ThirdWorld Quarterly, Vol 18, No 2, pp377± 389, 1997

FEATUREREVIEW

OnIslam in theWest and Muslims in France: viewsfrom the Hexagon Arun Kapil

Allahin the West: Islamic movementsin Americaand Europe GillesKepel, translated from French by Susan Miller Cambridge:Polity Press, 1997 pp vii 1 273,pb £ 13.95 EÃtre musulmanen France:associations, militants et mosqueÂes JocelyneCesari Paris &Aix-en-Provence:E ÂditionsKarthala & IREMAM,1994 pp367, pb 160FF

GillesKepel is oneof France’ s mostprominent specialists of contemporary Islamistmovements and is well-knownoutside the walls of academiathere, due tohis best-selling books and frequent appearances in the media. A numberof Kepel’s publicationshave appeared in English translation over the past dozen years,most notably his ® rst-ratework on Islamism inEgypt. The book under review,which was originallypublished as AÁ l’ouestd’ Allah (Paris: EÂditions du Seuil,1994), represents Kepel’ s latesteffort to chartthe ` rise ofIslam’ ,thistime inthe USA, UK,andFrance: threeWestern countries with signi® cant and growingMuslim minorities. Twothings need to be said straight out about the book. First, it is aimedat aspeci®cally French audience and re¯ ects apeculiarlyFranco-centric perspec- tiveon its subject. Second, though it takes on the appearance of a scholarly comparisonof Islamic movements in its three selected countries, the book is in facta polemicalsalvo ® redinto a noisydebate that has beenraging in France forseveral years now,namely over whether or not Muslim immigrant com- munitiesfrom the MaghribÐ and principally AlgeriaÐ are assimilatinginto Frenchsociety and what policies the French state should adopt to further this goal.Though the book devotes roughly equal space tothe three countries, the USAandUKÐ oftenlumped together as the` Anglo-Saxons’in French dis- courseÐessentially serve as foilsfor the French case, thelatter being the main concernof the author and, presumably, his target audience. Kepel’s pointof departure, as hestates, is toexamine the ` assertionsof communityidentity’ by Muslims in societies that seem tobe evolving toward greatercultural homogenisation and which have witnessed an erosion of

ArunKapil is at23Villad’ Este-Appt 1082, 75013 Paris, France.

0143-6597/97/020377-13$7.00 Ó 1997Third World Quarterly 377 FEATURE REVIEW traditionalcleavages based on social class andcompeting political ideologies of theleft and right. He wishes to ®ndoutwho the followers of Islamic movements inthe three countries are, what they are strivingfor, and why ` callsto Islamic communityidentities’ have occurred in places where the individual is muchfreer inhis allegiances than in the more traditional societies of the Muslim world. The® rst case Kepelconsiders is theUSA. Thediscussion is basedexclusively onthe Nation of Islam ( NOI)ÐtheBlack MuslimsÐ and its leading personalities overthe years: founderElijah Muhammad, the legendary Malcolm X, andthe sulphurousLouis Farrakhan. Kepel’ s choiceof the NOI is mostodd and the chaptersconsecrated to the subject are ¯awedon several levels. First, what he offers thereader is littlemore than a historicalnarrative of the NOI from its inceptionup to the present. While competent, it adds little to our knowledge of the NOI,nordoes it surpass Vincent-MansourMonteil’ s 1964article on the subject,which remains the most important French reference on the Black Muslimsand curiously does not ® gurein Kepel’ s otherwiseextensive source notes.1 Asecondproblem is thechoice of the NOIÐandparticularly in its recent FarrakhanperiodÐ in considering the issue ofIslam inAmerica. Kepel touches onthe movements split in the late 1970s± early 1980s in the aftermath of Elijah Muhammad’s death,when Elijah’ s son,Warith Deen Muhammad, repudiated his father’s teachings,changed the NOIsnameto the American Muslim Mission, and ledpart of the ¯ ockinto mainstream Sunni Islam. Farrakhan’ s groupkept the NOI labeland remained faithful to Elijah’ s doctrine.But Kepel gives almost no furtherattention to Warith Deen Muhammad and his followers, whose interpret- ationof Islam is moreorthodox than that of the NOI.Andno estimates of the actualnumbers of adherents in either group are advancedthat could enable one toassess therelative importance of each. More importantly, there is nomention whateverof the sizeable immigration from Muslim countries to the USA since the1960s, which is nowinto the second generation and whose numbers are considerablyhigher than those of African-Americansclaiming an Islamic ident- ity.To discuss Islam inAmerica without making reference to immigrant communitiesfrom the Islamic world makes nosense. Kepelcommits a furthererror in focusing on the Black Muslims, as itis questionablethat they should be consideredMuslims at all, or that the NOI should evenbe mainly understood as areligioussect. It has longbeen noted that the NOIsdoctrinehas divergedsharply from the Islam practisedby thevast majority oftheworld’ s Muslims.Peculiarities of the NOIsdogmaand ritual, which Kepel discusses onlyin passing, include Elijah Muhammad taking on the status of a prophetand the veneration of the NOIsmysteriousmessiah ®gure,Wallace Fard, as Godincarnate, the notion of black racial superiority and association of the whiterace withSatan, holding the Ramadan fast onlyin themonth of December, listeningto sermons in NOI `temples’seated in chairs, and prayers carried out by standingwith palms turned up, to name a