Albert Memmi believes that we have to return once again to colonization: decolonized people are people in the process of decolonization. The portrait of the decolonized is a direct follow-up to the portrait of the colonized. He thus goes back to the patterns and frameworks he uncovered, particularly in his earlier work, The Colonizer and the Colonized.
He recalls the dialectic defined by denial of self—love of the colonizer, so long as colonization is tolerated—which then flips into denial of the colonizer and affirmation of the self, escalating all the way to hatred of the other. He describes here a few of these behaviors of the colonized in revolt that extend well beyond political independence: for instance, the extolling of traditional values and group attributes, and even countermyths. Simply put, in both revolt and defeat, the colonized continue to define themselves in connection with the colonizer, within the colonial relationship.
Can we now say that the process is complete? Did the end of colonization mark the disappearance of this dialectical relationship? In other words, is the ex-colonized subject truly independent, in the end?
To venture this assertion, we would have had to observe a complete transformation of the objective conditions of this colonial relationship. But this transformation remains woefully incomplete and, in many cases, superficial.
Memmi confines himself to developing two examples: economic relations and cultural relations with the former colonizer or even with its replacement, in the case of an even more powerful nation.
We realize today that the end of a relationship of political subordination has not automatically brought about an end to economic subordination: economic dependence has simply assumed a new guise. Perhaps this was inevitable. To compete effectively today, countries must have achieved industrialization. But to do so requires a certain time period to build up reserves. New nations, the so-called underdeveloped countries, are clearly lacking those reserves, and for the moment, they have to ask other countries for aid. And as we know quite well, aid comes at a cost, a heavy one, evident in the hackneyed “aid to underdeveloped countries” (or, as it is charmingly referred to, “tied aid”). The economic plight of decolonization is as tragic as that of colonization.
Culturally, it’s almost as serious; in one sense, it is even worse, in that the dependence is all the more conscious. We need only look at the case of India where, faced with the impossible task of coming up with a common language denominator, English has remained the predominant language.
It is therefore hard to see how, by some miracle, the ex-colonized would have radically changed. Some of the demands placed upon the former colonizer by the ex-colonized are at times, one has to admit, somewhat outlandish. Like those teenagers who firmly insist, and rightly so, upon being independent from their parents but continue to enjoy and expect their continued financial support. One administrator, who teaches in an elite school of public administration, recounts one of the major concerns among the trainees of formerly colonized countries: to obtain accreditation that will be valid in France.
Clearly, relations between ex-colonizers and their former colonies will become increasingly indistinguishable from those that regulate international life, however harsh, until they undergo some fundamental shift. [ . . . ]
The interest of a portrait of the decolonized would be to show us one of the specific paths toward liberating dominated people, with all their particular doubts and difficulties. [ . . . ]
By now, we should have been more seriously addressing the problem of fundamentalism, exploring its meaning, and squarely taking a position on the matter. And let us be precise here: not only our neighbor’s fundamentalism but our own as well, the one that lies dormant or shows its face in our respective religious communities.
Tactically, I am well aware that my point is neither smart nor timely: is it really the moment to be comparing Iranian fundamentalism to other fundamentalisms? Does that not amount to relativizing the vitriol and outrage? And yet, we have understood very little unless we compare. Today’s unanimous outcry strikes me as a bit too convenient: the fundamentalist is the other, enough said. Yet, the fanaticism that necessarily results can exist and persist only with our complacency, if not our complicity.
Fundamentalism is not simply some random news item, confined to Iran or to Islam. Nor is it a recent phenomenon; rather, it is older and more entrenched than humanism or tolerance, whether in matters religious or political. Like AIDS, it is merely in abeyance, reemerging periodically in times of accelerated social change, causing people to worry and take refuge in things that reassure by virtue of their ancientness.
Fundamentalism corresponds to a holist conception of existence; it is both emotional and systematic. Let us consider three relatively recent events that stirred up our various religious communities: the demands made by Jewish fundamentalists in Israel, the controversy sparked by the Scorsese film The Last Temptation of Christ, and the fatwa issued against the Anglo-Indian writer Salman Rushdie. It is worth noting the features common to these three stories, even though they have reached a fever pitch in the case of Iran. Monsignor Decourtray got it right: the Muslim cause is identical to the Christian cause. Likewise, the Grand Rabbi of France asserted his solidarity with the bishops.
When the Jewish fundamentalists of Jerusalem wish to impose their exclusive definition of who is Jewish, they tend to exclude from the Jewish community the majority of contemporary Jews; the non-Jewish spouses of all mixed marriages, even those converted by a reformed rabbi; and their children ignominiously referred to as bastards. Thus, fundamentalism excludes even other members of the faithful of the same confession, with the same rigor as they apply to heretics. The result of this curse is symbolic suppression, if not physical suppression. If fundamentalists were to win the day in Israel, the non-fundamentalists would have to “convert,” which is to say, they would have to become fundamentalists themselves. In a word, fundamentalism is indeed the death, symbolic at least, of the other, construed as a temporary solution.
The Scorsese film aroused temptations among certain Christians. We already knew this, thanks to the demonstrations of the followers of Monsignor Lefebvre who, let us recall, have often sided with the proponents of Le Pen: this time, physical violence and doctrinal condemnation were harder to separate.1 But here again, Mgr. Lefevbre is but the culmination of an endemic trend. If the official Church had settled for condemning the film, there would have been nothing to say. We secular liberals were hardly going to hold it against him [i.e., Lefevbre], since our philosophy dictates that we respect everyone’s opinion, even if the believers fail to respect ours. [ . . . ] With respect to the Scorsese affair, activist Christians did not merely express an opinion; they took action. A movie theater was burned down in Paris, resulting in one indirect fatality. In several cities throughout France and Europe, screenings of the film were interrupted, in violation of law, under threat of violence. Were these acts condemned by the Church? No, they were only deplored: this is what happens, one bishop dared to declare, when you offend the deep feelings of Christians.
With the incitement to the murder of Salman Rushdie, things became crystal clear: anyone who attacks Islam is liable to be killed. The attack, we should note, is merely verbal, a contrary opinion. The magnitude of the reward provides the full measure of the sentence: Rushdie must be destroyed, and not just symbolically punished.
This construct, which we can justifiably call totalitarian, is not the product of religious minds alone: there exist totalitarianisms in politics as in philosophy. They are based upon two premises. The first is that truth, albeit their own version of the truth, is absolute. Fundamentalism refers to the bedrock, the fundamentals of tradition, interpreted in a peculiar manner, of course. It suffers no further outside constraints, which would be interpreted as a threat to its own existence. To my mind, this only proves that, despite appearances, these totalitarians are not so self-assured, nor are they entirely convinced of their truth; otherwise, why would they need to defend it so fiercely? They need to put God on their side to make it sound persuasive.
The second premise, arising from the first, is that individuals and peoples opposed to this unitary conception must be removed, either by coercion, or where necessary, by destruction. The ideology’s endpoint is radical action, without which it would not be total.
In contrast to this philosophy, which poses such a threat to peoples and individuals, I posit a conception I define as secular, or liberal, for want of a better term. It is also based upon two premises.
