewish skullcaps 12 The latest example of this is the case of Faiza M., a niqab-wearing Moroccan woman who was denied French citizenship on the grounds of "insufficient assimilation" into France. 13 The letter was made public by Al-Azhar on January 3rd and was published in several Egyptian newspapers


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Suburban Intifada

On November 9th

2005, exactly 42 years after the Malcolm X’s Message to the grass roots, France witnessed one of its most

severe riots ever. Violence erupted all over the country and suburbs were set to fire. The most worrying part of this uproar was

that the youth that were revolting didn’t even have a Malcolm X figure calling them to a violent street revolution ‘intending to

bring all their rights into existence by any means necessary’. It came as a natural reaction to the racism-infected French police14

and DST15

who are both given great impunity when it comes to dealing with the suburban youth. But today was payback day, a

blind revenge broke out and left the French stupefied. Did the Muslim state-controlled organizations lose entire control of the

banlieues, or had it just became clear they never had any influence on the youthful masses? One thing was sure: Sarkozy’s

strategy in forming the Muslim bulwark institutions to pacify the French suburbs had miserably flopped, and the French model

of integration had been torched along with some six thousand cars.

A similar situation occurred in the US during Malcolm X’s time, who described how the black civil rights leaders lost control over

their people once they started revolting. X, later known as Malik El-Shabazz, considered leading civil rights activists like Martin

Luther King, Roy Wilkins16

, Philip Randolph17

and James Farmer18

to be pacifist House Negros. The gap between civil rights

organizations like NAACP19

or CORE20

and the African-American community became clear when in the spring of 1963 riots broke

out in Birmingham, Alabama21

. As Malcolm X put it, they were losing control over the Negro masses:

“On that same plantation, there was the field Negro. The field Negroes — those were the masses. There were always more

Negroes in the field than there were Negroes in the house…. As soon as Martin Luther King failed in Birmingham, Negroes took

to the streets. Wilkins started attacking King, and King started attacking Roy, and Farmer started attacking both of them. And as

these Negroes of national stature began to attack each other, they began to lose their control of the Negro masses. It was the

grass roots out there in the street. It scared the white man to death, scared the white power structure in Washington D.C. to

death; I was there.”

It was only after an outbreak of severe hostilities that the folks at the Elysée realized they had greatly underestimated the

growing resentment of its minority groups, which were only reciprocated with incomprehension and repression. By having

France's labor force hoarded in suburban repositories, they came to realize that they had been sleeping with the enemy. This

unpredicted consequence of clear class segregation meant the bankruptcy of the French integration policy, which had never

been more obvious than now. Numerous articles were written in the French press trying to find an answer to why a

multicultural intifada had burst out in their backyard. But no single newspaper was able to come up with a sensible explanation

or simply didn’t have the guts to speak about a reality that the French still refuse to face; the reality that France has today

become Europe’s most racist and islamophobic country.

When political turmoil struck America some forty-five years ago, John F. Kennedy gathered with the heads of the national Civil

rights movement in hopes of having them bring an end to the uproar. This is how it was described in the Message to the

Grassroots:

“When they found out that this black steamroller was going to come down on the capital, they called in Wilkins; they called in

Randolph; they called in these national Negro leaders that you respect and told them, "Call it off." Kennedy said, "Look, you all

letting this thing go too far." And Old Tom said, "Boss, I can't stop it, because I didn't start it." I'm telling you what they said.

They said, "I'm not even in it, much less at the head of it." They said, "These Negroes are doing things on their own. They're

running ahead of us." And that old shrewd fox, he said, "Well If you all aren't in it, I'll put you in it. I'll put you at the head of it.

I'll endorse it. I'll welcome it. I'll help it. I'll join it."

