“Locked up in mental colonization, our youth gets lost in morbid shortcuts”

Rachel Khan is a lawyer, screenwriter, actress and writer. She is the author of Still awake. The Republic put to the test of words (The Observatory, 2024).

FIGAROVOX. – Why did you write this book and why did you dedicate it to Arnaud Beltrame?

Rachel KHAN. – This book is intended to be a response to the hatred – from Dieudonné to Rima Hassan, including the activists who block universities – which attacks the Republic. This book stood out. I was writing a novel. But there was the month of August, the summer days of ecologists and LFI, a new lynching with anti-Semitic overtones again, three years later Racy, a difficult return to school where secularism is harassed, and then October 7. Faced with this nameless barbarity, silence. Faced with the hostages, gazes are turned away. After the attacks in Toulouse, the Hyper Cacher, after all these Islamist terrorist attacks, we are not capable of responding to hatred. These are the facts.

Read alsoRachel Khan: “Language has become an ideological Trojan horse”

By dedicating this book to Arnaud Beltrame, I wanted to pay tribute to this standing man, to his courage which we all miss. He gave his life, he sacrificed himself for the Republic while some today sacrifice the Republic for themselves and their small positions. I also wrote this book to talk about a miracle. Our Republic is still standing. But until when ? I wrote because I am afraid of our weaknesses and our renunciations. I wrote like a cry.

Your work spins the metaphor of a court where the extreme left, the extreme right, the installed lawyer and then the author (yourself) successively defend themselves. How does this metaphor help to highlight the role of language – which can both divide and tarnish the Republic – in the current political landscape?

This book is a pamphlet and a profession of faith. In the pleadings, I put myself in the place of the extreme left, the ultra-right, the “no vaguists”, by analyzing the words they use and their methods to influence the masses or to keep their position . To be honest, despite the context, I had a lot of fun writing the different pleadings and positions which, in my opinion, are harmful to our Republic. For this, I used my experience as an actress but also as a former political “pen” to put myself in line with the logic of my political adversaries. This exercise is exhilarating, especially in a context where you are classified into this or that ideology to better make you a target. But the luck of the authors is that they see their Wikipedia page change according to malicious articles orchestrated by hateful activists, it is that they also see social networks treating them as “cowards”, “d ‘garbage’ and of course being ‘extreme right’ only because they defend their country, but the authors have the possibility of writing books, of describing their thoughts, their journey, and this thanks to solid publishers, like the Observatory. In this book, I wanted to demonstrate how we moved from Descartes “I think so I am” has “I say therefore I am”Or “I say therefore I know”.

To say that secularism is Islamophobic is a bullet to the heart of our motto “liberty, equality, fraternity”.

Rachel Khan

The danger that weakens our Republic is that in the absence of a solid background on what we are and the international context in which we find ourselves, certain candidates for the European elections or elected to the National Assembly say anything and are followed by thousands of people to say anything. For example, saying that secularism is Islamophobic is a bullet to the heart of our motto “liberty, equality, fraternity”. It is a dizzying way of creating chaos through communitarianism and identity vindictiveness. In the book, this metaphor of the court helps illustrate how political language can be used as a weapon to destroy our Republic. It also reveals how polarized discourse can divide society and weaken the democratic fabric by tarnishing the image of our unity. Today, we no longer speak the same language. This is our national tragedy.

“In this democracy obsessed with its electoral market shares, the non-vaguists have chosen no choice […] in order not to offend, they gargle with empty words. While you criticize the use of certain words which divide and tarnish the Republic, others are meaningless. What impact can they have on the Republic?

Between cowardice, denial, renunciation, it is perhaps the most terrible and ultimately the most violent. Empty words, disembodied speeches, lukewarm rhetoric not only weaken public debate by diverting attention from the real issues, fueling confusion and cynicism, but also do not protect us in any way. Now, we know it, we feel it. Result: loss of confidence in democratic institutions and increased polarization of society. We cry of a crisis of authority while decision-makers do not take a position, leaders do not lead, bosses no longer “leader”. They prefer to take it easy in the face of the worst, in the face of barbarism, in the face of the harassment of our Republic when we should decide and be firm in the application of our fundamental law, without inappropriate guilt under the cover of colonialism or that I know. The people who are in office have rights, of course, but also duties, first and foremost not to add fuel to the fire, through their silence, their inaction and their baseness. Today, some are guilty of failing to assist the Republic in danger.