The first is the distinction between reason and faith, whether religious or political. This separation has allowed for the extraordinary development of science and technology, the very conditions of Western civilization. This civilization has triumphed everywhere in the world, for even the Iran of the ayatollahs reluctantly make use of rationality and techno-industrial structures to power their factories and warships.
This triumph requires doubt as a precondition, rather than submission to a predetermined authority, however prestigious it might be; truth is relative, always subject to revision, always pending further experiment. This of course assumes a measure of respect for the contradictor, who professes a different opinion, which is the whole point.
Once again, let us reiterate that this conception in no way undermines the credibility of people’s faith and beliefs: this is simply about two domains that function according to different rules. Recall the wonderful statement of Louis Pasteur, a practicing Catholic: When I enter my laboratory, I leave my faith in the cloakroom.
The second premise is the distinction between law and authority, be it political or religious, what we still call the separation of powers. No authority, however mighty, should be able to negate the rights of an individual or group, however small, marginal, or economically impoverished: this is the very basis of democracy.
It is noteworthy that this principle has also triumphed the world over, at least in appearance. Note the steady gains for the human rights doctrine over the last few decades. Even those who exclude minorities, who practice torture, who enact racist policies and rule by constant show of force, still proclaim that they are basically democratic. They make excuses for their behavior, pointing to some exceptional circumstance or other or citing some higher interest of the nation, the Church, or their group . . . in which case, they are in flagrant contradiction with their proclamations, since the law is not measured with such special interests in mind.
Unfortunately, this twin triumph of reason and justice which come together under democracy is never definitive. Those who believed, at the end of the last world war, that humanity would never allow itself to be dragged into another disastrous project were sadly mistaken. We are witnessing the insidious return of racism, fascist parties, and, now, fundamentalism.
Against these demons, the real struggle is that of secular humanism, which we must wage together: beyond our respective groups, believers included, and beyond our respective faiths. For secularism is our only common denominator: it excludes no one and includes anyone who accepts the common contract, that of respect for everyone else.
And do not challenge us with the claim that by saying certain things, we are not respecting people. If such were the case we would just be turning in circles: to be respected, must we require the silence and surrender of others? Of course not. The human adventure belongs to all and in its cultural expressions as well. Neither Moses, nor Jesus, nor Mohammed, nor Buddha belong exclusively to those who wish to identify with them. We have the right, all of us, to question, critique, and discuss these legendary figures. It’s the fundamentalists who need to dig a little deeper and ask themselves why they have identified so strongly with their traditional model that they panic as soon as anyone else comes near it.
On days when weariness sets in, I admit I sometimes feel rather disheartened. I store painful impressions from heated debates and borderline brawls, where I attempted to suggest to Jewish or Muslim audiences that the future of our life together depends on the radical separation of temporal and spiritual power, the synagogue and the state, the mosque and the state, as implemented by the amazingly fruitful revolution carried out by Western democracies. The resistance to this idea, the fury of those in attendance, was all the more comical—if indeed there is room for comedy in such grave matters—in that they were all living in just such democracies.
For we all need to put our own houses in order. We owe it to ourselves, first of all, before we go demanding it of others. Each of us, on our own behalf and with whatever means available, must attempt to get to the core of the matter. Why not ask ourselves, for instance, once and for all, what the notion of the sacred really means, or what respect truly signifies? Or the extraordinary requirement for unconditional submission to a system of values, of myths on occasion, religious or political, . . . demanded imperatively of people who do not share this system!
I understand how upsetting it could be to question the pillars of a tradition. It would be naive to think that we could remove people’s crutches without triggering their anxiety, and in doing so, provoke their anger. This is what in the past I have called breaking with dependency. And I don’t think that Rushdie is as naive as he’d like us to believe: he is participating in precisely this sort of reappraisal. Here again, we’d be better off if things were perfectly and courageously clear. But all research, all progress, is predicated upon the ongoing possibility of questioning our cultural heritage, of critiquing all of humanity: if we accept the notion of the sacred, then blasphemy follows fast on its heels, and blasphemy calls for coercion and eventually, for aggression. By then, there is no way out.
We are often told, finally, that it would be dangerous to question certain taboos, essential for the survival of humanity. But a taboo is not essential in and of itself, in the absolute. We created the taboos because they have proven essential, over time, to the functioning of most human societies: on incest, for example, we realize, with or without religion, that everyone is in agreement, believers as well as agnostics. God is dead, everything is permitted? No! Whether he be dead or alive, there are forms of behavior that are not allowed. Morality is not the monopoly of believers.
If the heavens are vacant, neither our ardent desire to fill them nor our fulminations against the unbelievers will populate them. No threat, no level of aggression, which has, alas, abounded throughout the history of all religions, has ever made unbelievers believe. The Inquisition and the endless holy wars have served only to exterminate the infidels. The reason is elementary: one cannot be ordered to believe, nor can belief be demonstrated. Any claim to the contrary is utterly illogical.
It is high time we all sat down and thought this through together. I regret to conclude that there is more vigor and irreverence in that respect among many of the ancient Greeks than among our philosophers today, regarding contemporary forms of the sacred. In the meantime, may the heavens spare us the confiscation of temporal power by the fundamentalists, whoever they may be!
I was expecting a fairly emotional response from the community of the formerly colonized, especially Arab-Muslims. [ . . . ] The ex-colonized and their descendants were apparently not scandalized, not even surprised by my project. [ . . . ] The media’s reception has been generous and courteous. Radio Beur, BRTV, the Berber network, TV6, RFO all gave me considerable on-air time. The weekly Jeune Afrique devoted a full page to my book, Afrique Asie a long article. [ . . . ]
I want to review here some of the more pathetic disavowals: [ . . . ] Radio Libertaire [ . . . ] “Your comments are inappropriate for our listeners.” “Maybe, but at least allow me to explain myself.” The answer was no. Libération sent a young man to interview me for an afternoon, but nothing came of it. I sent a note to the newspaper’s editor. He didn’t take the trouble to respond.
I was forced to acknowledge that my readers were offended by my interpretation of the facts. I have written that the current misfortunes of third-world populations do not arise from the continued actions of their former colonizers, of neocolonialism, but principally from their new rulers, whose corruption and tyranny I have denounced. These rulers have kept their countries, even those rich in resources, in a state of paradoxical poverty, allowed customs to stagnate, and fostered mass emigration. [ . . . ]
It was as if, by denouncing their rulers, I had insulted the people, which was exactly the opposite of my intent. [ . . . ] I devoted exactly four pages to the conflict between Israel and Palestine. The subject is inexhaustible and convenient. I pointed out the deplorable situation of the Palestinians and urged the creation of a Palestinian state—something I have done for thirty years [ . . . ] I wondered why there had been such emphasis on the conflict, with its four thousand dead—deplorable like all deaths but hardly comparable to the millions of deaths in Africa, for example. As I write this afterword, a massacre in Darfur has left thirty thousand dead and displaced close to a million people. [ . . . ]
The press resorted to a stratagem. [ . . . ] For the most part the press chose to speak about the author without discussing the book. [ . . . ] Even Le Monde [ . . . ] emphasized the picturesque aspects of my life and work. [ . . . ] There was nothing about the two-sided resistance to integration we see in practice: the immigrants’ hesitation to integrate and the host country’s reluctance to integrate them. [ . . . ]
This includes my remarks about the irresponsibility, if not blindness or cowardice, of many intellectuals, who have taken refuge in outdated theories instead of daring to confront a novel situation, and the inability of politicians to address, except rhetorically, the especially dangerous and irreversible turmoil in which the world now finds itself.