14 This has been confirmed by several Amnesty International reports 15 The 'Direction de la surveillance du territoire' is a French anti-terroriste intelligence service 16 Roy Wilkins was NAACP’s Executive Secretary 17 Philip Randolph was the founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters 18 James L. Farmer, Jr. co-founded The Congress of Racial Equality in 1942 19 The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People 20 The Congress of Racial Equality 21 The demonstrations of the Birmingham campaign were aimed at ending segregation policies in the city


9

A few days prior to the outburst of the French riots Nicolas Sarkozy, who was then running for president, declared on national

television that he was going to clean out the suburbs from what he described as “la racaille”, the French equivalent of the

American racist term “niggers”. He reiterated this insult on several occasions, and it positively influenced his campaign. This was

the kind of president that racist France was hoping for. When the French suburbs were set on fire, Muslim organizations fought

hard to put out the blaze, whereas the revolting youth prayed for a strong wind to come along. And Sarkozy, who by then had

become the banlieues’ most hated political figure ever, had now been nicknamed Sarkochon (Sarkopig) by its inhabitants.

The riots galvanized into action the French Interior Minister who summoned his Muslim representatives, trying to find a way to

have them stop the riots. Sarko called in Boubakeur and asked him to do something to stop the suburban revolt. But Uncle Bou

had never lived in the suburbs, he had hardly ever visited one, and Muslims never saw him as being one of them. As one of the

French Muslim Union leaders once put it: "He speaks the language of the French elites, not that of ordinary Muslims. The youth

in the suburbs don't understand him, and he does not understand them." Boubakeur couldn’t stop it since he didn’t start it. For

once he wasn’t able to serve his French sayyid.

The black revolt in the US and the suburban riots of France shocked the world. Major world powers with aggressive foreign

policies ruling big parts of the world were unable to solve problems in their own ghettos. Sarkozy had to call in the army the

same way JFK did in 1963:

“And Negroes was out there in the streets. They was talking about how we was going to march on Washington22

. By the way,

right at that time Birmingham had exploded, and the Negroes in Birmingham -- remember, they also exploded. They began to

stab the crackers in the back and bust them up 'side their head -- yes, they did. That's when Kennedy sent in the troops, down in

Birmingham. So, and right after that, Kennedy got on the television and said "this is a moral issue."

John F. Kennedy called the riot a moral issue and knew it wasn’t; Sarkozy made it a religious issue knowing it wasn’t. The riots

had nothing to do with Islam, but clumsy French media coverage ignited a new wave of anti-Islamic sentiments and kindled the

fire of French Islamophobia. Although Salafis and Ikhwanis had no part in the suburban outburst, Sarko Islamized the riots and

fully exploited them in his political campaign by having the French Muslim representatives condemn23

and almost apologize for

a crime neither they nor their religion were guilty of. A master trick Uncle Tom wasn’t able to apprehend, since he was lacking

all insight in Sarkozy’s political strategies.

22 In the summer of 1963, King led the March on Washington where he delivered his most famous speech: "I Have a Dream". 23 During the uproar the UOIF was pressured to issue a fatwa condemning the riots.


10

Breaking the Silent Consensus of Western Fashion

America and Europe have for many generations greatly benefited from imported work labor; but the new working class was

only loved and appreciated by the host people for what it did, not for who it was. The people that constitute France’s main

labor force are seen as cockroaches the French want to get rid of- but are too in need of to do so. In his time, Malcolm X tackled

the problem of racism and demanded equal treatment:

“America has a very serious problem. Not only does America have a very serious problem, but our people have a very serious

problem. America's problem is us. We're her problem. The only reason she has a problem is she doesn't want us here…I believe

in treating people right, but I'm not going to waste my time trying to treat somebody right who doesn't know how to return the

treatment...”24

Salafism has become Sarkozy’s worst nightmare, and this feeling of hatred is entirely mutual. The French religious apartheid is

mainly based on the disturbing way practicing Muslims dress. A Salafi growing his beard and wearing an Islamic garment

realizes he is persona non grata in France and knows that most French want to see this image removed from the street scene.

Mr. Adraoui stated “that Salafis act as if they don’t want to stay connected with their former environment”. It is rather their

former environment that has spat them out as being the date pit French society is unable to digest. Salafis didn’t break more

with society than society had broken with them, and all other Muslims who dress, behave, and think according to Islam.

But why do Salafis dress like that? Mohamed Adraoui believes that “their dress aims at stating at an immediate glance that they

do not belong to modern times”. Rather it says that they are "free thinkers" who have the courage to challenge the modern

trend towards a Western based monoculture. It is well known that a major pillar of this phenomenon is the tidal wave of

western fashion along with its concepts and ideas, such that to be modern now is equated with wearing blue jeans. Therefore

the dress of the Salafis says that they adhere to a consciously accepted and stable standard and criterion that is not under the

control of the cultural organizations, ministries, and groups. Salafis don’t shun modernity, they just don’t see it as being tied to

the external appearances of certain people or restricted to Western culture.