Can the Republic really be undermined by the use of “politically correct” words or general categories like “extreme right”?

Yes, the misuse of politically correct words can restrict freedom of expression and stifle democratic debate by imposing restrictive language standards, provoking a form of intellectual terrorism driven by self-censorship. Likewise, the use of general categories like “far right” stigmatizes certain legitimate political views and polarizes society. It is ironic that those on the far left, who constantly shout “no amalgamation”, label anyone who does not think like them as far right. It is a serious obstacle to citizenship, to freedom of conscience as well as to the integrity of the person. Amazing method of those who think they have a monopoly on the fight for human rights!

You write that “feminism has become a curse.” Has feminism not, however, made it possible to achieve a certain equality between men and women? What exactly are you condemning?

I condemn the exploitation of feminism for political and ideological purposes, as well as the use of victimization discourses which essentialize women and close the debate on gender issues. Authentic feminism seeks real equality between the sexes, that is, equal rights. Today certain forms of activism tend to divide and polarize society between women and men. And then, what we saw on March 8 demonstrated this hatred that intersectionality has become. Women have been excluded from the demonstration for supporting what the women hostages of the October 7 pogrom are suffering or have been excluded simply because they are Jewish. However, feminism is a universalism. Feminism cannot be the Trojan horse of Hamas ideology.

How has the appearance of new anglicisms such as “wokism” complicated the debate?

The use of an Anglicism does not make it possible to fight against this scourge which colonizes the minds of our youth. I am surprised that the hard right uses an English word when it defends the French language! In reality, it is a victimocratic ideology that is trying to take hold. My existence is intolerable for this dogma. For what ? Because I am black but Jewish from Poland with its ghettos and camps; because I am the granddaughter of a deportee but of Gambian origin; Muslim and animist; because I also know the history of Africa which is not limited to slavery or European colonization, but which also tells of the violence of Arab-Muslim slavery and that of Islamization, because I I am above all a free woman. In the game of victimocracy, I win… this does not at all suit the extreme left, steeped in victim competition.

What is happening today within our universities and at Sciences Po is dizzying. It is in the name of a world perceived only through the prism of the dominant and dominated that our students are no longer able to think, to reflect on loving the knowledge necessary to build a world of peace in the heritage of our Enlightenment. It is a question of a mental colonization of our youth who, losing their bearings, get lost in morbid shortcuts which nazify all Jews via Israel. These young people from upscale neighborhoods are lost and we have not been able to protect them from themselves. Worse, we let it get lost in these far-left ideologies which make them believe that these students are the Rosa Parks, the Nelson Mandelas, the Che Guevaras of the world by chanting only three words: “apartheid”, “colonization”, “genocide “. We are in the symbol of a lobotomized youth, the chronicle of a death programmed by the manipulation of minds, the orchestration of anger permitted by the emptiness of historical and geographical knowledge. It is about the shipwreck of our future generations.

In what way do you think the universalists are the safeguards of the Republic?

Universalists defend the idea that republican rights and principles must apply to everyone, regardless of their origin or social affiliation. They are the safeguards of the Republic by recalling the importance of equality, liberty and fraternity for all citizens. I often say it: we are not an ethnic people, we are not a religious people, we are a political people, united around our motto and secularism, which unites us more than anything despite our differences in beliefs. Today, since “chaos” is the goal, a war against universalism and humanism is underway.

In addition to defending secularism and fraternity, you defend humanism. These are, according to you, key words to defend the Republic. What do we mean by humanism? Isn’t this word obsolete to describe the Republic?

Humanism is about emancipating ourselves as humans. Humanism, in this context, refers to a vision of the Republic based on respect for human dignity, tolerance, knowledge, aesthetics, fraternity between individuals. This is not obsolete, but rather essential to promote a society where everyone can flourish, free themselves from all submission fully. Culture and art are its beating, vibrant heart. It is only by being together, hand in hand, that we will be able to face the challenges we face. Considering the context of fractures, we have to hold hands to continue to be upright. It is the key to peace and it is the spirit of our Republic.