One of the greatest disappointments of the decolonized individual was his belief in an end to violence. In fact it is everywhere, explosive or latent, military or institutional, and it expresses itself inside and outside the country, even with close allies. After decades of independence they are still cutting throats in Algeria, imprisoning people in Tunisia, torturing in Cuba, and condemning the uncovered faces of women in Iran and Algeria. Mass graves have been discovered in Iraq; populations fleeing before imminent massacre have been counted in the hundreds of thousands, abandoning their dead and often the young along the way.
In addition to economic exploitation and cultural alienation, colonization is the history of a succession of unbearable constraints. It has typically been characterized by periodic outbursts, which are met with by savage repression, followed by a resigned calm, until the next crisis arises. Yet, even with liberation, the violence continued, the faces were just about the same, the executioners the same. There are not that many ways to torture, to deprive someone of his freedom or his life. Some commentators will say that this was necessary to consolidate the country’s growing power against potential enemies, sometimes even against militants in the independence movement, men and women who had until then been completely devoted but who failed to understand that the revolution was over and it was absurd—dangerous, in fact—to assume that every promise would be kept. We know that social upheavals afford an opportunity to settle old scores and are no less horrifying than the various struggles for liberation. [ . . . ] In the liberated ex–third world, imprisonment and execution have probably been used more frequently since independence than under the colonial regimes.
Naturally, there are degrees of violence, ranging from simple police intimidation to military intervention. Dissuasion ranges from the continuous presence of police in an ever-tightening net from which no one escapes, to assassination and imprisonment, judicial and extrajudicial. Delinquency, even minor, and unauthorized opinions are brutally and immediately repressed, such repression often extending to entire families. If there is recidivism, the accused, now considered beyond redemption, disappears without a word. But first he will be tortured to determine the importance of the crime. His death will depend not on the application of the law but on the mood of the ruler, on the degree of cynicism found among those in power. In general, the government can claim success: submission is apparently interiorized, with the populace’s behavior and thinking being aligned with government demands. [ . . . ]
For those who, in spite of everything, upset the status quo and appear to question, if not threaten, the system, force is always available. [ . . . ]
Violence is not limited to the national scene. It infects relations among the young nations, sapping national vitality. But they act as if no other solution was available. Take the irksome problem of borders, for example. These were created by the colonizers to divide the spoils, especially at the famous Treaty of Berlin. They have remained as a kind of poison legacy. Why have those nations not tried, through negotiation or some lasting agreement, to work toward the transformation of an absurd topographical configuration? [ . . . ] War is endemic to Black Africa, and international or interethnic conflicts have created more victims than colonization. Such terrible losses have not been seen since the worst periods of slavery. [ . . . ] Unfortunately, the current warfare among the black populations of Africa is not concerned with profitability; its horrors have greatly exceeded those of the raids once conducted jointly by prominent blacks and Arab traders to supply the European slave trade. [ . . . ]
Why such continued desperate violence? The embarrassed historians among the formerly colonized have not failed to look for explanations. They claim this is simply a bad habit inherited from the colonial period, an additional wound. [ . . . ] But now the violence occurs among the formerly colonized, against their own people. In spite of the passage of time, the situation has not only endured, it has gotten worse. [ . . . ]
There is violence in every society. Perhaps, more fundamentally, we have not yet been able to control the violence within us. We have only managed to confront it with some other violence, rather than banning all forms of violence. [ . . . ] This obstinacy in the use of violence may be the proof of our inadequate degree of socialization, of our animal nature. However, human progress is also an attempt to ritualize violence to protect society’s members from mutual destruction. At present the world’s formerly colonized societies, regardless of the form of government, can hardly be said to have succeeded in this. [ . . . ] Violence—and war, which is its generalized expression—is the sign of an eclipse of the nascent rule of law, that is, a perpetuation of the jungle. [ . . . ]
Within many young nations tyranny blocks all progress, focuses the nation’s energies on the tyrant and his cronies. [ . . . ] The national project of the decolonized seems to be exhausted before it has really begun, primarily because those nations suffer from a historical handicap—they have been born too late. There are many reasons for this: the apathy caused by colonization, which continues long after independence, the persistent lethargy of the people, the vagueness of the concept of national territory, which has only been recently established [ . . . ]
There is yet another paradox to the decolonized’s national aspiration: his nation has come into existence at a time when the Western national ideal that served as a model has begun to weaken throughout the rest of the world. It is no longer the bright new engine that led the majority of Europe into the nineteenth century. Perhaps we are witnessing the end of nation-states. [ . . . ] The decolonized will need visas to travel, which he will have to bargain for since he is not a national of a major power, and dollars, which will be issued parsimoniously, because his currency is too weak on the international markets and not convertible, making it little better than worthless. He is forced to acknowledge that his nation is too fragile to avoid being, in one way or another, a satellite, and that independence, obtained with such difficulty, remains threatened. [ . . . ]
We focus on a handful of young firebrands, who abandon jeans for djellabas, pretending to ignore the majority. Nowhere does there exist, as many claim to believe, a true religious renewal; believers and nonbelievers alike remain pretty much as they were. On the other hand, there have been attempts to use religion for political ends with the intent of winning a larger role in the concert of nations through a strategy of fundamentalism. But those who are incredulous, let’s say the discreet agnostic, can no longer pretend to have faith when their religious practice is based on conformity and solidarity. What would happen if the fundamentalists were to succeed? Should the decolonized subject abandon all the things he has acquired—admittedly often borrowed from the West—which have now become customary and a part of his personality? In more general terms, he knows that the resources of the irrational and shared emotions are no longer sufficient for meeting the challenges of the modern world he hopes to become a part of. It is unlikely he will find in the Koran the secrets of industrialization or ways to refertilize the African steppe. [ . . . ]
The decolonized experiences a form of stationary dismemberment, torn and pulled from every side. [ . . . ] Day-to-day existence is organized to a degree but punctuated by corruption and repression. Even the boldest of governments, after a few timid efforts at reform, subsides into the general paralysis. Innovation engenders fear, which leads to resistance and public disturbances. [ . . . ]
The absence of law is worse than an unjust law. An unjust law is a reparable disorder; the absence of law implies the rule of an arbitrary system, where anything can happen to anyone. Foreigners grow indignant that there are few criticisms of ongoing corruption, the control by those close to the leader of various economic sectors, and the questionable enrichment of certain individuals. People are scandalized that there are so few inquiries concerning the abuse of power, such as the abduction of a political rival, a journalist, or simply a critic, whose family will never know if he is dead or alive. Such attitudes are extremely naive. Tyranny is opaque by its very nature. It could not operate in daylight. It would need to justify its decisions, supply proofs—things that define a democracy. But democracy remains foreign to the political practices of the third world, especially the Arab-Muslim world.