Saying that dressing Islamically is backwardness is a typical Ikhwani House Negro critique on the Salafi who refuses to conform

to the informal dress code imposed by France. In general, Western Ikhwanis as well as Sufis are uncultivated when it comes to

Islam and consider the Sunnah to be a relic from the 7th

century and therefore see the Salafi as a fuddy-duddy. Salafis of course

see it the other way around and believe Ikhwanis have a mental lag due to their lack of religious identity and consciousness

which is being expressed in their blind following of the western way of dressing. Like many French Muslims, Mr. Adraoui seems

to be unacquainted with Islamic clothes, which became clear when he described the shorter pants that end before the ankles to

be an izar. The Arabic word for this kind of pants is sirwal, an izar is a loincloth that is wrapped around the waste. Many French

Moroccans like Mr. Adraoui are fluent in Darija (a far derived dialect of Arabic) but merely speak or understand fusha (classical

Arabic).

To the Salafi, Islam fills up all aspects of life and prescribes to Muslims a way of dressing, thinking, behaving and worshipping

and therefore they have no need for the cultural values of their ex-colonizers. This new dress dilemma is shaking up the French

socialization process. The French don’t want them to dress in robes and taaqiyas; but at the same time they claim to want to

maintain freedom of religion.

Mr. Adraoui also stated that “before conversion many Salafis lived an un-Islamic life, including the consumption of alcohol and

sexual promiscuity”. That is indeed true for the many Salafis and the difference with their Ikhwani counterpart is that the latter,

after his conversion, still lives an un-Islamic life of sin and often sexual promiscuity.

24 Detroit speech, Michigan ( November 10th 1963) and New York City Speech (December 12th 1964)


11

Salafi World Citizenship

A new generation is born which does not agree with the de facto Western cultural way of thinking, and they are well aware that

the price they pay for their religious independence will sour their lives. But this is the choice they make, and they have accepted

the fact that they will never be accepted in French society. The same holds true for the Afro-American community, which after

all these centuries still faces wide-spread racism in present-day America. This is how Malcolm X worded it:

“Being here in America doesn't make you an American. Being born here in America doesn't make you an American…We don’t

see any American dream; we’ve experienced only the American nightmare. We haven’t benefited from America’s democracy;

we’ve only suffered from America’s hypocrisy. And the generation that’s coming up now can see it and are not afraid to say

it...”25

A typical remark people make of Salafis is that “they do not consider themselves as citizens, but as people whose bond with the

state is not allegiance but utility”, using the words of Mr. Adraoui. Ikhwanis see themselves living in a philanthropic society to

which they have to be thankful and faithful, often not realizing that the bond France always had with its Muslim citizens, from

the first day France welcomed its Arab immigrants has never been allegiance or compassion, but 100% utility. They came to

rebuild France in its post world war era. Many of them were placed as soldiers in the front lines of the French and Belgian

armies to fight other non-Arab enemies to whom they had no link with whatsoever. The same way black people were put in the

firing lines in the Vietnam War, fighting non-white people with whom they didn’t have any relation. The Arabs helped them

fight in their war against the German Nazis and helped them build up their country; yet all this has never made them fully

accepted citizens. And that is quite surprising, since France cannot survive without its Muslim population. If only half of the

Muslims were to leave France tomorrow its economy would collapse within less than a month. It is very unlikely a ‘Monsieur

Lacroix’ is going to busy himself with wiping clean the windows of the Montparnasse Tower. Despite their huge need of Arab

labor, the French have no scruples about treating French Muslims as second class citizens. And the French political

establishment is far from introducing Affirmative Action projects to help its minorities. That is also why the French Salafis are

not concerned about giving esteem or respect to what they consider a racist country which is based on utilizing people they

despise due to their religion.

