The Charlie Hebdo attacks have stoked a palpable sense of nervousness in France. The French government last week launched an anti-jihad video aimed at the French youth lured to Syria, Yemen and Iraq by Islamic State recruiters. These 250 to 300 youth are not necessarily disenfranchised and not all of them come from Muslim families. What they do have in common is that they become indoctrinated online, mostly through Facebook and other social networks. The video debunks jihadist propaganda promises by using images of children and young people suffering in the war.
The government has also strengthened and enforced in all schools the Vigipirate plan of anti-terrorism security measures. A Vigipirate logo, a triangle, is displayed at all schools for students to understand that they now live under heightened threat. Nursery schools are often guarded by policemen in riot gear. Many toddlers and primary school pupils I know have had nightmares and have repeatedly expressed fear. In order to explain the events and the current precaution measures, many parents have turned to the Petit Quotidien, a newspaper aimed at children from six to 10. The special post-Charlie issue was a great success.
Three weeks after the attacks and after historical country-wide marches of 4 million people to defend the values of liberté, égalité, fraternité (freedom, equality, fraternity), a growing feeling of unease is spreading. Islamophobic attacks have risen to an unprecedented scale, with more attacks in the month of January 2015 than for the whole year of 2014. The day the government launched its anti-jihad video campaign, another news item got many French citizen concerned.
Policing in schools
The news was about Ahmed, an eight-year-old IInd grader. He had been removed from his class by policemen and then interrogated at a police station for having said "I am with the terrorists" in class. When prodded, the boy admitted he did not even know what a terrorist was. As if it was not bad enough that the police felt the need to formally question such a young boy, his own teacher and headmaster officially lodged a complaint against him for "eulogising terrorism".
Would Ahmed have met the same fate had his name been François? Unlikely. French Muslims or French of North African descent (who might have Muslim names but don’t necessarily practice Islam) are more often than not guilty until proven innocent. There is also the widespread idea that saying that terrorism is right or refusing to stand for a minute of silence to honour the victims of the Charlie attacks shows a deep jihadist, anti-French mentality in the family. Maybe it is the case in Ahmed’s family. Maybe not. Only a formal inquiry will tell. But, more generally, Ahmed’s story shows that ethnic prejudice is not only unfair, it also obliterates the responsibility of schools in embodying and inculcating values like secularism, tolerance, solidarity and equality.
Of course, schools should not be romanticised as some kind of sanctuaries in the manner that churches used to be. The police is legally entitled to enter school premises, especially if weapons or drugs are involved. But will teachers now resort to calling the police when a child says something that would otherwise have been dismissed as stupid – just because of the war on terror and the zero tolerance policy about radical Islam?
Cult of secularism
I wonder what Ahmed will take away from his experience. He will have understood by now that terrorism is a bad word, he might also have learned that it is a terrible reality. But he will also be wary of expressing himself in public, he will learn to distrust his teachers, to regard all representatives of the state as hostile, he will grow up thinking that liberté, égalité, fraternité are simply not for him.
Secularism, which for many French is a new cult, cannot serve as an excuse for not acknowledging the differential treatment of citizens. The elevating national fiction of colour-blind unity and equality does not hold anymore. While it certainly should be an aim, it is far from reality.
French society does not need teachers turning on their students and predictive policing based on ethnic profiling. What it needs is introspection, the recognition of its colonial past, besides the inclusion of the Algeria independence war and French colonial history into the curriculum. It needs to inform and educate. Anything else is a betrayal of childhood and our future.
The government has also strengthened and enforced in all schools the Vigipirate plan of anti-terrorism security measures. A Vigipirate logo, a triangle, is displayed at all schools for students to understand that they now live under heightened threat. Nursery schools are often guarded by policemen in riot gear. Many toddlers and primary school pupils I know have had nightmares and have repeatedly expressed fear. In order to explain the events and the current precaution measures, many parents have turned to the Petit Quotidien, a newspaper aimed at children from six to 10. The special post-Charlie issue was a great success.
Three weeks after the attacks and after historical country-wide marches of 4 million people to defend the values of liberté, égalité, fraternité (freedom, equality, fraternity), a growing feeling of unease is spreading. Islamophobic attacks have risen to an unprecedented scale, with more attacks in the month of January 2015 than for the whole year of 2014. The day the government launched its anti-jihad video campaign, another news item got many French citizen concerned.
Policing in schools
The news was about Ahmed, an eight-year-old IInd grader. He had been removed from his class by policemen and then interrogated at a police station for having said "I am with the terrorists" in class. When prodded, the boy admitted he did not even know what a terrorist was. As if it was not bad enough that the police felt the need to formally question such a young boy, his own teacher and headmaster officially lodged a complaint against him for "eulogising terrorism".
Would Ahmed have met the same fate had his name been François? Unlikely. French Muslims or French of North African descent (who might have Muslim names but don’t necessarily practice Islam) are more often than not guilty until proven innocent. There is also the widespread idea that saying that terrorism is right or refusing to stand for a minute of silence to honour the victims of the Charlie attacks shows a deep jihadist, anti-French mentality in the family. Maybe it is the case in Ahmed’s family. Maybe not. Only a formal inquiry will tell. But, more generally, Ahmed’s story shows that ethnic prejudice is not only unfair, it also obliterates the responsibility of schools in embodying and inculcating values like secularism, tolerance, solidarity and equality.
Of course, schools should not be romanticised as some kind of sanctuaries in the manner that churches used to be. The police is legally entitled to enter school premises, especially if weapons or drugs are involved. But will teachers now resort to calling the police when a child says something that would otherwise have been dismissed as stupid – just because of the war on terror and the zero tolerance policy about radical Islam?
Cult of secularism
I wonder what Ahmed will take away from his experience. He will have understood by now that terrorism is a bad word, he might also have learned that it is a terrible reality. But he will also be wary of expressing himself in public, he will learn to distrust his teachers, to regard all representatives of the state as hostile, he will grow up thinking that liberté, égalité, fraternité are simply not for him.
Secularism, which for many French is a new cult, cannot serve as an excuse for not acknowledging the differential treatment of citizens. The elevating national fiction of colour-blind unity and equality does not hold anymore. While it certainly should be an aim, it is far from reality.
French society does not need teachers turning on their students and predictive policing based on ethnic profiling. What it needs is introspection, the recognition of its colonial past, besides the inclusion of the Algeria independence war and French colonial history into the curriculum. It needs to inform and educate. Anything else is a betrayal of childhood and our future.
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