few. Kepelanticipates objections as tothe NOIsIslamiccharacter by arguing that, underFarrakhan, it has graduallyerased its` deviations’Ð aquestionableas- sertionand which Kepel does not back upÐ and drawn closer to states suchas SaudiArabia, and that the NOI should,in any case, beviewed as aheterodox 378 ISLAM INTHE WEST AND MUSLIMS INFRANCE movementwithin Islam, akin to the tariqa-s ofWestAfrica and Ahmadiyya sect inPakistan. This won’ t ¯y.Unlike the heterodox sects onthe periphery of the daral-islam , the NOI was createdwithout having had any signi® cant contact with Muslimsand none whatever with the Islamic world. The NOI sleadinglights neverlearned Arabic and gave little evidence that they had even mastered the Qur’an, let alone the corpus of Islamictheology. In point of fact,the NOIs roots are inthechurches of BlackAmerican Protestantism, to which it bears as much aresemblanceas itdoesto Islam. 2 Thisbeing said, the actual theological content of the NOIsdoctrineis practicallynil, as isthatof thesermons ofFarrakhanand other NOI `ministers’, whichbarely touch on scripture or matters that could be construedas religiousin nature. 3 The NOI shouldbe understood less as areligioussect, strictly speaking, than asaBlackpride and self-help movement issuing from the very speci® c context ofthe Black condition in America. As forits identi® cation with Islam, it seems tohaveescaped Kepel that the NOI isnotconsidered in America as amovement withspiritual or doctrinal roots in the Islamic world, nor is itviewed as representinga localmanifestation of some worldwideIslamic resurgence. The NOI is almostuniversally regarded in the USA as aBlacknationalist, or separatist,phenomenon. In thisrespect, it istobenotedthat in theheavy media coverageof Farrakhan’ s `MillionMan March’ in Washington in October 1995, itoccurred to practically nobody that the event had anything to do with Islam, whichit most decidedly did not. As forthe Black Muslims themselves, the relevantcleavage in their imaginaire has notbeen that of Muslims versus non-Muslimsbut rather that of Black AmericansÐ whatever their religionÐ againstwhite America. Until very recently, the NOI has manifestedno interestin forgingties with Muslim immigrant communities or itsassociations; on theother hand,Farrakhan’ s sermons andrallies are wellattended by youthful African- Americanswho have not converted to the NOIsconceptionof Islam andlikely havelittle or no intention of doing so. Theunderlying theme in these chapters is thatthe NOIÐandthe growing interestin Islam amongAfrican-Americans it is supposedlyspearheadingÐ representsa `communal’fragmentation of American society. The concept of communalismis Kepel’s leitmotifand crops up throughout the book, though it isneitherdeveloped theoretically nor, in thisinstance, in reference to American societyor history. The term employed in the original French version is communautarisme ,whichis anideologically loaded and emotionally charged expressionin France signifying the will of ascriptive communities to seal themselvesoff from the larger collectivity, resist assimilationinto French society,reject in part or in whole the republican and laic values of the French polity,and to use theirethnic or religiousidentity as aresourcein theirinterface withthe public authorities and political system. In the French imaginaireÐ and particularlyfor its intellectuals, whatever their ideological predispositionÐ communautarisme standsin opposition to the Jacobin state and constitutes a mortaldanger to the cohesion of French society. As such,it is somethingto be combatted.The public af® rmationof ethnicidentities and their use asapolitical resourcehas thus,until very recently, been taboo in France. WhenFranceÐ one of the leading receivers of immigrants since the 19th 379 FEATURE REVIEW centuryÐlooks at that other great country of immigration, the USA, itsees the antithesisof its own valuesÐ values that are viewedas universalisticin natureÐ andexperiences. The notion that immigrants in America cluster, over several generations,in unassimilatedethnic ghettos is almostuniversally held in France. Kepeldoes not quite say hebelieves this, but the manner in which he treats the Americancase canonly reinforce the misconceptions of those who do. By focusingexclusively on the particular case ofthe Black Muslims, who are productsof thevery particular Black experience in AmericaÐof America’s long historyof apartheidand of culturaltaboos regarding white-black intermarriageÐ Kepelis ableto imposehis notion of anIslamic-led communal fragmentation of Americansociety. Had he consideredinstead immigrants from Muslim countries, hewould have been obliged to delve into the larger issue ofimmigration in America.Kepel would have likely made the same observationabout the Americanimmigrant experience as haveother French scholars, notably Ge Ârard Noiriel,4 namelythat, despite its particularities, it has hardlybeen different from thatof the French in the all-important matter of assimilation: to wit, the ® rst generationremaining foreigners, attached culturally and emotionally to their countryof origin, and often never even acquiring citizenship in the receiving country;the second generation integrated in allsigni® cant respects butnonethe- less beingmarked to varying degrees by the culture of theirparents; and the third generationthoroughly assimilated and having lost almost all signi® cant traces of theirgrandparents’ s cultureand language. America is indeed,as thehistorian EmmanuelTodd put it in his stimulating comparative study of immigrants, a formidable` grindingmachine’ of cultural differences, able to impose on immi- grantsthe American conception of religion, family, and way of life, regardless ofthe character or solidity of the immigrant’ s cultureof origin. 