Even during the period of colonization, when the law was on the side of the colonizer, there were limits to illegality. The colonizer was forced, although unwillingly, to consider the citizens back home. They, not being overly concerned with the interests of the colonists, were sufficiently democratic to impose a common set of laws throughout the empire. Once colonial law was abolished, it was never really replaced. The ruler owes nothing to anyone. He prevents the development of intermediary powers with sufficient autonomy—a judicial system, for example—that could serve as buffers between himself and the decolonized, who, in the event of litigation, are forced to turn directly to him, the only effective judge. The consequence of this unlimited power is the possibility of limitless iniquity. In this sense, there is no difference between the states of the Maghreb and the worst tyrannical regimes of Black Africa. Behind a more civilized appearance, the previous sultan of Morocco established a series of prisons that were far worse than those of the colonizer, and for decades hounded the wives and children of the condemned.
The absence of law is not new, of course. Colonized peoples have always been subject to the will of those in power, often dependent on a yet more powerful entity, directly authorized by God. [ . . . ] The presidents of the new republics generally mimic what is most arbitrary about the colonial power. [ . . . ]
The country of the decolonized is a country without law, where there is rampant institutional violence that can only be countered by even greater violence. The fundamentalists know this and await their moment. The “law of God” they hope to establish, the law of the priests, will suppress even the few scraps of freedom that have been conceded by the ruler. It will void the law for the sake of religious dogma.
Here I wish to address what has been called Islamic terrorism. The world finds itself faced with a situation that has left it exasperated and lacking any coherent explanation. Terrorism is not only morally scandalous but [also] senseless, irrational. Yet even the irrational has its own logic, and immorality its defense: Islamic terrorism is an extreme form of the continuous violence that wracks the Arab world. It is not even an unusual phenomenon, and “God’s madmen” of the Muslim religion are no crazier than any others. [ . . . ] Although we are right to denounce the immorality of blind acts of violence that strike indiscriminately, do the pilots who bomb a city worry about who their victims are? Is this the first time that political or patriotic considerations have won out over moral principles? For extremists, how important is the harm caused to bystanders compared to what they judge to be the importance of their cause? For terrorist leaders, political murder is not as assassination but an episode in an ongoing war. To understand terrorism, even in its suicidal form, we must not only consider it from the point of view of its victims, who are necessarily and quite legitimately angered by their suffering, but from the perspective of its leaders and followers. Not only does its meaning differ for the two camps, but it fails to arouse the same sense of indignation: “It’s our way of fighting,” explains a Palestinian leader, “since we don’t have planes or tanks.”
It’s not that novelty has made suicide bombing original, but that its radicality and generality have turned it into an original form of warfare. The bonzes killed only themselves.2 Without exception, the pilot who drops his bombs on a target hopes they avoid the innocent. The Muslim kamikaze wants to kill not only himself but [also] the greatest number of people possible, guilty and innocent, combatants and non-combatants alike. These two deaths are linked: since he does not care about his own life, he need not concern himself with that of the others. “A true Muslim would be able to sacrifice his parents and children,” stated Mulana Sayed Abdullah Bukhari, imam of the largest mosque in New Delhi. The Iranians had no qualms about exposing children to clouds of Iraqi poison gas, each of them with a key to paradise hanging from his neck. If they were willing to sacrifice their own children, why would they worry about someone else’s? The kamikaze’s actions incorporate the idea that he will never return; he knows, and accepts, that he will not survive. Every society produces its own heroes, who offer their life for the survival of the group. But heroes do not renounce life, they risk it, which is why they merit praise, even when they aspire to glory. The doctor or missionary who travels to a country in which there is an epidemic knows that he might fall victim to the disease, and possibly die, but he does not seek death. We know today that, contrary to what Japanese propaganda claimed, the Japanese kamikaze pilots were not so light hearted about their imminent death. The Arab kamikaze expects nothing other than death, and he awaits it willingly. It is in this sense that he is unique. For in this case the certainty of death abolishes everything, makes everything here on Earth negligible, insignificant, including any legal sanctions. The suicide bomber denies the rules so painfully acquired by human societies, the outline of a moralization of war. It is a reversal of the gradual humanization of human societies. They cut the throats of journalists, who are only doing their job, abduct or machine-gun tourists, who have arrived from another part of the world and had the misfortune to want to amuse themselves. A tract that appeared in Casablanca before a horrendous attack, one that was distributed only in the mosques, exhorted its readers to make no exceptions for women or children—all of them were considered guilty and deserved to die. The same justification has been advanced by Palestinian leaders: all Israelis without exception must be attacked. Islamic terrorism appears to have declared war on the entire world, including the Arab countries that fail to align themselves with its objectives. Tunisia, Morocco, even Saudi Arabia, the leading sanctuary of the Arab-Muslim world, have been struck. Until recently, Palestinian bombers concentrated on Israeli or Jewish targets; now the battle has extended to the world at large.
Yet such aberrations are far from being universally denounced in the Arab world. Not all Arabs have become “God’s madmen” but we often encounter a sense of embarrassed indulgence or uneasiness rather than any firm condemnation, and occasionally even a kind of grateful—and not very subtle—admiration. “We are all bin Laden!” was a cry frequently heard in the suburbs of Paris, the streets of Cairo, and Ramallah immediately after September 11, 2001. There was a sense of pride and the satisfaction of revenge; as if those young idlers had contributed to the destruction of the New York skyscrapers. Bin Laden is considered the collective arm of the entire Arab-Muslim community. The hijackers, the advanced technological version of the makers of homemade bombs, sacrificed themselves for all Islam. They were considered “martyrs.” The kamikaze is not an isolated individual, a “madman” who acts under the influence of some uncontrolled impulse. He is recruited and trained in camps, supported by technical teams, given a Saudi or Pakistani passport, more recently English or French, and financed by the Arab governments. This diversity, which spans geographic regions, feeds a confused but reassuring sense of solidarity, the exalted feeling of a rediscovered sense of popular power. The painful cry of powerlessness, “They’re killing Muslims,” is answered by the suicide bomber who acts in the name of all Muslims. [ . . . ]
To employ the language of medicine, we could say that Arab-Muslim society suffers from a serious depressive syndrome that prevents it from seeing any way out of its current situation. The Arab world has still not found, or has not wanted to consider, the transformations that would enable it to adapt to the modern world, which it cannot help but absorb. Rather than examining itself and applying the proper remedies, it looks for the causes of its disability in others. It’s the fault of the Americans, or the Jews, of unbelievers, infidels, or multinationals. Without underestimating the role of its relations with its global partners, or the rise to power of the American empire, which took over where the colonizers left off, it would be more useful to inquire into the internal causes of this stagnation. Through a classic process of projection, the Arab world blames them for every sin, depravity, loss of value, materialism, atheism, and so on. The suicide bomber must destroy this abject world along with himself, for it has become unlivable for him and those like him. It is the job of his handlers to convince him. It’s not just a question of poverty, as some would have it, but the confrontation of two societies, one open, adventurous, dynamic, and therefore filled with danger, wicked and depraved, the other, static, turned inward, powerless to confront this challenge but virtuous and legitimate through its submission to God. Incapable of acting, Arab society finds relief only in crisis, murderous outbursts of anger against those presumed to be guilty. Islamic terrorism is only one of the most alarming symptoms of this powerlessness. The others, less threatening, are no less significant. The absence of democracy, corruption, the fragility and unfairness of the judicial system, the condition of women—isolation, the violence of clitoral excision, the lack of legal rights, which has a direct impact on the education of the children in their care, who perpetuate such ignorance—sexual bullying, the delayed circumcision that risks causing long-lasting trauma, the frustration arising from separation of the sexes, the power of religion, which interferes with the proper operation of an unfettered rationality, the persecution of intellectuals, and the destruction of critical spirit, all form a coherent negative ensemble.
