Migration and intellectual approach of diversity…

France has always welcomed immigrant people – said Jacques Barrou- because she wanted to and because she has needed to. It is so impregnated with immigration that 30% to 40% of its current population has at least one grandparent who was an immigrant. But France has always had his own philosophy regarding immigration and citizenship: “L’assimilation”.

At the beginning, the foreign person who is neither born in France nor born with the French citizenship is an immigrant. It is a demographic concept. Then this person can be naturalized and stops being neither an immigrant nor a foreign person (juridical notion).  But the price to pay is to remain as neutral as possible in the public sphere and as French as possible in the way of thinking, behaving and speaking.

Indeed, this is how Kings of France managed to unite the country. With arms and repressions, they have succeeded in establishing an official and homogenous language, an official religion and common traditions. This is where the “assimilation” tradition used during the Algerian colonization, comes from. And even if secularism separated the Church and the State, even if we live in a liberal and democratic country, there is still something of this sterilized way of thinking in the concept of “Abstract Citizen” and “Laïcité”.

In 2008, after several  waves of immigration (Belgium and Netherlands, European countries, East Asia, South Africa, China, Maghreb), we can state that 44,9% of the immigrants in France come from Europe ( Spain Italy, Portugal, countries from the European union and other European countries); 29,7% come from Maghreb, from Turkey and 25,4% from other countries. But today a very precise part of the immigrants seems to raise issues, the Muslim ones. French authorities asses the Muslim population at between 2,1 and 5 million people in France. It’s the biggest Muslim community in Europe.  Even if they are all often considered as eternal foreigners, there are the French Muslims and the Immigrant Muslims. Among the French Muslims there even are up to 100 000 who converted. The huge discrepancy between the numbers raises a crucial issue: who is to be considered Muslim? What is the difference between a Muslim and a non-Muslim inhabitant of France? What is a Muslim?

Mohammed Ali Adraoui came to visit us at Sciences-po Lyon. He gave us an overview on the practices of Islam in France. Islam is part of the French history at least since the 18^th century and the colonization. Muslims gave their resources to France, their lives during the world wars, their sweat to reconstruct the country after the bombing and to build the Parisian metro for example, to say the least. France acknowledged the contribution Muslim people gave to France by building The Great Mosque of Paris for instance. But we still talk about them as strangers. French people keep seeing this religion they have been living with since the 18^th century as an UFO. So again, who are Muslim people?

You’re Muslim when you pronounce the Shahada (testimony of faith). There are five pillars in Islam. The Quran is the holy book and Allah means The Unique God, the one of all the believers. The last prophet, Muhammad (peace be upon him), is the most important for Muslim people. Islam is a monotheist religion with no mediator between god and any believer. In a nutshell, Islam is universal but that doesn’t mean that the Muslim community is homogenous…

Mohammed Ali Adraoui suggests a classification of Muslim groups. There are the private faiths Muslims who most of the time don’t practice a lot and consider themselves as “believers”. Then traditional Muslims are often very keen on praying, fasting, dressing modestly, and practicing sexual abstinence. Militant Muslims are often very involved in politics, humanitarian organizations and claim rights, recognition and consideration for their contribution to the French society. Then, there are exclusive Muslims who consider themselves as Muslims only. They adopt a very purist way of life, following as much as possible Muhammad’s first followers (pbup) way of life. There also are extremist Muslims, but, sadly, I don’t have to explain who they are and what, if ever they are unbalanced, they can do.

I am not fully satisfied with this classification. Private faith Muslims can be militant too for example. And being exclusive is not necessarily closer to being extremist than being private faith Muslim. Indeed, Merah, the murderer of French soldier and Jewish kids, was not practicing at all. Regarding this issue I consider myself as private faith, traditional, militant Muslim. I don’t want my religion to be a public issue, that’s my privacy but, still, I fight against Islamophobia and for the image of Islam not to be tanned by medias and crazy people I’ve never seen or talked to. I also think my religious values can bring something valuable to my society: charities, the respect of the environment and no-interest mortgages for example. But that’s ME: being Muslim is not an identity.

Later in the day, at the “Centre Culturel de Vaulx en Velin” we played a game. We all had the same cards, the same goal, but each table had his own rules and nobody was aware of that. At the end of every round, the winner and the loser had to change tables and start over with another group. We were not able to speak. Imagine how messy things turned out to be! The reactions were a mix of anger, frustration, laughs, resignation or nonchalance. At the end of the game everybody realized that we had different rules and started analyzing their behavior. Some persons were ashamed, some other proud of themselves. Common rules are crucial! We have to be able to understand each other and to communicate. We may be different, think different, dress different, live different but  we can and have to abide by the same rules and live all together, happily.

Our trip to Vaulx en Velin was full of joy, awareness and music: it was awesome.

Inès.