5 Theuse ofethnicity as apoliticalresource and its overt public manifestation differentiatesAmerica from France but only super® cially so, as thosewho assert hyphenatedidentities are invariablythoroughly assimilated into American society.For this reason, Kepel’ s ideologicallytinged argument regarding ` com- munalism’in AmericansocietyÐ aterm that may be justi®ed social scienti® cally butwhich nonetheless sounds awkward and out-of-place in this contextÐ is likelyto induce puzzlement and responses of` so what?’from most American readers.There is certainlycause toargue that the cohesion of Americansociety is understress, butthe reasons are tobe found more in phenomena such as increasingsocial exclusion ensuing from widening disparities in income, the eviscerationof public authority and the social safety net, and the elevation of privateinterests over that of the common good, to name a few,rather than in some ethnically-basedand Islamically-inspired communal sentiment. Kepelcontinues along this vein in hisdiscussion of theBritish case. Themain themestreated here are thecolonial experience in India as aprecursorto contemporary` communalism’in the UK, theimplantation of Islam viaIndo- Pakistaniimmigrants, and the 1989 Salman Rushdie Affair. Kepel describes the numerousways in which the UK has strivedto institutionally accommodate communaldifferences, particularly in the educational system. He points out some ofthe peculiarities of the successive lawson nationality and immigration enactedin the course of this century, such as thedisassociation of the concepts 380 ISLAM INTHE WEST AND MUSLIMS INFRANCE ofnationality and citizenshipÐ resulting in, among other things, the restricted entryinto the UK ofcertainholders of BritishpassportsÐ and the establishment ofracially-based categories such as `patrials’. Britishparticularities such as this renderit possible, in Kepel’ s argumentation,to treat individuals as members of ascribedcommunities rather than as citizens tout court.Sucha practiceis, of course,inconceivable in France.Kepel, one would think, is awarethat everyone inthe UK, notto mention the USA, issubjectto the same lawsand civil code, andthat there are noseparate juridical regimes for members ofdifferent confessionalgroups. One is thereforepuzzled, for example, at thesigni® cance he attachesto the late Kalim Siddiqi’ s MuslimParliament, as acase inpointof the supposed` communalfragmentation’ of Britishsociety and will on the part of a certainnumber of Muslims to ¯ outBritish legal and political institutions. It seems notto havedawned on Kepelthat the Muslim Parliament represents little morethan a publicity-seekingSpeakers Corner-type soapbox and has nojuridical statuswhatsoever as anelective or legislative body. The uninitiated reader of Kepel’s bookÐand there were likely more than a fewin FranceÐ could be forgivenfor concluding that the ` Anglo-Saxon’countries are indeedhardly differentfrom confessionally divided societies in the Middle East and South Asia. Unlikethe USA thereis noindigenous population group in the UK thathas assumed anIslamic identity, so Kepelfocuses onMuslim immigrants from SouthAsia. He is struckby the density of their associational life, the political in¯uence they have come to wield in citiessuch as Bradfordand BirminghamÐ non-citizenresidents from the Commonwealth having the right to vote in British electionsÐand by the sheer numberof mosques. Kepel informs us thatin the 1970sthere were many more mosques in the UK thanin France, though the numberof Muslims in the latter was considerablyhigher. Perhaps this was at leastin part due to the dif® culties Muslims in France have always had in obtainingpermits from municipal authorities to build mosques, though Kepel doesn’t stopto consider this. As forthe weight Muslims bring to bear in elections,particularly local, we learnabout the phenomenon of `blocvoting’ and ofthe ` ethnicvote’ , whichare apparentlya logicalconsequence of a system basedon communalism. Politicians openly chasing an ethnic vote, which has alsolong been a featureof politics in the USA, seems slightlyshocking to Kepel’s Jacobinsensibilities. But is thesituation really all that different in France,where one must always take care todifferentiate the pays leÂgal from the pays reÂel? Ethnicgroups certainly don’ t manifestthemselves as suchat election timein France, though one can’ t butnote that citizens of North African origin invariablydeliver their votes en bloc to the parties of the left, in the same way as UKSouthAsians do to Labour and African-Americans to the Democrats. Likewise,discreetly courting the Jewish vote is anestablished tradition of Frenchparties of boththe left and right. Local ethnic politics in Marseille bears astrikingresemblance to that in Chicago. Without minimising the differences betweenFrance and the ` Anglo-Saxons’here, it is fairto say thatno small part maynonetheless be chalked up to appearances and ideology. Kepel’s discussionof theUK is notentirely uninteresting, though, as withhis treatmentof the American case, itdoes suffer fromconceptual ¯ aws.The 