Another reproach made to Salafis by Mr. Adraoui was that “they have no scruples in taking welfare from the state. They do not

admit that accepting welfare is prohibited”. This personal fatwa from Adraoui is quite unique since no Islamic scholar has

preceded him in prohibiting welfare. I really doubt this financial analyst has enough Islamic knowledge to issue fatwas for

Salafis. Mentioning welfare futility to forget the exploitation of migration utility is a common French practice to hold non-

French citizens culpable.

According to Adraoui, Salafis are rightfully excluded from the labor market because their dress aims at stating that they do not

belong to modern times. Also they can’t benefit from welfare because Mr. Adraoui has declared it forbidden for them to

receive money from the French government. When purist Salafis start up businesses Mr. Adraoui is accusing them of “wishing

to hold on to the many attractive features of western modernity and consumer culture” and if they leave France to become

wealthy they are “obeying a western logic”. For a Salafi to make it in life is described by Mr. Adraoui as being a change from a

‘down and out’ state to a ‘chosen one’ state and he then blames Salafis of considering it as religious superiority. It seems Mr.

Adraoui is only going to be satisfied with Salafis if they starve to death in extreme poverty. He ended by describing Salafis as

being the bourgeoisie whereas he previously stated that “salafism is overwhelmingly popular with young Muslims who do not

succeed at school and are mistrustful of the surrounding society”. But to anyone who writes about what he doesn’t fully grasp,

a good dose of self-contradiction is an expected and frequent occurrence.

25 Taken from ‘The Bullet or the Ballot’ speech, Cleveland, Ohio ( April 3rd 1964)


12

In blind following the French press Adraoui is describing Muslim terrorists as being “Islamists” not realizing he is using an

Islamophobic term since it attributes terror to Islam. By ist-ing the name of a religion to describe actions of terror and killings of

innocent people, Islam has received the most pejorative connotation of all religions. If someone were to attribute terrorism to

Christianity by calling IRA bombers “Christianists”, no single Christian would accept it and consider it very offending. But

Muslims have no choice and have to put up with it. Due to worldwide feelings of Islamic resentment, Muslims, when listening

to news, get torpedoed in their households with terms such as: extremists, radicals, integrists, fanatics, terrorists,…. All of which

are always carefully preceded by ‘Islam’. Ikhwanis have accepted these terms; Salafis fully reject them and consider them to be

insulting to Islam.

Unlike the French Muslim Brotherhood, Salafism doesn’t have an organized infrastructure and isn’t represented by any religious

organization. It doesn’t have any local scholars, but it is growing at a tremendous pace. Salafism has set foot on the European

continent- it is here and it is here to stay. It is strong, it has pride and it is hated by the French political establishment who see

any significant manifestation of Islam to be a slap in the face of modern pluralism and democratic ideals. Increasingly more

young Muslims are leaving the sects of political Islam and Arab nationalism and are accepting the orthodox Islam Malcolm X

accepted on his return from Hajj, freeing himself from the Black Nationalism and the NOI racist sect.

“Purist Salafism in France” was an insulting and denigrating article to Salafis and another true misrepresentation of French

Salafism, in which they felt the sting of the Ikhwani lash. One cannot understand and study Salafism if he doesn’t understand

and study Islam. Salafism is not a manifestation of post Islamism but a quest for the grass roots of religious independence. By

basing themselves entirely on the Quran and the prophetic tradition according to the understanding of the salaf assaaleh26

,

Salafis refuse to blindly follow the religious interpretations of their often uncultivated parents or their state controlled religious

Uncle Tom organizations. Salafis have grown out of the hexagonal working-class mentality and no longer belong to a lost

generation. They have broken loose from the French cultural shackles they grew up with and see Islam as being one, universal,

authentic, and as something that could never be ‘French’. They have transgressed the narrow borders of Western prevailing

cultural norms and hence attained world citizenship. Salafis have brothers and sisters all over the world who they consider to

be their real compatriots. In returning to the Islamic sources they found back a lost pride and religious dignity.

Written by Kareem El Hidjaazi

Rajab 18, 1429 / July 21st

2008, Yemen

This article was a reply to “Purist Salafism in France” by Mohamed Adraoui, originally published by ISIM Review, Europe’s

number one islamophobic magazine.

26 The predecessors during Islam’s first three generations who were closest to the era of revelation and had the best understanding of Islam

Documents

The French Suburban House & Field Negros