All of this would be exacerbated if the terrorist actions of the Arab world were effective. But through its attacks, including in recalcitrant or hesitant Arab countries, terrorism has triggered total war without possessing the means to win it. It risks provoking a global response. Although Europe hesitates, the United States understood and, even before September 11, 2001, was making preparations. Scorning shared laws, Islamic terrorism has operated outside the law, which has produced a highly damaging representation of Arab-Muslim society. So that, rather than relieving its suffering, it maintains it within a vicious circle: uncontrolled violence arouses worldwide hostility, and this hostility increases suffering. [ . . . ]
The unconditional defenders of illegal immigrants remember, for example, their contributions to the wars of the French Republic and the work of reconstruction that followed. “We owe it to them!” National identity papers should be issued to all immigrants, since this would enable them to escape their unbearable clandestine existence and, at the same time, give them the right to vote, without requiring naturalization; that is, they would no longer be considered wholly as foreigners. And certainly, in observing the fate of these exiles in their midst, their difficulties in getting here, the dangers involved, their stubbornness in reaching the host country in spite of the death of so many, the daily suffering, the permanent anxiety, the humiliation, it would be inhuman to refuse to help them improve their fate. It’s difficult not to get carried away by one’s emotions.
Yet it is also true, as another writer believes, that in doing so one contravenes current law. It means denying the concept of territory and national borders. It encourages and rewards the boldest. Issuing papers to anyone who asks means accepting the presence on one’s home soil of any foreigner who asks. What then becomes of the nation? Who can predict the consequences of such an uncontrolled influx of people from a different land on the national culture, on institutions, the economy, demography? Doesn’t this contribute to the decline of an already threatened Christian civilization? The uneasiness is more or less justified, and it coexists with a sense of anxiety on the part of the majority of the population, which will be reflected in its votes for increasingly right-wing candidates.
So, should we close our borders? Refuse to tolerate the stratagems of the immigrants who are already here, which are easily identified, especially in small communities—the marriages of convenience, the fictional jobs from friends, the temporary lodgings. But this is where things get complicated. For the former colonial society needs immigrants, not only for the labor market but also demographically (the two are related). This carries considerable weight. Europe’s population is aging rapidly. In four out of ten European countries, there are more deaths than births. This is not yet the case in the United States, which partly explains its behavior. How can these countries continue to fund retirement plans, which, although the policy is questionable, are paid for with taxes from younger members of the population? Aside from the reigning hypocrisy and the electoral cowardice of politicians in clearly exposing the situation, the equation is obvious: European women, legitimately interested in careers that had traditionally been reserved for men, are not reproducing fast enough to compensate for the demographic loss and the needs of production. Businesses were the—discreet—promoters of the first waves of immigration, supplying the workers they needed at low cost and putting pressure on the local proletariat. The first Algerians arriving in France in 1905 were called in to break a strike by the dockworkers in Marseilles. European industry no longer seems able to function without immigrant labor. Yet, in contrast to this need, the third world is populated with unoccupied young people, who attack Europe’s battlements, turning it into a besieged fortress. But, as history teaches, no fortress can withstand an assault forever. Moreover, and quite unexpectedly, this fortress must—at least to some extent—maintain relations with its attackers, because it needs them. This is the source of considerable bewilderment for the host country.
Thus the dilemma of the ex-colonized corresponds to the dilemma of the ex-colonizer who, having lost his colonies, hopes at least to be rid of a cumbersome weight. Now he assumes another role. Now he must address new problems, which he does not know how to resolve. For the former colonizer the question is how best to integrate the new arrivals. This isn’t the first time the country has had to absorb an immigrant population—there were Polish miners, without whom the coal mines would have closed, Italian, Portuguese, and later, Spanish masons. But these were individuals or small minorities, similar cultures with the same religion who ultimately assimilated and disappeared. The new immigrants compose large, compact groups with a different religion and different customs. How can they be integrated? And at what price? During the colonization of Algeria, some farsighted intellects realized that the only way to prevent upheavals among the colonized would be to make them loyal citizens of France. To which General de Gaulle remarked jokingly that, in that case, there would be several dozen Muslim députés in the National Assembly—something he found as unbearable as the majority of the French at the time. For what would become of the relative unity and identity of the nation? Fifty years later, in one of those ironies history supplies, the French, who preferred to abandon their colonies rather than jeopardize their national identity, find themselves facing the same problem. Immigration is the punishment for colonial sin.
What can the immigrant do in the face of this wall of scorn and suspicion? He reacts like any organism in a hostile environment. Through a natural reflex he protects himself, withdraws into himself, and turns to his friends; he will cling increasingly to the differences he is asked to renounce. The need for integration with the dominant group is felt as an unbearable constraint, a betrayal of his community of origin. Naturally, he doesn’t regret having left and doesn’t dream, at least for now, of returning. He has finally found a job, he’s earning more than he ever did, there are plenty of ways to enjoy himself, legal and illegal, he has infinitely more freedom. But thinking he had crossed from purgatory to paradise, he discovers that he has moved from one purgatory to another, one that is more comfortable, to be sure, but one to whose laws he must submit. From now on [ . . . ] he will become part of the ghetto.
The ghetto is not only a substitute for the illusory promised land but [also] a mitigated form of the abandoned homeland. It is between these two representations that the immigrant’s new, uprooted life will unfold. In the small back alleys of the ghetto are places of worship, where exotic imams exhort their followers to respect the Koran and maintain solidarity with other Muslims. There are sympathetic cafés, where while drinking tea or playing the pinball machines, watching a North African, Egyptian, or Saudi Arabian television station, events are discussed, shared hopes and fears are aired, and rumors are exchanged. There are butcher shops with signs in Arabic characters, selling ritual, or hallal, cuts of meat. With all the disorder of the souk, grocers sell the foods one ate as a child, the imported spices, grains, vegetables, and fruits, the displays overflowing into the street. There are five-and-dimes where one can find a motley assortment of prayer rugs, slippers, and plastic kitchen utensils. Here, guarded from the gaze of strangers, the immigrant does not feel like an outsider. [ . . . ]
It is this concentration, both physical and cultural, that the majority, especially in France, designate, fear, and denounce as sectarianism. Suggesting, in their indignant suspicion, that it simply proves the immigrant’s reluctance to become a part of the collective body of the nation. While not false, this is far from the complete picture. As often, the truth is circular. This ghetto is both a rejection and a reaction to rejection, real or imagined, by the others. The ghetto, like the former Jewish ghettos, supports and feeds the separation, but it is also its expression. It is the shell secreted by its minority group that feels, rightly or wrongly, that its very existence is threatened. To escape this threat the immigrant turns to his own, encloses himself within their embrace, in which he believes he is safe.