381 FEATURE REVIEW principalone is hisconviction that a sortof communal restructuring based on Islam is occurringin the UK andof whichIndo-Pakistani immigrants are inthe forefront.It is, however, hardly novel to observe that immigrants tend to bring theirculture with them, seek toresidein thesame neighbourhoods,and practice theirreligion as theydid back home. And it will not be news to those familiar withthe literature on immigration that exogenous customs tend to wither with thegradual assimilation of the second and third generations into the receiving society.Indo-Pakistani immigrants only began to arrivein the UK insigni® cant numbersin the1950s and 1960s. As arelativelyrecent immigrant phenomenon, itcan only be expected that members ofthe ® rst generationwill play an importantrole in the life of their community. One may hypothesise that the comingof age of the second and third generations will in all likelihood bring withit a gradual` Anglicisation’of sorts ofIndo-Pakistani Muslims, transform- ingboth the role Islam playsin their lives and the intensity with which it is practised.It may well turn out that Kepel’ s imaginedIslamic-led ` communal fragmentation’of British society, if thisis indeedwhat it is, is neitherpermanent norirreversible, and all the less so giventhe increasingly restrictive immigration lawsenacted over the years thathave reduced the ¯ owof immigrants into the UKfromthe former colonies. Leavingthe UK, Kepelmoves on to the heart of the matter: France and its Muslims.The ® rst chapterof thissection, however, is centrednot on Francebut onAlgeriaand, in particular,on thediscourse of theIslamic Salvation Front ( FIS) inthe late 1980s± early 1990s. Among other things, we are toldthat radical FIS preacherscritiqued the concept of democracy and systematically demonized Francein sermons andthe party’ s press. Thechapter will be of interestto those whofollow Algeria, as Kepelhas themerit of being one of thevery few scholars tohave gone through the principal FIS newspaperof theperiod, al-Munqidh. He isnotan authority on Algeria,however, and it is notquite clear what the FIS and itsdiscourse of severalyears agohave to dowithMuslims in France,particularly today.Kepel wonders if the latter have been, or will be, in¯ uenced by the AlgerianIslamists’ Francophobia,though one would presume he knows full well thatMuslims in FranceÐ apart from a smallminorityÐ have never been enticed byIslamist sirens fromthe other side of the Mediterranean. As forthe vili®cation of France,there is hardlyanything new about this in Algeria, where anti-Frenchdemagoguery has longbeen a stock-in-tradeof regime and other non-Islamistdiscourse. The neurotic, passion-® lled relationship of Algerians withthe ex-colonial powerÐ mixing fascination and rejectionÐ is notabout to undergoa transformationin one direction or another on account of a few intemperatearticles in the Islamist press orincendiary sermons ina mosque. Followingthe digression on Algeria, Kepel narrows his focus to the Muslim- populated banlieues (suburbs)of French cities. Kepel, echoing widespread sentimentin France, worries that the vaunted French assimilation machine has brokendown in the case ofMuslim immigrants from the Maghrib. As the argumentgoes, these Maghre Âbins(as theyare calledin France), being primary victimsof high unemployment and social exclusion, are notassimilating into Frenchsociety in the way immigrants have in the past. Excluded from the workingworld and therefore marginalised from the mainstream of French 382 ISLAM INTHE WEST AND MUSLIMS INFRANCE society,they are reactingby asserting a communal-typeIslamic identity. The MaghreÂbinsin the banlieues are,in short, following in the communal footsteps ofthe Black Muslims in America and the Indo-Pakistanis across theChannel. Franceisn’ t quitethere yet but if things continue the way they’ ve beengoing, weare anxiouslyinformed, the country will soon be faced with a dreaded Americanand British-style communautarisme ,withall its dire consequences for thehallowed principles of citoyenneteÂ, laõÈ citeÂ, and laRe Âpublique . Itis hardto understate the hand-wringing that goes on in FranceÐ and exempli®ed by KepelÐ over the increasing public visibility of Islam. The frettingover how to deal with IslamÐ now numbering some threemillion disciplesin the HexagonÐ and the challenge it is seen topose is epitomizedby thebrouhaha over the foulard,orIslamicheadscarf, in thepublic schools, which has recurredon several occasions since its initial eruption in 1989. The occasionalsight of Muslimschoolgirls with their hair coveredÐ almost all from lowerclass Moroccanand Turkish immigrant familiesÐ has provokeda near nationalhysteria over the grave danger it is seen torepresent for the laic characterof thepublic school system and,ultimately, of theFrench polity itself. Anumberof schools have gone so far as toexpel recalcitrant girls who have refusedto remove their headscarves. While acknowledging that foreigners ® nd theFrench rather eccentric on the matter, Kepel considers the stakes inthe affaire dufoulard tobe high, not only for its supposed challenge to republican valuesbut for its eventual impact on the very principles around which post- modernsociety is tobeorganised.Kepel has indeedbeen among those advising thepublic authorities to take a ®rm positionon theissue ofthe Islamic headscarf inthe schools. Thosewho oppose permitting the foulard inschooldo so indefenseof