Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Good News at Last
Muslims across France have attended Catholic Mass in a gesture of solidarity after the murder of a priest on Tuesday.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by AlexConx on
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That's great news indeed! We ALL need to be united if we want terrorist to fail. We need more of these gestures from everyone, and less trumps and racism....
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Permalink Reply by Susie Helme on
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What a lovely thing to do to show solidarity. Wouldn't it be great if the non-Muslims in France returned the gesture? They might actually learn something about Islam.
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Susie, I am not quite sure what you mean by your comment, the initial gesture follows a series of attacks on French people by people who pretend to be Muslim. There has not been a series of negative reactions against Muslim following these attacks. Not the same could be said here after Brexit where Muslim in Birmingham and elsewhere were told to 'go back home', let alone the other racist actions versus all forms of minorities around the UK. Apparently there has been a rise in hate crime towards ethnic minorities of 57% (according to the Black Lives Matter movement). Many French people have reacted very positively to this Muslim gesture which was essential for both Muslim and non-Muslim in my view.
Your comment begs me to ask, how do you know that French people do not know anything about Islam? You are making a generalisation that in my view display a lack of knowledge of French people. May be you may want to learn something too. It is worth noting that the proportion of mixed marriage in France is higher than in the UK (12% v. 9% respectively). In both cases that would of course include people from ethnic minorities who marry people in foreign countries but this also means that many people in France are exposed to the Muslim culture through these 'mixed-marriages'.
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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I don't think it's quite a clear cut as that Sophia. Le Monde polled people for their presidential voting intentions at the beginning of June and Marine Le Pen scored 28%, Sarkozy 21% and Hollande 14%.
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Michael, I understand your point but the rise of National Front parties is nothing specific to France in Europe - to name only one instance which we can all comment on to have seen it live, UKPN did not do too bad in the UK up to Brexit in terms of influencing public opinion if not votes,did they? - and that rise is clearly related to both specific issues of France as one of the only few remaining secularist states in the world and wider issues of identities in the context of globalisation, urbanisation and neoliberalism, let alone issues of geopolitics that date back from early 20th century, if not even earlier, to the Afghan and Irak wars.
Also the statistics are misleading, they do not include people who have no intention of voting for a whole range of reasons. So 28% of what proportion of potential electorate are we talking about?
Lastly some could argue that it is precisely because they understand what Islam is about that some French people turn to the National Front. The comment also seems to imply that only French people do not know better about Islam - Am I missing out on something or do non-Muslim British go regularly to prayer at the mosque and are better informed about Islam as a result?
I am afraid, I still don't understand the meaning of the original comment in the context of the events that took place and French wider socio-politico culture. Sadly we already saw this with the Charlie hebdo attack with a less than dignified reaction in the anglo-saxon press. -
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To return to John D's welcome OP of last Sunday, I'm sure what old Pere Jacques Hamel would have appreciated would have been a few more brawny and agile Catholics attending his Catholic Mass, rather than leave it to three nuns and an old couple to be rounded up by a couple of silly teenage knifeboys. Dieu merci, one nun was fairly agile.
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