The formation of small communities within the nation is not the result of some perverse intent to destroy it, nor is it a philosophy. It is a spontaneous and utilitarian agglomeration of minorities unable to completely identify with the surrounding majority, which they simultaneously aspire to. This community enables them to better address, and possibly resolve, their specific problems, which the national community has difficulty resolving or refuses to consider. These include religious beliefs and political loyalties that do not necessarily coincide with those of their fellow citizens and which exile in fact helps to affirm, for without them their identity might be called into question. It’s easy to see why fundamentalists are partial to the ghetto, for it is there that the collective personality has the greatest chance of survival. It is in the ghetto that their efforts at agitation can be maintained over the long term, an agitation that lends itself to their objectives.
However, the immigrant soon discovers that the ghetto is not the solution to his torment. The ghetto is a refuge, not a prison or confined space. He comes and goes for work, for amusement, for bureaucratic red tape. For better or worse he is required to confront this outside world, which increasingly becomes a part of him, to compare what he was to what he has become. The ghetto does not resolve any of the problems presented by the interactions between these two worlds. Sometimes a crisis erupts, triggered by an irresolvable contradiction, such as reconciling the importance of religion in Muslim life and republican secularism, or the ways in which the condition of women is addressed. The immigrant cannot demand equality and reject the conditions of integration.
Still, whether he wants it or not, regardless of the doubts of the majority, his integration in the surrounding society, along with his family and children, advances. The young among the Arab crowds demonstrating against America wear American baseball hats and jeans. Literature provides a range of insights. There are a large number of works that attempt to describe the difficulties and contradictions of integration: the nostalgia for a homeland, the affirmation of an original identity, and the remonstrative, often guilty, wish for a more complete acceptance by the host country.
One never asserts one’s identity so much as when it’s threatened. It is when the Arab world is attempting to penetrate the community of nations that it discovers there is a price to pay. It is both fascinated by the Western world, whose victory, if not superiority, it tacitly recognizes, and repelled by the necessary abandonment of large swaths of tradition and collective personality. How could the immigrant do anything but live in a state of permanent crisis?
Like disease, crises are often productive; by exaggerating certain characteristics, they reveal the true nature of the organism. The issue of head scarves is instructive in this regard. We already know that these can signify a customary submission to an ethnic-religious tradition, like the cross worn by Catholics, the Protestant dove, the Jewish yarmulke, nothing more than sartorial conformity. My grandmother, who was not Muslim, would never go outside without being covered in her haik, the large piece of white fabric that covered her entire body, not just her head. We used to joke that she was dressing up like a ghost. The events that shook the Arab-Muslim world, especially the wars against Iraq, have revealed other aspects of this situation. New wearers began to appear, who had never worn a head scarf previously. Their arguments, some weak, some clever, often had to do with freedom. For example, “We’re free in France, aren’t we? So, I’m free to wear a head scarf, right?” It is a foolish argument. For they fail to see that they are acting against their own interests in rejecting the laws that freed them in favor of the dogmas that enslaved them. In the name of a poorly understood secularism, they demand not to be secular. Moreover, the problem is not one of freedom but its signification. “The head scarf protects women from men’s stares,” they say. [ . . . ] To protect them from men’s desire, is it necessary that they be undesirable, like those Orthodox Jewish women who shave their head? What’s more, respecting those who wish to be protected in this way does not give you the right to criticize those who do not wish to be so protected. The religious argument also fails. “God demands it!” God gets blamed for a lot, it seems. What does divinity have to do with what is essentially a question of sex, and why should God privilege men? The Koran makes only a brief allusion to this issue, and it’s no more than a suggestion. Even if wearing the head scarf were a kind of freedom for some, it should not be transformed into a requirement for all, which fundamentalists insist upon. Like excision, wearing a head scarf is a way of controlling women’s bodies. Those women who recently began wearing it are participating in a regressive movement that has touched the Muslim world; they are turning their backs on women’s freedom. [ . . . ] But underlying the arguments we find an element of protest, if not downright provocation: the head scarf has become the flag of a cause. “You don’t like Muslims, the sight of them irritates you? Well, I’m proclaiming my Muslimhood; I’m forcing you to see it. To see a member of a group you have made to feel ashamed.” What do you do when someone rejects your gesture of reconciliation? The head scarf is a portable ghetto, revealing a sense of discomfort about one’s identity that affects Muslim immigrants. It’s a way of strengthening an uncertain identity by enabling the wearer to distance herself from the majority. [ . . . ]
Should we see in this an adolescent passion for self-expression? Or a militant gesture, the first signs of an escalating battle? [ . . . ] The head scarf, like the consumption of ritually prepared meat or the observance of Ramadan, is part of the machinery of survival of the Muslim community, submerged in a Christian or, worse still, irreligious universe. This helps explain the vehemence that accompanies debate on this topic, revealing the underlying and reciprocal anxiety involved.
Yet, regardless of their anxiety, the majority of immigrants are strongly tempted by integration, which is the exactly opposite solution. Yet, it is no easier. For in the end it leads to intermarriage, the risk of dilution within the majority population. [ . . . ]
In short, there is no perfect solution for minorities; assimilation has never been convenient, at least in the beginning. The spouse in a mixed marriage must confront the possible contradictions between his group of origin and the host group. How can a Jewish believer easily accept working on Saturday? A Muslim believer accept eating pork in the cafeteria? They hesitate between greater strictness, if not isolation, which separates them even more from their newfound peers, or dilution and possibly collective disappearance. Moreover, since not everyone is gifted with a sense of cosmopolitanism and its potential consequences, marital problems or even separation are more common in mixed marriages than in others. [ . . . ]
After being colonized, the decolonized must confront a new situation to which, even though he is not individually affected, he must respond [ . . . ] What does he see, when walking in the street, other than the signs of his own people’s inferiority? The street sweepers, laborers, and sewer workers are almost all immigrants; as if the slavery of old had simply changed its physiognomy. “I will rip the Banania smiles off all the walls of France,” promised Léopold Sédar Senghor. Banania’s Negro is now nowhere to be seen on walls, but he is in the streets. Only he no longer wears that brilliant smile. The difficulty of finding an apartment, and employment and sexual discrimination, have led to bitterness. Although he may manage to overcome such difficulties in his own life, poverty and exclusion by the majority contribute to the humiliation of his peers. [ . . . ] Whether he sells chestnuts illegally on the street or manages a supermarket, the immigrant never feels he is a legitimate citizen in his new country.