laõÈ citeÂ, ofequalitybetween the sexes, andout of aninsistencethat Muslims, in order to fullyintegrate into the national community, adopt the same attitudeto Islam as FrenchCatholics, Protestants, and Jews dototheir respective faiths, namely that religiouspractices be strictly relegated to the sphere of private life and not collidewith the institutions of the Republic. The matter goes deeper than this, however.Debates over the Islamic headscarf quickly and inevitably spill over to issues suchas thedanger of Islamism inAlgeria and terrorist threats to France originatingthere, Islamist in® ltration of the banlieues,andindeed of Islam itself, which,in the phantasms of many in France, is regardedas aretrograde, misogynistreligion hostile to modernity and republican values. It is, for example,standard practice for politicians and intellectualsÐ Kepel includedÐ to prefacepublic remarks onmatters related to Islam byasserting their heartfelt sentimentthat Islam is areligionof peace and tolerance, and must not be confusedwith extremism or terrorism. But the very fact that so many feel the needto utter this boilerplate formula means thatthere is indeeda serious problemwith the public perception of Islam,and which includes politicians and intellectuals.The insistence of theauthorities that Muslims are notbeing singled outin administrative measures takenagainst the foulard was,however, refuted byassurances givenby Prime Minister Edouard Balladur to leadersof theJewish communityin 1994, that the government’ s decreeprohibiting the wearing of `ostentatious’religious symbols in the schools did not apply to yarmulke. 383 FEATURE REVIEW

Publicsentiment on the Islamic headscarf is certainlynot unanimous and coolerheads have weighed in on the issue, most notably the Conseil d’ EÂtat, whoseadvisory rulings have consistently been in favour of the offending schoolgirls.Serious scholarly and journalistic investigation has alsopresented a morecomplex picture. As thesociologists Franc ËoiseGaspard and Farhad Khosrokhavarhave written, the Muslim immigrant schoolgirls are caughtbe- tweenthe culture of their parents and that of France. They feel the need to identifywith their parents but ® ndthe cultural con¯ ict intolerable. School often providestheir only salvation, the one zone of freedom where they are free of familialconstraints, as wellas themost important vector of assimilation into Frenchsociety. Girls from conservative families fear thattheir parents will preventthem from attending school. The foulard allowsthem to satisfy their parentswhile they navigate in the outside world. 6 Manyof the girls indeed abandonthe headscarf once they reach adulthood and leave home. It seems not tohaveoccurred to Kepel and others who share hisviews that for the authorities totakea hard-linestance on theIslamic headscarf, and go so far as toexpelthe girlsfrom school, can only have the opposite effect from that intended, namely toimpede their assimilation into French society. Furthermore, it blatantly discriminatesagainst girls, as piousMuslim schoolboys run no riskof expulsion forwearing that ostentatious Islamist giveaway, a beard. Thecohesion of the French republic is threatenednot only by the foulard, in Kepel’s estimation,but also by the grassroots activity of Islamist organizations andtheir patient efforts to ` reislamise’, secondgeneration Maghre Âbinimmigrants in the banlieues.Documentingthis has longbeen one of Kepel’ s fortesand he devotesconsiderable space toit here. Islamist missionaries have certainly been activein the banlieues anda smallÐthough probably increasingÐ minority of secondgeneration Maghre Âbinshave indeed ` rediscovered’Islam andmade religiouspractice an important feature of their personal lives. The obvious questionto be asked is whythis unexceptional phenomenon is occurringand whatdoes it mean? In consideringthis, it must not be forgottenthat IslamÐ both as religionand identityÐ has alwaysplayed a primordialrole in the lives of Muslimimmigrants in France. On this level, pious second generation Maghre Â- binsare notnecessarily breaking with their parents. What is newis thereligious orthodoxyof theyoung ` converts’,as opposedto thetraditional manner in which theirlargely uneducated parents understand and practice Islam. Sociologists Adil Jazouliand Maria do Ce ÂuCunhastress, however,that this orthodoxy in noway representsa repudiationof France or French culture on the part of the second generation,and all the less sogiven the transnational character of the assumed Islamicidentity and its disconnection from speci® c ethnicreferences. 7 The orthodoxyis rathermore a rejectionof the traditional Islam oftheir parents, whosepractice of thereligion the young people regard as steepedin ignorance. Theelders are reproachedfor their poor understanding of Islam andfor not havingprovided the young people with a suf® cientlevel of religiousinstruction. Thereare obviouslyother things going on here, most of which Kepel under- scoresÐthe search foridentity, community, and the meaning of life;for a moral codein an environment plagued by drugs and other problems; the void created byunemployment and decline of integrating agencies such as tradeunions and 384 ISLAM INTHE WEST AND MUSLIMS INFRANCE

