Since Saturday a brief statement has been posted on the door of the Omar Ibn El Khattab mosque on the rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud, a short walk from the scenes of the multiple massacres that occurred in eastern Paris on Friday night. Signed by Hamadi Hammami, president of the Faith and Practice Association that operates the mosque, the statement denounces the attacks, which aimed, it says, "to spread terror and ruin the sense of togetherness in our country and particularly in our district, which is a symbol of métissage and of social, cultural and religious mixing".
The Omar mosque, associated with the Tablighi Jamaat movement within Islam, has in the past been accused of promoting extremism. Hammami’s Tunisian father Mohammed, who had been an imam there, was even deported in 2012 for allegedly preaching anti-Semitism.
But Hammami’s statement succinctly expresses one galling aspect of Friday’s bloodbath. By training their machine guns and suicide vests on eastern Paris in the 10th and 11th arrondissements, the terrorists struck at the city’s most vibrant and diverse neighbourhoods where integration has been visibly successful, in sharp contrast to the blighted suburbs to the north.
Muslims, Jews, Christians and atheists have long lived here cheek-by-jowl without significant friction. Historically the centre of revolutionary and working-class Paris, the area has undergone significant gentrification over the past decade, but retains a faintly raffish air.
Noisy bars and restaurants, many of them run by people of north African extraction, share the same streets as Islamic bookshops and boutiques selling headscarves. In a scene reminiscent of Giovanni Guareschi's satirical Don Camillo novels about religious and political squabbling in postwar Italy, the Omar mosque sits directly opposite a communist-affiliated trade union hall and a municipal cultural centre. Five years ago a feminist author and actor of Algerian descent was attacked on her way to perform a play there, but such incidents have been rare.
Eastern Paris may not be a postsectarian utopia, but in a world riven by ethnic and religious conflict, it represents a quiet achievement for the principle of live and let live.
Pluralism
The suicide bombs that went off outside the Stade de
France
, 8km to the north, similarly targeted a symbol of French pluralism. For that is where Zinédine Zidane, born to Algerian parents, led a French team dubbed “black, blanc, beur” (black, white, Arab) to victory in the 1998
World Cup
. Players from immigrant backgrounds also formed the core of the side that defeated
Germany
on Friday in front of an equally diverse crowd.
This record of inclusivity has long made the national team a rhetorical target for far-right politicians such as Jean-Marie Le Pen, who has said it is not really a French team at all.
Social and economic exclusion among immigrants from its former African colonies is a well-documented problem in France. But on Friday, France was attacked for its successes rather than its failures. The terrorists hit places where they were guaranteed to kill dozens of people representing all traditions and backgrounds. Sure enough, the casualty lists now emerging include Congolese, Egyptians, Moroccans, Tunisians and people from across Europe. They died as they lived in places – bars, restaurants, a concert hall and a football stadium – where those categories have largely ceased to matter.
In January's attacks on Charlie Hebdo and the Hyper Cacher supermarket, three specific groups were targeted: anti-clerical cartoonists, the police and Jews. Each was attacked because of some long-standing specific fundamentalist grievance. What happened last week represents a sinister escalation in the apocalyptic ambitions of Islamic extremists.
The very possibility of living together seems to be under assault as the gunmen of Islamic State (IS) seek to destroy the fragile cosmopolitanism of European society, already under enormous strain due to the numbers of refugees coming from Syria.
Fanatics
The mirror image of these fanatics is the European far right. Politicians such as
Marine Le Pen
and Victor Orbán are equally eager to see their societies cleansed of ethnic and religious diversity. Prominent figures in Le Pen’s
Front National
(though not her personally) have even touted the theory of a “great displacement” whereby Muslims will gradually outbreed white Christians in Europe unless they are first deported en masse.
That cruel vision is paradoxically shared by IS who wishes to impose a tyrannical caliphate across the Middle East, north Africa and southern Europe. With Friday's attacks, IS has become the far right's most potent ally. As at the end of George Orwell's Animal Farm, the pigs and humans are now on the same side.
Max McGuinness is a PhD student in French at Columbia University currently living in eastern Paris. His translation of André Bernold's Beckett's Friendship has just been published by the Lilliput Press.