It is up to the immigrant to blend in with the national community. And certainly that is the wisest course to follow in a foreign land. But the hesitations of the majority cause the immigrant to hesitate. [ . . . ] The imposition of their laws and customs is legitimate, naturally, because they are part of the air they breathe. Even if they don’t attend church regularly, their existence is governed by religious traditions, their holidays are fundamentally religious in nature, the children’s vacations coincide with the clerical calendar; their national celebrations, even though they joke about them, are an intimate part of the culture; the city is spattered with monuments to their collective memory. The majority experiences a kind of spontaneous myopia that prevents them from seeing the minorities that live among them. How could the insistent presence of the immigrant not appear unusual, almost threatening, to an equilibrium it has taken centuries to establish? [ . . . ]
I would again like to insist on one obvious fact, however: it is pointless to deplore the existence of poverty, it is now critical that we begin to counteract it. Those who do not take it seriously are not sincere participants in this global discussion. [ . . . ] Terrorists are often members of the upper class, both their leaders and their foot soldiers. But it is poverty that supplies the bulk of their supporters, and these are easy to deceive, uncontrollable, and ready for just about anything. [ . . . ] There is no need to have a television in every room or to buy a new car every year, but that is far from the situation throughout the world, where even the foods necessary for survival and basic medicines are lacking. Moreover, poverty is relative. When it coexists alongside wealth, it arouses envy and anger. [ . . . ]
However, we have yet to explain why the third world has failed to develop or has been so slow to do so. Of the two main tools for overcoming poverty—development and the struggle against corruption—it is unclear that the first alone is up to the task. [ . . . ] Corruption is one of the major causes of third-world stagnation. It neutralizes any attempt at advancement and negates the results; its restraint on development is greater than the tendency of development to promote corruption. [ . . . ] The United States, “promoter of democracy,” Russia, once the “homeland of the worker,” France, “the promoter of human rights,” are, respectively, in exchange for substantial remuneration, the three leading global suppliers of arms, which are used to sow death and strengthen tyranny. All those resonant declarations of intent are nothing but hypocrisy if they do not succeed in reversing this unconscionable situation. What are we to think of those third-world leaders who spend enormous sums of money to buy arms instead of food and medicine, which they prefer to cajole from the developed nations? How can we dare speak of morality in international, even national, affairs given the way they are currently being managed?
We come now to the heart of the matter: nothing can replace a people’s need for self-governance, as was shown during the various decolonization movements. They must recover their wealth and, to do that, begin by freeing themselves of the raïs and caudillos, the putschists and accomplices of the privileged [ . . . ] along with the political imams and compensatory myths that perpetuate stagnation and, sometimes, regression. [ . . . ]
Waiting for salvation from a colonial power, now a former colonial power, is as illusory as it is for women to expect to attain their liberation through male goodwill. International aid is a form of disguised begging, but begging does not cure poverty [ . . . ]
Humiliated, exasperated by problems with no viable solution, fundamentalists have opted for violent confrontation—war, a war they have no chance of winning. But although they cannot win the war, they can destroy peace. [ . . . ] The hour has come for the Arab world to assume its proper place in the concert of nations. It has money, manpower, the support of other Muslim nations, positive global opinion. [ . . . ] Will the Arab-Muslim majority manage to make itself heard in the face of the activities of its fundamentalists? Will it persuade itself that their victory would plunge all of us into the shadows of history? Their intent is now obvious, and it is twofold: to destroy the Arab regimes one by one and, simultaneously, to harass the West until there is a global confrontation between it and the Arab-Muslim world. The fundamentalists have been relatively successful in creating a vicious circle: terror against the West generates suspicion of all Arabs and this suspicion feeds the resentment against the entire West. Will the Arab-Muslim majority manage to overcome this dilemma? In any event, it cannot live in symbiosis with the West and show indulgence toward those who desire its destruction. The normal and desirable destiny of any immigrant is to transform himself into a citizen, providing he does not appear to be an enemy in his host country. [ . . . ]
I have suggested [ . . . ] that we must begin by eradicating extreme poverty through a more equitable distribution and better management of wealth—wealth that should belong to everyone and not to a select few [ . . . ] The radical suppression of corruption and despotism are the necessary conditions. The promotion of a universal morality obviously requires this. This morality will, of necessity, include secularism, for without it we will continue to have division and warfare. Secularism is not a ban on religious practice, which would be another form of tyranny. It is an institutional agreement to protect freedom of thought for everyone, including agnostics, against the interference of religious movements and the demands of fanatics. To accomplish this we must stop confusing religious membership and social membership, religion and culture, Islamic culture and Islamic demography. An Arab is not necessarily an Islamist believer, no more than a Jew is necessarily someone who regularly attends a synagogue, or a citizen a faithful churchgoer. We need to create a new terminology to express these distinctions. [ . . . ] This implies the existence of a valid international system of law, one that is not manipulated as it so often is today [ . . . ] To accomplish this program, we must convince ourselves of our solidarity. [ . . . ]
And since this is primarily a portrait of the decolonized Arab-Muslim, Arab-Muslims must recognize and acknowledge—exactly contrary to fundamentalism—that the West is now a part of their world, just as the West must acknowledge that Muslims are now part of their world.
Q: What does the “Arab Spring” look like from the perspective of the author of The Colonizer and the Colonized?
A: Because I dared question the notion of the “Arab Spring” and the “Arab Revolutions,” I was raked over the coals by Parisian journalists and intellectuals during a television program that aired on French Channel 5. . . . To speak about “spring” presupposes that there will be a summer to follow. So far, unfortunately, that has failed to happen. Of course, the revolts that shook the Arab-Muslim world, and continue to do so, are extremely important, since they signify a recovery of these people’s freedom of expression. But these are revolts, not revolutions. If such concepts still mean anything, “revolution” signifies a complete change of customs and behavior. Thus far, however, the victories of fundamentalists in the Arab-Muslim countries where the populations have risen up bode ill for the future.
Q: Does Albert Memmi envision with optimism or pessimism the major political upheaval that has taken place in his native Tunisia over the past year or so?
A: I am not optimistic. I cannot see these “major political changes” that are said to be taking place in Tunisia since the fall of President Ben Ali’s regime.
Q: Is he worried at all by the rise in anti-Semitism in Tunisia since the ouster of Ben Ali, as reported lately by correspondents in the Maghreb from several foreign media outlets?
A: In Tunisia, there is not a rise in anti-Semitism but an ongoing anti-Semitism. Incidents and acts of violence against Jews abound. Still, I have been wondering whether it might be better to avoid calling attention to this menace right now, so as not to add fuel to the flames.
Q: Albert Memmi has always actively advocated for a just peace between Israel and the Arab world. Does he ever despair when he considers the acrimonious state of relations that prevails today between Israel and the Palestinians?
A: You are right that I have gone to great lengths for a number of years to promote a lasting peace between Israel and the Arabs. But I fear that nobody really cares about that peace anymore, for reasons that would take too long to enumerate here. Which does not preclude our continuing to seek that peace. If I may point out, my book Jews and Arabs, published in 1974 by Gallimard, demonstrates that action had to be taken not only on the Israeli-Palestinian front, but on the problem of xenophobia in the entire Arab-Muslim world. Likewise, I called upon Zionists, of whose movement I have always been and still remain a proponent, to do some soul searching.
Q: Religious fundamentalism exasperates this inveterate secularist. Does Albert Memmi still consider “religious moderation” an oxymoron?
A: What else can I add about fundamentalism? It would appear next to impossible to reconcile an absolutist philosophy based on myth, which is what all religions are, with the notion of “moderation.” What does “moderation” even mean in such a case? I’ve written on this at length. The only solution is obviously the establishment of secular institutions. Secularists, myself included, will in no way prevent believers from living their religion, but in return, they do not want believers demanding that everyone submit to their doctrines.