Communistparty; co-optation by political parties of second generation and anti-racistassociations; and so onÐbut the inter-generational con¯ ict aspect mustnot be underestimated. Kepelexamines the discourse of some ofthe more vocal Islamic associations, detectingin itseeds ofthefeared communautarisme .Kepelattaches considerable importanceto the demands such associations may make at any given moment. Onemay object that any group, however unrepresentative, can make demands, thoughthis does not necessarily obligate the public authorities or elected of®cials to take action, or to even acknowledge them. What is strikingin observingthe pious young Muslims in the banlieues,howeverÐand which Frenchmensuch as Kepelhave utterly failed to noteÐis thatin no instancehave theyÐeither collectively or individuallyin anystatistically signi® cant numberÐ calledinto question either laõÈ citeÂasabedrockprinciple of the French polity or anyof the values contained in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen.The ` reislamisation’of second generation Maghre Âbinshas notbeen coupledin any way with them attempting to opt out of the French national community.The action of the principal Islamic associations and groupings vis-aÁ-visthe public authorities has centredalmost exclusively on thequestion of whois goingto be accorded the status of privileged interlocutor with the state, inorderto dealwith matters such as theobtaining of permits for the construction ofmosques, making available abattoirs for the ritual slaughter of sheep during Aidal-Kabir, regulating the production and sale ofhalal meat, and the like. Theseare viewedby all as entirelylegitimate issues fallingwithin the domain of laõÈ citeÂ.Eventhe controversy over the Islamic headscarf has notled to a mobilisationof or contestation by the pious. Theone thing that second generation Maghre ÂbinsÐbe they ` Islamised’or notÐdemand is thatthey be treated like every other member of the French nationalcommunity, that they not have doors slammed in theirfaces becauseof theconsonance of theirnames orswarthinessof appearance.The issue ofracism, ofthe dif® culties second generation Maghre Âbinshave in the employment and housingmarkets on account of the ` deÂlitde sale gueule ’(ie,looking like an Arab),and of theconstant indignities they sustainÐ eg, repeated identity checks andharassment by the police, systematic refusal of entry into nightclubsÐ is somethingpoliticians, many intellectuals, and academicians like Kepel have beenunable to deal with. Though the existence of racism is sometimes acknowledged,it is seen as epiphenomenalat most and not necessitating vigorousaction on the part of the state. The mere suggestionthat assimilation couldperhaps be facilitated through the adoption of modest af® rmativeaction- typemeasures forMaghre ÂbinsÐwho are almostentirely absent from certain professions,such as thepoliceÐ is metby hostilerejection, with any proposition hintingat positive discrimination seen as astalkinghorse for ` Anglo-Saxon’ communautarisme andtotally incompatible with French republican values. It seems notto have occurred to Kepel and those who share hisworld-view that ifthere were indeed a problemwith the assimilation of Maghre Âbinimmigrants, theprimary fault would most logically lie not with the immigrants themselves butrather with the larger society and its racism. If Kepelwanted to drawthe real lessonfrom the American experience it would be precisely from the one group 385 FEATURE REVIEW whichhas notbeen assimilated into mainstream American society, ie African- Americans.One does not need to be an authority on the question to know that Blackshave not been excluded from mainstream America due to simple economicfactors or some prior repliidentitaire ontheirpart, but rather because offour centuries of slavery, apartheid, and the profound Negrophobia of white Americansociety. Thequestion to be askedat this point is ifMahre Âbinshave indeed been poorly assimilatinginto French societyÐ with assimilation being understood as the nativemastery of the national language, reduction in ethno-cultural speci® cities (particularlyin matters relating to gender and marriage), convergence of behav- iourpatterns with the corresponding social class orsub-culture of the receiving society,internalisation of prevailing cultural codes, and adherence to the norms andvalues governing the civic and political culture. Miche ÁleTribalat,a research scholarat the Institut National d’ EtudesDe Âmographiques( INED)anddirector of themost extensive empirical study to date of secondgeneration immigrants, has decisivelyrefuted popular misconceptions and other ideÂes recËues .8 She con- cludesthat all of themain indicatorsÐ eg, the erosion of traditional matrimonial practicesand high rates ofmixed marriage, receptiveness to French cultural practices,identi® cation with the national communityÐ show that the Maghre Âbins are followingthe historical pattern of assimilation into French society. Even discriminationencountered in the labour market has notbeen a majorimpedi- mentin their upward mobility. On the matter of Islam, the level of non- observanceis high,particularly among those of Algerian origin, and with religionregarded as anessentially private affair. Kepel’ s imagined` reislami- sation’in the banlieues bears littlerelationship to the reality on the ground. Inhis conclusion, Kepel lets the cat out of the bag, stating that the French politicaltradition abhors, out of principle, the notion of regional, ethnic, or religiousidentities interposing themselves between the citizen and the state. It goeswithout saying that Kepel