From the amphitheater to the TV set: a journey of trivialized Islamophobia

At a time when the far right, under the leadership of the National Rally, is relaunching yet another controversy by proposing to ban the wearing of the veil in public spaces, it is useful to focus on what this sequence says about the state of our society. This proposal, which directly clashes with the fundamental principles of individual freedom, illustrates the diffusion of a slow poison: that of a stigmatization which now advances openly, quietly trivialized by public debate. The boundary between freedom of expression, the pillar of democracy, and racist or exclusionary “liberation of speech” has collapsed.

The genealogy of a defeat

What is deeply alarming today is not only that a political party is formulating such an exclusionary proposal, it is, after all, its historical vocation. What is tragically more so is that this idea can be calmly debated on television sets, weighed up as an ordinary political option. Would we openly debate the question of whether a citizen of non-European origin should enjoy the same rights as others? The question rightly seems unthinkable. However, when the unthinkable invites itself to the discussion table and is dissected without the slightest complexion, it is a sign that society is heading down an extremely steep slope.

But how did we get here? This ideological shift did not happen overnight. If intolerance is exposed today in broad daylight in the political arena, it is because it was first tolerated, even brooded, in the spheres that were believed to be the most protected by reason and the spirit of the Enlightenment: the academic and scientific world. To understand the defeat of the current debate, we must observe how the elite has, in the past, opened the door to the unacceptable through its complacency.

The mask of the humanist: when science betrays its universalism

Recent history offers us a striking illustration of this through the case of the astrophysicist André Brahic who died a decade ago. This is in no way a matter of denying his legacy: an immense scientist, a leading figure in French planetary astronomy, he undeniably left his mark on his discipline during the epic era of the Voyager probes which introduced us to giant planets as we had never seen them before. A brilliant popularizer, he presented himself, and was widely perceived, as a profound humanist celebrating the universal thirst for knowledge.

And yet, it is precisely under this warm mask that a primary Islamophobia was hidden, demonstrating that intolerance can corrupt the most educated minds. What is striking about him is not a surface aversion, but a visceral hostility which emerged in the corners of his speech, polluting the popularization of science with an exclusionary ideology.

Thus, during the Sky and Space Meetings in 2010, at the Cité des sciences in Paris at which I was present, this drift took on caricatured proportions. In a lecture on giant planets entitled “Of fires and flames”the astrophysicist went all out on Islam, slipping in a number of derogatory and gratuitous allusions. So at one point, projecting a photo of his team wearing cleanliness mask outfits in a laboratory, he blurted out in a falsely mischievous manner: “… wearing a burqa is obligatory in the lab. » Opposing science to faith, he asserts in a rather disconnected manner that in science we ask questions, while religious texts push us to “to bow”joining the gesture to the word by imitating the prostration of Muslims.

The obsession doesn’t stop there. Faced with an image of Saturn’s thick atmosphere, he insists: “To see clearly, one must remove one’s veil to learn more. » There follows a slide showing a veil literally placed on the planet, accompanied by this comment: “By removing the veil from the planet, we are making progress. » Further away, probably targeting Algeria, it displays a flag where “the star is inside the crescent” to decree with haughtiness that “These people don’t understand anything about astronomy. » Finally, addressing the toponymy of the stars, he specifies that if craters bear the name of Alexandria, Baghdad or Cairo, it is not “not in homage to the Middle East”adding that he categorically refuses to use the name Mecca, “for other reasons”.

The IAP incident: the revealing silence of a right-thinking public

These allusions, as regrettable as they are in a scientific context, could have been perceived only as the witticisms of a popularizer sometimes carried away by his own discourse. The most revealing episode took place during a general public conference at the Paris Institute of Astrophysics (IAP). That day, our speaker noticed in the room a young doctoral researcher wearing a headscarf, who has since become a professor of physics and one of the rare Algerian astrophysicists.

Before even beginning his presentation, the speaker conspicuously pauses and begins to insistently discuss “mists” And “darkness” that he perceives in the room, refusing to begin his presentation. Our young researcher (SK), stoic, initially pretended not to pay any attention. However, the minutes passed, punctuated by ever more sustained allusions from the speaker. Definitively understanding that she was the target of this cabal, the young woman got up and left the room, allowing our man of science to finally begin his conference. Although there was some unrest in the ranks of the audience, as later reported to me by a researcher present that day, as well as the doctoral student herself, for whom I was her thesis director, the incident did not go any further.

So, in this room full of researchers, colleagues and intellectuals, no one really protested. If such public humiliation had been aimed at a person because of their skin color or any other characteristic, the room would undoubtedly have been up in arms. But there, protected by the aura of the “great scientist”, the exclusion was silently validated.

Debating the unacceptable is already capitulating

The integration of the National Front’s rhetoric into today’s public debate is only the logical outcome of these silences of yesterday. Assumed retreats, such as the example just cited in an academic context, have paved the way for politicians who demand the erasure of Muslim women from our streets.

But let’s make no mistake: agreeing to debate the unacceptable is already accepting being defeated. To claim to oscillate between freedom of expression and freedom of speech is to let oneself be caught in the trap of trivializing the unthinkable.

The very idea that a great nation could consider establishing a real “clothing police” in the public space is so grotesque that the simple fact of making it a subject of televised debate is profoundly outrageous. Faced with the immensity of the challenges on all fronts that society faces, this petty obsession should make France the laughing stock of the world. Seen from other horizons, where we strive to raise the eyes of younger generations towards the universality of science and the exploration of the cosmos, the narrowness of this political debate is appallingly small.

What this sequence reveals, beyond the individual excesses of a scholar or the electoral calculations of the extreme right, is the collapse of an ideal. Combatant secularism, established as a dogma at the heart of the system for several decades, has gone dramatically wrong. It does not protect freedom of conscience; it stalks, it stigmatizes and it excludes. This ideology of intolerance, which advances masked under the veneer of rationality or the defense of the Republic, is a danger that must be fought. Because agreeing to debate the inconceivable is to abdicate our common dignity.