Q: In your novel Agar, you address how hard it is to live with others, given their difference. In your view, is this what is wrong with society today?
A: My entire body of work is based on two fundamental mechanisms: first, the notion of dominance, which involves conflict and aggression, a concept that fed into my definition of racism, which has since entered the dictionary and has also been included in UNESCO’s international heritage. And the second mechanism is the notion of dependency.
Whether at the group or individual level, there exist mechanisms of conflict and struggle. This category includes, for instance, colonization, the struggle between Whites and Blacks, or even interpersonal relationships, such as within a couple. In each case, it is difference that causes conflict.
When it comes to dependency, however, even though there may be a struggle between the two parties that are different from each other, one needs something from the other. The response of the one, when faced with the need of the other, is to provide. Dependency is a wonderful phenomenon, in fact, whose basis is always the same, even when the object changes.
In a situation of colonization, there is the colonizer’s domination and the response of the dominated party.
As to whether society is still suffering from this problem, I can tell you that it goes back a long, long time. But it has intensified in more recent times, and we are finding it increasingly problematic to deal with people who are different from us. The instantaneous nature of communication and travel has increased the phenomenon of migration considerably. Hence, an increased rejection of the Other.
My philosophy is based on three axes: humanism, rationalism, and secularism. In all situations, one has to ask what the Other’s interest is and then proceed with reason, not emotion.
Q: Islamophobia is now a reality. It sometimes triggers reactions as harmful as those involved in anti-Semitism. Don’t you think that the two attitudes (and phenomena) should be combatted together and not separately?
A: Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia both involve a rejection of the Other, based on various biases, wrong-headed interpretations of history, and an accumulation of injustice and aggressive behavior on both sides.
It is worth pointing out, however, that there are mechanisms common to both sides, and others that are specific to each. One should always start out looking for the common mechanisms in a given situation. This can be accomplished rationally, making use of hard evidence. Once this is done, specific mechanisms can be addressed. Islamophobia and anti-Semitism share certain mechanisms: rejection of the Other, various biases, and a distorted history. The Arab-Muslim world has yet to abandon its backward-looking, deprecating vision of the Other, a situation analogous to how they consider the status of women.
Q: You have developed the concept of heterophobia. How does that concept fit into the current context of the clash of civilizations?
A: I developed this concept as a result of observing so much racism. I have dealt with this issue quite a bit, notably in The Colonizer and the Colonized, which has just appeared this month in Arabic, by the way, with a Tunisian publisher. I observed that colonization always went hand in hand with a biological rejection of the colonized subject, perceived as an “inferior being.” The mechanism at work involves demeaning in order to justify domination. I realized that there were other conditions in which this same mechanism could function. It is indeed grounded in the concept of the clash of civilizations which claims that it is the supposed cultural, religious, and psychological differences that make dialogue impossible and engender hostility.
I therefore sought a concept that would bring together these characteristics and move beyond them into something more metaphysical. This is how I arrived at heterophobia. With so much upheaval everywhere these days, heterophobia has become the logical extension of biological rejection: it is a rejection of all the cultural traits of the Other.
Q: Do you think that the rise of religious fundamentalism has engendered a new counterpart, that of secular fundamentalism? How can it be curbed?
A: I’m afraid I disagree. We cannot compare religious fundamentalism and secularism. Mind you, the secularists have pushed a bit too far on occasion. Here’s an anecdote to prove my point: I live not far from the Hôtel de Ville, near a square where they once raised severed heads on pikes during the French Revolution! Not even to bring down the monarchy would I advocate that brand of secularism. For me, secularism has to do with what’s in the constitution; it is not a totalizing philosophy that effects every aspect of our existence. It is a kind of contract between the various groups that make up society. Its purpose is to allow for peaceful coexistence. For me, it is the guarantor of freedom of thought and worship. Something that fundamentalists will never concede! At present, the secular tradition is being crushed by fundamentalists of all stripes.
I feel more affinity with thinkers like Montaigne or the Greeks than with my own religion. There is truly a battle to be waged, and we should all step up. There is no question but that our intellectuals need to show more courage and assert their secular values, loud and clear. But I also understand those who are trying to fill a certain spiritual vacuum in their personal lives, for we all fear the nothingness associated with mortality. Religion is a readily available surrogate for that emptiness.
Q: In the wake of the worldwide national independence movements, you sketched out your portrait of the colonized. How do the decolonized peoples look to you today?
A: We need to distinguish between the decolonized people who have stayed in their native land and those who have settled in the West. Those who never left home face specific problems, mostly stemming from the lack of legitimate political leadership in most third-world countries. Corruption and tyranny have gutted so many of these countries. It’s a vicious cycle, one that’s hard to break, and that generates all of today’s social problems: joblessness, and the social unrest that gives rise to repression.
The decolonized who immigrate are subjected to the whole ordeal of exile. They will always be foreigners, forever in conflict with the host country majority. They will always be faced with the issue of integration. This is where the real struggle must take place, to level the playing field for the newcomers, overcome prejudice, and uphold rights. But the road is long.
Q: What would a portrait look like today of a colonized Palestinian or an Iraqi or an Afghani?
A: Of the cases you cite, I could address the Palestinians and Iraqis, but I really don’t know enough about the Afghan situation. For the Palestinians, they are patently dominated by the Israelis, and this needs to end. This is my deep conviction, as a humanist.
But it is also true that the Arab world overstates the Palestinian issue. And in my humble opinion, if the State of Israel were to disappear tomorrow, the problems in the Arab world would persist. They have to stop using Palestine as an alibi. The reality today goes something like this: we are facing a conflict between two nationalisms. An agreement has to be reached, and the Arab world has to back off. With regard to Iraq, we thought that by eliminating Saddam, we’d be getting that country and the West out of harm’s way. Well, it turned out to be just the reverse, and today, chaos and anarchy reign. Did we really have to go to war? I’m not so sure. On the ground, the United Nations has disengaged, but the truth is that oil matters more than anything else in the region. And the West panics at the prospect of an oil shortage, a situation that has led to the abuses we know all too well.
Q: In a statement you made at a recent colloquium in Paris on Middle East peace, you said that one of the problems in the Arab countries today is their inability to “retain” their minorities. Don’t Europe, the United States, and Israel have a similar problem with their Arab, Turkish, or African minorities, for instance?
A: All majorities tend to distrust their minorities and to segregate them, but for the rest, it’s only a matter of degree.
Q: What is meant by “renouncing certain myths” for Israelis and Arabs? Which are the myths that you deem anachronistic on both sides?
A: For Israel, it’s time to discard the idea of Eretz Israel, in demographic and territorial terms, and to stop believing that expansion is the only solution to the Jewish world. For Arabs, they need to accept their minorities, whom they have every interest in protecting, by the way. The West needs the Arab world, and that need is mutual.
Q: What are your strongest memories today from your native country Tunisia, where you spent your childhood? Which Tunisia do you claim as your own today?
A: My own Tunisia is the Tunisia of a writer. I can conjure up the sights and smells, the little rituals, such as going out to Sidi Bou Saïd to eat those delicious beignets, a local specialty. I am viscerally attached to the place, and among my twenty-five books Tunisia is present in at least ten. This is the Tunisia I love.