considers this primordial Jacobin axiom to be intrinsicallysuperior to the` communal’arrangements found in theUSA andUK. Whatis maddeningabout this book is thatKepel never deems itnecessary to developan argument defending the superiority of the French model over the `Anglo-Saxon’in the management of immigration, ethnicity, and the relationship betweenreligion and the state. He simply assumes thatthe reader shares his ideologicalassumptions on this score andthat these are thusin no need of elaboration,let alone defense. But it is far froma giventhat all his readersÐ and particularlynon-French onesÐ will accept the view that the presence in the politicalarena of intermediate groups based on ethnicity or religion necessarily underminesthe stability or cohesion of society. Some will reasonably wish to knowwhy such identity-based pressure groupsshould be considered less legitimatethan those based on social class andcorporatist interests, around whichFrench politics revolvesÐ and deemed by at least a fewto be responsible forits various blockages. It will also be asked at what point the defense of republicanvalues begins to collide with the values of democracy. Onemay point out that France has notalways adhered to itsown colour-blind republicanprinciples, as attestedto by the differential treatment to which Algerian` Franco-Muslims’residing in the metropole prior to 1962Ð who were, 386 ISLAM INTHE WEST AND MUSLIMS INFRANCE juridicallyspeaking, full French citizensÐ were subjected by the state adminis- tration.It may also be noted that, contrary to the tenacious French myth, immigrantsin the pastÐ Flemings, Italians, Poles, etc.Ð did indeed tend to constituteresidentially-based ` communities’upon their arrival in Franceand did notimmediately disperse into the larger society. As withimmigrants in theUSA andelsewhere, assimilation took time. Research byGe ÂrardNoiriel and other historianshas documentedthat immigrants in thepast behaved in much the same wayas MaghreÂbinsdo today and were confronted with many of the same problems,such as prejudiceand discrimination .Furthermore,Maghre Âbinsare hardlythe only second generation immigrants nowadays to assert anethnic or religiousidentity. One immigrant community with a strongsense ofidentityÐ andwhere there is muchinterest in roots among the second generationÐ is the Portuguese,but hardly anyone in Franceseems overlyexercised about this. The clusteringof Chineseand Southeast Asians in theTriangle de Choisyof Paris’ s 13tharrondissement has incitedno commotionover the danger of communauta- risme.Andthe increasing level of religious practice on the part of JewsÐ due mainlyto recentimmigrants from North AfricaÐ has notbeen an issue ofpublic orpolitical debate. There is indeeda special,emotionally driven obsession in Francewith Islam andMaghre Âbinimmigrants, and with Algerians in particular. Thereasons forthis are deeplyrooted in French history and, in particular,with itscolonial legacy in Algeria.Gilles Kepel, given his knowledge of thesubject, iswell-placedto explainthis phenomenon to thelarger lay public, refute myths, combatprejudices, and propose sane andef® caciouspolicies to decision- makers.But, since his ideology got the better of him,his book does the precise opposite. Thoselooking for a seriousand level-headed treatment of Muslimsin France willwant to turn instead to Jocelyne Cesari’ s EÃtre musulmanen France: associations,militants et mosque Âes .Originallywritten as adoctoraldissertation, Cesari’ sempiricallyrich and theoretically sophisticated study focuses onthe Muslimcommunities of Marseille (mainly comprised of Maghre Âbins):on the organisationand practice of Islam, associational life and modes of collective action,and interface with the larger society and political system. Marseille is a particularlyrelevant place to conduct such a study,given its signi® cant Muslim population(residing within the city limits and not in banlieues ontheperiphery), historyas areceiverof migrants and immigrants (Maghre Âbins,Italians, Spaniards,Corsicans, Jews, Pieds-Noirs,Armenians, West Africans, Comorians) Ðas wellas historyof periodictension between immigrant communities and the nativepopulationÐ and its recent infamy as astrongholdof the racist, extreme right-wingNational Front, which has consistentlygarnered over 20% of thevote inthe city over the past decade. Cesari’ sobservationsand conclusions extend beyondthe con® nes ofMarseille, however, to that of the general condition of Muslimsand Maghre Âbinsin France today. Threeof thebook’ s principalthemes may be mentionedhere. The ® rst is that, despiteall the talk about ` reislamisation’, religiouspractice among second generationMuslims has beenlargely secularised in the same wayas thatof the othermajor faiths in France. Islam is mainlylived as aculturaland ethical referenceby its youthful believers, who do not necessarily feel bound by the 387 FEATURE REVIEW variousreligious obligations and constraints that prevail in the cultures of their parents.This cultural, ethical view of Islam inno way leads to the totalistic conceptionsof thereligion conveyed by Islamists, such as theindissolubility of religion,politics, and the state. It instead positions Islam squarelyin the private sphereand without consequence for behaviour outside the home. For the young people,Islam isintimatelylinked to the universe of thefamily, even if theyare alreadystriking out on their own and striving for autonomy from the parental milieu.Cesari notesthat this secularisation of Islam, also observed in the INED studymentioned above, has gonealmost completely unnoticed in France. Thesecond theme is thatthe consigning of religious practice to the private spheredoes not also mean that the second generation has adoptedthe same attitudein respect to its public identity as Muslims.Cesari discusses the traumaticreaction of many in France at the realisation that Maghre Âbinsare no longersojourners, as was imaginedin the past, but have permanently settled in Franceand made Islam thecountry’ s secondmost important religion. The prejudiceand discriminatory practices suffered by Maghre Âbinshas broughtabout deepfeelings of frustrationand indignation on thepart of thesecond generation. Thishas hadthe effect of solidifyinga sense ofªusºon theirpart, of astrongly feltcollective ethno-religious sub-identity. Justly feeling that they have every rightto live in France and to be accepted as theyare, the second generation refuses tomaintaina lowpublic pro® le in regardto its sub-identity and does not hesitateto use itas apoliticalresource. This being said, the rhetoric on thisscore hardlygoes beyond just that, as thesecond generation has noconcrete project involvinga speci®c publicrecognition of its ethno-religious identity. Cesari makes animportant observation about a paradoxin MarseilleÐ and in therest ofFranceÐ between the prejudice against Maghre Âbinsand phobia of Islam,on the one hand, and the lack of outright confrontation between the differentgroups, on the other. Peace andcivility are thenorms in relations betweenMaghre Âbinsand native French who live in close proximity. Racially segregatedghettos of the sort one ® ndsin America are non-existentin France, schoolsare notthe sites ofinter-ethnicfriction, and there are nocultural taboos onmixed marriage. Riots that occur periodically in the banlieues do not pit youngMuslims against native French but rather young people from different ethnicstock united against the police. Thethird theme concerns the larger institutional context in which assertions ofethno-religious identity must be situated. Discoursing at length on French- stylerepublicanism and laõÈ citeÂ,Cesari observesthat France has indeedwitnessed awateringdown of Jacobin ideology over the past thirty years. In actual practice,the state has cometo recognise the diversity of civil society. This is re¯ected in, among other things, laws and administrative measures mandating decentralisation,valorisation of regional languages and pre-1789 local and regionalidentities, and recognition of the speci® city of Corsica. Discourses on communal-typeidentities emerged around the same timeas didthe rise ofsocial movementsin the late-1960s and 1970s, which re¯ ected the contestation by certainsectors ofsociety against the Jacobin dogma of the citizen owing exclusiveallegiance to the nation-state. Withexpressions of difference now acceptable and pluralistic conceptions of 388 ISLAM INTHE WEST AND MUSLIMS INFRANCE societyviewed as defacto legitimate, second generation Maghre Âbinsfeel ever less hesitationin using identity as apoliticalresource. For the young Maghre Â- bins,Cesari argues,identity has becomea means ofpressure towardfurthering theirassimilation into French society and acceding to the middle class. Viewed fromthis angle, the tumult in Franceover expressions of anIslamiccommunity identitymainly re¯ ects alagbetween the dominant ideology as vectoredby politico-intellectualelites and the evolution of societyat the grassroots. Intellec- tualssuch as GillesKepel are simplybehind the curve, as itwere. France does seem, tothechagrin of some,to increasinglyresemble the ` Anglo-Saxons’in the managementof ethnicity and religion. But, as JocelyneCesari’ s®nestudy convincinglyshows, this natural evolution will not only not result in a fragmen- tationof the society but may well strengthen its foundations.

Notes 1 Vincent-MansourMonteil, ` La religiondes Black Muslims(1964)’ , chapter8 in Auxcinq couleurs de l’ Islam,Paris:Maisonneuve & Larose,1989. 2 Onthis point, see ibid;andAbbie Whyte, ` ChristianElements inNegro American MuslimReligious Beliefs’ , Phylon:The Atlanta University Review ofRace andCulture ,24,4, (Winter 1964): pp 382± 388. 3 Onthe eschatology of the NOI,see Zafar IshaqAnsari, ` Aspects ofBlack MuslimTheology’ , Studia Islamica,53(1981): pp 137± 176; and the excellent workby Matthias Gardell, Inthe Name ofElijah Muhammad:Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam ,Durham:Duke University Press, 1996. 4 GeÂrardNoiriel, Le creuset francËais:histoire de l’immigration ,XIXe±XXe sieÁcle, Paris:Editions du Seuil, 1988,translated by Geoffrey de Laforcade, underthe title, TheFrench Melting Pot: Immigration, Citizenship,and National Identity ,Minneapolis:University of Minnesota Press, 1996. 5 Emmanuel Todd, Le destindes immigreÂs: assimilationet seÂgreÂgationdans les democratiesoccidentales , Paris: EÂditionsdu Seuil, 1994. 6 FrancËoiseGaspard &FarhadKhosrokhavar, Le foulardet laRe Âpublique ,Paris:Editions La DeÂcouverte, 1995, p. 94. 7 AdilJazouli & Maria doCe ÂuCunha,` Les jeunesmusulmans en France: eÂtudeexploratoire’ , Banlieues- copies,Paris, December 1995. 8 MicheÁle Tribalat, FaireFrance: une grande enque Ãte surles immigreÂset leurs enfants ,preface byMarceau Long,Paris: Editions La DeÂcouverte,1995.

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